Chapter 5
P13 continues to be troublesome. You find it out of its cage one morning after its latest round of piloting now that its neurons should be fully grown to the cerebral enhancements. It did relatively well but now it snarls and hisses, back against the doors. A handler comes armed with electric prongs and a shock collar. It puts up a good fight, sharp little claws and nimble hands wracking across one of the handler’s cheeks. In the end, you have to send two of the guards to contain the violent little thing. They turn to their arm bands and press a small button as you’ve shown them. 89P13 cries out as the cybernetic wiring in its back sends burning pain through its warped spine.
“Hit it,” you instruct after its been muzzled. Its claws try to pry at the shock collar resulting in a painful jolt as 4,000 kieto watts are shocked through its nerves. P13 lets out a silent scream and goes rigid collapsing on the floor. The guard looks at you but you only nod and watch it stick the prong into P13’s stomach area where fresh stitches still ooze. This time P13 does not make to fight, it only curls tight around itself trembling. “This cannot be tolerated P13,” you seize its brittle wrist in your hand and haul it to its feet though it shrieks at being pulled to a biped stance, still a work in progress. You hear its hip crack, but it has no choice but to teeter behind you trying to keep up as you stride to the operating room. P13 shakes its head wildly, baring its teeth. You get the skull saw and slam it down on the table, the cybernetic panels in its back making a hard whack against the metal. P13 kicks and writhes. “I’ve gone through such lengths to improve you, you and the rest of the subjects and this is the thanks I get?” Rage courses through you. You take the skull saw and bring it to its wrist. It nearly levitates off the slab in an effort to free itself in its agony. The flesh makes a tearing sound, fur and blood fleck across you and it. “I am making you the best you can be!” You hiss though gritted teeth holding the writing beast. “This is for your own good, after everything I’ve done for you and this is how you repay me?” You keep pressing the saw until you hear it grind through the bone. P13 kicks madly its chest heaving with pain, gnashing its teeth. The saw sparks when it hits the cybernetic rods. 89P13 red eyes bulging as it tries to free itself. You let the metal on metal continue to spark until it smokes and only then do you ease up allowing P13 to lie there with its own torn arm.
“Someone get general surgery in here,” you instruct and depart.
It is time for 89P11’s daily identification tests. You hope this time you don’t have to gouge its other eye out. Optical will throw a fit if you do.
This is not the end of P13’s antics. It tries to escape four more times over the next several months. The second time it only makes it as far as the end of the hall, trying to override the lock system by the doors. You burn its foot and it struggles so hard it dislodges one of the bolts in its ankle. It shuffles about and whines for three days. The third time it is found all the way in the east wing and you have the nerves in its left arm fried for it. The fourth times it is punished similarly after being discovered in the tunnels beneath the building and shooting a guard in the back, meaning it must have found its way into one of the gun safes. You hook its cerebral enhancements up to wiring and wipe the data from its mind. You watch its head vibrate and its eye pinch shut the entire time, which is the better part of a day. You snap its right arm for good measure and slowly pull out its claws.
The fifth time 89P13 makes it as far as the northern wall, caught and subdued by guards trying to use a laser to burn out a hole. You punish it again and move it to a more secure cell after its punishment. The sixth attempts the closest. 89P13 actually makes it out, beyond the walls and off into the forest. The drones catch it trying to scale a tree. Why does feels the impulse to flee? Why else would it keep risking punishment over and over? What could be driving it? It barely responds to nods of yes and no. You stay up all night, observing it as it miserably lies in its cage. You study its shambling movements, its dull patchy fur, its lethargic tail and swollen tongue, inflamed from the punctures of the muzzle. Finally, you realize it with a bemuse laugh. They are full grown by now and you did choose Procyon for their instincts after all. What instinct is stronger than that the one to breed? You have 89P13 castrated the next day. It shrieks and twists, eyes laced with fury as if it knows the indignity that is being done to it.