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One

The Lab

We were going into the Yard tomorrow, and I was nervous. Not as nervous as my brother, of course--he was still stuck in a wheelchair, and he was worried the other Anthropa would take advantage of him. I promised him I'd kick anybody in the dick--ahaha, sorry, wiener--if they messed with him. He asked what if they were a girl, and I said I'd kick them in the vagina then. He thought that was pretty funny. I think it helped.

So I wasn't as nervous as him, but I was anxious. We'd spent almost a year with Mender Agnes at this point, seeing nothing but our private bedrooms, Agnes's lab, and the drab iron corridors in between.

Agnes's lab was unlike anything I could have dreamed of. It was three huge rooms separated by six-foot-wide doorways. The west room's doorway was just an open arch with no doors, leading into a room with three big cylindrical pods with lots of crinkly white tubes attached to them. Those were the "stasis pods," which Agnes had used to save Leon after his first surgery. Apparently, they froze the person inside in place, what Agnes called "suspended animation." Her explanation was hard to follow, but basically it was like stopping the person's body in time. It was really hard to do, and she said alchemy was involved, which I didn't really understand either, but when it worked it could save lives. Leon had stayed in there for months at a time, only getting brought out once every few weeks to risk a surgery on his shoulder. The artery had healed badly a couple times, and the torn edges had to be re-stitched, which was a really dangerous procedure. In order to minimize further risks, Agnes had kept him in stasis. I still remembered those nights, crying myself to sleep wondering if my brother was going to die. The sight of the pods still made me shudder.

The east room was a surgery room, and she kept those doors locked tight when she wasn't operating. It had sky blue walls and a table made of some light, shiny metal that Agnes said was easier to sterilize. Every time I'd been in that room and not under an anesthetic, it had felt like it was soaked in blood. Not on the surface, of course--the surfaces were all clean and polished and devoid of life. But the floor, table, and walls seemed to ooze with something underneath, like they'd soaked up all the blood splatters from the countless operations done inside. I hated that room, too.

Right now, we were in the center room. I loved this room--it was nearly twice as big as the Den had been, but rectangular, with the west half taken up by two long tables full of crazy, weird tubes, beakers, and instruments. Magnifying glasses and tweezers, and petri dishes, and bone saws and vice clamps and little burners fueled by pellets of some dark brown stuff that burned hot and green. It looked spooky, but also fascinated me every time I got to see her light one up. The east half of the room contained an exam table, lower to the ground than the operating table and made of some bright polished wood and bound in stuffed leather. It was actually more comfortable than my bed. Agnes performed her check-ups on Leon and me on that bed, and every time she had me strip and would massage my body from neck to toes, checking for signs of the tumors, her big, powerful hands rubbing with surprising gentleness, my cheeks got hot and my ears started swishing like crazy.

She also had a floor cushion in the corner next to a bucket, which was where I sat as she briefed us during today's treatment. I was currently using the bucket extensively (I pretty much spent about half a day there after my injections) while Agnes injected something green and oily-looking into the stump of Leon's right shoulder with a syringe the size of my arm. The skin on the stump had healed into a puckered starfish scar, and no fur grew anywhere around it. I think that bothered Leon more than he wanted to admit.

The smog from the Maw killed off the oil glands in most Anthropa, if they had any. Your fur started going brittle and breaking off within a year. I'd seen some Anthropa go completely bald in a few months. The scalykind didn't seem affected by it--Vithia, Chelons, a little skink boy whose name I never caught (I didn't even know they existed until he showed up; he died three days after he got to the Pit, and I never worked up the courage to ask what his species was called) never lost scales or dulled their shine.

For some reason, Leon and I never went bald. Our fur had always been pretty dry, but it never went brittle or fell out. So, for Leon, having a patch of fur just be gone must have felt like a little peek at the mortality every other prisoner in the Pit had endured. I think it made his brush with death seem more real for some reason, and it freaked him out. I could definitely get that.

I asked Mender Agnes about the fur.

The Minoan turned to face us. She always had on a crisp white outfit and long overcoat, where she kept all sorts of tools: stethoscopes, pliers, a couple knives so shiny they gleamed, gauze, a small flask of rubbing alcohol, even a ball-peen hammer. She was a woman of many hats. Leon and I wore similar garments, but made of rough linens, and no cool overcoats with a bunch of tools. We were still prisoners, technically, and the Scrofa standing watch outside the lab weren't going to hand us sharp knives or hammers; they remained alert for any call from Agnes--not that she'd ever called on them. I still didn't like clothes. I always stripped them off as soon as I was in my room. Old habits, I guess.

Agnes's mane fell past her shoulders in long, flowing brown locks, and her dark fur was so short that it looked like flesh. Her bullish features kept her from being beautiful in the conventional sense, but I never got tired of looking at her. I guess it helped that the blouse she wore strained at her huge breasts as she sighed, and when she shifted her leg on the stool, a massive bulge could be seen running down one pant leg. She was the only woman I'd ever met with both parts. I still hadn't worked up the courage to ask her about it. Maybe on the day I worked up the courage to ask to see it.

"It's a hell of a quandary," Agnes drawled. "I mean, physiologically, I don't see a lick of difference between you two and any other Anthropus." I probably would have blushed furiously at the word "lick" coming out of her mouth, but I was a little busy fighting off a particularly intense wave of nausea. "But judging on the injuries and maladies you both faced and survived, I'd say you got an accelerated healing factor. Not like, instant-health accelerated, but you two have got to be the unluckiest kids on the face of the planet and you survived."

I felt a little sullen surge and croaked, "We're not kids." I had vomit drooling off my bottom lip, which I promptly spat into the bucket with a scowl.

"No, of course not," she said apologetically. "You're transitioning through puberty. Childhood is behind you. But you're not adults yet either, not fully. And you're changing the subject." My left ear twitched sheepishly, and she smiled to show she wasn't angry. She turned and jabbed a thick finger in Leon's face. His eyes crossed when he tried to look at it. "You," she said, "survived an infection and blood loss that should have killed you twice over. I'm serious, I seen infections, and when they get that bad, they kill in a matter of weeks or even days. You came out none the worse for wear. Arm situation excluded, 'course."

Leon scowled. "Yeah. Of course." He at least had the decency to look chagrined when I interrupted with a bout of vomiting into my dear friend Bucket. (I tried to think of a clever name for him after my second month spending every afternoon in this corner, but I decided it would be weird if he had a proper name like Archibald or Pig Wiener.)

"And you, young lady," Agnes said in a tone that was mock admonishing, "aught to be dead several times over."

"Yeah, yeah," I coughed as I spat the acrid bile out of my mouth. "It hit my lymph nodes, blah blah blahhhurrggh--" Nothing really came out, I just dry heaved a couple times. I sucked in a breath that maybe could have been mistaken for a sob by an untrained ear. Oh, man. Are you looking to spice up your life? May I suggest cancer! Never a dull moment.

Agnes gave me a look so full of pity I wanted to slap her. Right in those thick, kissable lips. I wondered if they'd be more or less fun to kiss if they were swollen from a hard slap. Good grief, even violent illness couldn't kill my raging libido. You'd think I was Leon or something.

"I know it feels bad, honey," Agnes said, "but you really are getting better. Only two injections a week now! That's really good. Two more weeks and you'll be done."

"Hooray," I whispered miserably as I wrapped my arms around Bucket.

Agnes glanced at Leon, who wheeled over to me and patted his lap. I glared at him. "I'm covered in puke and have a bucket full of puke and I'm gross and I'm not sitting on your lap."

Leon gave me a look like I was stupid. "I give zero fucks about the puke. Come here and hug me, you brat."

"Well since you asked nicely," I grumbled. I almost collapsed into his lap, I felt so weak, but managed to stabilize myself against the wall so I didn't spill Bucket's delightful contents all over my poor brother. He wrapped his remaining arm around me and squeezed, and I rested my head on his. "We're a heck of a pair," I groaned.

He nuzzled my neck. "We're gonna be okay." I knew he was saying it to convince himself as much as me, but I was grateful, nonetheless.

I licked his forehead and nuzzled my face between his big, perky ears again. "Yeah, we are." I kid you not, the snuggling actually helped calm my stomach. My bro always had that power over me; no matter how trash I was feeling, his touch made it just... less. Maybe that was his Gift. Seemed a lousy Gift for him, but I was a big fan.

Mender Agnes reluctantly came over and squeezed my shoulder. "Don't mean to interrupt. You two look cute as buttons. But we should talk about tomorrow."

I nodded lazily, not moving my head. Leon carefully spun the wheelchair around to face her. The wood of the wheels creaked noisily. The thing stank of old leather and half-rotted wood, but its wheels still turned somehow, and even my weight combined with my brother was nothing spectacular; we were small for Lepids.

We faced Agnes as she drew up her stool. Her cock looked like it was about to bust the seams on her pant leg when she sat back down. My stomach fluttered, but thankfully it didn't morph into another bout of barf. I really didn't want to associate that big beautiful python in her pants with hurling.

Agnes cleared her throat and put on her tiny spectacles. I giggled. I always giggled at them. Agnes was a monster of a woman: six-four, something like two hundred seventy pounds of muscle, and one of the biggest damn brains you could hope to meet. (Oops--sorry Mom. Darn. Biggest darn brain.) Seeing her in tiny glasses was a little absurd. Cute, but absurd.

"The other prisoners are here for the experiment," she said, "but I can't start until you two are ready. This was Leon's last treatment, but you still have two more weeks of injections before I'm confident the cancer is no longer a threat. This... ain't an exact science yet. Frankly, you're one of maybe a dozen cancer patients I've heard of surviving it, and none of them had theirs spread to the lymph nodes. You're something of an anomaly, Nola."

Leon tweaked my elbow, eliciting a yelp from me. "Tell me about it," he snarked.

"I will dump this bucket on your head," I growled.

Agnes cleared her throat, and we sheepishly returned our attention to her. "That being said," she continued with a chastising look that I knew she didn't mean, "I still want y'all to mingle, get to know each other. Play."

Leon and I both frowned. "Play?" he asked.

Agnes blinked. "Y... yeah. Play. You know, uh... games? Sports? Activities and such?" She looked at our blank faces and I swore she was gonna cry. "Gods. I hate this place sometimes. Y'all spent your entire childhoods here and didn't even get to play games." She sighed. "Well, the other inmates are like to be able to teach you. The more physical stuff, you'll have to avoid for now, 'course, but there's other stuff you can do."

Leon asked the question I knew would immediately follow that. "How long do I have to be in this fucking wheelchair?"

Agnes flinched. I very nearly did dump the bucket on him then. Leon just sat there, unrepentantly sullen. "Not long," Agnes said. "I know I've said that before, but this was your last treatment. Once it runs its course, you should be able to walk without muscle weakness. A week, tops. I know it's been hard, Leon--"

"Do you?" Leon said flatly. "Do you know that?"

This time I nipped his ear, hard. He yelped and glared daggers at me. I wasn't having any of it. "You'd be dead if not for her," I snapped. "You wanna pout, do it on your own fucking time. Show her some respect."

Agnes looked away, clearly uncertain what to do with the situation. I thought Leon was going to tell me to get up so he could wheel off and mope by himself, but he surprised me. I think it was because I swore. When I said the F-word (oh gods Mom, I'm so sorry but you know how he gets) he knew I was extra cheesed. "I'm sorry, Mender," he said with a sigh that might actually have been genuine. "I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on you. Thank you for everything. And especially for saving Nollie."

Agnes cleared her throat and adjusted her pant legs, trying really hard not to look at us. "I shouldn't have taken such a familiar tone with your pain," she said. "You're very right, Leon. I have no idea what you've been through. Either of you. But I_am_ on your side, and I hope you remember that."

Agnes was kind to us on a level that no Scrofus had ever been; Hells, no _prisoner_had ever been, either. I mean, I guess Rika was nice to Leon. But only because she wanted his--

--I threw up into the bucket again.

"Gross," Leon said. I looked up and a couple drops had splashed on his white shirt.

"Try tasting it every time," I wheezed. "Way better."

Leon made a face, but he still didn't tell me to get off his lap. He just nuzzled against my arm affectionately and stared into the distance. He did that a lot lately. It made my chest clench, like I was watching him walk on a precipice every time he zoned out. I thought maybe it was lingering effects from the concussion that had sent him falling into the Maw in the first place. Gods, what kind of idiot concusses someone then sends them walking on narrow scaffolding over a bottomless pit? I'd asked Agnes about it after she brought Leon in. She said that guard was gone now. I didn't ask her what that meant. I didn't want to find out it didn't mean what I was hoping it meant. The scumbag toppling over the lip of the Maw after getting booted in the ass by the Warden was a very pleasing image, after all, and I didn't wanna lose it.

"So," Agnes said with an artificially light tone, "the other inmates. We have four."

She ticked off one thick finger and I wondered how it would feel inside my ooohhhh stop it, Nola.

"There's Val Hofstetter, a Lupus woman. You'll recognize her, Leon. You've met. In the Pit." She smiled and gave him a wink, before ticking off a second finger. "Then there's Patrice O'Connell. He's another Lupus, but much younger. About your age."

'Much younger'? How old was the Lupus woman then? Sheesh.

Agnes ticked a third finger. "Then we have Kiba Tam. She's a Ysoki from down south, in Meridia. She's a special transfer. A little shy, but I think you can get her to open up. You have a way with people," she added, smiling at me. Oooh, shut up, stomach, stop that. It was a real struggle not to let my tummy clench into a knot and make me throw up again. Believe it or not, I actually _liked_that fluttery feeling, when I wasn't constantly on the verge of barfing. Agnes raised a fourth finger and I'll bet if she tried really hard and used lots of spit she could get all four--

"Finally we have Tanya Belvedere. She's a Lontramar." Leon's face went about as neutral as a face could neutral. If Agnes noticed, she didn't show it. "She's something of an odd duck, I'm told. But she's also dangerous. Her behaviors might seem amusing or put you off your guard, but she's an inmate for a reason, don't forget that."

I frowned. "A reason?" I asked. "What reason?"

Agnes looked confused. "Well, she committed a crime, so she was sent to prison."

Leon blinked. "Sent? She wasn't born in prison?"

All the color drained from Agnes's face. "Oh. Right. Um." She rubbed her mouth. "Not... I mean, most people here aren't born here, honey."

"Right, we knew that," I said. "New faces come into the Pit all the time. But... Are they not from other prisons?" I kinda felt stupid, now that I'd said it. Fourteen years in the Pit and nobody ever talked about why they were there. It was just kind of accepted, and neither of us had ever thought to ask anybody because why would we? Then again, we weren't born there. We were born on a ship. But I'd always assumed it was a prison ship, like the Pit on water instead of in the desert.

Agnes looked like a cornered animal. I could tell this was a subject she did _not_want to discuss, but that only piqued my curiosity more. "Ah, no," Agnes said. "You see... most people... they're here because they did something bad. Like... steal something that didn't belong to them, or... or killing someone."

My brow furrowed. "But what did we do?"

Agnes took off her cute little spectacles and rubbed her eyes. I could swear she was using the action to hide tears. "Nothing, honey. You didn't do nothing. But Tofa? She was what's called 'Indentured.' She was sentenced for a whole mess of years of Indentured Servitude, but she died before she could work them all. So as her next of kin, the debt fell to you."

"Oh," I said. Wasn't really much else to say on the matter.

Leon disagreed, apparently. "But that's not fair!" he said. "Why do we have to pay for her crimes?"

I shrugged. "Since when was anything in the Pit fair, bro?"

He glared at me. "You're not pissed? How can you not be pissed?"

I sighed and stroked his left ear. That always seemed to calm him. "What's to be pissed about? Nothing we can do. Nothing is fair here. Never has been." He didn't look calmed, but he at least fumed in silence.

"Well," Agnes said, suddenly cheerful, "I wanted to talk to you about that anyway. I was gonna wait until the experiment actually started, but I think you could use some good news. I spoke with the Warden, and he agreed that once the experiment has run its course, your sentences will be waived. You'll be free of your mother's debt."

Leon and I stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then at each other. "F... free?" my brother stuttered, the word alien in his mouth.

"Free," Agnes said. "As in, free to go. Free to live outside these walls as you see fit. There's a whole wide world out there for you two to see. That's part of why I've been teaching you your letters. You'll have a hard enough time adjusting to the outside world without having to worry about illiteracy to boot. We'll start on history lessons soon, by the way. And civics, maybe some mathematics, just the basics. Anything else I can think on to get you ready."

Fear clutched my stomach. What was the outside world like? Would there be places for us to sleep? To eat? The sheer unknown quantity of it all made my guts churn and I dry-heaved again. The bucket shook and some of it splashed on Leon's lap. He groaned.

"Sorry..."

* * *

I was feeling better after a shower. Oh! Showers!

Gods, this was maybe the greatest of all the new things in the Spike. It had water that ran through pipes, like the trough did at the Pit, and it... oh gods, it was hot! It scalded me a little the first time I used it, until Agnes showed me how to use the two knobs to adjust the temperature. Then I'd thrown off my clothes and jumped right into the steamy spray. Agnes actually blushed, first creature I'd ever seen that could do that. She blushed and stared for a minute, watching me soak and moan with just pure joy. I hadn't realized the effect it was having on her until she suddenly walked out the door so fast I thought she'd turned into lightning, mumbling something about "lab" and "work to do."

So now I took a shower every single day. The Scrofa assigned outside my room told me I was allowed one a day, which sucked but honestly I couldn't blame them. I would probably have just showered constantly if they'd let me. But they gave me one, and by the gods, I was gonna take it. Not only did getting clean feel good, but in the loud noise of the water spraying, I could pretend like it was other Anthropa talking, like I wasn't alone in these four walls and feeling like they were caving in on me. It had been the worst in the beginning--the loneliness, the absence of sound, sleeping with no other bodies in sight, sleeping with no sight at all because there was no moonlight. There were no windows in the Spike; all the light came from the electric torches along the walls. So yeah, I kind of adored shower time.

I also got to play with myself, and for some reason it felt better in the shower. The water helped slide my finger in past my slit, though I couldn't get in very deep, even when I contorted myself as best I could. I just didn't have very long arms, and my hands were small. It was incredibly frustrating, but it felt so good to rub my clit that I couldn't bring myself to stop doing it entirely. Rubbing the little button of flesh while hot water poured over it was... Ugh. I'm bad with words. Leon was always better at words. It was good, really good, like shivering when you're cold but every shiver was made of pleasure. But with every shiver from rubbing my clitoris, something inside ached to be touched, and I couldn't reach that. It was frustrating as Hells.

After my very long shower, feeling wobbly but still frustrated, I toweled off and collapsed naked into bed, too exhausted to worry much about tomorrow. I was asleep in minutes.

I dreamed of you, Mom. I did that a lot. I missed you a lot of the time. Leon didn't remember much about you, but I did. Your sad, droopy ears and slate-gray fur, your smile that never quite reached your sunken eyes. But you never tried to make us as sad as you. You never dragged us down with you. Leon was still mad at you for dying, even almost a decade later, but I didn't blame you. You didn't leave, the cancer stole you. I missed you, especially in those dark, empty nights in the Spike.

In the dream you coughed, and when you brought your hand away, an inky black goop darkened the fur of your palm, like liquid shadow. It dripped from your nose and mouth. I could smell it, and despite looking horrifying, it smelled like your sweet breath used to before the cancer rotted you. You said, "I'm sorry baby. I messed up. I didn't prepare you."

I said, "Why did you make us? Why did you bring us into this world when you knew we'd be slaves?"

You just repeated, "I'm sorry," as you kissed my head and ears. You said "I'm sorry" as you kissed my neck, leaving a slimy trail of the black gunk from your lips as you moved lower, taking one of my small breasts in your mouth and tonguing the nipple. I sucked in a breath with each electric flick of your tongue, making my insides tighten. It was like I could feel your tongue deep past my slit far below. Your hand was on my tummy, rubbing gently, making me ache further down.

"Mama?" I whispered. "What are you doing, Mama?" I hope you don't judge me, Mom, but even though I was scared, I wanted you to keep going. Rub lower, put your fingers in me and touch where I couldn't quite reach.

"I'm sorry," you repeated, the words muffled through a mouthful of areola. "I'm sorry."

I didn't want you to apologize again. I wanted you to keep doing what you were doing. "Bite it," I said. "Bite hard. Hurt me, Mama." You hesitated then, that dream-You, but only for a moment, before your incisors came down on the top and bottom of my nipple. You didn't bite as hard as I asked, not at first, but you bit and it hurt, and the agony shot through me like delicious lightning. I could feel my slit start dripping down my leg. "Harder," I whimpered. After a second, you complied, and I felt the sharp sting of cut flesh. Two thin gashes opened up on the top and bottom of my areola as you dug your incisors in. The agony made me scream, and my slit practically gushed as you lapped greedily at the wounds. They weren't deep, but they were enough to elicit a thin trail of blood, which you sucked away, sucked the blood from my breast just like I used to suck milk from yours.

Your fingers slid down to my slit, and pushed past it, and that itch deep inside I needed to rub so desperately exploded with sensation as--

I woke up panting. My fingers were on my pussy (sorry Mom, but it's such a fun word to say), but nowhere near being inside. Just a dream. A vivid, delicious dream. Thinking of my own mother like that made me ache hungrily. I stared at the shadowy outline of my body in the deep darkness and felt very, very guilty. I'd never even thought about the fact that Mom had been a sexual being, let alone an attractive one, but that dream had been...

I absently brought my fingers to my mouth and sucked the wetness off them. I'd never thought about pain being fun before. Where had that thought come from? I'd been struck by the Scrofa plenty of times and never enjoyed it. But that pinching, cutting pain of her teeth had made me soaked. Yet another reason my brain was busted, I guess.

I growled irritably before rolling over and trying to get back to sleep. It took an embarrassing amount of time, but I finally drifted off thinking about Mom's soft fingers massaging the spot where my own fingers could not touch.

Sorry Mom. If you're up there somewhere... please don't judge me.