The Good Intentions of a Cyborg Werewolf

Quality Time - XXII

Luke couldn't have been out for very long. It certainly didn't feel like it, but he was aware he lost consciousness. The withdrawal from transforming left him feeling weak, and after two instances in such a short time his body felt depleted. He normally had to eat between using the Assembler, but without the opportunity he was left hungry, coming down from the high, and his injuries were sapping what energy he had left. He silently wished he could stop his body's healing properties to conserve it, but instead was left with no alternative but to remain restrained and take stock of his surroundings. He was captured, obviously, as the six-inch-thick tungsten shackles around his wrists, ankles, and neck made blatantly obvious. The lattermost of which at least supported his head enough to take pressure off the break while it mended, but also meant his field of view was restricted. What he could still see was a large white room: an obvious laboratory. He reckoned they were underwater due to the lack of windows and bulkhead-style doors on the higher elevations. Said levels were truss-like catwalks, like the kind used for observation, and he imagined the space was designed with larger subjects in mind. So far as he could tell he was alone, and as he flexed his bicep to the best of his allowed range, he could feel the Assembler was still on his arm. A minor victory. The device could only be removed by whomever it was attached to, in what he had assumed was a vanishingly improbable case he was ever captured.

Yet here he was. Luke had never been taken captive. He had, until recently, never lost. He couldn't even recall the last time a fake ever came close to beating him, yet in less than two weeks he had been pushed to the brink. It made him incredibly aggravated. This annoyance subconsciously, though not unpredictably, carried his thoughts to Erin, how things really started deviating when she showed up. Yet if it wasn't for her he'd have been captured or killed twice over now. Strangely enough he worried about her, and Mercer, what they would do now that he was captured. He hoped they would stay far, far away from wherever this was. Suddenly he heard a sound to his left. One of the bulkhead-style doors opened with a loud clanging sound and prolonged creak. Luke couldn't quite turn his head to see, but soon he saw people approaching. They were below him, so he only really saw the tops of their heads, but this was mitigated when whatever gantry he was bound to rotated forward. He saw four people in lab coats, along with two armed guards, and he caught the scent of a seventh individual just outside his peripheral. One of the men in coats approached him, adjusting his glasses.

"How do we remove this device?" He pointed to Luke's arm.

"You have to ask it nicely," he replied.

"Where did you get the moon stone?" The scientist pointed to the gem embedded at the bottom of the Assembler.

"A cereal box." Luke's response seemed to annoy the scientist. He turned to one of the armed guards and nodded, and the man turned the rifle in his hands around and struck Luke with the butt, twisting his head inside the heavy shackle. Luke let out a slight grunt, then raised his eyebrows as he managed to move his head back and forth a bit. "Actually, can you do that again? I think you popped something back into place just now."

"Are you human?" The scientist asked.

"I think you know the answer to that," Luke shifted his eyes to his shackles.

"Who created you?" The man continued.

"Well, when a mommy wolf and daddy wolf love each other very much-" Luke was struck again across the jaw. The armed guard seemed to be losing his patience, but the scientist held up a hand.

"You could make this easy on yourself," the bespectacled man turned back to Luke. "Answer our questions and we can promise you won't be killed. Tell us who created you. What is your base genome? What components have you been spliced with?"