Cygen

            Lochinvar
clawed toward awareness, his head ringing, the dull pulse of far-off music
echoing through his mind as waves of nausea spread through him.

            The
air smelled like smoke, and sweat, and stale perfume. There was action all
around, people milling about, the chatter of a dozen voices in various states
of drunkenness.

            Six
days that he could remember, or at least six bouts of consciousness. He’d been
pinned on and off so many times that keeping food down was inconceivable, even
when someone bothered to feed him. He was running a fever. At some point
someone had blackened his eye, and he could taste blood in his mouth.

            “Yeah.
He’s a good fuck. Tight little bitch, great mouth on him too. Nice n’ quiet.
Real obedient-like if you smack him around a little. Somebody trained him good,
too, still pretends like he’s all shocked and shit,” the man who’d been his
most recent torment said, his voice loose and choppy from the cheap liquor he
continually drank. He didn’t know how he’d managed to sink so low so quickly.
The first buyer had paid quite a lot for him and taken him to a much more
expensive venue than this… he knew something about a lost card game, and about
questionable transfer of ownership, and then nothing at all about who owned
him. It didn’t especially matter.

            “Doesn’t
make him worth a grand,” the other replied.

            “You
could pimp him out. He’d sell.”

            Oh,
so he was being sold. Again. Wonderful.

            He
sighed, closing his eyes against swimming vision and leaning back against the
cool steel post at his back. Square… supporting leg for the table the two men
sat at.

            He
wondered, absently, how long it would take him to die.

            No,
he was getting poetic. Humans died. Cygenics were put offline.

            He
drew up his knees and rested his chin on them, not a comfortable position but
the best he could manage in his current state, and he waited.