Duncan breathed out heavily, bored. The warm jet of air jostled the motes of dust which skittered and danced across the plane of light which lanced through the gloom of his office; a gap in the high steel shutters admitted dying amber rays of sunlight into the brown pallor. He made a mental note to have the walls painted a different colour before they drove him into a deep fit of depression.

      The badger massaged the spot on his muzzle where the thick-rimmed black spectacles he wore rubbed against his greying fur. He made another mental note -- he'd long ago lost count of how many times -- to see the medical department of the facility he worked in about corrective surgery. Cataracts, they said, nothing to be alarmed about. A simple procedure. Duncan didn't trust doctors one jot. Even though, in a broad sense of the term, he was one. Diplomas and certificates adorned the otherwise bare walls. There were no other effects to indicate anybody had spent thirty years of their life in the dreary little cell.

      The steel door hissed smartly, and jerked back on its hinges. "Hullo, Duncan, my friend. You're looking well." The tall weasel in Duncan's doorway had a sharply pointed muzzle and razor teeth. The old badger thought it made him look perpetually ravenous.

      "Kindly do not refer to me as 'friend', Eric." Duncan made no attempt to hide the contempt he felt for his younger aide. "We are not friends, I do not like you; we would not even be working together were it not for our being thrust together by our governments to continue our research."

      "Aww, Duncan." Eric eased through the door, an oily smile to match his slick black hair. "I'm simply trying to lighten the emotional load of researching in a place such as this. Want to share a drink after this shift?"

      The badger swivelled in his chair and stood, facing away from Eric. Annoyed, Duncan made a note of the growing number of knots in his back. "No. All you and I share is our professional interest in the suffering of others."

      He was correct. Both he and Eric were totally fascinated with pain; not their own, that would simply be sick, but the pain and misery of others. They were sadists, both. Well paid.

      "We should continue our work." Duncan snatched an illuminated computer tray and left his office, waiting in the hall to see if Eric would follow after. He did, and quickly fell into step beside the badger.

      None who worked in the facility had ever seen it from the outside. The interior was to neither of  their tastes, and the same throughout the dismal corridors; pale, bilious brown wallpaper matched only in vile colouration by the darker brown trim around the steel shutters which flicked occasionally to admit light. As they marched together, fluroescent tubes sprang fitfully into life.

      "I had an idea," said Eric, suddenly, his muzzle splitting into a predatory grin.

      "By all means, continue." Again, Duncan made no attempt to hide the depth of his animosity.

      The weasel paused, thrusting a leather-bound book he had been carrying at Duncan, pointing excitedly at the cover. "I think it's time we returned our sights to good old X-51."

      Duncan read the title of the book aloud, musing to himself. "'Operant Conditioning and Behavioural Modification.' What does this have to do with X-51?"

      Clapping padded hands together, Eric started walking briskly, eager to come to the conclusion of their journey. "I believe he's healed enough from our last tests -- I'm interested to test a theory of mine."

      "Don't spare me the details a moment longer."

      Again, either Eric was ignoring the sarcasm or it failed to register. "How long has he been here?"

      Duncan shrugged passively, holding out the book for the weasel to retrieve. His nose wrinkled in disgust as they passed an operating theatre, the smell of antiseptic thick in the air. He looked down at himself, reminded of the patches of blood over his labcoat. He made a mental note to have it drycleaned. "That particular subject has been with us since the start of the Greyphilt war; almost twenty years, I would surmise."

      "And he was of upstanding moral character when he arrived, wasn't he," continued Eric, impetuously.

      Behind his thick glasses, the badger's flinty grey eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Tell me what this has to do with X-51."

      "He's quite impressive, wouldn't you say?"

      The badger slowed to a halt, broad head tilted in askance. "In what context?"

      "The fact that he's still alive." Eric edged around on the balls of his feet, desperately wanting to get to the cells where the 'subjects' were kept until it was time for an experiment -- such as what he had in mind for his old favourite. "You see, wolves aren't really built for survival like some species are. Flimsy spinal structure, a ribcage that snaps under minimal pressure, a notoriously fragile skull; after all that and more, X-51 is still with us. It's incredible."

      "So arises your theory, I presume." Obliging the weasel, Duncan started walking forward again. He tried to keep the anticapatory tone from his voice.

      Eric clapped his hands with mock glee again. "Yes! Physically, he's nothing compared to what he was, though he's still quite capable of all the basic functions. But mentally... I think that's why he's still here. The rest of the wolves we snatched from that Special Forces troupe have long since died, but X-51, no... I think he has massive mental reserves for him to cope under this kind of pressure; sort of an evolutionary failsafe to make up for all his physiological lackings. I don't think that he knows why he wants to survive any more, but the imperative to do so has been imprinted on his brain for well on half his life."

      "I suppose so," admitted Duncan, begrudgingly. "Which still begs the question of what this has to do with our research."

      Eric paused, leaning against the wall. "Let's go get some steak."

***

The wolf lived in darkness. There had been a time when he could remember light, but now he was only able to recall the faintest impression of something other than the pitch darkness he lived in. More a set of ideas on how light used to be than actual memory. When light was cast into his dingy, rank little cell, he noticed no change. His home for twenty years never changed. There was no desire to see what might be the source of the heavy, sickly sweet stench. Somewhere, on a basic level, he was aware it was himself.

      He washed only when it was required for excursions outside the cell. Patches of his once lustrous white fur were cleaned, then shaved away as his tormentors clamped electrical leads over his head, his chest, his arms, his genitals; when he was submerged until he fought to breathe water; when a slow, agonizing drip was placed over his forehead. A thick, unruly mane of matted black hair fell about his shoulders. Patches of that were missing, too.

      The badger and his ever-changing aides would stand aside and watch as he was pushed beyond the limits of sanity, making notes and mumbling words to each other like 'excellent' and 'impressive'. The wolf was aware that these were words that were supposed to make you feel good about yourself. He didn't feel good. Not at all.

      Down the long cell block hallway, a door clanged conspicuously on its hinges. The wolf made to recoil to his corner, huddling in on himself as though he might turn invisible and escape the horrors in store for him, but something new grasped his attention. Crouched on all fours, he scurried to the perimeter of the shimmering forcefield, knocking over a rude steel waterbowl. He sniffed ferally at the air. Something was coming, and that something was new.

      Duncan marched down the corridor, some random leonid woman from one of the other cell blocks dragged along on a leash; Eric paraded ahead with a simple white plate in his hand, in the other, a force prod. On the plate was the source of the maddening scent that X-51 struggled to be near -- a thick, juicy piece of steak. Cooked. The wolf couldn't remember the last time he had sat down to a freshly grilled steak, slicing it with his knife, watching the juices trickle onto his plate. Hell, cooking it was a novel idea. He would have been quite prepared to tear the wretched morsel from the carcass himself.

      The forcefield flicked off. The wolf regained what little sense he had; he leapt back from the entrance to his hovel, crouched low in the corner, exposing only his scarred, torn back to the labcoated ones. Duncan thrust the woman into the cell and took the force prod from Eric. The weasel waved the plate a little. X-51 affected not to notice, irridescent jade irises trained on the intruder.

      "I have a gift for you, X-51." Eric's voice dripped with mock approval, that wide, hungry smile on his muzzle again. "Out of respect for your... endurance." He stepped back, behind Duncan, throwing something from his coat into the cell.

      The wolf's eyes darted to the clattering thing over his floor. A knife lay dead centre in the cell.

      "All you have to do for it is kill her." said the weasel.

      Duncan activated the force prod, taking assurance in the low thrum of the power cell as it charged to a level enough to knock the prisoner down. He wanted to take a step back and reactivate the forcefield, but Eric stood close behind him, craning over his shoulder for a better view. Damned if his aide hadn't been right, too. X-51 made no move towards the exit, the woman or the knife; his eyes roved continuously between the three, as though considering his options.

      Outside, at the main gates, night was falling. So were guards. Men stationed to protect the facility slumped over their consoles, collapsed over their own weapons as black-garbed assailants poured from the shadows, dispatching guards with quiet whiffs of silenced weapons.

      The wolf tilted his head curiously, seeming to notice the woman in his cell for the first time. She bared much the same variety as he did over her emaciated, broken body, most of which was on display under a tattered brown flightsuit. He owed her no allegiance, no debt. The only thing to keep him from killing her for the steak was a vestige of the character he had once been. Eric leaned forward eagerly.

      X-51 leapt in a blur, snatching up the knife. The weasel jerked a  breath in anticipation as the wolf vaulted across his cell again, knocking the woman onto her back where she fell with a muted thud. She made no effort to resist. The wolf made a quick slashing motion across her neck with the blade. Here, Eric made his first mistake. He stepped around Duncan and the force prod, waiting to see the first geysers of blood from the soon-dead woman.

      Another flash of dirty white fur, and Eric felt a sudden pressure against his forehead. Oh, I see the blood now, he thought, only it wasn't coming from the woman. She, in fact, seemed to be in comparatively good health, craning her head around to see what was going on. He turned to the badger and saw Duncan's horrified -- yet intrigued -- expression, whereupon he noticed that the blood was coming from higher up his field of vision.

      The weasel reached up and wrapped his fingers around the still-quivering hilt of the blade embedded in his skull. Strangely enough, all he could think of to say was 'Good throw!', but it came out more of a strangled, 'Nyyyochhhh!' and he pitched forward to the floor, quite dead.

      The wolf sprang forth from his crouched position, but Duncan was ready, stabbing out with the prod and catching the prisoner in the centre of his chest. X-51 howled maniacally as electricity tore through his body. He slumped to the ground beside Eric. The distinct smell of burnt hair mixed with the filth in the air.

      "I'm sorry about this, X-51, but that sort of behaviour isn't allowed amongst prisoners here." The badger yanked the power lever on the prod. Stop X-51? At the current setting, it probably would have blown a hole in the wall.

      He thrust the prod towards the cowering wolf with nothing between the prisoner and final, releasing death. That didn't stop it from being blocked. A blade, long and deadly, struck from nowhere and removed the head of the prod. Duncan backed away, startled, until the face of his assailant became clear and he fell to his knees.

      Clothed in black fatigues, there wasn't much to see of the white wolf but for his hands, and his eyes -- gleaming malachite, the same as those of his father, laying in a heap on the dirty floor.

      "Y-you can't do this," breathed Duncan, raising his hands placatingly. "The guards will be-"

      "Your guards are in no position to assisst you. I dispatched eight of them myself." The newcomer kneeled down beside X-51, checking his pulse. A quick jerk of his head and those green eyes were back on Duncan, alight with fury.

      Duncan heard his own voice begin to stammer. "Wh-who are you? Why are you here?"

      "I am Lieutenant Colonel Connor Blake, Magnum Special Forces. Twenty years ago, Pobee city, Greyphilt, a team of Space Defence Force marines were captured and brought to this... laboratory by order from your government. My father was amongst them. Did you take part in that battle?"

      "I was there... Merely, merely as an observer."

      "That will suffice." Connor's blade arced through the air in one viscious strike. Duncan's head toppled to the floor, his body followed shortly thereafter. He turned to the crumpled wreck beside him and wrapped his arms gingerly around the older wolf's shoulders, biting his lip on seeing the extent of the scarring over the once-famous Director Paelyn Blaquerocke. X-51 shuddered under his touch.

      "Home?" he whispered.