Faint murmurs echoed across the laboratory walls as he slowly regained consciousness, blinking his eyes open only to see blinding, fluorescent lights shining in his face. He squinted. Tall figures around him, distorted, voices hushed and ominous.

            “Should we alert the empress of our results thus far?”

            “No. We have not yet ensured that this one is a genuine success. We need more time.”

            “Vital signs are good. No negative reactions to the artificial vertebrae or neural implants.”

            He grunted while listening, dimly aware of how deeply his body ached. He blinked. The figures now had sharper outlines, and he could make out details like glasses, buttons, and belts. He put a shaky paw to either side and pushed up, farther, only to collapse onto the cool table. He coughed, a scouring of his throat.

            He hardly noticed the scientists turn to him. One of them, seemingly the tallest one, ordered that “Subject 85T23” be taken back to his containment unit, a hovering android picking him up and dragging him away in midair.

            After being carried through the damp, empty halls of the laboratory, the android stopped in front of a small cell labeled “Subject 85T23,” waiting for a moment as the bars lifted. He hit the ground hard and gasped after being tossed inside. Thick metal bars penned him once more.

            The android then floated away. His thoughts and memories were completely awry and his vision was finally restored. He heard a soft, squeaky voice calling to him in a hushed tone. Across the hall, a lean figure clenched the bars of--her?--much larger cell while trying to get his attention.

            “Psst! Blaster! Blaster, over here! It’s me,” the female called again, this time louder. The strange appendages sticking out of her scalp flicked as she smiled amongst the faint lights illuminating the hall.

            “What is this--?” he asked. “Who are you, and where are we? Am I--supposed to know you?” His voice was a hoarse and baritone vocalization ruptured by the soreness of his mouth and throat.

            “You’ve lost your memories again, Blaster.” A dry exhalation passed for laughter. “Don’t worry, they’ll return soon. They always have before.”

            Blaster cocked his head, glancing around his cell for some sort of explanation. Once his memories returned to him and his thoughts were thoroughly organized after the experimental effects had worn off, he coughed a few times. He growled and look at the woman across from him. “Agh--! Again? I can’t believe it happened again. There ain’t no way I can go on like this, Firefly. What if next time, or the next time, my memories don’t come back?”

            “No, don’t say that,” Firefly said. “This has happened hundreds of times over the years and you still remember, just like I do. We can only bloom where we’re planted, Blaster, but I’m sure God will answer my prayers.” She then released her grip on the bars and positioned herself on her knees, folding her hands together and shutting her eyes.

            Blaster sighed as he watched her kneel down and pray in silence, a sense of optimism radiating so brightly from her that he could almost feel it himself. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for her - she was always so compassionate, spirited, principled. The polar opposite of him. Despite what those bastards turned her into, she still continued to have faith in the impossible. Faith he’d lost long ago. “Right..God. Well, he sure as hell better come to our aid sooner than later ‘cause it’s gonna get to the point where I ain’t gonna wait around for him no more.”

            Firefly finished her prayer and raised her head abruptly, her skin and antennae glowing a sickly greenish color. “Dr. Brown and Dr. Hopper.” she said. “They’re coming. Lay low.”

            Blaster and Firefly crouched down in their cells and remained aloof as the two scientists came marching in their direction while muttering to one another. They watched as Dr. Brown glanced towards them briefly before repositioning his glasses. Blaster analyzed the older man’s complexion - pale, wrinkled skin, a skinny figure, snow-white hair gelled against the back of his head, and a long, sunken face that looked as though it had been stretched. Flicking his tail anxiously, he averted his gaze from the scientist, who glared at him.

            As soon as the scientists passed, Firefly cleared her throat and gazed at Blaster while her antennae twitched vigorously, their tips glowing a bright orange this time. Blaster observed her carefully. “Well?” he said, “What’d you get?”

            “They felt concerned. Unsettled. Intimidated.” she said. “Chances are they were talking about the empress again.”

            Blaster swallowed, leaning back against the wall of his cell. “Mm. I see. They might’ve been talking about the empress…or they might’ve been talking about us. We might never find out.”

            Firefly’s expression softened, the tips of her antennae glowing once more. “You are nervous. I can’t say I blame you, even after everything we’ve gone through.”

            “Don’t do that,” he said, “I hate it when you do that. At least to me.”

            “I’m sorry. I can’t always help it,” she said.

            Blaster shook his head as he looked down at his paws, his ears twitching slightly. “Even if they were talking about us, it probably wasn’t about anything too important. They’re scientists, after all. It’s their job to worry about everything.”

            Firefly nodded, sighing heavily and leaning against the wall of her own cell. “I know we won’t be trapped here for much longer, Blaster. God has us in this situation for a reason, I know it. It’ll be revealed to us soon enough.”

            Blaster suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, his ears flattening against his skull. “Gotcha.” he said. “Maybe I should just ask him first and get the answer for ya. Save ya the trouble.” He saw her flinch at this. Why was his instinct to be cold and sarcastic? It was a quality the empress might like.

            Before Blaster could apologize for his snide comment, the trap doors located beneath them suddenly dropped open, sending the two of them plummeting downwards into a series of pipes where they slid down rapidly. Blaster collapsed into the dirt ground on the third lower level of the empress’s fortress, the underground tunnels where he and Firefly were sent to work on a weekly basis with other experiments, slaves, or prisoners. Spitting soil out of his mouth, Blaster coughed and bared his teeth before standing up and brushing himself off. He joined a straight line of workers by squeezing himself in.

            As with every other time he’d worked in the chamber, Blaster picked up a set of boxes brimmed with squirming grey worms inside, shuddering in disgust. He arrived in front of a robotic scanner after the person in front of him was allowed passage. In a monotonous female voice, the scanner said:

            Please halt as I take a moment to scan and assess your identity.

            A pixelated, shining blue light engulfed Blaster’s stout body for a few seconds, scanning him from head to toe before shutting off. The scanner then spoke:

            Subject 85T23, you may now pass. Thank you for your cooperation.

            Blaster groaned as he moved past, his whiskers quivering. Another day in paradise, I suppose, he thought. He spotted Firefly and jogged to catch up, making sure not to drop any of the boxes he was carrying. He followed after her and remained by her side along the rest of the dirt path, the two of them moving past the toiling workers surrounding them. Blaster couldn’t help but look to the laborers digging, packaging, and carrying objects of all kinds through the tunnels, studying their complexions - some had peeling skin and scars, others had chunks of metal sticking out of their fur, skin, or scales, a few had crooked teeth, spindly spines extending from different body parts, or mutated features such as mismatched tails, multicolored eyes, and even strange lined markings like Firefly had on her body. He’d grown used to such sights over the years of exertion, his own fur dulled and thinned to the point that it was merely a coat of singed brown strands, yet every time he evaluated them once more, he was reminded of what they truly were: numbers.

            As Blaster and Firefly finally stationed themselves at one of the digging sites farther down the tunnels, an adolescent slave dressed in numbered uniform used a mechanical shovel to root out jewels from the ground below. His emerald-green skin was caked with clumps of dirt moistened by drops of sweat. The boy met Blaster’s gaze and took a deep breath. “New to this section?”

            Blaster raised his eyebrows, barely returning a look to him as he sunk his claws into the ground to scrape out more dirt. Was he new here? Firefly and I have been working in this area of the chamber for years now, he thought. “Blaster. She’s Firefly,” he said aloud, “that’s all you’ve got to know, kid. This ain’t the time or place to ask questions.”

            The green-skinned slave frowned, turning to Firefly instead. “You gave yourselves actual names, huh? So did I. Mine’s Voyne.”

            Firefly’s antennae glowed green at their tips all of a sudden. “Ah. Not a bad name. Sounds more original than ours, that’s for sure. Good to call yourself something different, isn’t it?” She then gestured to the code plastered across her uniform which read Subject 85T28 as well as to the code on Blaster’s uniform, Subject 85T23. “Makes you feel more like a person than a pawn.”

            Voyne nodded while still digging, the softest smile creeping onto his face. “Definitely. It is good to acquire some sense of humanity. Might as well since we’re stuck here for..well..forever. Or at least until we’ve served our purposes.”

            Blaster sniggered at Voyne’s attempt to sound uplifting. He pulled more dirt from the hole they’d formed in the ground and grabbed a few crystals. “Tsk..humanity. When has the empress, or the scientists, or anyone in this province ever given two ripe figs about ‘humanity’? Clearly ya ain’t been here long enough to know how things are, boy. There is no humanity. This is it for us. We can try and fool ourselves by giving each other names, but at the end of the day, we’re still the same godforsaken experiments we were the moment we first opened our eyes in that lab. If you haven’t learned that by now, I don’t know if ya ever will.”

            Voyne stared at him for a good few minutes. “You know what?” he said. “You’re right. I know that it’s pointless to even think about humanity while I’m stuck here like everyone else. But let’s be honest, ‘Blaster’..sometimes you’ve got to give yourself a name to remember that you mean something.”

            Blaster paused his digging, his ears perking up and his eyes widening slightly. Exchanging a brief glance with Firefly, he thought to himself, Damn. I hate to admit it, and I ain’t ever gonna admit it to his face, but...the kid’s right. Then again…he and Firefly still have hope, and I don’t. Makes me wonder if anyone else in the fiftieth province still remembers that they mean something like the two of ‘em do.