I Bet They Eat Meat Too Part 2

Dichen came back to consciousness when someone threw cold water over her, then hit her in the face. The blow was hard, delivered with some skill and force, snapping her head to one side. Her eyes opened slightly and she heard: "God fucking damn it Louise! What the fuck were you doing?" She was blind folded, couldn't see.

The next blow hit her in the stomach, driving the wind out of her, then another to the face, pushing it back the other way. She was tied to a chair, handcuffs and ropes, bound ridiculously. "Hey Ted, what are you fucking complaining about? You wanted a prisoner here's your prisoner."

A kick into the area between her legs, making her cry out, then another blow across the face, this time with a stick or something. Dichen felt one of her teeth crack and her lip split. "I didn't mean you to burn an identity we've been building for months for one Harawayan coptor jockey!"

"Oh credit me with some fucking sense you smug operator bastard! They were getting wise to us. Why do you think they wanted to take us to their HQ? Tea and Cake?" Dichen was crying to herself now, then squeaked as a blow slammed into her right arm, still bruised from having landed on it, then screamed loudly as a foot rammed into her injured leg and ground against the knee "Jesus Christ Morris! Stop hitting her or you'll fucking kill her!"

There was a pause in the beating "This bitch killed my brother! She deserves everything she gets!" Her head was pulled back.

"Your brother, and a dozen other good men died to get her alive. Don't waste their sacrifice." The woman's voice was calming, trying to pull a friend back from doing something stupid.

Dichen felt blood pouring into her mouth, and spat at where she estimated the face of the man beating her was. She heard a wet sound then "You bitch!" And something smashed across her face, sending her vision red and black.

"You fucking idiot! Get him out of here and call the doc!"

"Medic coming through!" Dichen felt consciousness fading again. There were more voices, just babble now, then the cold sting of a gas injector. Light cracked in as the blindfold was removed.

"The fuck are you doing Doc?"

"I need to treat the wounds under it." One of Dichen's eyes was apparently swollen shut, she couldn't open it, but through the other she saw a older woman in scraggy work clothes. Behind her there was a tall woman with a shaved head, her muscles and bearing suggesting she'd been a member of a combat unit, maybe a Para. There'd been a ton of French Para's isolated on Wean during the invasion. Next to her was an angry looking guy with a brown beard and blood on his knuckles, his eyes red from crying. Dichen felt briefly sorry, then remembered the pall of flame over the helicopter and went back to hating the man. Finally there was a muscular man who had special forces written all over him. He had blond hair in an untidy mop, and an irritated expression.

Dichen winced, she'd never seen an SAS operative. "Kan, D, S-sergeant... oh fuck it." Dichen slumped as the doctor treated her wounds, applying a bone welder to her broken teeth, and pressure dressings and cell welds to the external cuts.

The SAS operative knelt down next to her "Don't bother with all that name, rank and serial number bullshit. You'll have plenty of time for that when we interrogate you properly. First, is there anything special you need to keep you alive? Heavy metals in your food or something?"

"Fuck you" Dichen muttered "I'm not fragile." The special op nodded then turned and hit her very hard, and the world went out like a light switch had been flipped.

Dichen came too gradually. She could smell tea, almost overpowered by the scent of anticeptic. She cracked open an eye and found herself in a bright room with light spilling in from long narrow windows at the top. The doctor was leaning over her "My my, awake so soon. You are the tough one." She fitted an ampoule into the drug deployed on Dichen's IV and then pulled the tab. Dichen stared at it "Oh this? It's just quick heal." She pressed a control and the bed elevated, Dichen realizing she was till zip cuffed too it. Looking she saw a heavy looking man waiting to one side, with a submachine gun in his hands.

The doctor was talking again. "Your physiology is remarkable, a normal human would be dead from the punishment you took. You're a Red right?"

"Yeah." Dichen said. The doctor seemed friendly but Dichen had been trained about Stockholm Syndrome and had decided not to let it happen to her "I'm Dichen by the way." Humanize yourself, that was the other thing she remembered "what are you people going to do to me?"

"That's not my department girl. I just have to keep you alive." The doctor smiled "That'll be much easier if you cooperate though."

"I won't tell you anything. You people killed my friends." Dichen looked away from her at the sky through the high windows. The doctor sighed and then went quiet, moving to treat Dichen's other injures, occasionally asking a question about her condition, to which Dichen gave short, clipped answers.

After the doctor had done treating her, she bought a plate of food: beans and meat. Dichen took the first spoonful then coughed "Wait, I don't eat meat!"

The doctor blinked at her then laughed "You're a picky eater for such a big girl." She carefully began to police the plate of meat then sat back down. "Sorry, I can't untie you so I'm going to have to feed you." Dichen shrugged as best she could and let the doctor do it. She could feel how much she was frustrating the woman. It pleased her, but she realized she was having as much difficulty keeping silent as the doctor was.

"Why are you fighting for the resistance?" She asked as the woman was lifting the plate away.

The doctor paused then went and put the plate over by the sink. Dichen felt a sneer at the lack of a processing unit but suppressed it. "I'm fighting for my home. You people invaded it."

"We only came because you invaded us though." Dichen fidgeted with her bonds, then stopped as the man on the wall adjusted his SMG.

"Never the less, that's why I fight." The doctor sat back down "Did you say your name?"

"Dichen."

"Well Dichen, I could ask you the same question. A lot of people say we're fighting this war to liberate people like you. Reds and other oppressed under classes of transhumans."

Dichen glared "You're killing and invading and bombing us to help us now?"

"People don't always know what's right for them." The doctor shrugged "That's why doctors exist, and politicians. It's called false consciousness, when people politically support something against their own interest. I think a lot of you people have it. She looked down at Dichen with pity."

"So because of this you think we should stop making more Reds?" Dichen felt herself getting angry now. Maybe she shouldn't have started this conversation, she kept thinking of the burning helicopter. She wanted to ask the woman but she'd just lie.

"No, just blues and yellows and Greens." The woman sighed and then leaned in "Though really, maybe yes if I'm honest." She adjusted herself then looked at the guard "To be honest, the reason I joined the resistance is very selfish. I thought it might let me work on transgenes. You see, Transgenes are my particular passion. I'm glad you came here, because now I get a chance to do it."

Dichen looked up at her "Well then I'm pleased this worked out so well for you." She said after a moment "When is that SAS friend of yours going to interrogate me?"

"Soon I guess." The doctor shrugged "You should cooperate, or they'll kill you." Dichen felt a shiver of fear, but tried to suppress it. The doctor moved to the door "Alright, she's well enough."

"Thanks." The SAS man, who'd been called Ted stepped inside "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Sergeant. Let's have a little chat."