Rise Of The Hunters

Along one wall, there were tiny cribs, similar to the ones at the lab where the experiments had been conducted on babies. Inside each one, a baby lay, some sleeping, others crying. There had to be a hundred or more. And all of them were roughly the same age.

On the other side of the room, the entire wall was taken up by tubes the size of his thumb. Getting close to them, he could barely manage to see a speck floating in the middle of each one. There was a number on the bottom of each one. Xun couldn't even imagine how many there were. He was pretty sure he had never counted that high.

He swallowed again. Gavyn was setting the new baby into a crib at the end of the room.

"There! That's the last one for this round. Now to feed and clean them all. This is where I need your help."

"Okay, but you need to explain a little more. Were all these babies grown in rats? And how did you get them into the rats?"

Xun watched as Gavyn took each baby to a table and changed its diaper, wiped it down with a soft rag to get rid of any spit up, then placed a strange contraption into its mouth when he returned it to the crib.

"The n.i.p.p.l.e gives them something to suck on, and gives them a special formula that has all the nutrients they need. There's just so many, I barely have time to get through all of them, before its time to do something else. I haven't had much time to eat or sleep this past week."

"I don't mind helping you, there's a blizzard going on at the moment, so not much is going on at all above ground."

"Great," the relief on his face was real. Xun wondered if he was really crazy or just struggling with sleep deprivation.

For the next hour, Xun changed diapers, cleaned and fed babies. Gavyn talked the entire time, telling him about how, this place was his mother's secret. How each leader had a secret, and if he was going to be a part of the leadership, then he should be allowed to know the secret. She would raise a baby or two inside the rats, then people would come to get them. He didn't know what the babies were used for, but it was important. His mom was supposed to tell him more when she got back.

"What's going to happen to these babies?" asked Xun, setting her down gently, so as not to wake her, and slipped the n.i.p.p.l.e attached in the corner of the crib into her mouth. She immediately started s.u.c.k.i.n.g.

"Mom planned on handing them out to the people for them to raise after everyone who was going to leave, did. She left me here to finish birthing the last of them until she could get back. I was starting to wonder what had happened to her. I'm glad she sent you to help."

Xun followed Gavyn out of the room, after they were done, itching to run and have his people start getting these precious children out of harms way, but remembering the storm, decided they were safer there for now. How would they keep all of them alive? There were almost more babies then there were a.d.u.l.ts! And what would Dr. Achak do with them, if he discovered this little experiment?

They went across the hall, to a room that stunk. Xun almost gagged, when he entered the room. Gavyn grabbed a shovel, and handed a push broom to him.

"I'll get the worse of it, but I need you to sweep up the little bit I miss. Then we'll hose everything down."

Cages, too small for that rat to have been able to move, lined the room on both sides. There was a walkway for them to access the second level of cages, there were so many in here. Gavyn shoveled as much rat poop out from under each cage, as he could, and Xun was left to sweep up what he missed.

"That went so much faster then it normally does, doing it by myself!" chuckled Gavyn as he grabbed a hose that hung down from the ceiling. Xun watched as he sprayed each cage down, with a spray so strong, it looked like a beam of light, not actual water.

Then they went to check the babies again, making sure if they had spit out their n.i.p.p.l.es, they got them back, and were tilted on their sides so that if they spit up, they wouldn't choke. The ones that were dirty, they had to wash off again, and the blankets replaced with clean ones. The dirty ones were thrown down another shoot, with the dirty diapers. The clean diapers and blankets came from a basket next to the shoot. As Xun watched, several blankets tumbled out of a tube into the basket.

"It's automated. I'm not sure how it works, mom never said, but it takes the dirty things you throw in the shoot, washes them, then spits them out into the basket. It can't handle anything larger than the diapers and blankets, or it will break."

"Have a seat, there's clean table under here somewhere."

Xun moved some of the dirty plates out of the way, and sat down, moving his seat so that if Gavyn attacked him, he could react and defend himself.

"We have just enough time to get a snack and rest a few minutes before we have to check on them again. Do you want one?" he held out one of the pieces of meat, but Xun waved it off.

"Gavyn, I have bad news for you," he looked at him, freezing in midbite. "Your mom is probably dead, and so is Mary. We got attacked by Slavers a couple days back, and a lot of people were killed. I just found you by accident, trying to escape from the blizzard."

Tears sprung to his eyes as he sat back in his chair. Xun waiting for an angry outburst, wasn't prepared for these soft tears.