<I>These are the lips that taste no freedom / This is the test of flesh and soul / These are the fears that swing overhead / These are the weights that hold you down / These are the looks that chill to the bone / This is the voice of silence no more!</I> -- The Middle of Nowhere

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Date Posted: 21:08:23 04/28/04 Wed
Author: who else?
Subject: These are the lips that taste no freedom / This is the test of flesh and soul / These are the fears that swing overhead / These are the weights that hold you down / These are the looks that chill to the bone / This is the voice of silence no more!

Bands of pliable, yet unbreakable steel quivered. Large, dark, globule-like eyes watched the metal with a vague sense of detached curiosity, a scientific mind waiting for the experiment to complete itself, waiting for the results. It had no emotional involvement with the experiment -- just time, finances, and equipment. It didn't care about the actual outcome; it just cared that an outcome came about in a timely manner.

The bands shook again, as though terrified out of their wits. The metal was wrapped securely around a thick forelimb that bulged with corded muscle, coarse hairs bristling as the leg tensed again, testing the bands' tensile strength. Metal versus flesh, and already, tiny white lines -stretch marks of a sort- were beginning to appear in the bands.

Objective and faintly bored, the beige-robed Jhee watched, one hand's ten thin fingers drumming softly on the edge of a sparsely-cushioned seat. It was on the other side of impenetrable walls, outside the technological prison that encased the feral beast; it had nothing to fear if the outcome proved flesh stronger than steel.

Dirtied golden fur stood on end as muscles writhed once again, sending more pronounced ripples down the bands that constrained each powerful limb. A tufted tail thrashed, free and defiant and liquidly graceful, as heaving, gasping breaths rocked the taut creature where it hung, suspended in mid-air by its well-polished, scientific shackles. Long, glistening fangs graced the air as the jaws parted to pant, and the upper lip curled high in a silent snarl.

The Jhee leaned forward as the striations in the steel bands became more obvious; the experiment would soon come to a close. This strange feline creature had been picked up in some unnamed system of a nearby spiral galaxy, and it had become violent when captured. The Jhee's fellows designated to it the responsibility of testing the beast's true potential in order to see if its DNA was worthy of being catalogued in the famed DNA banks of the renowned species of ethic-lacking geneticists.

The primal expression of fury never left the golden creature's face as it slowly, painstakingly, curled around itself. The only noise in the computer-monitored cell was the pained shriek of gradually ripping steel. The long, agile tail ceased its lashing and curled as the beast brought its limbs closer to its white-furred stomach in a slow-motion display of raw strength.

The pale Jhee leaned forward a little bit more, blinking swiftly to clear the dust from its large eyes. It had previously hypothesized that the creature wouldn't be able to break its bonds; and this scientist was so rarely wrong. The beast's muscle mass and density indicated that it shouldn't be able to tear steel like that.

With one final, agonized shriek of metal, the golden creature fell to the cold floor in a clatter of broken bonds and still-attached shackles. Grey claws suddenly shot from broad paws, and the close-fitting manacles were ripped from flesh with a vengeance. The tortured metal bonds were flung into the sensor-covered walls, and the feline stood on its powerful hind limbs easily.

The Jhee felt chills race down its spine as earth-dark eyes swiveled to settle upon its countenance with a cold fury unmatched by any civilized creature.

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