Haken: A Capacity for Violence Part 4

This story features forge master Haken and takes place between the events of 'Werewolves: Haven Rising' and 'Werewolves 3: Evolution's End.' 

[If you haven't read part 3, click on the Collections tab and select 'Werewolves' to find the previous installment of this story.]

Present Day

"He should be awake by now," a disembodied voice said through the ether. "How much sedative did you give him?"

"Twice the recommended amount," came the nervous response. "I had no choice—he almost killed Samantha and had me by the neck!" 

Ah, Haken thought. The doctor. He tried to focus, but his world was a haze. He decided not to move. In all likelihood, his limbs would still be stiff and useless—all he would accomplish by thrashing around would be to alert his captors that he'd regained consciousness. Instead, he let his senses expand outward, readying himself for inevitable action. A true warrior wasn't all muscles and no brain—a warrior should never neglect the use of his intellect. Anyone believing Haken to be a dumb, unthinking brute would see the error of their ways moments before he cleaved their bodies in two when they least expected it.

The room stank of antiseptic, but beyond the sterility he caught a whiff of something surprising blowing in through the window. The organic scents of trees and the decay of their fallen leaves welcomed him with their allure; no human-manicured garden smelled that way. Was he in the country, then? Certainly not on Rivera's military base. 

Haken could feel thick metal bonds holding his arms out to the side by his wrists and he was fairly certain that his ankles were similarly secured. The table he'd been fastened to was inclined at a sharp angle—he wasn't flat on his back, but nowhere near upright. It was a disconcerting feeling, like he couldn't quite get his sense of equilibrium under control. 

He was in werewolf form and his skin itched where two small needles pierced into the veins, attached to thin plastic tubes. He knew from decades of life experience that it was almost impossible to maintain the change while he slept, so this doctor must be managing it medically, somehow. Perhaps the tubes were feeding him intravenously, providing the nutrition necessary to maintain his transformation. Or maybe he was drugged like Williams had done to himself. There was no way to know for sure. Not yet.

"You could have killed him!" The first voice spoke again. Female. About ten feet away. The tone was clipped, and suggested that she wasn't as much worried about his safety as she was irritated at her subordinate. "Your job is to keep him alive. Monitor him! I'm starting to wonder if keeping you on this project was wise. You were offered a considerable compensation package. Don't make me regret it."

"Money's not useful if you're dead," the doctor replied with a wounded tone. 

"Get out."

"He's dangerous, Dr. Lim."

The woman, apparently also a doctor, sniffed with disapproval. Haken was surprised; this place, whatever it was, seemed to be crawling with PhDs.

"He'll be a good boy," Dr. Lim said. "Leave me with him."

"You're out of your mind!"

"And you're out of line!" she snapped. "Move your ass or I'll have you black-bagged and out of this site so fast your head will spin!"

No further protestations were forthcoming. Haken heard a door open and close as the doctor left him alone with the newcomer, Dr. Lim. She smelled different. No fear. That was a very bad sign.

"You can stop pretending, now."

What? Haken was confused. There was no way this woman could possibly see through his ruse.

Lim sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. He twitched. Gods, her hand was cold! "You're not half as clever as you think you are," she said. "I knew you were awake the moment I entered this room. Welcome back to the land of the living."

It seemed like he was caught. Haken might as well speak if he ever wanted to learn where he was and what was going on. 

"I'm plenty clever," he said. "Fooled the other guy completely." That was a good start. Assert dominance. Confidence. He knew this type of human well—if he showed his belly to her, she'd never relent. Haken, the strong—not Haken, the footstool.

"Fooling Dr. Burgess isn't a difficult task. The man is a brilliant biologist, but he isn't much of a people person."

"You certainly put him in his place," Haken said.

"I think you'll find me quite immune to flattery," Dr. Lim replied. "Steffan knows that I'd never remove him from the site. A biologist of his caliber with no family to speak of is hard to come by. If I tossed him out, he'd be reinstated within a week and my hand would be thoroughly slapped by my superiors."

"No family?" Haken asked. He was surprised that she was giving him this much information. Her conversational tone was completely incongruous with the fact that he was strapped to a an examination table naked as the day he was born. If her goal was to get him to let his guard down, he might as well pump her for info while she was doing it. "Why does it matter that Dr. Burgess has no family?"

"There you go again," Lim said. "Thinking you're clever. I'll indulge you." She gestured to encompass the room and surrounding areas. We're stationed on a black site. No civilians are allowed to visit under any circumstances and outside entanglements are highly discouraged. The facility takes its security very seriously."

"That your way of telling me I'm stuck here?"

Lim shook her head. "I think you already knew that."

"Who's to say I can't cut my way out through your torso?"

"You're welcome to try," she said. "Things have changed since the last time you woke up. You were disoriented and confused. A spike of adrenaline caused you to lash out. Luckily, the nurse lived." 

Haken grunted. He hadn't meant to harm a nurse—she just had the misfortune of being the first human within striking distance. Given time to brood, he'd probably regret what happened--but now wasn't the time to dwell on mistakes.

"You'll have a difficult time breaking free from this table," the doctor said. "Even if your brain wasn't swimming in sedatives, success would be…unlikely."

Haken gave it a try anyway, of course. He wriggled, pulled against his bonds, and snapped at the air with his teeth in frustration. Gods damn it all…the doctor was on point about his abilities. His body was slow and he felt almost as weak as a human despite being in wolf form.

Dr. Lim raised an eyebrow. "Are you finished?"

"For the moment," Haken said. His struggles had made him all too aware of his current physical state of undress. Now that he knew he was well and truly stuck here, embarrassment started to creep in. It had been years since his naked body was seen by a female, and this was not the way he'd imagined ending that particular dry spell. 

"So are you going to give me some clothes?" he asked. "Or are you just enjoying what you see?" He bit his lip with frustration. He'd meant to go for bravado, but came off more as a flirt. At least it wasn't weakness. He didn't shrink back at her gaze like a pup. If this woman had never seen a specimen such as himself in the flesh before, then maybe she'd be intimidated by a good show.

Dr. Lim stepped closer to Haken's table, bent forward, and leaned against his chest with her elbow. She was light, couldn't have been a pound over one-ten. She looked back over her shoulder at his groin and then back at him, lips quirked in a smile. "There's much to like about what I see, Haken," she said. "You're the perfect specimen for our breeding program."

That got Haken's attention. "Breeding program?" he asked. He couldn't have heard her right, could he? His mind was playing tricks on him. 

"That's right," she said. "We need to re-grow the population or your species risks an extinction event. I was pleased when I found out my superiors were wrong about the pack's continued desire to reproduce. The Haven case study proved my hypothesis better than any prediction model could have. The politicians were thinking like humans while your feral nature makes you something else entirely."

This couldn't be happening. The woman was out of her mind! "Isn't our extinction what the humans want?" Haken asked. "None of this makes any sense!"

Dr. Lim lifted herself off his massive chest and chuckled to herself. "I think I preferred you when you were pretending to be clever." She sat back in a comfortable-looking chair and crossed her legs, eyeing him like a piece of meat. "There's a schism," she said. "Many in the government would like to see the complete eradication of your race while others see you as an opportunity. Of course, not everything is black and white—some views fall between the extremes."

"And you work for the government?"

"Department of Defense."

He shook his head. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because the two of us need to develop a bond of trust. I want you to be the alpha male for our breeding program."

He blinked. Then blinked again. Haken, the stupified.

"You do understand what that would entail, don't you?" she asked.

He nodded. What could he possibly say in response to that?

"Excellent," Dr. Lim said. And here Dr. Burgess was expecting an objection. "I knew we'd picked well when we chose you."

"Objection?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Human morality, a lack of desire for offspring, or simple stubbornness. I'm pleased to hear that your instincts are properly intact after everything you've been through."

A few warning bells were going off in Haken's head. He decided to follow their lead while he had the doctor in a good mood. "What kind of moral objections were you expecting?"

Dr. Lim flipped open a notebook and scanned it for a moment before answering. "Our research suggests that werewolves' family structures lie somewhere between contemporary human and a wolf pack, with inclinations toward the former rather than the latter. Infants—pups, if you will—are raised by their biological parents, but once they reach adolescence they are brought up as a member of the pack until they reach adulthood, a child to all." 

"That's right," Haken said. "Even after the war, the Haven pack still worked that way for the most part."

The doctor shushed him. "You asked a question and I'm giving you an answer. I don't need you to affirm what I already know." She shifted her legs in a way that Haken found intensely provocative before continuing to read from her notebook. "This research suggests that werewolf males are not only pack animals, but are capable of forming monogamous pairings. Some observations even suggest that the species prefers such couplings." She looked up at him. "Are you monogamous, Haken?"

"I, er…" he stuttered. "I'm not sure." The bizarre situation and unexpected direction of questioning were getting to him. Rather than projecting strength he was fumbling around like a pup who just discovered girls. He had to do better. He cleared his throat. "My options were limited in Haven."

"Yes," Dr. Lim said. "Yes they were. Options will be limited here as well, although I think you'll find the females more receptive to your advances. All of our participants have volunteered to help repopulate your race."

"That's…good to know," Haken said. He hadn't been given much time to think this through, but he was glad to hear that the program's participants were willing. If that hadn't been the case, he'd probably have been forced to lead yet another bloody revolution against the humans, and he didn't know if his body could take that after all the punishment it had been through over the last few months.

Lim shook her head. "We're not barbarians. We're the DoD."

Haken couldn't help it. "I didn't know there was a difference."

"Cute."

"I've been called worse."

"Do you have any other questions?" Lim asked. "Or will we continue being pithy with each other until this machine pumps you full of sedatives again?" She looked at her watch. "I'd say you have about three minutes left. Make good use of them."

Haken looked down at the tubes in his arms and briefly considered struggling again, but at this point he knew it was no use. Fine, then. He had another question that needed answering. "You claimed you chose me," he said. "There was another wolf with me when I was captured. Blond kid. What happened to him?"

"I never actually encountered the boy," Dr. Lim said. "The Army claimed him after my superiors rejected him for our project. He's still alive as far as I know, but I can't make any guarantees. We're very compartmentalized here, you understand."

"So I'm the only Haven wolf in the program?"

"I believe so, yes." She leaned over and looked at the screen of one of the machines he was attached to . "Are you uncomfortable?" she asked. "Muscle cramps? Pinching?"

"What do you think?"

"I think we could do better," she said. "When you wake up again, you'll be in your new quarters. You'll receive three meals a day and regular exercise. Once we're sure you can be trusted, you'll be allowed to meet the ladies."

Haken gulped. Going from his torment in General Rivera's cell to…this…was disorienting as hell. He wondered if this was all just a cruel dream—the escape, Lapu, this bizarre breeding program. Honestly? Things could be a lot worse. If this was a dream, Haken decided to make the most of it.

"Sounds good," he said.

Dr. Lim laughed. "You'll need to contain your enthusiasm, Haken." She eyed him with a smirk on her face. "I'll get you some pants."