Utterly Mad

Time in the dungeon gave Catnip time to think on all these things and more. She supposed that was what the dungeon, one of many dark storage rooms in the basement of King's Court, was all about. Sitting in the dark and thinking about what you did wrong. As far as Catnip was concerned, she didn't do anything wrong. At least Mr. Swingin-dick-security-shit as her other new friend Minx called him, hadn't come down to try and take what he wanted while she couldn't run. She supposed he could use the controller for her collar though, but Minx said that King wouldn't allow that. "He doesn't like rape." The usually boisterous, talkative girl told her. The way she said it suggested some kind of sick joke, but if it was a joke, Catnip didn't get it.

Today, she stared at what she was doing in the grey scale of her night vision. The contraption was her attempt at being useful without having to do something she didn't want to. She was constructing it from the CBMs in the boxes discovered in the dungeon. A collection of cardboard cartons labeled "faulty" and "return to Reno." Catnip's face had felt hot and she was taken by the secret shame of a child finding a much revered relatives collection of dirty magazines when she first looked at the pictures on the packages, and leafed through the manuals. It seemed wrong to be looking at stuff like that when you had a steady girlfriend. She just couldn't shake the idea that she was somehow being mean to Kathrine by looking at them. That thought had faded quickly though, almost as soon as she saw what lay inside. Not dirty "toys," but parts. Her mechanics mind saw them as little packages of bits and bobs. Parts ready to be dismantled and arranged into new, more useful shapes. On these she worked with improvised tools and hummed a little nothing song. Before long though, there came a knock from the guard outside. Friendlier that most of the others. Short and sharp and she knew what it meant.

Her jailers we're coming.