"So, what's your name?" I asked my breakfast, flexing my newly formed wing. It was still missing the claws, and my leg was still only half regrown, but it was enough to get full aerial mobility back.

"Please..." my breakfast sobbed. "I have a family."

"That's nice," I replied. "I had one of those too. Then you guys kidnapped me from them and did this to me. Can't really hang around with them much now."

"What? Kidnapped you? What are you talking about?"

"Oh? You're from a different department then? Not one of the people who were kidnapping kids to turn them into monsters so the mayor and his chums could hunt us for sport? Or build a private monster army, or whatever his end goal was. Dunno why he'd even want to do that, given this disintegrator. Seems like he had more than enough weapons already."

"What are you on about? You can't just make monsters."

"No. And monsters can't talk either. Must be a very educational day for you, finding out all this stuff."

Finishing the leg I'd been munching on, I sliced off the next one, tightly wrapping cloth around the wound in the hopes he wouldn't bleed out before I finished.

"Ahhhh!" screamed my breakfast, thrashing around as much as it could with no limbs. Looks like I wouldn't be getting any more conversation out of it for a few more minutes, leaving me munching in... well, not silence. The exact opposite of silence, in fact, but not a noise with any sort of useful conversation in it.

"Why... why are you doing this?" my breakfast asked eventually, having recovered enough to speak.

An interesting philosophical question. "Why what, exactly? Eating you? Because I'm hungry."

"But... how can you claim to be human?"

"I don't. I said I used to be, not that I still was. There wouldn't be much point just changing our bodies. They changed our minds too, you know. Besides, the person who did this to me claimed to be human too, and I don't think I'm doing anything worse than he did. At least I don't pretend I'm not a murderous monster."

My breakfast collapsed against the ground, eyes glazed over, apparently accepting it wasn't going to get out of this. With no arms or legs left by now, it wouldn't have much life even if it survived. "Jason," it said.

"Huh? Oh, that was your name?"

"Yes, it's Jason. At least remember the name of the person you murdered."

"Sheesh. Sorry, but my memory is nowhere near good enough to remember everyone. Most of the time I don't even bother to ask. I suppose I could start keeping a list, if that would help?"

Jason stared at me in disbelief. Apparently my thought processes were so completely alien to him that he didn't know how to begin trying to understand me. That struck me as a bit odd for one of the mayor's men.

"So what did you even do, anyway?" I asked. "You seem a bit... innocent to have been working for that guy."

"What? I'm just a security guard! I just follow instructions and stand around looking intimidating."

"Ah, so the sort of low-level grunt that never actually gets told what it is they're actually guarding?"

"I... Well, that's normal. I don't need to know what something is to guard it, do I?"

"You ever guard a facility to the south of the city?" I asked on a hunch. "About thirty miles out? Quite a large place, in the middle of some wheat fields."

"Yeah, I know that place. It's always in need of a large security contingent. At least, until recently. Seems to have gone dark now."

"Any idea what goes on there?"

"Of course not, and I wouldn't tell you if I did."

"You don't need to tell me; I already know. It's where I was made. While you were there standing guard, up to fifty children at a time were locked inside, trapped in tiny cells, naked, alone, fed on raw flesh, unable to do anything as their human bodies and their minds were stripped from them. Then chips were implanted into their brains to take from them whatever small amount of independence might still remain. But I'm sure they were all glad that you were standing guard. Who knows what could have happened to them without your protection?"

Well, I guess it was nice to know that not everyone down there was an evil scumbag. Just a wilfully ignorant scumbag. Jason was looking distinctly un-horrified, so it can't have come as a complete surprise to him that something sleazy was going on. He didn't want to know the details and hadn't tried to find out. Admittedly, he probably would have got killed if he did, but again, no-one claimed the world was fair.

After another minute of silence, Jason spoke up again. "There was a second one."

"Second what?"

"Site. The location you described was codenamed Project Menagerie: A Site. There's a B site too. About twenty miles north-west of the city. Look for a water tower sandwiched between a wheat and a maize field. Should be easily visible from the air. The barn two fields over is the entrance. Now, if that's useful information for you, I beg you, just hurry up and kill me already!"

That was interesting news. And there I had been thinking that talking to my breakfast was just a way to kill time. Taking pity on the guy, I ran a claw through his heart, finally ending his life. Well, pity, and the fact that the second leg had run out, and I didn't fancy the logistical challenges of cutting additional slices of meat while trying to keep him alive.