He was so hungry, lying on the floor of the cage, his hand dangling through the bars, he listened as his stomach left off a round of mournful gurgling. The mournful gurgle turned into a low grumble and then a distinctive angry howl. His mouth was dry, and he did his best to wet his lips with his tongue. He could only imagine what the others had been feeling when he first arrived.

No one had been feeding them, and here hew as lying around in a pathetic heap, though he was still watered and fed to some degree. Arguably the amount should have been sustainable if he hadn't been sharing with the other prisoners. He knew it would only cause more problems for all of them in the long run, but he couldn't bring himself to eat while others starved.

Below them on the prodigum's open floor, sunny lay curled up against one wall with a line of other prisoners. He had no doubt that she could have broken out by now, but she wouldn't, not as long as he was here at least.

Adam rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling of the cage. A plan had been forming in his head, though whether he could get a message to Sunny was a different matter. He mostly hoped that she would be smart enough to go along with it, or smart enough to go along with it if his plan failed.

What was his plan?

Well that was an entirely different matter.

Honestly it was a pretty stupid plan designed based on complete conjecture and hope on y part. Not only that but it pretty much required that Sunny have the ability to read minds, which in itself was stupid considering my only mind reader was couple million light years away.

He sighed.

"Ready to start again, Commander."

He closed his eyes against the voice and tried not to groan. He did not want to keep going with this, but He knew he had to.

He rolled onto his knees and looked over at the other cages where the voice coach and the drummer were watching him. The two of them had been there longer than he and were much closer to the verge of death, though since his arrival they were at elast getting something small to eat and drink.

"I'm ready." His voice was hoarse, and He was forced to clear it.

At least his throat didn't hurt today, a fact that he owed all to the voice coach.

."Remember keep your posture straight, but not strained, breath all the way down and into the belly, don't rely on the chest. The posture of the mouth is the most important aspect of a good singing voice."

He leaned his head against the bars with a sigh.

This was not something he ever though he would need to learn how to do, especially not in order to save his own life.

There were plenty of other things he had imagined needing to learn. ON the floor below them he watched as sunny watched him her sharp gold eyes curious as she watched the two of them working.

She would have no idea what his plan was, and he couldn't tell her. It was known that there were members of the serving staff who were loyal to the prodigum whether it be out of fear Stockholm syndrome or loyalty.

He idly wondered what the others were thinking. He wondered what Sunny was thinking.

He wondered if tonight would be his last night alive.

***

The clients began filtering into the room. Slaves were brought forward for auction, most of them rather worthless, burned out from ears and years of use, but occasionally he would throw in a piece from his own stock knowing that the perceived value of one slave would drive up the price of another.

Lights began to flash and pulse around them at his behest.

He liked the lashing lights, they tended to confuse some of the other species, making them dumber and more likely to buy irrational purchases. It was the same with the music, though speaking of which, where was his music.

In anger, he turned in his place shuffling his great bulk over the floor with great halting movements of his arms and the shuffling of his back legs.

The little tentacles below his chin waved in the air, tasting it. He could taste the human, so it's not like the creature was out of his sight.

Ah there it was, in its cage as usual.

It was standing defiantly looking down at him. The ugly little creature glowered at him, its tight skin stretched over bone and lumpy muscle skeletal and strange with its flexible rubbery body.

He hated humans, though they were at least good for one thing.

. Singing

He wasn't entirely sure how they did, but he was more than jealous.

Of course, he didn't know this, but the prodigum were more readily affected by human species than a lot of the others. Where it targeted the Vrul's sense of pattern recognition and overloaded their brain, it directly impacted the emotional cortex of the prodigum.

Singing to him was an addiction.

One that he had not yet admitted to himself or anyone else.

The human still stared at him its slimy white and green eye blinking once or twice. He shivered in disgust, but slowly turned to look at the blue drev. She would fetch a nice price if he were ever to sell her, and he hoped the human understood his intentions.

They were at least smart enough for that on most occasions .

He saw the human shoulders sink just a bit.

Then without further urging, it began to sink.

The prodigal lean back slightly as the sound washed over him bringing with it a wave of melancholy sadness.

It felt so good,

The fold of his face trembled with delight.

All around him the other clients stopped to look up at the human.

Was it just them or had its voice gotten better, more hypnotic.

Behind his back Sunny flexed her hands.

She was ready for whatever Adam was planning, for she knew based on the looks and small gestures he had been giving her over the past few days that he was planning something.

However, the night went on, and although Adam's singing voice had markedly improved, she sensed nothing changing. She shifted nervously in her change looking over to where the prodigum sat on his back haunches, his large arms resting beside him, a glassy expression on his face, or at least as glassy as an expression could get when it looked like a pile of melted dough.

That was strange.

She glanced around at the others, aliens in various stages of debauchery, sort of lethargic and wobbly.

She glanced up at Adam

He looked down at her letting the last note of the song he was using fade off.

She nervously shifted as the aliens began to shift and move.

Then the quiet human in the far cage began tapping his hand against the bars. Adam cleared his throat. The female human began to hum softly.

How interesting.

The effect was almost immediate.

Adam took one deep breath and made eye contact with Sunny.

And then he opened up his voice cutting through the fading clamor like a blade made of diamond–rising from the upper chest and throat in a way she didn't think hi capable quivering at the top as the others accompanied him.

His voice was full but filled with pain as he poured in emotion like a damn breaking to spill water into a canyon. The drummer beat out a soft rhythm behind him.

As he continued to sing the voice was so sad, so pained, that it almost made Sunny want to cry. He gripped the bars with white knuckled hands his face contorting with the words not bothering to mask whatever emotion he had dredged up to make a sound like that.

Beautiful and sad.

He dropped low into his chest his voice ringing powerfully over the walls before dropping into softness.

He leaned his head against the bars.

She had a tough time looking away.

What did someone have to be thinking about to make a sound like that. The beat stopped behind him, leaving just his clear voice ringing out through the room.

She was forced to shake herself from her reverie.

When that song ended the next one began his voice –quiet– filling the room as she slowly stepped back out of line of sight from the others. No one was paying attention to her. If she could just make it to the door, then maybe she would be able to find a way to get a signal out to the others.

Her movement almost notified someone, but at that moment Adam dropped his voice low adding such a powerful hint of sadness in it that it nearly broke turning his voice to a soft rasp.

The creature could barely keep its feet.

Off to her side the prodigum had practically melted onto the floor.

She had almost reached the door, and he brought his voice higher, the rasp still in it. It took everything she had to keep moving towards the door, and not to turn around, to be captured in the pain and sadness that he used to glue the others to their places.

Again she couldn't help but wonder what kind of memories you had to dredge up to sing like that.

It was almost painful.

She had made it to the door.

She reached out to open it as the door opened and light spilled inward, he again reached upwards with his voice cracking the barrier between him and the others. His voice began to splinter, but not unintentionally, actually quite on purpose, fracturing like ice.

She ran out into the hall.

She froze in place for a second running face-first into another prodigum.

It looked as if it was about to attack her, but when the voice washed over it, there was nothing it could do but follow the sound.

As the voice filtered out into the hallway, the same effect remained true. Others began following the sound in a dazed trance barely acknowledging her as they searched for the sad voice, so clear and powerful.

***

He leaned into it eyes closed trying to dredge up the emotion he needed. He needed to give sunny time to work. He needed to keep their attention. But the more he thought about keeping his voice in place, the harder it was to hold.

So he tried to ignore the need, instead allowing the emotion to roll into his body strong enough to make his face tingle and shivers to run down his face.

Tears sprung to his eyes, and he tried to hold that feeling allowing his voice to crack at just the right moments occasionally looking down at a slowly growing crowd absolutely entranced.

Behind him, the others were trying ahrd to keep up.

The door had opened long ago, but there were still forms trickling in.

How long would have to hold this before someone noticed that Sunny was missing.

He tried tor as long as he could, he really did, but carrying that amount of emotion was difficult, and eventually it faded away. He still kept their rapt attention with his voice,but they were moving again, looking around at each other with confused expressions as if they were trying to figure out what had happened. The prodigum lay almost passed out on the floor looking on in a strange mixture of confusion and contentment.

Like he was high as hell.

He had no idea how Sunny was going to do this worried that she had gone to her death.

Someone would notice her eventually, wouldn't they.

He wasn't sure how long he was going, hours or not, but eventually the surrounding room went back to its normal routine using him as a simple background.

**

The door hissed open, and the prodigum turned his groggy head towards the light spilling across the floor. He was surprised at that moment as a small shape scuttled into the room.

A Vrul?

But those didn't come here. Number one they couldn't stand music, and number two, they were never involved in the slave market. The strange sight pulled him out of his trance enough to get up and scoot in that direction to find out more about this uninvited guest.

It was a small creature a brownish grey in color with large orange prismatic eyes.

He wondered how it was still walking, but then noticed the large noise-canceling headphones it wore.

IT scuttled closer to him pausing at his feet before looking up.

That was strange, it didn't seem scared.

But the Vrul were always scared.

"Are you the proprietor of this establishment?"

"I am."

"Very good." The creature said reaching out with a hand and gently tossing something in his direction.

The prodigum flinched for a moment as the tiny devices stuck to his arms legs and face.

"What."

The little creature raised a hand and pressed something with a click.

His world erupted in pain as lightning and electricity surged through him.

Dr. Krill stood over him hand still holding the button as human and Drev erupted into the room from all angles.

He leaned down to the twitching prodigum, "I-hate-fieldwork."

He looked up from where he stood, "You are all. Under arrest."

"Thank your gods I didn't have final jurisdiction."