#3

They took Floyd first, because he was stronger and faster – their preliminary observation had determined this.
Floyd slept nude, curled up in his bed with a thin blanket over him, twitching occasionally as he always did. Even in his sleep, Floyd could see things, sense things: his father sleeping on the other side of the apartment; transports rumbling across the desert hundreds of miles away; random Rats, total strangers, filling out paperwork on the other side of the planet.
And he sensed the Sparrows an instant before they reached his bed and an instant before he snapped his eyes open, saw their Green level wingbands in the dark, and lunged forward to bite one on the wing. Only after he and all the Sparrows heard the sickening, splintering crunch of the Sparrow’s bones under his teeth did he release his grip and allow the injured Sparrow to stumble backward, squawking suddenly in pain and surprise.
This gave the other Sparrows enough time to grab Floyd and force him onto the ground, one seizing each of his limbs. Floyd had never heard any Sparrow make any kind of noise and he only watched, fascinated, his eyes glowing through the dark, as the Sparrow chirped to itself, caressing its hurt wing with the other.
Floyd could now sense and even faintly hear his brother in the next room, shrilly whimpering in terror as another squadron of Sparrows threw him to the ground and waved shock wands in his face to force him to shut up. Floyd could feel his brother’s fear radiating out from the other room in neat concentric circles. Jules was figuratively clawing at the air, crying out in confusion, begging for mercy, searching outward for help, but a cloth had already been stuffed in his mouth to quiet him down, and the Sparrows were now vigorously zapping him with the shock wands, and Floyd could feel each helpless convulsion of his brother’s body.
“Jules!” Floyd barked angrily, and he growled and snapped as the head of the squadron cautiously approached, held out its shock wand, paused just long enough to let its dead eyes glance over Floyd’s struggling body, then brought the wand down, hard, with a crack across Floyd’s muzzle.
“Dad,” Floyd choked just before blacking out.
Mr. Mercaster had also been hit across the head, tied up, and thrown over an especially large Sparrow’s shoulder, all without him ever waking up.

When Floyd awoke, he glanced around and understood his immediate situation instantly: he was in a hard metal chair, restraints around his wrists and ankles; the fur on his temples had been shaved and electrodes had been attached. The wires led to a large machine on the other side of the small gray room; hundreds of little red lights on the machine were randomly blinking.
Jules was similarly restrained in a chair to his left, but was still asleep, his head snapping once in a while in response to some tortured dream. His eyelids fluttered.
A Rat in a long white coat with an unrecognizable crest on the breast was standing next to the blinking machine. He removed his glasses and nodded at Floyd pleasantly.
“Floyd Mercaster,” the Rat said. “If you’re feeling up to it, we’ll begin your training right away.”