They’re sedated, paralysed, intubated, and transported to the medical centre in the capital. The unmarked van they are transferred in carries the finest in critical care equipment, and a medical team that have had exactly this happen to them - the best doctors and nurses serving their country the best way they know how.

The anonymous ambulance enters the medical centre through an anonymous loading bay in an anonymous side street. It’s better that way. Meeting the transfer team in the basement of the medical centre is the team that will take over the care and assessment of the newest subject, the team that will be responsible for ascertaining just how best it can be used in the service of the country.

The subject is wheeled through clean, grey corridors into a theatre very much like the one where the subject was initially anaesthetised - harsh lights and gleaming silver trolleys of equipment gathered around a surgical table. With no ado, the subject is lifted off the transfer trolley and onto this much sturdier, much more versatile table. The subject will be on it for a while.

The anaesthetic drugs are allowed to wear off. The sedative first. The medical team want their subject to feel the terror of being paralysed, the terror of being wholly dependent on them for every breath. The subject needs to learn that nothing is in their control any more, and that is their first and best lesson: the sensation of the endotracheal tube in their throat, the air being forced in. It usually isn’t for very long, mere minutes are usually enough. If the subject has been particularly… assertive… in their initial assessment, sometimes it is a little longer. Or a lot longer. The medical team can tell when the lesson has been learned: a light goes out somewhere in the subject’s eyes. That’s when they allow the paralytic agent to wear off, allow the subject gasping breaths of their own without the ET tube.

And that’s usually when the subject realises that the reason they can’t move isn’t a drug, but the multiple restraints holding them onto the table: snug velcro bands across their forehead, their upper arms, their wrists, their thighs, their ankles.

There are hands all over them, so many people standing over them. And the beeping of monitors, all around, so loud.

As they gasp for breath, metal is forced into their mouth over their teeth. It’s drawn wider and wider until the subject’s mouth is held open.

A fine tube is pushed down through their right nostril, down and down until it makes them gag and choke and down and down further. It’s affixed to their cheek with tape.

Their legs are moved apart - not by hands, they realise, but by the table itself moving and bending. They try to muster what little strength remains in their muscles, but there isn’t even remotely enough to work against the inexorable pull of the table. Cold, coldness between their legs and a burning, pushing, stinging and release as their full bladder empties through the catheter that’s been inserted.

They’re splayed wide, naked and shivering, still breathing shakily, their heart painfully racing, staccato beeps in time.

A voice from behind their head, disinterested but endeavoring to pretend to be warm. A greeting. ‘You’ve been chosen to serve your country. I’m afraid the first assessments may be a little uncomfortable.’

The voice - doctor? - doesn’t speak to the subject again.

Hands in latex gloves press and palpate everywhere.

Cold jelly is smeared on the subjects chest and a probe looks at their heart.

A probe is pressed painfully into their abdomen.

Fingers and then an endoscope is pushed into their rectums.

Their genitalia are examined in minute detail. And they’re forced to orgasm, unwilling and humiliated.

‘Good,’ says the voice, hours and hours after the subject was first wheeled into the room. ‘I think we can say that we can send this one to the breeding programme. Does anyone disagree?’

There isn’t any dissent.