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Hello again, SoFurry! It's time for some mind-control, forced-TF breeding smut because... because why not, really?

This is not a nice story :D As you can tell from the tags, but what better way to welcome SoFurry back to life with transformation, and bioengineered dogs, and hypnosis, and also TS Eliot? :D I hope you enjoy it!

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

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"Shantih," by Rob Baird

“What immortal hand or eye," Sully growled.

The dog—Sully thought of him as 'the dog,' although he had a name—froze halfway out of his chair. A few seconds later, the Border Collie lost his balance completely and toppled hard to the ground.

“What did I tell you?" Sully scoffed to his coworker, Ron. “They're just machines."

And Ronald Green, softhearted fuck that he was, sighed. “They're not just machines."

“They are. They're idiots. You can't talk western philosophy with them, Ron. They don't know poetry. They don't even know Blake, they just know it turns 'em off. Look what happens."

“Wake him up. It looks uncomfortable."

“They like it. They're programmed to like it. I could go tell it to get on its knees and give me a goddamn blowjob and it wouldn't even bat an eye."

“You don't have to be so obscene. Jesus, just wake Werner up."

“'It,'" Sully corrected. “Or a product code. Don't do the fuckin' name bullshit." Ron had fallen into the trap of anthropomorphizing uplifts like the Border Collie. Dumb, of course: GeneMark gave the dogs opposable thumbs, and the ability to talk and walk on two legs. Nowhere had they programmed in a soul.

“Fine. But do it."

“16A-VIN, resume your previous duties," Sully ordered, raising his voice.

The dog got up, smoothing his fur down absently. He seemed a little confused by what had happened; his ears twitched. “Did 16A experience a malfunction?"

“No," Ron said.

That was bullshit, of course. The whole existence of the bioengineered dog was a malfunction, which Ronald was too much of an idiot to see. Sully ordered 16A to fetch the next round of test results from the lab, and the dog dutifully nodded and left the room.

“Why did you even choose to work on this project if you were going to be so mean to them?"

“How do you be 'mean' to a tool?" Sully asked. You couldn't be 'mean' to a toaster, or a doorknob. “You're getting sentimental. I wanted this project because Mary wants a department head with experience in the new product lines."

Ron worked in sales, which in Sully's mind was probably why he was such an idiot. He thought of the uplifted dogs as something cute, and fuzzy, and sentient—as opposed to being a lot of highly complex, highly valuable genetic engineering.

He wanted to be everybody's friend, which is why he kept talking to the dog. Why he planned to record some footage of their natural-language skills, like that would make them more appealing to IBM or any other company that was really after a data processor they could run off kibble.

Why, that evening after work, he insisted on getting drinks with Sullivan. Sully accepted, though: it would go on the sales expense account, and at least Green knew how to get them in to some pretty exclusive bars.

“It's not just me being sentimental," Ron tried to explain. “If we can nail this, we stand to make billions of dollars a year. We have a good first-mover advantage."

“What do you mean by 'this'?"

“Thinking uplifts. Uplifts you can relate to. We need to move away from this 'moreau' idea, the idea that we're just… twisting animals into something monstrous. Werner's not monstrous."

“It is. But even if it wasn't, fuck 'em. Ron, do you see what they're doing? It was different with the Kokkola hybrids. Different when you're just… when you're putting a human mind into a blank body and it isn't even permanent. Creating 'em from scratch? They're looking to replace us. Me, you know—I'm gonna be okay. Once Mary gives me the department, I'll have enough to retire on when I get bored of this. You have kids?"

“Two. Two boys."

“Happy their job is gonna be taken by a dog? You want to think of the uplifts as people, right? So, are you happy about that? Who's serving who, you know? Once I get the project, I'm fuckin' killing this. It's obscene, just like the whole NGP project."

“Mary's idea about—"

“No." He cut Ron off—the man was naïve to the point of idiocy. “It's not just the fuckin' doggy kindergartens. That'd be bad enough. She's talking about having them reproduce naturally."

“Why? We suppress them for a reason."

“Greed and stupidity." Sully didn't know how Mary Golden had made it to Director of Innovation, and he didn't have much more respect for her than he did for Ron. The rum only loosened his tongue. “Buys into the diversity-yield-collapse bullshit from the Mexico team."

The Kokkola Process—grafting a human consciousness into a ready-made body—didn't bother Sullivan. It was weird, and people who liked it were weird, but he understood that it was useful to have a hybrid you could quickly program with a new language, or the technical skill to repair a nuclear plant.

Also, it was reversible.

So for decades the American Genetics Marketing Company had been trying to perfect uplifts that didn't need a human source. They were sellable, now, but the failure rate was atrocious, and the Next-Generation Production initiative wanted to find answers. The lab-bound idiots in Guadalajara were convinced it had to do with the limited gene pool.

“You don't agree?" Ron looked surprised.

“We don't even know if they can reproduce. It doesn't matter. You get it?" Alcohol had thickened his words; his conversation partner put a hand to his ear and leaned in closer. “Do-you-get-it? If they can self-reproduce, they might self-teach. If they can self-teach, they might have a culture. If they have a culture, well, that looks kinda ugly for us, doesn't it? 'Don't agree'—of course I don't fucking agree."

“Then what's your answer?"

“Limited integration. I'm gonna pitch it to the LT next week. Obviously it's illegal to clone the stuff we extract in a Kokkola hybrid, but we can reverse-engineer it into a starting template, enough of a framework to build a stable personality from."

“Who'd volunteer to be reverse-engineered?"

“Me. It's not a destructive process. And when the LT realizes they have the answer, Mary's out. I'm in, 'cause obviously, I believe in what I'm saying. You're too much of a goddamn idiot to understand this, Ron, so just take the advice: the dogs ain't your friends. Stay out of my way, and you'll land okay."

“Sure," Ron said. He patted Sully's shoulder. “We'll see how you feel in the morning, though. Been hitting this a little hard."

Probably, come to think of it. He was definitely in no condition to drive. Ron called him a cab, helped him into the backseat; mumbled directions to the driver. At least he's friendly, Sullivan thought. A weak, sentimental rube… but friendly. Wait—driver? All the cabs here are self-driving, why do—

When he woke up again, Sully's mouth tasted strange, and his vision was oddly blurred. Also, he couldn't move his hands. Where the hell am I? Not in his apartment. It looked a lot like a hospital room—he could see clean white equipment out of the corners of his eye, and the room was brightly lit, blue-tinted.

This isn't my apartment, right? For some reason it was a little difficult to recall all the details. You need to pace yourself next time. You were drinking with… Dave? Don? Ron. Ronald, that was it. Ronald, and he'd said something about…

“Subject's awake," a female voice said. It sounded familiar.

“Oh, good. You'll see what I mean." That was Ronald. Sully recognized that.

Shapes entered his vision. Ronald Green, and Mary Golden, and another woman in a clean white suit. The woman held up a computer for the other two to read. “Subject is 19D-ANT; we moved her from Calabasas on Friday. The integration is almost complete."

“Wolf?" Ronald asked. “Looks fierce, Kate."

“All an illusion," Kate replied, grinning. “She's harmless. Husky stock. Anyway, there's definite problems with the integration. Parts of it are okay. Here…"

She swung a machine on an arm over—a camera. When she turned it on Sully found himself looking at the holographic image of a hospital room. A silver-furred uplift was reclining on a bed, a mask over its muzzle; a trio of onlookers examined the creature expectantly. The onlookers…

Sully heard a click and, with a growing sense of horror, found that he could move his right arm. He brought it to his face, watching as, on the hologram, the dog thing did the same… as it found the oxygen mask clamped over its muzzle, oh God, I have a muzzle, what the fuck is—

Kate took his arm and shoved it back down to the hospital bed, snapping the restraint back into place. “Mirror test is good. She recognizes herself, clearly. Basic functions are also good. We expect body coordination and things like that should be fine."

“Where's the problem, then?" Ron asked.

“Have you read the case file, either of you? Or the whitepaper?"

“No."

Sully couldn't move anymore. He had to sit there and listen to the bitch. “Sullivan had the idea that you could streamline moreau development by implanting mental behavior from a template, rather than having it develop naturally the way they do at Menlo."

“We've had yield problems at Menlo, though," Mary pointed out. “Too slow to mature, too unreliable…"

“That's why you were talking about trying natural family units," Ron suggested—like he was realizing it for the first time, the fucking bastard. “Trying to let them raise children…" You prick, I told you that. I told you what she wanted to do.

“Yeah."

Kate fiddled with a control panel just out of Sully's range of vision. “It might help. The way it is now, we have some… challenges. It seems to create a kind of conflict." She pulled the mask off Sully's mouth.

Not a muzzle. Not a fucking snout_, God, I have a mouth. Whatever the fuck Ron thought he was going to do, he can fix it. I'll make him fix it_. Ron leaned over and whispered something to Mary Golden. Sully's ears were keen enough to pick up some of the words: backdoor, but we can't confirm.

“Petra," Kate said, smiling. “You're awake again. Can you speak?"

“What are you doing?" The words tumbled from Sully's lips—the accent thick, and ugly, and unrecognizable. “You can't get away with this. Dave—Dave, you can't… Dave." He kept trying, but the word Ron got lost between his brain and his tongue.

“Who's Dave?" Ron asked.

“We don't know. According to the shipment papers from Calabasas, it's been like this since the integration. She'll identify a male figure as—"

“Dave," he snarled. His arms were still locked down, he tried to indicate Ron with a glare, instead.

“I see." Mary stepped closer; he felt her hand on his wrist. Her voice was soothing; quiet. “It's okay, Petra. There's no Dave here. Echo: in the beginning, the sky and sea were one."

Sully shook his head. “I'm not—no, you don't understand."

“She uses 'I' pronouns." Mary seemed surprised.

“Which is good, yes. But you'll see—"

“Of course I use them. I'm not a dog. I'm Sully. Sullivan Leslie! You know me—Dave, what did you do? What did Dave do?"

“Calm down." Mary patted his wrist. “Please, can you tell me what happened? In the beginning, the sky and sea were one. What happened next?"

Why do I know the answer? His surprise kept him from keeping his mouth shut for a few words. “The Feathered Serpent and… no—stop it. Listen to me—please. Mary, you know me—I'm Sully. Sullivan. I was born in 2002 in Des Moines, Iowa."

“You were born in 2041, in Calabasas, California," Mary told him. “It's alright. It'll be okay, don't worry."

“I can prove it! Give—give me a computer."

“I don't think that's a good idea. No idea what he programmed you with, after all."

Mary looked to Ron, and then gestured for Kate to slip the mask back over his muzzle. He couldn't stop her from forcing it shut, and as soon as the mask was back in place Sully found his words escaped him again.

Mary Golden sighed. “You haven't heard anything from Sullivan, have you, Ron? Security hasn't turned up anything other than the material on his personal computer—oh," she laughed bitterly, seeing the look Kate was giving her. “Leslie tried to sell our programming technology to KMT. Ironically enough, it was their moreau assistant who tipped us off to the inappropriate request for access to our engineering database…"

“At least it didn't go any further than that?" Kate shrugged, as though industrial espionage didn't matter to her. “What do you want to do with the 19D?"

“Send it back? I don't know."

Kate cleared her throat, fiddling with her computer and handing it over for Mary to look at. “This was the result of the bloodwork. It's kind of convenient, but…"

What? What is 'convenient'? He couldn't talk, and they didn't seem interested in the twitching of his muted struggles. Mary looked him over, nodding. “Anything suitable?"

“The 16A," Ron said. “We stopped all the drugs because it needed to be interrogated and we wanted a good baseline for the machines."

“Oh. Yeah, then. Hey—go for it. Let me know what happens, Kate. Got lunch plans, Ron? I want to talk to you about your goals for the project…"

Only Kate stayed behind, making a few adjustments. Sully tasted something in his mask; saw her leaning over, checking his pupils. “Good girl," she said. “You can calm down, it'll be over s—"

He sat up. His hands were fuzzy and white, the fingers ending in dull claws. Worst of all, they were unmistakably his—those claws raking into his pelt absently when his side briefly itched.

He was not in the hospital room any longer. Instead he'd been placed in a small dorm—a bed, a desk; a door, locked. What are you going to do? He tried to stave off panic. Mary didn't believe him, obviously, and Ron would actively sabotage any attempt to regain his old body. Presuming it still exists. They could've destroyed it. Worse, planted it in a car, or at the bottom of a swimming pool… some accident nobody would question too closely. His blood ran cold—

And his hackles raised.

The fact that he had hackles sent him into a fresh spiral. Kate was right; his motor control seemed fine enough. He could stand up; could walk around the tiny room. Could feel the odd, startling weight above his hips that must've been his tail…

He refused to look at it, stayed away from reflective surfaces.

Kate. She'll be sympathetic. I can talk to her—tell her what happened, give her enough proof to exonerate me, and then… then, Sully didn't know, but it was a start. He startled expectantly, perking his ears—goddamn it—at the sound of the door sliding open.

16A-VIN. Werner. The Border Collie's muzzle was curled. A grin—how did Sully know that it was supposed to be a grin? “You look good," Werner said. “Better than I expected. They do want to get started early…"

“You have to help me."

“I will." The tone of the dog's reply unsettled Sullivan, though, and so did the way he moved closer. “After all, they want that, too. Why else would you be such a captivating specimen?"

His paw smoothed Sullivan's side, from shoulder to hip. “I'm not captivating. I'm captured, it's different."

“You're delusional." Sully started to protest, but the collie's paw clamped his muzzle shut. “If you keep insisting you're Sullivan Leslie, they'll just have you destroyed as a failed experiment. You're Petra—2C-19D-ANT, a lovely young husky from Calabasas."

Sully wrenched his muzzle free enough to growl back. “Sullivan. A human being. A man."

Werner's eyes flashed. His paw was suddenly between Sully's thighs—right against his crotch. Touching… nothing? No, that wasn't quite right. The Border Collie's claw was working against bare flesh, and the contact resulted in a jarring spasm. “There is evidence to the contrary."

No. It couldn't be; he wouldn't let it be. Sullivan tried to step backwards, but the Border Collie followed—and followed, and followed, until the wall was at Sully's back. And now he could no longer ignore his tail, pinned against it. A husky's tail. They'd done it—Sully was a dog, a monster…

“That's a good bitch. Relax." In Sully's new form Werner was no longer quite so unimposing. He was taller than Sully, for one, and his growl seemed like it had more than idle threat behind it. “Relax, and everyone gets what they want."

“What's that? What does everyone want?"

“If we're successful, well, Mary Golden's already talking to DEC—if we land that contract, she beats her target by a factor of six. Shoe-in for the VP of Ops. Ron gets to take over NGP. I get to be his assistant. And you get to be a mother."

“Fuck you," Sully gasped. “What the fuck does that mean?"

“Why do you think they made you such an appealing bitch?" There were teeth on Sully's ear, the words more of a purring rumble than distinct sounds. “Wanting it already. Don't you? You want to be bred. Prove it works…"

“It doesn't," Sully stammered. “Your sex drive is suppressed."

The Border Collie's paw fell away. In its place he pressed himself to Sullivan's soft-furred body. A sharp, pointed grind; the hint of something harder than fur. A growl: “not anymore."

It has to be. We control them. Sully's mind raced—the pronouns were wrong; there was no 'we' anymore—but that certainty was still there. He can't do this to me. I'm a human being, not a dog, certainly not something to be bred for Mary's perverted experiments.

Except the protest didn't change that Werner had Sully against the wall. That the Border Collie's thrusts were less-than-subtle. That his scent seemed to be everywhere, now, and it was a terrible distraction the way Sully couldn't stop thinking about it. Tell him to let you go. No—_order _him, that's it.

“Let me go. What immortal hand or eye—let me go."

“You think that works?" Werner's chuckle was ominously dark.

“We programmed it," Sully answered. “You. We programmed you. What immortal hand or eye! Stop it! 16A-VIN, what immortal hand… or…"

“Humans programmed it." He pressed closer. Sully began to struggle, but the Border Collie's leverage made any attempt at escape futile. His weight leaned into the smaller dog. “What you mean is: a game of chess."

Peace.

That's what I was missing: peace. The warmth of it, like coming in from the cold, and running a nice bath. Sinking into it… relaxing… floating. There was another touch, Werner's paw, and as it stroked the husky's side it left a rippling, sighing trail.

Everything I was worried about melting away into the water until I can't even remember what there was to concern myself with in the first place. Food? No, no, I'm not hungry. Whatever it was must not have mattered…

“You're calmer now, aren't you? Grateful they made you such a good girl."

She nodded. 'They' seemed a bizarre abstraction. In any case, she was calm. Something was wiggling. Her tail—it was her tail, beating against the wall behind her. Gratitude, she supposed.

Her ears twitched. The door opened; someone stepped inside. A voice, hidden from behind Werner's dark-furred body. “Am I interrupting?"

“No, sir. Just getting to know the 19D a little."

“Do you think it will work?"

“She's certainly ready to try. You didn't successfully remove the maternal instinct after all, I guess."

A figure drifted into her vision. The man examined her. Nodded. “That so? I don't want to be… well, it feels a little vulgar to say it, but good luck."

Good luck at? Oh. At carrying a litter. “Thank you, Mr. Green," she murmured.

When Ron left, Werner nipped her ear softly. “A knock upon the door."

The warmth, the peace, the comfort fled. Sully was back in the dormitory room. Blinking, her—his—her—hands—paws—fingers—feeling over the body they now belonged to. “This can't be real. None of this is real. How do I wake up?"

“You don't. This is your life now. Like it's mine. Behave, and they let us live. Fight—say dumb things about how you're really a human being—and that's it. So if you want to figure something out, start by accepting your reality. The way I accepted mine."

“Were you also…"

“Transformed? No. AGMC made me. They brought me into this world and pretended they didn't have one single obligation after that except to feed me and give me a cot. Welcome to that, Sully. Maybe your supervisor will be a little more understanding. Especially once you give birth."

“Fuck you. Fuck you." She lunged for him; he grappled with her paws. The husky snarled and kicked. Her new body was surprisingly strong—but Werner's was stronger. He knocked her off balance; spun her around and pinned her arms in place.

“You're not in charge anymore," he warned her.

“Not right now," she snapped. “I'll find someone to listen. You can't keep this covered up. You're a fucking dog, and when I'm out of here I will have you put down like one. I'll watch, you smug monster. We fucking made you, and we can damn well unmake you and all your—"

Pressure. Teeth, on her ear. “Consider instead: a game of chess."

Sully's mind blanked. The sense of total, overwhelming peace was back, soothing, a cottony reassurance her ragged panting had been for no reason that should trouble her any longer. “What?"

Werner's paws relaxed. His nose was still at her ear. “Do you think you're in charge?"

“I don't… I don't know."

“You're not. Get on your knees and turn around."

The feeling was not so much one of conscious obedience but the pleasant realization that she was not required to dwell on such things. Of course the husky dropped to her knees, her muzzle inches from the other dog's crotch. His erection was obvious—nothing obscene about it, just the pale-red flesh, and the scent that spilled a curious enticement into her mind.

She looked up at him; he nodded, dipping his head. The husky nuzzled the soft fur of his sheath curiously. She lapped at it. The taste of his bare cock, when she reached it, was less subtle by far: tangy, masculine. Sully worked her broad tongue over him until he was clean.

By that point he was all the way free, the veiny girth bobbing before her nose as he growled and his breath caught. Taking him between her lips was only the next logical step—sure enough, Werner's growl deepened into a groan, and a spurt of salty, musky fluid rewarded her initiative.

Having him filling her mouth was an interesting sensation. She licked at him, slid him along her tongue and the roof of her mouth in slow, careful strokes. The Border Collie grunted. “So this is why the humans like it, hm?" She found that she had no idea. “You're good at it."

Her tail wagged. She let him slip free, and glanced back upwards. “Should I keep doing it?"

“I'm not here for that. You aren't either."

“So I should turn around?"

“No. The bed." He got his paw under her muzzle, holding it to peer down at her, and grinned. “I want you looking at me when I breed you."

She didn't have a chance to mind the bed—the stiffness of the mattress, the coarseness of the sheets. None of it mattered because her dog was atop her a second later. He was between her legs. His arms were to either side of her shoulders as he shuffled around.

Warmth. Again the comfort of it. The solid, saliva-slick tip of his cock found her. Werner pushed, and sank partway in. Not much, an inch or so, but enough to feel the way she stretched to take him. A heartbeat of anticipation gave way to the yielding reality of the dog's smooth penetration a moment later.

A growl. His, dominating. Sully could only pant, blank-eyed, as she adjusted to the shock of having his erection inside. Thick, and hard, its curves satin-smooth and throbbing against her walls where it—“such a good bitch," Werner grunted—belonged. Where it belonged.

He began to thrust. Already it was proper and quick. He was doing his job, after all, hips pumping rapidly as he bucked to his release. She found herself reveling it in anyway, how the tempo kept her so pleasantly full. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around him.

It was like she held on to a machine, or some great mythological beast, snarling the power of his own body and his biological drive as he rutted her. Nothing perverse or even strange about it at all. The image was thrilling, even—black fur on silver, the Border Collie pounding his canine cock into the gasping, arching form of his mate…

He throbbed, spurting a growing wetness into her that smoothed out his hammering plunges and brought a telling squish every time he hilted and their fur clashed together. For a spell the husky thought that was the only reason—then that she was simply imagining that Werner was growing larger.

Then it was unmistakable. The base of his cock had swelled, buffeting her, teasing the husky as he slipped it through her clinging lips. But it kept getting bigger. His pace changed into one jerking, hard shove after another that buried him all the way in her cunt and still it thickened.

“Gonna knot you," he groaned. “Close—fuck—ready for that litter?" Nothing in her could even think of saying 'no.' She could have written an essay on what had brought her to that point of craving it, needing the Border Collie hilted and growling his triumph over her. All she managed was a begging please, a tense cry in a voice alien and yet exquisitely familiar in its desire.

Now the collie had to work to pull from her. He grunted deeply, gave up, and rammed forward, humping in a frantic staccato. His knot locked him in solidly and every jerk and twitch sang out in the husky's nerves. It was a raw pleasure, carnal, demanding, bubbling over… her paws gripped his hips and pulled him close as he opened his muzzle…

Dropped it to her ear and hissed. “There you go—good girl—good bitch, that's my good little bitch. Mine. A knock upon the—

She yelped. Werner—16A-VIN—the fucking dog had tied her. He'd lifted his head and his nose was on hers and he was pinning her, cock stuffed inescapably to the hilt. His eyes were narrowed, ears back in concentration. His lips curled, baring fangs—then their gaze locked, and she saw the flashing glare in them an instant before the snarl ripped free.

Deep inside her, too deep inside, the collie's shaft thickened and twitched. There was a strong, hot splash. It was then she realized her paws were still at his hips. She could feel the next, insistent shove, and the wag of his tail as it hiked, and flagged with a second long gush, and even as the shock of its heat faded a shudder rippled through her.

Her ears rang—deaf even without the other dog snarling. She tightened on him, clenching, squeezing Werner's cock. Sully dug her claws in, and her spine arched, but even as she trembled she couldn't tear herself from Werner's eyes. With each pulse of his virile seed the insistent tension drained a little more, his bucking was a little less forceful…

The expression shifted to one of satisfaction. Because he'd done it—the thought hit her addled brain hard—he'd bred her, was breeding her, even if the throbbing was almost imperceptibly gentle now, he was still making her his and control words or no the husky cried out, limbs going rigid again, and finally she could no longer see him, because her eyes had rolled back.

Peace.

She became aware of herself gradually. Werner was resting on his side, and his arm was lightly draped around her. It was a more complicated variety of peacefulness—not just the collie's embrace but also the lassitude of exertion, and her overtaxed nerves seeking respite.

He wasn't just holding her, either: he was still buried in her, and every time Sully moved she felt the dog's knot shift and rub from within. She told herself she wasn't feeling the rest of it, wasn't feeling the load he'd pumped into her, or her own body's grateful response to it.

“Oh, my God," she whispered. “What did you do?"

“Are you going to make a scene?"

“You don't have to put me under again." She shut her eyes. Maybe it wasn't true—what about all the chemicals they doped the dogs up with? “Can I really get… pregnant? I can't, right?"

“You'd better hope you can. Because then you're useful, and maybe that'll give you time to figure out some other way to be useful to them."

“'Them'? Mary and Ron?"

He laughed: a deep, rumbling laugh, bitter and coarse. “AGMC. The United States… the whole human race. There's no going back."

She didn't want to think about it. Ron couldn't have acted alone; the secret couldn't be kept indefinitely. She could be fixed—rescued. Or she might wake up, the whole affair some grotesque nightmare…

She did not wake up. Fifteen minutes later the Border Collie put his paw on her hip, holding her in place, and worked his cock free. At once she felt the liquid spilling from her, staining her fur; she could only shudder to think of how much was left.

“This was the bargain they gave you?" she asked. He'd stood; was heading for the door. “They woke you up somehow, in exchange for doing this to me? It doesn't make you human, either. You'll never be one of them."

“I won't. And there was no bargain. They gave me an order. You know as well as anyone what happens when we disobey."

“You were always… awake? Aware? You never said anything. All those times in the office…"

“Indeed. But I always was like this. I always will be like this. And so will you." The door opened; he paused in the light from the hallway beyond, a faceless silhouette. “Goodnight, sweet lady. Goodnight."