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Die For My Sin (C)2015 Sinclair Diavante

DEPRECIATED

For Keman. This is your story.

Prologue

Earth, 2015

"So this is it." Erick exhaled, calming himself for what was about to come.

He slowly lifted a heavy mass of custom grown tissue from its 120 gallon nutrient tank, watching the thick clear fluid as it spilled back inside. It pattered onto the floor while he carried it to a metal table, setting it gently down onto a sterile sheet he had laid out. Glancing at the floor, he realized that was some mess for him to clean up later. Why hadn't he thought of that? He focused back to what was in front of him.

It looked ironically like so much dead flesh, but he knew it had a mind to live, to feed, and survive. To drastically alter the appearance of its wearer. With a base genetic structure sourced from canine DNA, short stubble covered the pasty white skin, shaped like a surfer's "shorty" wetsuit, terminating above the elbow and knee.

He stared at his gloves and considered for a moment, then ripped them off. What was the point? He picked up one end and held it up to the light, inspecting the stubble closely, making sure it was even. These hairs would later grow out into a single density shorthair fur pelt, gray with subtle brown markings at the tip of each hair. Markings just like those found on a gray wolf.

Although it was inherently stretchy, it was designed to fit his body tightly and integrate with his genetics; it was a suit he would put on only once. The fur would grow out later, but first his existing skin and vasculature would need to be absorbed and integrated. Over the next few months, he would lose some of his underlying body fat, metabolized as energy needed to grow and adapt.

Erick worked alone, the skin would take a lot of effort to put on, and there was no zipper. The region to be covered had been freshly shaven. Entry was through the neck, and in this state it would tear easily, so he used surgical lubricant to make it slippery on the inside. He carefully slid his limbs through the openings and positioned the suit in all the right places, some harder to reach than others. Close attention went to the area surrounding his anus, getting that wrong would be a disaster.

A long sheath ran up from between his legs, attached with supple webbing below his navel. The suit had its own, purely for cosmetic appearances. The sheath was large enough to make an uncircumcised man jealous, and supportive underwear was about to become obsolete. He popped his balls into his new scrotum one at a time, hoping nothing went wrong with the absorption process in that particular area. It was like climbing into an incinerator, this suit could kill him.

Erick worked quickly, it felt like a layer of glue was steadily hardening between his skin and the tissue as he slid the last sections into place on his thighs and arms, smoothing out all the air pockets. His heart hammered with a combination of joy and fear, his new skin felt burning hot compared to his own, due to the difference in canine and human body temperature. His experiments had shown such differences would normalize over time, but still. Was it too hot?

Everywhere the tissue touched, he felt a prickling sensation, edging into sharp pain, like a limb that had gone asleep. The pain slowly faded into numb warmth as his blood was accessed directly and circulated. The tissue would deplete all of its own internal energy to link into his vasculature, marking the next 24 hours as critical. If it didn't succeed, it would die and his blood would fill with toxins. He wouldn't likely survive such an outcome. There was no exit strategy.

Erick went to sleep that night feeling as if his whole life's work was nearing completion. He had a mild fever, but his white blood cell count remained steady. He thought everything was going great.

He never woke up. As it would happen, he was allergic to dogs and had missed that important aspect completely.

He died in his sleep.

600 years later...

<NEWSFEED> (Acquired direct downlink) ( [Zacharus]

'Dog Man Found' San Jose, CA. A local scientist was found dead in his home after a strange odor was reported to the authorities on Friday. Initially, what was thought to be a drug lab was later identified as involvement with unlicensed genetic research. In what's becoming a rapidly growing underground industry, the scientist, Erick Michaelson, had apparently been performing experiments with stem cells on himself, covering half of his body with what strangely appeared to be fur. "He got a lot of packages in the mail, but seemed normal to me." quoted a neigh...

Sinclair slid the datafeed out of his field of vision and stared at his closest personal assistant, Zacharus. He tilted his muzzle and gave the barest nod.

"Interesting. What makes him so special?" His voice was deep and guttural in Common, an English derivative. Like most Rhenthar, he growled the R's.

"Uh." Zach stammered as his feelings of pleasure peeled away into mild shock. "There's more! He had websites... his research was all open source..." His eyes lost focus as he accessed his cranial wetware, a living computer inside his head. To his horror, what he was looking for was missing.

A few moments passed, Sin splayed his ears with impatience and narrowed his eyes.

"Let me guess," Sin pointed a clawed finger at Zach, "you don't have that information on you."

"Well," Zach shook his muzzle, "no. But I'm telling you! This one is perfect! I'm so excited, he would be. Beyond. Happy. He spent his whole life trying to become," he lowered his voice and spoke with quiet reverence, "basically one of us."

"One of us." Sin leaned back and tapped his claw tips on the table with each syllable, "I need hard data," he shook his head, "just because he tried to grow some fur doesn't mean he'll be compatible with our culture." He paused, "you know full well what happens when we modify instincts. Hmmm?"

Zach yelped and nodded quickly, holding his ears flat and muzzle lowered in submission.

"We're only going to be able to pull this stunt once," he spread his paws wide; "it has to be perfect. Can we even wake him? Tell me you researched that part."

Zach licked the air with a whimper, "Yes, sir! His death took place in the pre-delta shift of the magnetic poles, retrieval from that period and position in space is entirely possible."

The Earth, like almost all matter in the universe, was in constant motion. Its precise location 600 years prior would need to be calculable down to the last nanometer.

Sinclair pondered, humans. A wave of doubt flooded his mind at the thought of involving one of them, the father of his race. Now nearly extinct.

A lethal virus which attacked their immune system, formerly known as HIV, mutated in the early 21st century. It gained a protein coating, resisting oxidation to mutate into an airborne vector of transmission. It also went dormant, completely benign, and proceeded to pass around with the ease of a common cold for eight generations. Then an unknown environmental factor triggered it, changing it back to its lethal form. Called the "Dirty Eight," billions died in just a couple of decades. There was still no cure, and why bother? There were almost none left to save.

Sin leaned back in his antique pre-war chair; the black leather creaked beneath his unusually muscular body. A cutout at the bottom allowed his tail to wag back and forth, like a metronome. Slowly and patiently. This project required much patience, it had many facets. He steepled his clawed fingertips and looked out the windows behind Zach. The view of Old York stretched out seemingly forever, from the 256th floor, the very top. He stared with golden yellow eyes, the eyes of a hunter on an empty stomach.

Zach swallowed; his scent hovered between eagerness and fear of failure. The mixture of the two produced an acrid stench with which Sin was all too familiar. A disappointing history with this one existed.

Zach yipped, "wait! I've got it!" He transmitted the data, probably acquired from his research team located elsewhere in the building. Sinclair perused it carefully.

"What am I looking at? What is that, a collar?" Sin stared at one of the images, virtually displayed in his vision. He squinted at a photo of a black ring of polymer with silvery metal strips riveted to the outside. Blunt metal prongs faced inwards along the interior. A bulge opposite a rudimentary locking buckle housed something, presumably electronics of a sort.

"Yes! Does that look familiar? Making those was a hobby of his. It's a remote control discipline collar, designed for humans to wear. He had an internet site dedicated to them. He was kinky, sir."

"How crude. Kinky? You mean... wait." Sin's eyes opened wide at the implication, "you've got to be kidding me. He wouldn't even need a culture wipe to accept a Mark V. He'd actually enjoy it. Zach, how the fuck did you find him?"

Zach wagged his curly tail with excitement, taking the question literally; he dove into his wetware to find the beginning. He had Siberian Husky in his lineage, white with black markings covering his biceps and thighs, a black bar ran up his forehead. He was small in stature, lithe and built for speed. Narrow hips, thin bones, Sin could almost wrap his big paws completely around that waist, as he had on many an occasion.

The sex had been fantastic, but the psychological impact was a wreck. Such initial promise, such high hopes he had had with this one, but in the end... stability just wasn't there. Each failure to please Sin had crushed Zach's attitude for days, sometimes even weeks. He was unsuitable, and they both knew it.

Sin kept him close, though, because he needed trust and loyalty both, in equal quantities. Dog knew, Zach would do anything for him, anything at all. Now, somehow he had worked a miracle. With this project the future now might possess great potential. And liability, too, so much risk was involved. But with great risk came great rewards.

His gaze returned to Zach and the little husky jumped. Sin continued on like he didn't notice. "I want to know everything there is to know about this... human. This Arrrick."

Zach nodded and darted glances around the room, as if he were searching for unseen threats. He did a poor job suppressing the whine in his voice, "my team will correlate your request at once, sir!" He turned his muzzle sideways and bared his throat deeply, in the Rhenthar gesture for a salute. Sinclair exhaled and mirrored it, but with considerably less throat shown.

With the sound of air through tail fur and claws catching grip in clawstop carpeting, Zach departed a little too quickly. Sin's prey drive came alive, his pupils dilated in irritation. He figured it was likely that Zach was wearing scent mask body wash. Again. For what little good that did. The collar would have to go back on, he decided. Decisions, decisions...

"Zach. Wait."

Zach paused, the door was halfway open. He turned around and stared at Sin.

"What's his orientation?"

Zach stared at the floor, his ears splayed sideways like an airplane, "sir, I would never waste your time like that." He grinned, "He loves dick, sir."

Sinclair showed some white with a grin, "good boy."

Zach yelped and gibbered for a moment, "thank you, sir!" He almost jumped through the doorway in earnest.

Graphical data shifted into Sin's vision as he assigned cost assessment tasks to some of his other employees. There were many available, and most weren't lucky enough to ever interact with him directly. This project required close supervision, however, and despite all the technology at his claw tips, there was nothing like a one-on-one.

"Waking the dead," as some called it, was prohibited in all occupied regions of space, including Earth. The consequences of performing it were dire, both legally and physically. A successful wake moved enough data through space and time to leave a gaping rent in its destination, causing highly unlikely events to occur at random for a length of time in the nearby region. There would be a lot of death and destruction; it was a good idea to leave quickly.

On the one paw, the technology and equipment needed for the most basic retrieval was costly and extremely difficult to manufacture. Devices that could detect such equipment in operation, on the other paw, were trivial; and they were located just about everywhere. When the time came, people would know. There would be no hiding this.

The process didn't actually perform an act of resurrection. It retrieved all the precise details of the brain, and all its memories, the molecular position of every neuron: pure data, from the past. What one chose to do with that data afterwards was a separate, considerably more legal matter.

So he wanted to become a Rhenthar...

Sin wanted the perfect companion, the perfect pet, possibly even the perfect mate, all rolled up into one creature. He had tried searching, and even shaping other Rhenthar to suit his needs, but there were always problems, critical aspects were missing. The loyalty was forced, often desperate. Rhenthar inherently do not worship their superiors unless they themselves are the lowest of stature. A near equal would always be sizing him up, instinctively looking for weaknesses. That was unacceptable. He needed someone truly unique, someone with the utmost in respect, someone with a unique appreciation for some of the most basic things that Sin would give him. Appreciation for life and body, both his own and Sin's.

He pondered... someone controllable, at last. Wasn't it said, good slaves are never found, only built? He wanted someone far, far superior to a slave.

With enough money changing paws to buy cities, daily, his projects were large, and his desires were even larger. Materials requisition would begin immediately for a modular construct of an individually benign design, but whose collective output would take him one step closer towards owning perfection.

Zach carefully shut the door behind him, its solid heft clicked shut with precise finality. He turned and put his back against it, warmth flooded out of his fur in pure embarrassment. He shut his eyes and swore quietly, though no one was around and the door was soundproof.

"Stupid, stupid! Whu, what the fuck were you thu, thinking? Hey, let's just be completely unprepared." Zach had been trying as hard as he could to show Sin that his speech had improved, but it had a long ways to go. His mind still hadn't recovered from the last time they had modified it.

Zach played the last few minutes through his head several more times, cringing and wishing he could somehow undo it all. Sin. Fucking. Clare. The Rhenthar he was hopelessly in love with. Love, which he couldn't even express, because they had tried that once. It had been the most amazing feeling, to be placed into the center of Sinclair's universe. The training, the modifications... the sex. Zach ran his claws through his head fur and straightened his sheath, firmly pushing those thoughts aside.

The past was the past, and truly everything would stay in the past, if he couldn't demonstrate to Sin his capacity to assist him in finding a mate. He wanted to please him so badly.

Zach made his way through some of the noisier areas of central operations, a substantial portion of the skyscraper owned by Clare Industries on the planet Allenvan. He stopped at the door to his research team's office, and bared his teeth, trying to look dominant and angry. He opened the door and walked in like he owned the place. Several of his team were busy working holodisplays and talking. He slammed the door behind him and all the ambient noise fluttered to a halt. Eyes went to him.

"Tom, I need more information on Arrrick, a lot more information. I want to know the size of his fucking feet! Sandy! I need a psych report interpolated from all his known contacts, his friends. I wanna know if he was afraid of the dark, okay? Everyone! I need more information, and I need it yesterday!"

He held a paw up to his head to massage a building headache. People were still staring at him, frozen mid-sentence, mid-step. "Well? Now means now!"

The office area erupted into noise and activity, new communications channels were opened, claws jabbed at screens, data began to pour into his wetware. Yes, good...

Chapter 1.

12 years later...

I was noticing how much effort it took to hide my stumble as I walked. The nightclub's entrance I had just wandered out of yawned behind me like a hungry beast. Don't fall over, Keman, not in public. Just how much did I have again? Those drinks were pretty strong. Oh well! The first step of my first mission was now complete, I had found all the locations for my required tech hardware. The only thing left was to pull the trigger and spend a lot of credits.

The world started swimming around me, slowly shifting in a manner alcohol had never before caused. The curb where I could catch a taxi seemed to stare at me from a kilometer away.

One paw in front of the other, Keman. Maybe I needed to rest, I thought, sinking to the ground and welcoming the duracrete against my hands, my legs wouldn't support me anymore. People are staring, get up! Can't... (discontinuity)

"Hold him, damnit! He's a lot heavier than he looks. Ungh, grab that arm." Wha? Some dude on my left. He was slipping one of my furry arms over his shoulder and lifting me up off the sidewalk. Help is good, yes. I stared at the stars in the night sky, consciously aware that they were the least of my concerns, but I just couldn't point my muzzle anywhere else. The tendons in my neck felt like worn out rubber bands. I tried to take up the slack, but only caught glimpses of short blond hair and army fatigues. Clothing? Sniff, sniff. Phew... human. Human? Why would a human help me?

All around us, glowbulb signs buzzed and flickered in every size and shape imaginable. Brightly declaring promises of the best products to be had. Holo lasers sought our retinas like annoying flying insects, producing impossible displays in the air, pulsing with subaudio, which privately offered even more. Trinity was a technic city, completely unregulated and the largest on the planet Phaylact. The perfect place to procure unlicensed black market hardware, the kind my team needed, and it was nearly alive with activity at all hours. Creatures of many species came and went. A heavy bass thump pounded behind us from within the nightclub.

My name's Keman, I'm a Rhenthar, a combination of man and wolf. A genetically engineered species created centuries ago. All the best parts of a wolf, and the worst parts of man, if you ask me. Created on demand, with the thought that man's best friend would make an even better slave. Isn't that the shit?

Fortunately, we followed the same path of slavery most took when it came to mankind, which was such an ironic word to me. It wasn't long before we demanded the same rights every other Citizen had. We got 'em, and once the suppression breeding was halted, my species turned out pretty smart, too. Very smart, and that was all the more reason for man to dislike his new equal.

So, I had to think... another hate crime? That I even could think felt strange, since the rest of my body felt so disconnected and insignificant. I was beyond drunk, was my consciousness even real or merely an illusion? The noises around me broke up, reversing themselves, then skipped forward. Whoa. I felt like an observer, entirely intact to witness this new disturbing reality as it presented itself. Nausea sank into my mind, one tendril at a time. I zoned out and withdrew into the furthest corners of my head, (discontinuity)

And... I'm back. Blondie's partner now had my other arm over his shoulder. Buzzed red hair, more army fatigues. I was slurping up my surroundings, one frame at a time. An eye twitch here, a focus there, I moved my head around with the rocking motion the two created while carrying my limp form. They were helping me along, but didn't they realize my claws on my hind paws were dragging across the duracrete? That shit hurts. Wait a minute, wait a Dog damned minute. People around us weren't sparing us more than a glance, this all looked perfectly normal. Nothing to see here. Bullshit! Something was wrong here...

Dim pain twitched its way up my legs as the fur on my toes yielded to flesh, then some of that, too, was left on the ground. I struggled to walk, to halt the damage to my claws and feet, but I was only making it worse. The signals to my muscles were all on mute. I needed to get a good look at these creeps, but my field of vision was too small, surrounded with inky black depths.

Fear only felt like a distant, entirely theoretical emotion, but I knew I should be afraid. My hearing dropped in pitch, sounds seemed to reach me from the bottom of a maintenance tunnel, all distorted. I couldn't tell which way my ears were even pointing, so I tried to make them lay flat. Maybe they did. Who were these guys? What the fuck was happening? And where were my fight and flight instincts? My sweet red overdrive of adrenaline, the owning of the moment. Time to think, to plan, and execute.

All right, I'm afraid, now. This isn't from alcohol.

Do something, Keman. There's something you need to do, right now! Do it! Shit. I can't tell!

I swam in a sea of thought, grasping at floating bits of memory. Conversations with strangers, the really cute bartender, Rhodesian Ridgeback, my fingers aching to follow the ridge to his tail. Spilled drinks, my leg fur stuck together, pulling free. Ouch.

Wait.

There, ouch. Ouch. I played it back several times. Ouch. That's not fur stuck together, that was a microdart. Reality sucked me into a rush of realization, I was drugged! These guys were probably about to harvest my organs. Fuck!

"Hurrr. Nurr murr muh guh." That's right, tell 'em, Keman. Not helpful!

"It's ok, big guy, we've got a cab on its way." Blondie, loud enough to be heard by everyone passing around us. A few were giving us more-interested looks. What will they take? A kidney? Oh, Dog. Please don't take my heart, I need that to live, just a tiny bit. Something I need to do... something I need to do...

Distant thunder grew rapidly in pitch, fizzing thrusters blew dust and debris all around us as a sleek black hovercar descended to the curb, right as the two men dragged me to it. They now had a certain confidence to their scent, like they had expected it to arrive at precisely that moment. Good that I can smell, not good that they're confident. Humans smell just like Rhenthar, but different. Dirtier.

Flicker, glance. That's no cab, I could see that much. The guy closest to it reached sideways and opened the back door. Together, they set me down inside the dark interior, and one of them circled around to help pull me through from the other side. He almost broke my tail, that's no handle! The door-jam looked like a great place to grab, but it just wasn't in the cards. My arms only flopped uselessly when I tried.

These guys were quick and efficient, they must work out, or something. I weigh a bit more than 100 kilos, and I can stand up as tall as two meters on my hind paws. So this was all no easy task, for humans. One took the front, the other sat right next to me. I could smell a third, behind the controls. Both doors shut with a thump, and we were in motion with no time wasted. (discontinuity)

I'm awake! I gasped and darted my eyes around, they were responding sluggishly, making my vision smear when they moved. The interior stank of new polymers, human sweat, and... Confidence. Theirs. I had all the physical capabilities of a wet noodle, and whatever the hell they had dosed me with was definitely messing with my perception of time. Things kept spinning into fast-forward. No awareness of my peril was provoking my adrenal responses. I couldn't "see red." I couldn't sink my fangs deep into those fleshy little throats to get the hell out of here. But I sure wanted to...

Frustration and despair blasted my mind with unhealthy denial. This wasn't happening. It was the beginning of my first real op, I had just gotten hired-on full time to support a team I'd been working with for many years, a group of freelance bounty hunters close enough to call my family. I'm only a thermal grease monkey, a hacker. Physical tough-guy stuff wasn't my specialty. Probably why these goons picked me. But how could they know I'm the ghost in the machine? I'm all fur, claws, and teeth, damnit.

Somehow, they knew.

Damn, all those credits, half paid up front for this contract. I'm so close to being able to build my own starship, and now this had to happen?!? Fuck. Fuck!

I concentrated through the haze. Did my team know where I was? Probably not. And that's never been a problem before... do something, Keman. I'm missing something...

"How much you shoot him with?" The driver peered at me through the mirror as we accelerated around a comer. "If you fucking killed another one, I'll gut you myself." We reached a takeoff zone and I felt myself sink into the polyvinyl bench seat. The engines spooled to a high whistle as they took us up a sharp ascent, gaining altitude rapidly.

"Chill out, man. This is the special stuff, Zim's orders. He's not really out, like the others. But with what this stuff costs, you think I'd waste it so easy? He scanned in at 105 kilos, so that's what he got, one unit for that weight. He's in a happy place right now." Blondie patted my head like I was a dog, a mortal sin in my culture for a human to do. Ballsy. Gimme those fingers... try it again, pal.

Heh. Who was I kidding? It took me several seconds to even realize he touched me, before trying to duck my head out of the way. But now it sounded to me like these guys did this regularly, and to me, that seemed like the worst sign of all.

I lay there, sprawled out on the back seat, trying to think of what to do. More conversation drifted in around me, but it was all only the price of lead in New China, to me. Still, there was a nagging thought, something incredibly important was still missing.

A secret weapon? No, but where did my particle blaster go? It's comfortable heft was missing, underneath my left armpit. When had they taken it? Not that it mattered, I couldn't lift it, let alone aim it. No, that's not it! Damnit, Keman, can't you hear the drum roll? (discontinuity)

Woof. Dog, that felt good. Better than some of the rec's I toyed with in the past, even. I felt myself stiffen up inside my sheath, and then I got angry with myself. The end of this rabbit hole might just be death... or worse. A sense of vulnerability slid down my spine as I wondered what might be worse. Eyes like black diamonds glittered at me occasionally from the rearview mirror, like he could read my mind.

My wetware. Yes! Oh. No. No-no. Not responding. What... the fuck! When was the last time I saw it? I always left my HUD active. It was working in the bar... but not now. Somehow my wetware was inactive, dead. I couldn't get anything to appear in my field of vision. I felt stupid, how could I have missed that? No HUD, no comms, no way to reach out to my team. I mentally kicked myself. Well, there it is, what's missing. Fucking great. (discontinuity)

"...how did he know? I figured he was full of it, when he said a Rhenny was gonna to walk in there tonight, looking just like him. Then in he comes, just like that." Blondie snapped his fingers.

"Yeah, no shit. Zim's got the intel, that's how. Ever wonder what the fuck that whacko does with em? You ever fuckin' think about that?" Redhead's voice was new to me, I hadn't heard him before. It was annoyingly quick, like he was amped up on too many stims.

"Biotech research, some shit like that. I've seen his lab. That's all I know, I only care about how much it pays. It'll be babes tonight, boys, oh yeah. Sooner we drop him off, the sooner we're paid, then the sooner I'm outa here." The driver glanced back from the windshield, he smelled immensely satisfied.

"You hear that, fella?" Redhead slapped my arm a few times, and I flattened my ears when he shouted, "you're gonna get sliced up into tiny little pieces for a buncha slides! Haha, better you than me!"

Grrr. He's full of shit. Please, let him be full of shit. Whimper, whine. Please let him be full of shit. I escaped back into the embrace of the drug, it was encouraging me to relax and accept my fate, (discontinuity)

"...collar ready. Let me check his neck size." Collar? Blondie pulled a measuring tape from a pocket in his tactical vest and ran it around my neck. "Forty-six centies..."

Whoa there. What the fuck, a collar? Rhenthar don't wear collars. I struggled to look around, harder than I had at any moment previously. I had to see what "collar" he was talking about. Maybe I'd misheard.

Redhead drew out a gleaming, polished circular-ish steel band from one of his pockets. He sounded very smug, "every dog needs one of these..."

My asshole pinched to the size of a period, as I willed myself to stare. It looked thick, perhaps two centimeters, maybe three centimeters tall. It was unlike anything I had ever seen. From the way it was drooping in his hands, I could tell that it was flexible. Like a metal segmented snake. I saw a tiny keypad on its side, next to an even tinier graphical display. Part of which was glowing green and red. The green light was flickering in a pattern I recognized: network traffic. I noticed a half dozen gold stubs facing inwards equally spaced around the interior. They were smooth, not sharp at all. Maybe designed for direct skin contact, through my fur. What the fuck could that be for? It was all curves, no edges, and no wiring that I could see.

Redhead pushed a few buttons on the tiny keypad, the collar emitted a high pitched whine, some sort of secondary power supply coming online. I watched in horror as it moved on its own. It shrank in diameter all on its own, then sprang open, the two halves clicking apart. The edges were precision machined, and the whole thing looked very expensive, it seemed completely out of place with these thugs.

It also looked... chillingly permanent. I briefly wondered what it was going to feel like, curiosity that was about to be sated, I knew.

I shut my eyes as Redhead parted my fur and closed it around my neck. It locked in place with a loud click, then emitted a high pitched activation tone. I kept my eyes shut, it was my only defense, my only way to reject the situation as a whole. I felt embarrassed, my race had not worn such things for hundreds of years, though this collar was undoubtedly far more advanced than anything we wore during our time of slavery. The drug somehow made it seem pleasant.

The interior of the collar felt warm against my skin, and it felt like it was too tight. When I swallowed, I could feel that there was just enough room for my Adam's apple, but, still. It bumped, I bristled, it was a fucking collar! I was wearing a collar! Holy shit I should feel enraged, I should claw their eyes out! I exhaled sharply, deciding. When I could. Oh yes. It would happen. Gimme those eyes.

"Hey." Blondie leaned down and was speaking to me, I saw, when I slowly opened my eyes. "Zim'll have you for about a week. Then you'll go someplace else, off-world, to your new owner. This collar is his, and that makes you his. You guys thought your days of slavery were over? They just began, for you." He laughed, then turned serious. "If you try to cut it off, it kills you. Disobey your owner... and it'll do worse."

"That's right," Redhead leaned in, "Hurt you fuckin' bad... so be a good fuckin' dog and do what yer fuckin' told."

I had never felt so trapped in all my life. I needed out, there must be a way out! No one should even see me like this, it can't actually be happening. My mission, my friends, all my credits, my life, thirty-seven years. Was it all about to become the past, like some distant memory?

Hope burst into my mind like a star gone nova. My team. They would come get me, rip this collar off, and take me away. Thoughts of rescue, like hunger, felt deep as my marrow. Please come get me... whimper whine.

Blondie must have been psychic, "oh yeah, your wetware?" I stared. "It's been inactive since you were within a meter of a particular something. That something is now locked around your neck. You won't need it, where you're going." Oh fuck...

"Yeah, you dogs should never fuckin' have that shit in the first place!" Redhead, gimme that tongue, (discontinuity)

THUMP. THUD-THUD. Doors opening and shutting, everyone got out, except for me. I was still high as an ultradrive spine, a combination of numb euphoria had taken a firm grip of my mind, once I let it. I couldn't tell how long we were in the air, five minutes, maybe five hours.

Someone was leaning in, must have been staring at me, I wasn't ready to open my eyes, "that's him. Doesn't he look perfect? I'll find his flaws, for sure. But externally, he's perfect. I've never seen a better specimen of Rhenthar sourced from Canis Lupus." Not all Rhenthar come from wolves, just the cool ones. Flattery won't work on me, though, you prick.

I peeled my eyes open to see who it was. Must be Zim. He looked old, was wearing a white lab coat. Wispy white hair, bushy white eyebrows, dark slacks pressed to perfection. How incredibly cliché, Nazi much? Where's your accent?

"Well? What are you waiting for? Bring him inside, yes, yes... hurry now. Twenty- four micrograms of Cryocet, you're sure?"

"Yep," Redhead drew himself up proudly, "112 minutes ago. We didn't even stop for food."

"Good, yes, hurry then. He'll be fully mobile, soon." I tried to flex my paws, but they weren't listening. Whatever.

I was up, and dragging along under two of the men, again. My eyes felt like weights were attached to the lids, I couldn't keep them open for long. I could just barely make out some metal structure we were entering before they fell shut again.

Gone were the sights, sounds, and smells of Trinity. Now, we were in the middle of nowhere, some sort of deeply forested region. I could hear real insects chirping. The smell of a thousand scents in the forest stretched out in every direction. Dim instincts in me longed to run free, to escape into paradise. The sky was black, and it was entirely full of stars. The outbuilding we headed towards was metal and duracrete. It spanned several floors up and looked professionally built, and it looked all alone out here.

We went through a gate in a fence. I still couldn't walk, but I could alternate which foot was dragging the most of my weight now. My hind paw pads felt like ground up meat, I could smell my blood and was sure that was the source. The loud humming after the gate swung shut told me all I needed to know. It was electrified. There would be no escaping this prison, (discontinuity)

Artificially white light blinded me when I tried to open my eyes once more. It seemed to be coming from everywhere. My bloody hind paw pads squeaked as they dragged me down a metal hallway. When my pupils adjusted, I could see the light was actually coming from where the shiny metal walls met the floor and ceiling, completely eliminating any shadows. I turned my head and stared at my reflection.

I'm proud of my heritage, being the closest thing to a wolf, and all. My gray fur with brown going down my arms and thighs. The little white areas above and between my eyes, like eyebrows. My gray "V" stripes spanning my creamy white chest, fading between my legs. I focused on what was around my neck, it stood out, looking alien, foreign. It didn't belong there. After I got out of here, first on the list was figuring out how to take it off.

Little did I know, the collar was soon to be the least of my concerns. The smells of the forest fell away from my fur, replaced with a sterile, bland metallic scent. Anxiety sprouted wings, it took a trip into my stomach and fluttered around with promises of more. Much more.

Zim ran ahead of us and stared into a retinal scanner, part of an access panel beside a large round metal door. "Authorized" echoed down the passage in a rich human female voice, accompanied by several locks disengaging. Click-click-clack. The door pulled in a few centimeters, then slid sideways on smooth bearings.

"Hurry now, we don't have much time," Zim tittered. He motioned the men inside, after we made a 90 degree turn. I could almost walk, but I was still leaving bloody paw prints behind me. The pain in my pads had leveled off, telling me that it wasn't too much damage, but still. My mouth watered with the need to lick them.

I thought about how great a nap might feel, then took one sniff in the new room. My eyes opened wide, a moment of tension wound itself tightly around me. The gears in my mind were rusty, but the scent of fear was overwhelming, and it wasn't my own, yet. It was mixed with something strange, musky pleasure. The two didn't mix very well. I needed to start taking an active role, that was Rhenthar scent, too many to count, and fresh.

My tunnel vision was mostly gone, I was more able to take in my surroundings, secretly staring at the two men holding me up. I didn't want them to think I was conscious yet, but I needed to see if they were armed. Yup. Both men carried sidearms, of a type I was not familiar with. Aim and pull the trigger, safety usually marked in red. I could handle that, one of those would do nicely, but I still pined for my 'blaster.

I gave away my disguise of sleep as I openly stared around the room. I couldn't help it. It was small, but my nose said it was huge, yet it looked to be only about a half dozen meters wide and long, at the most. It was almost empty, except for what was sitting at the center, and along one wall. I glanced at the big viewscreens mounted to it, but they didn't have my attention for long.

In the center, there stood what looked like. A metal exo-skeleton. Dentist's chair. Gleaming alloy overlapping plates and it. Was. Hurf.

My adrenal responses fired. About fucking time.

Moving. It's moving! A green laser flickered past my eyes as it scanned my body from the top down. I refused to blink, and willed myself through the harsh afterimage the beam had left. My fur stood out painfully, from what I was seeing. Distant flight instincts rippled to life, my heart rate doubled. What. The fuck. Is that?

The men holding me up sensed my reaction and leaned in, preventing me from putting my feet under me. I was still weak, the floor was cold and smooth. Sweat added to the blood my paw pads were excreting, making my feet slide like they were on wet ice. Time slowed as my heart rushed in my ears.

Normally, this was time on my side, time to think, to plan, to execute. But all it felt to me, was like the ground rushing to meet me as I fell from some great height.

I darted glances at various shapes and hoses mounted in the ceiling. I could hear clicks and pops from solenoids above. I stared at large holding tanks, and heard fluid gurgling through them. The shock of seeing the chair adjust itself to my proportions was unsettling, hydraulic pumps whined into life as it made final extensions and adjustments.

My lips peeled back, exposing my weaponry without a thought. Several things were wrong with this "chair." I didn't see how it was even possible to sit on, there were metal protrusions at the top and bottom. They looked similar to the axis mounts of a spinning globe, the kind I had been so fascinated with as a pup, all covered with continents and oceans. With a stretch of my imagination, I could almost understand the part at the bottom, with all those hoses. Some sort of enema. But the part at the top, that made no sense. Where was my head supposed to go?

I was surprised to hear one of the men growl at me, until it stopped and then I realized it was actually me. My growl, my voice. Gimme those throats. Strength came in waves, a whole new version of having the shakes. Adrenaline apparently didn't mix well with this drug. I felt less than capable of doing anything, but I could tell that was changing, quick. My heart pounded even faster!

Zim stood in a corner, keying in a few sequences on a datapad. I slowly put my hind paws under me, my toes spread out to give me the best grip I could manage. I stood right up, ready to dish out some serious hurt, my paws open wide with sharp claws I knew would tear their skin to ribbons. Something hit me in the head, from behind.

I tried to recoil from the blow, but something wasn't right, my head wouldn't budge. I realized something had dropped from the ceiling and gripped my head tightly, like a vice, the jaws were under my ears and I couldn't slip free. I tried to twist out of it, but it was too tight. I bared my teeth at the men near me, snarling with hate in my eyes. Hate, death, murder, gimme your blood. They stepped out of my reach and stood near the door, with a scent most frustrating of all. Calm, curious, amused. Drool fell from my teeth as I built up my rage. All claws and teeth, nothing within reach. Everything took on a red sheen, the room brightened as my pupils grew.

The articulated arm which had my head didn't even budge when I suddenly let all my weight hang from it, hoping to tear it from the ceiling. My paws simply left the floor, and I hung in the air, shocked. I put my feet back down as it turned me around, slowly forcing me to walk backwards. I held my paws out behind me to try and grab the chair or anything near it, to halt my progress, but there was nothing I could reach.

Something tripped my legs and I fell back with a plop against blue gel cushioning. I quickly realized I hadn't actually tripped, it had forced me down onto the seat, small as it was. There was a slot for my tail, and I knew what was now aiming below it. Pointy metal and dribbling with clear lubricant.

Despite all my adrenaline, things were happening faster than I could track. Something squeezed tight around both of my ankles, and in the process of pulling them down, I felt metal bands slide up over my chest and somehow snapped shut around my wrists. My hands were pulled towards my head as they continued upwards, and the bands over my chest reeled tight, so tight I couldn't breathe at all. I strained to draw some air, to whine and howl. My eyes ached with the need to vocalize.

The jaws released my head and rose away as the chair tilted back, bringing my feet up into the air. My weight settled onto my spine in a strangely comfortable fashion, and with the compression of the padding under me, I found that I could breathe again. A wide metal roller tucked under my chin and slowly drew my head "up" so that my muzzle pointed straight out from my body, pressing my forehead gently against a small curved pad of blue gel. I was on my back, now my throat was exposed to the world, the ultimate position of submission. All I could see were several strange metal protrusions pointing right at the front of my muzzle, mere centimeters away. The terror they induced was worse than the biggest Alpha holding his teeth against my neck.

I couldn't stop whimpering, and I felt embarrassed to have gone from rage to fear so quickly. But the fear of the unknown was the worst of them all. I had no idea what was about to happen. Anger and rage had gotten me nowhere. Fear was all I had left.

I struggled to pull my paws free, pulling at everything. A wave of momentary success shattered against a wall of failure, while my arms and legs could move, a hydraulic hiss brought them all back. I fought harder, once more cycling from fear into anger. My ears lay flat when I paused to listen, someone was laughing.

"We're gone, Zim. I don't need to see anything past this point." Blondie, walking to the doorway.

"He won't be harmed," Zim approached me, "physically."

"The credits?" Redhead piped up.

"Same as before," Zim responded distractedly, "already in your accounts. Thank you, gentlemen!"

The door rolled shut, click-click-clack. I was now alone with Zim. My heart still pounded in my ears, my breaths were fast and shallow. Anger was a bright cinder in the fireplace of my emotions. It burned steady, but dim. I needed some more fuel, and I was about to get it.

Zim ran his toothpaste white fingers over my collar, under it, inspecting it's tightness. "Do you know why you're here?"

The concept of speaking seemed so new, I didn't quite know how to respond. My scent of anger must have faded to embarrassment, that I had been able to talk for probably quite a while made me feel dumb.

I swallowed old saliva, and kicked cobwebs from my brain. My voice sounded hoarse, but adrenaline still had me in its clutches. I spoke quickly, "Yeah, I do. You dumb fucks forgot about Article 68 that specifically prohibits my species from being used for animal testing purposes. That's why! It's punishable by death, I'm sure you know!" Even as I said it, I knew it sounded ridiculous.

"Species." Zim seemed troubled by the word, like he had just eaten a lemon. "We made you, so we can use you. Isn't that fair?"

"Fuh." My eyes tinted red further and my lips refused to cover my teeth, making speech impossible. After several false starts, gibbering incoherently, I calmed myself down, enough to speak.

"Fair? Get. Me. Out. Of. THIS!" I screamed, wrenching at my arms and legs, only to feel them pulled back the small distance they moved. My ears darted left and right, I thought I heard someone else in the room, and the scent of fear which was not my own changed. It was unmistakable: hope. But I was the only one present, how could that be? It certainly wasn't my scent. Mine dripped through my pores, fear and rage.

I started twisting my limbs in directions perpendicular to the clamps holding them. It was foolish, I knew, I might injure myself. Break a few bones. An old nature film played in the back of my mind, the wolf will chew his own paws off to escape the snare trap... But it was no use. They were padded, and they let me move, somewhat. I twisted my whole body, and then settled back into position. Zim watched me with rapt fascination, he smelled ecstatic. That pissed me off, even further.

"Let me go or I'll fucking kill you!" I yanked hard on my hands, "you and this fucking owner, both of you have a date with my fangs, do you hear me!?!"

"Please, work yourself up. My research shows you'll be better at producing."

I narrowed my eyes, "what do you mean, producing? Producing what?"

"I'm the one in charge here. I run this place. You do what I make you do, and right now, I'll do the talking." Zim must have pushed a button, I heard a click, and a second metal roller contacted the top of my nose. It pushed down firmly, crushing my jaws against the roller under my chin, I only barely avoided biting my tongue off. My teeth now formed a cage around my tongue, I couldn't open my mouth, and I couldn't speak. The scent around me changed once more, where the hell was it coming from? Submission and fear.

Zim circled around me. "You think you can replace us so easily? I hate your kind, all that it's become, it gives me great pleasure to take things away from you." He grabbed my collar and shook it, "your freedom. Someone paid a lot for you. Learn some respect, you're someone else's property, now. How's that feel?" Such an alien phrase, I could hardly parse it's meaning. He scratched me behind my ears, and the feeling was anything but affection. It felt cold and precise, just like the machine holding me. I wasn't sure what war I had stepped into, but I sure wanted out.

"You're mine for a week, though, so I'm going to take something else from you, something worth taking. Your sperm. For use in my future creations, they'll be perfect in ways you're not. So make a lot for me, boy. Who knows? You might even learn to enjoy the process. But not if I can help it." He laughed, like it was the world's best joke. Sperm? To use his own words, not if I can help it. Good luck with that, buddy.

Upon further thought... Fear trickled into my mind. Needles were probably going to descend into my testicles at any moment. Can we start over? I'll paw myself off, into a cup, and we can just skip all this.

Zim walked away and I heard a couple of clicks in front of my nose. Two of the metal tips pointing at my muzzle began to drip clear goop, then pushed into my nostrils. I saw a brief glimpse of hollow mesh tubing behind them, before I shut my eyes tightly from the pain. I couldn't move my muzzle, I wanted to twist away! They went deep, I felt more than heard a crunching, crackling sound as my nasal passages were squeezed open.

I flipped out.

My paws were so close, I opened them and tried to grab at what was being forced into my head, but I couldn't reach. I gasped and whimpered, I wanted to scream, but I only sat there while tears spilled out of my eyes, the pain alternated between the worst sneeze I've ever felt, and the mother of all headaches. They pushed into the back of my throat, and as they expanded, my whimpers fell silent. Articulating my vocal cords only brought pain, but I could still breathe. I couldn't suck air past my teeth anymore, each exhale had a slight whistle to it. Inhales became increasingly difficult, it was harder to draw air. It controlled my breathing, slowing me down: I was hyperventilating.

The air I was breathing felt like it warmed up, and became more humid. Suddenly I smelled her. There was nothing in my field of vision, but I wildly looked around, anyway. The purest scent of bitch-in-heat I had ever smelled. It was becoming stronger with every breath. My ears went flat in embarrassment, I felt myself harden up inside my sheath.

Zim didn't know I was gay, but that didn't matter. Frequently, my partners used these same pheromones to make my blood boil in bed. It's hardwired physiology, inescapable for my species. It didn't matter how little I found females attractive. Zim had managed to hack my sex drive, and boy I hated him for it.

He drew my sheath down with a gloved hand, past my knot, exposing my penis to crisp chilled air. I squirmed and shifted around, arguing with myself over whether or not I was truly immobile. He touched my prick with cold metal, at various points, like he was measuring me. Measuring for what?

He slid my sheath up over my dick before it dried out, and gave it a few pats. I couldn't get her off my mind, I wanted to fuck in a real bad way. The scent was so strong, and it didn't let up.

My eyes glanced around when I heard paper and plastic torn open, spilling liquid, a wet squirming sound. Dog, I wished I could see what the hell he was doing. He drew my sheath back a second time, and I felt something cold touch the tip of my prick... then it pushed inside my urethra. I froze, my whole body went rigid as burning pain slid into the one region no male could ever ignore. It pushed into me with surges of movement, almost pulling itself inside, like an earthworm plunging into its burrow. It was a sensation I would never forget. And as it went deeper, I also felt something slide down the outside of my dick, cool and slick. The movement alternated, deeper down the outside, then deeper inside, even reaching past my prostate. As the cold surrounded the base of my shaft, behind my knot, I heard a squelch of air, then it tightened down. It felt kind of good, and I waited for the orgasm I thought was coming, but none did. Instead, I felt what was inside my urethra push even deeper, it entered my bladder with a rush of pulsing spasms.

Oh, Dog, take it out! It burned intensely, like I had to pee real bad. The whole thing pulled even tighter around my dick, tingling with brief pain. I puzzled over the sensation, waiting to cum, but it still didn't happen. What the hell?

Zim pushed my sheath forward covering me back up. I felt pressure slowly building behind my knot; it was numbing the whole region, somehow. Which didn't make any sense, for what he was after...? I needed stimulation in that area to trigger my climax, as all canines do. This didn't feel good, not at all.

He dug his fingers into my sheath and gripped the tip of what was surrounding my prick, and pulled. My body jerked in pain, it felt like my bladder was being ripped out. Ripples of pain shot up my urethra and into my bladder, as if what was inside could somehow move on its own. Like it didn't want to come out, and pulling on it was only pissing it off, which was ridiculous. It was just a catheter. The pain pulsed and twisted until it finally settled and faded away.

Zim started squeezing behind my knot, pulling and firmly massaging the region. I felt nothing under my sheath, no stimulation, only building fear as I recognized that he was manipulating my prick in the same way that I did when I pawed myself off. Yet it wasn't working. What's the point behind this? Take it out! I can't cum with that on... and in... me. The desire to pee had been steadily increasing, I couldn't do that, with it in place, either. None of this made any sense; I was fascinated and horrified, both at the same time, when Zim apparently gave up.

"Have you figured it out yet?" Another tickle of fear... that this wasn't a problem. Fear, that this was intentional. I couldn't speak, but no, I hadn't.

"Your owner requested this to be installed. It has little to do with my work. He doesn't want you masturbating or marking anything as yours." I blinked, considering. My pupils grew wider.

"...or peeing in comers, as your kind is so likely to do."

Oh Dog, get it off me, I paw twice a day, minimum. What the fuck? Wake up, Keman. Wake up! This is just a bad dream, this isn't real. I pulled and twisted at my limbs, trying to escape, I pulled until my joints creaked from the strain. Get me out of here!

I settled down when his feet receded from view, what little I could see. I stared at the floor, past the metal bar crushing my nose. Each exhale caused moisture to condense on the insides of the two tubes leading away from my nostrils. An articulated arm held them firmly in place. I wanted to whimper at the thought of so little to stare at. I wanted to whimper at what was to come. I wanted to whimper, period, but I had no voice.

She was still on my mind. I was very hard in my sheath, painfully hard. The kind of erection I hadn't had, since my younger years, just after puberty. The kind that just would not go away and I was sure everyone around me could see. Back then, I thought humans were lucky, that they could wear clothing. I'm fairly certain every member of my species has tried to wear human clothing, at one point. Perhaps for that reason alone, if they're male. After a few short hours, the itching drove me crazy. I clawed my fur out in huge chunks, afterwards. We cannot wear clothing.

I pondered, does everyone try to become something they're not, at least once? Rhenthar often feel caught between two worlds, neither canines, nor men, truly accept us as one of their own. We have no original culture, besides a test tube.

I snapped back into reality when something big happened: my HUD came online. I could tell, though, that something was wrong. It looked all wrong, and I couldn't toggle through any of the communications menus. Everything was grayed out, inaccessible. I had seen this a few times before when I'd done upgrades. It was stuck in configuration mode. My vision flickered; suddenly I wasn't staring at the metal bar over my nose. Instead, I saw my body stretched out from overhead. I was wirelessly linked up to a camera mounted in the ceiling. I finally had a good look at what held me, and I didn't like what I saw.

Thick metal maglocks lined with blue gel padding secured my ankles and wrists. I couldn't spot the seams, the machining was so precise. A metal harness shaped like an "X" was tight over my chest, and my wrists were attached to it as though they had been caught mid-motion grabbing at my muzzle. My paws were almost close enough to reach the hoses jammed into my nose. So close, yet, too far. My legs were spread wide, like I was giving birth to a litter. Almost all of my weight rested on my spine, support came from the metal overlapping plates that curved under it intimately, like a lovers embrace.

Zim apparently wanted me to see, from here on. How nice. I watched him slide my sheath all the way down, behind my knot, and he glanced up at the camera with a wicked smile. My prick was now glossy black, entirely encased in something smooth. He gripped my shaft, pulling and pushing, while fear whispered in the back of my head. The material wasn't sliding around, not at all. The implications of such tripped up my heart rate. He can't leave that on. Is it glued? Just touching it like that was sending ripples of a weird, unpleasant sensation up into my bladder, which had been spasming for minutes now; doing everything it could to eject the intruder. I felt like I needed to pee real bad, now. Some of that sensation had to be real, I was sure of it. But I couldn't speak to tell him that I needed to take a leak. He had to let me out of this contraption, soon, to take care of that, right?

He pushed my sheath forward to cover me up. The fact that I looked so normal from the outside was a sharp contrast to how very fucked up it felt. I promised myself that I wouldn't have to endure this much longer. Just go along with it for now, Keman.

"Your wetware has only one good use for me, which is how I wouldn't want you to miss any of this. Don't bother trying to call out, that's all safely disabled," declared Zim. "I've got one more surprise for you, you'll see. I've saved the best for last." I bared my teeth, it was all I could do.

Zim took out two clear orbs from a rolling cabinet. He grasped my furry balls in his bony little hands, comparing them. My eyes narrowed in hatred, I watched as my back arched and my paws pulled the restraints from their hydraulic bases, before settling back. He set down one of the orbs on a shelf built into the chair, and lifted my nut sack. Here come the needles. Oh fuck!

I quickly cycled through every menu I could reach, trying to turn the feed off, to essentially look away, somehow, but it was all on configuration override. If I could only take my collar off, I felt sure it was acting as a WAP. Wetware is designed with very little transmission power, when it comes to configuration mode. If I recalled correctly, intentionally so that no one could pull a stunt like this. Not without being just a few centimeters away.

He squeezed one of my balls, then pushed it inside the orb. I saw that it wasn't entirely round, and that it was hollow. It snapped into place with a sharp pain only a male could comprehend. I would have gasped, if I had been able to. My eyes were still shut tight, but the my view remained. The process was repeated on my other testicle, but my scrotum wasn't loose enough... it took a lot of pressure to get it to pop inside. I arched my back, trying as hard as I could to growl in agony. The tube in the back of my throat released a soft hiss as I strained to make a sound. I felt a sharp pop that surely would have made a bright flash in my vision, if I was using my eyes. The pain was so extreme almost puked. I shut my hands tightly, digging my claws into my palms to take my mind off the feeling. I would have bit my tongue but I couldn't even do that.

The pain faded, and the nausea along with it. My breathing slowed up, still loud in my ears through the tubes feeding me air. I could see that my balls were now held isolated, each one. He hooked tubes up to the orbs clamped around my testicles. Once in place, icy cold liquid flowed into the left and then the right. I watched coolant displace air through the clearish outer housings, bubbling inside. Yikes, that was cold!

Zim punched buttons on his datapad, and then maneuvered a thick, multi-jointed umbilical assembly that had been hanging from the ceiling beside me, so that it pointed at the tip of my sheath. The number of hoses trailing down it worried me; I counted several, in different sizes. He pulled my sheath back to expose only the tip of my dick, then touched the end of the umbilical to it. I heard a sharp click and a metallic tube pressed inside my urethra, then shoved deep into me. It hurt, and my sanity fled as I felt certain he was irreparably harming me. I hated him, I hated what he was doing, and I wanted to fucking pass out to escape the experience. Stupid canine physiology and our resistance to pain did nothing to prevent me from feeling it. And I still had no idea where this would end.

My ears went flat as the cold metal was slid excruciatingly down my urethra, through my prostate, and into my bladder. It went through the center of the black tube already there, which seemed to come alive, somehow. Pulsing, flexing, and reacting to what was being introduced into it. My urethra stretched to what I imagined was its bursting point. Something was horribly wrong, I pictured internal bleeding, hemorrhaging. I again begged for unconsciousness to take me.

"What I put in your urethra is conductive. It doesn't interfere with my machine." Zim sounded proud of the fact. Conductivity? Why did that matter?

I saw bubbles run down one of the hoses of the umbilical, full of clear fluid, as cold entered my bladder. Another, beside it, filled with yellow, but it wasn't yellow for long. He was flushing me out? Dog, I didn't want to see that. It meant I wasn't getting that bathroom break I had been hoping for.

Ice cold metal inserted under my tail, straight into my asshole. It went in quick and deep.

I'm gay, I've had plenty under my tail in my lifetime, but the part that went up my butt was no simple tube. It went so deep; I'd swear it turned a comer at the end. It swelled up at the base, locking inside my colon tight like the biggest knot I'd ever taken. Pain built up that I knew wouldn't be fading away this time.

The roller pressing down on the top of my nose clicked and swung out of the way, offering instant relief. And here I thought that was a good thing, until a sharply pointed shiny metal tube extended from the base that the tubes inside my nose had come out of. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but it pressed precisely between my front teeth. The angular surface forced my jaws apart. I caught a glimpse of something black and shiny, round like a sausage, just behind it, then I felt it in my mouth, up against my tongue. I bit down as hard as I could to stop it from going any deeper, and I felt all my sharp back teeth sink deep into its pliable composition. It was the first sense of success I'd felt in a while, and I tried to get a better grip on it, shifting my bite. To my horror, I couldn't pull my teeth free from whatever it was; it felt like they were now glued to the chewy spacer.

I quickly discovered the spacer was hollow, and I had nothing left in my defenses to stop the tube inside it from passing through it, into the back of my throat. It expertly selected my esophagus, and headed towards my stomach. I gagged, my chest heaved, and I pulled as hard as I could on my hands, my muscles bulged under my fur as I tried to reach the fucking thing. I needed to reach it. I had to pull it out! I struggled and pulled, I wanted to howl in despair, yet it only sank deeper, its embedded joints grinding their way down my throat. My gorge rose in response, despite the sweet tasting numbing lube it put in its path. It somehow sucked up the pocket of vomit. I hyperventilated again, and swallowed, trying to get it under control. That was a mistake, a painful sensation all the way down to my stomach.

The breathing portion of the system fought me, and I slowed up. My throat didn't like the tube stuck in it, not one bit. A section of it felt cold, and warm, at the same time. So, it was also feeding me?

It was too much. I knew that my only chance to escape was when Zim let me out to use the bathroom and eat. Now, that obviously wasn't going to happen. I clenched down on the part in my ass, it was moving, probably eliminating my last meal. Zim had me all figured out.

Then I knew, I was truly fucked, in the literal and metaphorical sense of the word. Unhealthy laughter filled my mind, I was on the verge of insanity. I tried to calm myself down, taking stock of the situation.

The part under my tail didn't feel bad, not like Zim had probably expected it to. After all, I was still very aroused, hard as could be. The pressure against my prostate only furthered that. The urethra passes through the center of the prostate, so the tubes inside made for unique stimulation, albeit painful at the edges. I didn't want to think about what it might feel like after I came. And just how was that going to happen now, anyway?

All that in just thirty seconds, yet it felt like hours of war and resistance. Sweat covered my paw pads and nose, it was forming puddles onto the floor below me. A sharp zap of electricity rippled up into my prostate, and I felt myself clench down on what was in my rump, while the muscle spasm faded into a rhythmic pulse of an orgasm as my knot swelled up, stretching out the base of my sheath. For once, it was a familiar pain, but I wasn't paying any attention to it. The pleasure felt artificially intense, an order of magnitude stronger than normal. My eyes rolled back, I tried to buck my hips to push my knot somewhere... anywhere. In the back of my mind, I felt wonder and awe, how anything could make this happen. The pulses weren't even my own, and yet, they were. Liquid draining from my bladder ran up the umbilical, taking on a milky-white hue. It no longer ran clear.

"Very good, who's a good boy?" Zim encouraged me, like I was his dog. It was very insulting. "Transdermal electroneural stimulation achieving retrograde ejaculation," he clapped his hands together, "I harvest your sperm from your bladder, where it's still sterile, you see?" Oh, I saw. Go away, old man.

"The system will monitor your progress, and allow resting periods of fifteen to sixty minutes." He glanced at his datapad, "Oh, my. You're the best producer we've had!" I took this as an insult to my sex life; though, it had been a while.

Rhenthar have completely canine genitalia. Male climaxes last for about half an hour, while tied. During that time, the "knot" at the base of my prick swells up to the size of an orange. Locked inside a bitch; or in an ass, if things went my way.

I may have been feeling intense pleasure, but when Zim reached over and rubbed my throat, above my collar, I wanted more than anything in life to bite his fingers off. But I couldn't open my mouth, it was firmly stuck to the block inside it. As a result, I couldn't effectively swallow, drool laced with blood dripped off my nose onto the floor.

"Now for my last surprise." He laughed a squirrelly little noise, and pushed a button on his datapad. Nothing happened.

I saw a new menu appear on my HUD, at the top. Operating wetware is a skill that doesn't take long to learn, though it is strange, at first. It feels like growing a new limb, then learning how to move it.

I selected the new menu, and saw a variety of cameras to choose from. Dozens. The next showed... me. Except, it wasn't me, the stripes on that particular Rhenthar were all different from my own. And the next, wasn't even a Rhenthar, it was some feline creature. Black with gray spots, a long tail thrashing around. I cycled rapidly through all of them, there were even humans. I heard a steady hum and shot back to my camera. I could see that the walls surrounding my room had retracted into the floor. I was amidst a warehouse full of horrors. All those scents I had caught earlier finally made sense.

My climax continued to pulse, but my head wasn't in it. With a sinking feeling, I realized dozens of creatures probably watched all this done to me, almost everyone has wetware. They were watching me, the whole thing. I couldn't believe the audacity of this fucker. I had never before felt more invaded or embarrassed. Zim just made a lifelong enemy, there was a slot in my mind that I didn't even know existed. He would die by my jaws. It was that simple, this went beyond anger or rage, my mind now declared the war a wolf could never comprehend.

For a parting gift, he gave my sheath a squeeze, and walked out. The multiple tubes inside caused a sharp stint of pain, my chest heaved in response. Oh, you fucker. Unbelievable. I heard the door shut with its triple lock setup, then silence edged into the quiet sounds of machinery, and bodies doing who-knew-what.

I felt alone, but at the same time, there was a little comfort. I knew everyone around me expressed thoughts of pity, in some form or another. But I didn't want fucking pity, I wanted revenge.

An hour later, during one of my rest periods, I cycled through my HUD menus. Menus, within menus. Here, no, here, no, there. I'm a hacker, my wetware was not a typical setup.

A shell prompt existed amidst all the menus. A possible way in... to what, I couldn't tell. But Zim certainly didn't know about it.

cfg>

cfg>whoami

User is "Guest"

cfg>

So, guest privileges. I took a deep breath, any minute, I'd smell her again, and my concentration would rapidly depart. I was no programmer, I could barely code my way out of a polymer cube. But I had some hope...

cfg>man c256

An introduction to the C-256 graphical programming language rezzed into my view. I had loaded all the helpfiles, a long time ago, just for shits and grins. I never actually thought I would need them. Maybe I could write a tool that would hack my wetware. Gain access to my comms suite. I knew the configuration interface didn't have much for security, it was only used after a fresh install.

I didn't make it far before I smelled her again. Shit, here we go. Once again, electrical pulses arced down my prostate. My chest heaved, my limbs strained, my back arched. My tail twitched and then shifted around rhythmically with my orgasm. My IQ dropped about fifty points.

Doubt rained on me from above. I just couldn't do this. I relaxed, and let the machine take from me all that it could take. I had some happy thoughts, thinking of him and what he might look like, despite who I could smell.

I felt high, like I was on stimulants. My heart rate was fast during my rest period. Must be what Zim had going into my stomach. On the one paw, that would give me more time to learn programming. On the other, in just a couple of days, I would be a drooling, sleep deprived mess. Which was, perhaps, the intent. At some point, my sanity would truly leave me, I felt sure of that. Time would pass, juices would flow, that would never end.

Then, fear. Deep, cold, and sharp.

What about this owner he talked about? What was this about not being able to mark my territory, pee in comers? Could I actually look forward to meeting this owner dude, would it mean an end to this? No, Keman. Stay focused. After this climax, learn more C-256. Make some code, gain control of your wetware... contact your team. Get the hell out of here.

Chapter 2.

C-256 was a popular coding language, compatible with many 256-bit operating platforms, such as the hardware residing in my brain. This programming language enabled authors to create virtually anything, from 3D graphics to basic scripts. I needed the latter, in the form of a brute force password cracker. Such a program was simple, it attempted to run through a sequence of numbers and letters, one digit at a time. The irony was, I already had dozens of such programs, sitting in my wetware's primary storage. Tools of my trade. I just couldn't get to them.

I'm a proficient hacker, by my own opinion, but with all my utilities locked out, I had to break in to my toolbox. With it, I gained access to my communications suite. Even with that, I wouldn't be out of the woods. Almost all low power, long distance comms employed a relayless protocol called hyperwave. Faster than light, it can travel many parsecs. That's great, but there's no method to triangulate its origin, it's impossible for others to use it to determine where the hell I was at. Trinity had no GPS satellites in orbit, every time someone tried to put one up, it got shot down. The natives enjoyed their hiding spots.

If I did manage to call my team, what could I say? Hi guys, come get me out of here. Where's it at? I don't know... but I'd have to worry about that, later, maybe they could come up with ideas.

+48 hours.

Configuration mode utilized weak security, indeed. It had unlimited logon attempts for root, thank Dog. I tried default passwords, like "default," but Zim apparently wasn't that stupid. I tried "Zim," and a few other ideas, but nothing worked.

I didn't have the time necessary to create a dictionary, to attempt common words. If Zim was using random letters and numbers, it would be a waste anyway. So, my brute force utility was dumb and quick. I succeeded in compiling it, it was chewing through possibilities right then. The CPU load gave me a headache, which was common with high processor loads, it's powered off milliwatts harvested from the brain stem. That could have been the stims, whatever Zim was feeding me. I hadn't slept at all.

Maybe the headache was from exhaustion. The chair did allow me to stretch out during my rest periods. I was able to figure that out pretty quick. Movement was like chocolate, simply amazing, but I could never get enough. I hadn't realized how much I had taken it for granted, the ability to move my limbs. After the first day, my climaxes shortened in length, and my recovery time stood at the limit of an hour.

The program was now five digits in, and indeed, so far, they were all random letters and numbers, upper and lower case. I couldn't tell how many digits long the password was, my program was too basic to perform that kind of analysis. Waves of sweat broke out on my nose when I realized I was racing against multiple clocks.

What if I was such a "good producer," Zim didn't need me for the full week? What if the final step my "owner" requested, was to destroy my wetware? What if Zim discovered what I was doing? What if he brought someone else in, and locked my HUD onto the one camera observing his initiation? I already felt scarred for life, having watched it done to me. I feared my future.

My ass was very sore, it would be a long time before I let someone mount me again. Would I even want to have sex again? Methods that could wipe memories existed, maybe I could use one, to forget this crazy experience, to help bring me back to my old life.

+48 hours.

I was a complete wreck, I'd spent four days locked into the machine now. I randomly hallucinated at times, bugs in my software manifested themselves in my HUD, crawling around within my field of vision. I tried to improve my code to increase performance, but now I couldn't get it to compile. Often, characters I entered into my wetware doubled, or tripled, or they were the wrong choice entirely. It was as if I was mashing my paws against a keyboard. My ability to control my wetware was slipping, even with the root password, I might not be able to login.

During my rest periods, I tried to sleep. Consciousness refused to release me, it was nothing more than a thousand-meter stare. I swore off sex completely, for the rest of my life. Insanity crept in, but I kept asking myself, if I felt crazy, then I couldn't be, right? Crazy people don't know they're crazy.

Rest, it was all I needed. My mouth watered for all the wrong reasons, like when I thought about walking or running. I just wanted to curl up on my side, put my tail over my nose, and sleep. I'd give up all my revenge on Zim for just one night of sleep.

Eighteen extractions per day had to be unhealthy. Staying awake for this long, was not healthy. I could feel it in my bones, my body knew, this couldn't go on forever. At some point, something was going to break.

There wasn't much to do between attempts at coding and compiling. I learned more C256, and attempted various programs I had always wondered if I could make. I was bored, I started to explore.

At first, I told myself no, don't select any of those other cameras, Keman. You want privacy, so give them theirs. Such inhibitions didn't last for long.

I now knew certain cameras were lower resolution than others. The floors had inexplicable gaps in certain places. I could see that the felinoid on Camera 3 was next to a door, another exit, perhaps. Camera 13 had recently came online, it displayed a creature I had never seen before, still thrashing in its restraints.

Not everyone was "donating" sperm. Many were growing sections of tissue, replacement organs. Comatose, living, breathing organ factories. I counted my luck that I wasn't one of them.

+24 hours.

I finally decoded the password for root: "3hj48KlSo021"

I only had to use it. I refused to try, until I built a graphical applet that looked like a fly swatter, to squash the bugs swimming around in my vision. It didn't work, but the password did, and I was in.

I fired up my comms, and contacted my team via text, it was the only way I could speak. They seemed angry with me, at first, accusing me of taking their money and ditching them. I completely explained my situation, which was embarrassing. Their anger shifted, refocused on rescuing me, and I felt pride when they informed me they had dropped everything to recon the planet. They proposed deploying microsats into orbit, with the hopes they could survive long enough for my wetware's GPS to get a fix on my location. All we needed was time, and luck.

+24 hours.

Six days in now, and the microsatellite trick failed miserably. Too many people wanted to remain anonymous, my team's ship quickly earned a hostile status. Not a good thing, around the likes of this planet.

My team presented an alternative. Instead of finding me, they had dug into the underground slave network on Phaylact, with some success. They thought they knew who was supposed to come pick me up. The plan was to intercede violently, wipe out that team and take me in their stead. Then, we could find out where I was headed to, and seek further reparations. Murder, death, kill. I liked this idea, a lot, though it took several attempts to get me to understand it. My attention span was toast, and every sixty minutes, my team knew it was best to just leave me alone, I was "busy."

I asked them to hook Zim up to one of his machines, and leave him there to die. They said they would see what was possible. The authorities needed to be involved, to rescue the others trapped in the facility, it was also the only way to prevent my team's ship from being attacked in orbit. There were other details, but none made much sense to me at this point. Just come get me, I don't want to explain to some cop what happened, let someone else do that.

+24 hours.

Zim entered my area. The walls came up, in he walked. I bristled, my fur puffed out, I worried he was too early, or something. My anxiety skyrocketed just seeing him. My heart gave its best attempt at self destruction. Seven days without sleep, not good. I couldn't stop shivering. Zim approached me with a hypospray in his hand. At least, I hoped that it was me. I couldn't tell which camera I was looking at anymore.

"That will be all." Toneless, he had what he wanted. A stab of hope and elation plunged into my guts, as I made the mental connection. He had no idea what was about to happen.

I felt a sting in my neck, blackness enfolded. Sleep took me into its tender embrace, and all my worries, fears, all my pains and aches, they exited stage left.

Chapter 3.

A deep, pulsing hum, which I felt more than heard, throbbed in my chest. Zero Point Drive, FTL. It harnessed the energy in quantum foam, drawing it directly from the universe. It's all you can eat, just keep in mind that there is no such thing as naturally occurring supernovae. They are all industrial accidents, on the scale of a solar system. Each is thought to have involved energy sourced at the quantum level.

"Something smells off about him."

"You saw that lab, he rubbed up against something weird, that's all."

"No. It's him..."

"I'm going to wake him. He just needs a shower."

I smelled something sharp, it was piercingly strong, and it burned. My ears flattened as I grabbed at what was in front of my nose, smelling salts, and pushed it away. My nose was raw, all scents had become unpleasantly strong. Still, I knew two other Rhenthar were in the room with me, without having to open my eyes. I knew that it was Ash and Casey, two of my shipmates. I was terrified that I might be hallucinating. I also smelled my blood, old and crusty.

"There he is. He's awake, it lives." I opened my eyes and found the room's lighting to be an incredibly comfortable dim red. Casey. Tears edged into my vision, I blinked them away. Third in charge of my crew, a tester of sorts. Ash was right next to him, a female. Now, that bitch could code. She came from white German Shepherd lineage, and looked like a small white wolf, except for her blue eyes. Casey had the floppy ears and black shorthair coat of a black Labrador. The kind of fur that never needed a brush, I was rather jealous of that.

"Ash." I cleared my throat, and regretted it instantly, it was still irritated from the tubes that had been in it. "Made my own brute force tool." My voice sounded hoarse, my toothy smile grew big. A decidedly foreign feeling, but a good one.

"Congratulations," she rolled her eyes. "You really can code your way out of a polymer cube." Ash could probably have made that tool in her sleep.

"Zim?" It hurt me to say the name, to even think it. But I had to know.

"If you mean Wayne McKenzy," Ash narrowed her eyes, "the one running that freak show we found... the authorities have him in custody."

"The facility?" My lips revealed a different kind of smile, full of sharp teeth.

"Power generator failure, quite explosive. A real shame," Casey grinned.

Parts of my consciousness slowly came online. Recognition that I was literally out of the woods, out of danger, the adventure of a lifetime had been survived, and now shelved into the depths of my memory. There was a lot I could do without remembering. I needed to look into a personal shielding device, if I was ever going to put another paw inside a nightclub again.

Whatever Zim had dosed me with was still lingering, my mind felt pretty screwed up.

Ash stared at me; her blue eyes were like tiny white dwarfs, and just as bright. She focused on my neck, before returning to my eyes. I reached up and felt the collar that was still there. I put several fingers under it-

"Don't," in unison. "Leave it be, Keems." Ash, she sounded serious. "It's monitoring you. I don't know what it's set to, but if you try to take it off, it could kill you."

Stress, rising. My comfort of having been saved was slipping away. "Oh, Dog! You've got to get this thing off me," I reached down and fumbled with my sheath, my ears splayed sideways from embarrassment. The numbness surrounding my prick was still there. Even more prominent was the tube leading into my bladder, it ached continuously. It was impossible to ignore, triggering the same nerves that normally indicated I needed to pee. I had to fucking pull it out, right now. Not later, not in five minutes, right now.

"Forget the collar, down here, that jerk installed this... thing..." I kept tugging on my sheath, trying to decide on if I wanted to show them. I wanted to slide it down and rip the fucking thing out.

Neither Casey nor Ash looked. My eyes caught theirs... with silence. I pointed down, they didn't follow. "I'm fucking serious!"

"Just... calm down," Casey said in an irritated manner. "Look, you're in a unique position right now. The collar is in an untampered state, the guy this freak sold you to has no idea who we are, we're just slavers taking you to your new digs. If we take the collar off, this mission is a bust, do you want that?"

I cringed and nodded, "But what about this... thing?" Once again, I pointed between my legs. Why weren't they looking? Rhenthar aren't like humans, we don't wear clothing, private-parts aren't very private. Then I caught their scent, anxiety from Ash, fear, from Casey. I didn't like that at all. Who's in control here? Shouldn't we be in control?

Casey looked away, his scent shifted to anger and resignation. Urk.

"That's-" Ash gently pulled my paw from my sheath, and set it onto my thigh, "a bigger problem, Keman."

"What do you mean, a bigger problem? Help me take it out, this new owner of mine won't know it isn't there, you have no idea what this thing feels like! I can't get my mind off it, it's almost like it's fucking moving, and I really gotta pee, fuck-"

"That's because it's alive." Ash murmured.

My eyes opened wide, but I went on like I hadn't heard, "I'm talking about what's in and around my dick, he fucking glued it on, we're going to need some sort of solvent." I looked at Casey, "what are surgical glues typically made from?"

"It isn't glued," Casey shook his head sadly, "it's bonded to your tissue at the cellular level. It's incorporated into your vascular structure. Cut it, it bleeds your blood, Keman. It's a parasite, and it's alive." He avoided my eyes.

I stammered, swallowed, taking that in. Panic rose swiftly, my muscles tensed up, adrenaline fired. I couldn't help it, Casey and Ash both smelled afraid, and my fear was rising, too. Horror and shame twisted together, but they couldn't mix, like water and oil, they only rubbed each other. I needed help, but I wanted to run away, so they didn't have to see what the fuck was growing on my dick.

I'd gone back to squeezing my sheath without realizing it. I looked down, and yanked my paw away, like I had touched a welding arc. It was moving inside me. It really wasn't my imagination, I could feel it! I freaked out and pulled my sheath down, exposing the wicked black creature enveloping me. Fuck. This! I narrowed my eyes, the room took on a red hue. I'd spear it with a claw, rip it off, yes... "gotta get it off, gotta get it off..." I gibbered and mumbled to myself.

Ash backhanded me. I paused, caught with my emotions hovering between fear and aggression, a tilting point. My mouth was stuck open while I stared at her.

"Keman. Calm. The fuck. Down." I looked away, and instead her eyes drilled into the side of my head.

"Please," I whimpered, "I need to pull it off, it hurts..."

"You can't! So just shut up and listen." Ash showed plenty of white, I dipped my muzzle in submission. "It's designed to be worn for a very long time, Keman. Like, forever. It's a slaver device, designed to control you. Breeding, pleasure, scent marking. Like your collar, if you try to take it off, it kills you. It's full of neurotoxins; don't even nick it with a claw. Just... leave it alone."

Casey took one look at what was between my legs and jumped to his feet, he started pacing, reeking of fury. My mind reeled. "I just... there must... be a way to take this off. What the fuck, you can't leave this on me!"

"I'm sorry, we just don't know how to take it off," he said. "But if there is," he spun and pointed a finger at me, "we'll find it. Trust me, Keman. I've seen the designs of that thing. It scares the hell out of me. The fact that anything like this would even be designed for one of us is absurd. On the black market, that thing on your dick, it cost more than this ship. I just don't get it, for a slavers market? Rhenthar haven't been slaves for centuries, it doesn't make sense." I saw his paw grope his sheath as he turned away to stare out a window. Stars crept past in long lines.

I couldn't take it anymore, "Look, I have to take a leak, real bad..." I looked at Ash.

"That's pretty normal, from what I've read. It'll fade in time. If you think this is bad, you should see the female version."

"No," I shook my muzzle, "you don't get it. I gotta pee, I gotta fucking pee! How do I do that?" I put plenty of growl into it. I meant it, my bladder was ready to explode, and it was getting worse by the second.

"Oh." Ash cocked her ears sideways in humility, "you mean, you really have to go. That's not something you can do on your own, anymore. We installed a device on the urinal in your quarters. Just... pretend that you can go, and it'll take care of the rest. Hey-"

I was backing out of the room, relief couldn't wait another second, "what?" Strained humor wafted into my nose.

"You play with yourself too much, maybe this will do you some good?"

I turned and looked at Casey, he had covered his eyes with a paw, he shook his muzzle slowly. I ran from the room, shouting, "Ash Ass, Ass Ash!" She hated when people made fun of her name like that. She might chase after me, so I poured speed into my sore legs, and dropped to all fours. I don't know how long I had been asleep, but the movement was pure bliss.

Some Rhenthar are bipeds, like humans, with long femurs and flat feet. Others are quadrupeds, their feet are digitigrade, they walk on their toes and their hind paws are small. It would hurt to stand up and put all of their weight onto them for any length of time, plus, their balance would be poor. I'm digitigrade, but I'm in between, my femurs are short, so I can walk on all fours without my knees touching the ground, or I can walk upright on my big hind paws. I'm not a "quad," as they're called, but my sheath still runs parallel to my spine, and that means it points up when I'm standing up. It makes peeing while standing up very inconvenient, but if I wasn't built this way my parts would drag on the ground when I walked on all fours. All canines have a bone in their penis called the Os. It prevents me from bending down to point into a human style toilet, though I can pull my sheath back far enough to swivel the whole thing at the base, but that's painful. The solution for me, and any quad, is a moveable collection pod, with handles on the sides: the Rhenthar urinal.

The pod has a soft, rubbery opening in the front. To urinate, I just press it against my sheath and give it a hump. My sheath draws back, my penis enters the inner chamber, and any output is sucked away. It works in Zero-G, it cleans both itself and the user with each use. Like human toilets, they came in a million varieties. The version on this ship was basic, but the fact that there was a market for these slaver modifications really bothered me. That my team was able to find one on such short notice... didn't sit well.

I shivered like a pup, as I danced between entrances to private quarters, trying to remember which one was mine. I located it and raced inside, up to the urinal, still on all fours. I crammed it between my legs, squashing my still-very-tender nuts. Nothing happened when I told my bladder to go. I heard a motorized whine, and felt a tube squeeze into my urethra, ostensibly piercing the tip of the parasite. My bladder deflated slowly, and it didn't empty all the way. The relief of having gone didn't arrive. I waited, and pushed harder. It felt like my bladder was still half full. It was still inside, Dog. I flushed, warm water gurgled inside and rinsed me off, and I pulled out and stared down at my new enemy.

The same contours of my prick remained, but it was shiny black instead of a veiny reddish white. I sat on my haunches and licked at it, sniffing and touching it carefully with my fingertips. I could feel pressure, but most other sensations were missing, as if I was covered in a really thick condom. Unlike a condom, though, I couldn't make it slide around. I squeezed, and the tube inside me squirmed, pain rose up into my bladder. Dog! I pinched behind my knot and located a solid mass there, it felt hard, like steel, or maybe bone. I gripped it and pulled, pushed, it didn't feel good. No sex? No pawwing? Dog. Were the orgasms I experienced in the facility my last? I paw a couple of times per day, normally. How long could I go without? A few days, maybe a week? Not since puberty, had I gone more than that. Impossible, this was going to be hell.

And what the fuck, I couldn't pee on my own now? I shook my head, this was so unreal. I covered it up with my sheath, hating the way it felt, and inspected my collar carefully, moving to stare at it in the mirror.

It was a lot more flexible than it looked. It was still hot to the touch, like it had some sort of fuel cell inside. Methane Nickel could produce that kind of heat. The gold contacts on the inside were spring loaded, but the pressure against my skin was gentle.

I saw some fluff under it, and pulled it away, but more fur came with it. My actions turned frantic, as I dug more and more of my fur out from under the collar. All of it fell away, a band of bare, pink skin was underneath. The sink was now full of my fluffy undercoat, along with my coarse, outer guard hairs, the ones responsible for my coloring. I'm used to shedding my undercoat twice a year, seeing fluffs of it was no big deal. My guard hairs, though, seeing them made me want to cry. They only fell out with rare forms of cancer, or other, equally unhealthy events, like radiation poisoning. The ship would never allow particle or energy radiation to board. This was something else entirely, I peered at the skin closely and saw that it was completely smooth. The collar had to be responsible.

I lifted it up higher on my neck, putting my dense fur back under it. The sensation of so much metal against my skin had felt strange. Now, though, the pink ring was hella obvious. If I left it there, I'd probably have a second bare patch in another week, I whimpered.

I slid the collar back down, onto the bald patch. At least it felt looser there, without the bulk of my fur under it. I needed to know how it was making my fur fall out. A few twitches of my mind, and my wetware searched the local datanet for electronic means of depilatory. Results streamed in, instantly.

Nothing had a field effect. All involved direct contact with the follicle. In the case of high frequency electricity, or microwave ablation, the process involved targeting individual follicles. The same was involved with laser treatment. The collar was accomplishing something new. Whoever designed it had deep pockets, it was cutting edge technology.

I rotated it, to look at the graphical display. Hexadecimal data streamed across it, cycling faster when I moved, slower when I held still. The keys on the pad next to it weren't labeled. I pushed one- (discontinuity)

"Who's... ow!" I rolled around on the floor, holding my head in my forepaws. I tried to understand what happened. Thank Dog we built ships with padded floors, for our claws to get a good grip in. My ears were ringing, but my neck didn't hurt, so I wasn't sure it was the collar. I checked my HUD, brought up my vitals. Heart rate drastically changed eighteen minutes prior, and I had been motionless since. I was out for eighteen minutes! Dog. Ok, this thing has to come off. This is crazy!

I got up on wobbly legs, and made my way back to the galley. I weighed the idea of telling Ash and Casey about my experience, or just pretending it didn't happen. I liked the latter.

Casey was staring out the window at stars passing by. Ash held a cup of something that smelled wonderful. My stomach woke up, I hadn't eaten anything in over a week. It growled, my mouth watered.

"I've decided on something," I announced, Ash turned to look at me. "I was thinking I want to wipe the last week from my memory." I left no time for refusal, "look, I know it's possible, I don't give a shit about side effects. Something like Scopolamine, but deeper, retroactive." I had all the data displayed in my HUD, several drugs could work.

Casey and Ash exchanged a cryptic glance, both their ears were pointing elsewhere. Ash mumbled, "You want to wake up, with no memory of how you gained a collar and that parasite? You would flip out all over again, except it would be worse."

"Oh," I bit my bottom lip. I hadn't thought about that.

"You need those experiences," Casey picked up on the thread, "or the guys picking you up will know for sure that you aren't the guy they just bought. I hate to say it, but you need to stay fucked up in the head right now, Keman. I want you to jump, when I say 'boo.' I want you whimpering, and I want you reeking of fear. You think you could do all that, if you didn't remember the last week?" Ash nodded in agreement.

It made sense, sadly. I hadn't thought about that, either. "Well, afterwards? Please? You wouldn't believe what it was like, I don't think I can ever mount someone again, without thinking of that place, what it did to me."

Ash straightened her ears, she eyed my sheath, "I'm sorry, but you won't be mounting anyone until you deal with that, first."

"Oh," my ears wilted again, "yeah." I started having second thoughts on this mission, I realized I wanted out, I wanted to go back to the way things were. I felt weak, vulnerable, and afraid in a way that was new. Afraid of my future. Ash took my paw in her hands, and placed the cup into it, curling my fingers around it. I lapped at it for a minute, relishing the taste of real beef broth. I stared out the window with Casey, licking my lips.

"How long?"

Casey eyed me, calculating. "Two days, get some rest."

Chapter 4.

Casey had his arm locked around my neck; he was dragging me backwards while Ash walked toward us, holding a clear orb in each paw, blood dripped from them. I tried to scream, but thick straps were locked around my muzzle, something was squirming inside my mouth, and I couldn't swallow it. The chair had me again, thick maglocks snapped shut around my limbs with deafening cracks. Ash was welding them into place so that they could never open again. I saw Zim standing in the corner, watching me, laughing. "All of your freedom is mine, now!"

I woke with a howl cut short, still echoing in my room, then silence. A soft humming in the center of my chest, cushy memory foam accepted all my bodyweight in an earth standard artificial gravity. A hell of a nightmare, but it wasn't real. My heart pounded, I kept repeating that in my mind: not real, not real.

The collar snug around my neck sent flickers of green light against the wall nearest me. I didn't need to squeeze my sheath to know what was still inside. Normally, a nightmare fades into the calm realization that everything was ok. This one faded into the horror of what I was in the middle of. I dreaded where I was, what still lay ahead, so much unknown. Was this what being owned felt like? Was this the rest of my life?

I lay there contemplating my situation. Something about the collar felt... different. Like I had the barest memory of once wearing one, for fun. Which was crazy, I had never done that. Rhenthar do not wear collars. But it ate at me, like the edges of a memory I just couldn't bring forth.

I spent the morning briefing with the rest of my team. I hadn't yet completed a full mission with them, but they were all old friends. A dozen years prior, what started out as simple subcontract work progressively became less professional and more personal. Initially, I was only their datarat of choice, performing quick hacks into local infrastructure. Gradually, my fees went up, and relations became more personal as I was entrusted with more sensitive details. Just a couple of weeks prior were some of the best days of my life, when they had offered me a full time position. Room, board, and lots of credits. Guilt weighed on me heavily, that so quickly they had had to rescue me.

The conference room aboard The Hahkota didn't look like a room at all. Forest stretched out in every direction, a heavy canopy of branches and leaves loomed from above, with warm sunlight filtering through limbs gently swaying in the breeze. We sat around a giant polished oak stump, growing right up out of the ground. It was the only thing real, it and the dirt under our toes. The rest was virtual, the scents merely an applet running in the background of our wetware. The sounds of the forest around us, a stream trickled nearby. I could turn it all off, but why? It felt real, and this was my favorite area aboard The Hahkota. I spent as much time in it as I could.

Across from me lounged Cane and Russel, the muscle of our force. Both partial-quad Rhenthar, like me, but with Rottweiler ancestors. They looked like littermates to me. Ex-special ops, ex because the military doesn't pay as well as we do. They worked well together, so much so, they often finished each other's sentences. I found it terribly endearing, and I made a bad mistake, once. I suggested they just get married, and get it over with. The comment was apparently never forgotten, I scented smug satisfaction the first time I caught them staring at what was locked around my neck. Still, they were both fiercely loyal to our objectives, I couldn't be in safer paws.

The instructions given to my team featured delivery coordinates on a semi-habitable moon, for a handoff. It was unclear if my new owner would be present. If he wasn't, my team would turn me over and follow us, cloaked. If he was there, well, my team would do what they did best. Justice would be brutal and swift, but not before my collar was unlocked. Ash figured my fur would grow back in a month or two.

By the end of the briefing, I was avoiding everyone's eye contact. My beta was present, an ornery grizzled old wolf called Zero. As in, zero disobedience, zero incompetence, zero tolerance making fun of his name. He kept staring at me with a strange look, like I smelled odd. In preparation for the mission, I wasn't allowed to shower. But I couldn't smell anything amiss in my fur.

"Ash, do you have any questions?" Zero was wrapping things up.

"Can you forward me the data packet you intercepted, the one heading to the original team before we..." Blew them out of the sky and transmitted our own response, "stepped in?"

Zero raked his claws on the stump, "there's nothing more to be gained from it, just basic coordinates and time."

"There might be something in the header. I might be able to identify what kind of hardware transmitted it. Could be groundside equipment," Ash cocked her head sideways, "or shipborn."

Hmm. Why didn't I think of that? I should have, but my mind just wasn't in it- "I'll uh, check that out with you, Ash. I've got a new ident list somewhere, upstairs." Slang, for primary wetware storage.

Ash's German Shepherd lineage made her easy going, but driven, she needed tasks to perform and would work them to death. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the data headers would be irrelevant, my owner could have used a relay. But I needed to show Zero that I was still competent. It was something for me to do.

"Casey." Zero had noticed his eyes were shut. He was probably deep in his wetware, no way would he actually sleep in one of Zero's meetings. Casey's eyes snapped open and focused, he stared at Zero, "yeah?"

"Check on the cloak system, our neutron emissions were high last time, lit up the whole damn range, remember?"

Casey nodded, "it's decaying. I'll get ahead of it." He was my age, our engineering chief, hired straight out of dry dock while he was the strategic designer for The Hahkota's fabrication. We stole him, basically, and all of her secrets were now safe in his head. No copy of her blueprints existed, outside of what was on-board, he made sure of that when he left Magnavox. What was publically available about The Hahkota was an entirely different layout, she identified as a Mitsubishi-Erikson design, someone would have to get in and look around in order to figure out the discrepancy.

"Keman, I want Ash to take you into the ship's autodoc and have injuries put on your body." Zero contemplated, "bruises, some missing fur, nothing broken, but I want you to look like we had to rough you up. The boys that pick you up won't know you're a wuss, now you get to act like you put up a fight and got knocked around trying to escape. It'll scan well."

My ears splayed, "yes sir."

"Should we dope him?" Russ, grinning.

Zero shot Russ a look that withered his eagerness to drug me, "not unless you want to look like that's the only way you could handle Keman."

Russ and Cane stared at each other, "we'll handle him." Hurf, would you? That'll be tonight's fantasy...

Zero heaved himself to his feet and circled a paw in the air, "I'll talk this over with Zeek, gentlemen," he stared at Ash, "lady. You know the rest, sixteen hours we touchdown, planetside. I want this over, so we can go back to making credits, instead of spending them." He spoke the last words pointedly at me, and then bared his throat to us all. We matched it and he walked out.

I spent the rest of the time catching up on sleep. I had all new aches and pains, though Ash had been gentle with the autodoc's programming. Bruises around my wrists and ankles, fur missing from my head where straps from a muzzle had apparently rubbed raw. A couple of broken claws on my hands, and some heavy bruises on my torso. While she was able to pick areas containing the least amount of nerve endings, keeping pain to a minimum, my body still felt like it was healing, and it was.

I was very horny, that night, and wanted release. Russ and Cane would handle me, eh? Time to eat up all my promises I had made, about never having sex again, about never wanting to feel another orgasm. Funny how that goes.

I was lying in bed, trying as hard as I could to build up enough friction behind my knot, just something... anything. I squeezed as hard as I could, behind the parasite itself, but the solid area ended too far back, I had no real nerve endings there. Not the kind I wanted. I gripped my knot and tugged, it swelled up some, with all my thoughts. I was hard as hell, and it didn't seem to mind or prevent that in any way. My mouth watered with the need to tip over the edge. I pulled and tugged, all my usual techniques learned from a lifetime of masturbation.

But all along, in the back of my head, I knew. The one critical area I needed to pinch, to squeeze. The one which told my body I was all the way inside someone. I couldn't reach it; this was an effort in futility.

Inside a drawer under my bed, I pulled out a canine shaped vibrator. One of my favorites. I checked the charge, it was full. On it went, then I pushed it against the area behind my knot, yes... this will work! The parasite woke up, all pissed off, I rolled to my side, clutching my abdomen in pain as cramps wracked my body in a region I knew I could never build a tolerance to. I could hardly draw a breath, I lay there horny, angry, and now in pain. Oh, stupid, don't do that again. Please, stop. It was like a red hot poker shoved up my urethra. My erection faded quickly.

Someone did their homework, and I really hated whoever he was. I went to sleep angry and thoughtful. I would build a machine, similar to what I was hooked up to, just to get some relief. But it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't put me under Cane's tail while Russ was on top of me. That was the final fantasy before sleep took me.

Chapter 5.

We set down at the required coordinates on a moon with only numbers for a name. A small ship was waiting, a sleek silvery pleasure yacht. Its exterior finish was all chrome, it could probably be seen from orbit by the reflection of the system's sun. I wondered if that was maybe the intent, as Cane and Russel walked me towards a group of men, humans, standing a few hundred meters from it.

I kept my ears flat, like I absolutely hated the two holding my arms. Like I had had no fantasies when earlier, they had produced a pair of cybernetic handcuffs to lock my paws behind my back. Very soft, comfortable padding, until you tried to slide them off. I played it up, sniffing the air like I was terrified. The closer we got, the less of an act it became.

There were five humans present. Four were dressed in mismatching military gear. I felt a little insulted, thinking that my owner was so cheap that he would hire such poor quality. I wondered how much I was worth, if the parasite I wore cost more than The Hahkota?

We approached downwind, one of the humans smelled afraid, while the others were mostly

confident. One wore business attire, and he reeked of pleasure. He was the only one staring at me, the other four were staring at Cane and Russ. None of them knew the ship behind us had unlicensed particle weapons. Guns that could level a small city. If this was my new owner, he had just one path out alive, in our brig. Oh, the questions and demands I had for him, when that time came.

Chaos.

A loud ringing in my ears. For some reason, the world was sideways, and my muzzle leaned against dirt. I heard, and saw, large pieces of chrome fly in every direction, one passing by so close, it sounded like an insect, but it possibly weighed as much as me. I heard another deafening boom as a blur streaked by overhead, laying down weapons fire, my fur stood on end as The Hahkota's deflector shields crackled into life, a hundred meters away.

The noise as they deflected shots in the last possible microseconds were unlike anything I had ever heard. A sweet melody, music with a dangerous edge, rising in pitch.

It happened in just a pawful of seconds, and I was completely unable to link events to one another. Too much happened, too fast, for me to track. Was that a ship that just flew by? I turned my head and saw Russ screaming at The Hahkota.

"Fucking go! You're a sitting duck!" He gestured with his paws and pulled his energy carbine rifle off his back, swinging it into firing position. It emitted blue stabs of light that left a rush of fizzing noise in their wake. Disruptive energy which tore apart the atomic bonds of air molecules and anything else in its path.

What the fuck was happening? I felt in the center of my chest a deep vibration, the effects of anti-grav propulsion lifting a ship, my home, up and into the sky.

Russ dragged me behind a rock, using my collar as a handle. It didn't seem to object, a tidbit I'd remember, later. He fired a few more shots, then ducked as incoming fire sent pieces of rock splintering into the air.

I shouted, "I think a ship just flew overhead!" The look he gave me made my ears wilt.

Where was Cane? I tried to get my feet under me, but I was still cuffed behind my back. I saw charred bodies and wreckage everywhere, so many scents assaulted my nose, I thought it might explode. My ears were still ringing. My HUD showed inbound comms, it was Ash, and she seemed afraid.

"We're taking heavy fire from a third party, we have to lose them! We will be back, OK? Take cover with Russ and Cane. We're going FTL right now, out!"

I rolled over to Russ and told him what Ash just said. He scowled at me and popped another cartridge into his weapon, tossing an empty one into a growing pile at his feet. He released another controlled burst, then his floppy ears perked, he stood higher, scanning the area.

"We're clear. They're all dead, and... so is Cane." The last was spoken quietly; Russ looked at me with anguish in his eyes. I tried to think of what to say, I was still catching up. Cane is dead?

I heard another loud boom as a ship broke atmosphere. I recognized that sound, this time, a ship was approaching us, fast.

A ship can penetrate atmosphere at tactical velocities, using its shields to push the heat of re-entry around it. Protecting itself and its destination.

Suddenly, we were in a very big shadow, the air was alive with electricity, deflector screens at maximum strength: the only thing preventing the air in the ship's wake from shredding the flesh from our bones. I watched several guns level at us, and as the ship shifted around, their re-aiming made it obvious at whom they were pointed. A ramp dropped, clang, soldiers ran toward us with enough equipment to start a small scale war. I heard Russ's firearm clatter to the ground, he nudged me, "We're fucked," as he helped me up onto my feet. "Just let me do the talking."

"Freeze, freeze, freeze!" The half dozen soldiers ran up to us, all covered in black armor. They had long tails, and I realized I had seen one recently, I knew the species. Terellis. They looked like big Panthers on two legs, with sleek black fur covering rippling muscles. They were legendary in their military prowess, if you could afford them. They now had a lot of weaponry pointed our way. The one closest to me stared at a ruggedized datapad. He glanced at it twice, then stared at me. One look at Russ and he flicked a finger.

I flinched at the loud crack that followed, scenting the sharp twang of cordite, and blood. Russ's brain matter spilled onto the rocks behind him, his corpse collapsed to the ground.

"Russ!" My mouth stayed open while I stared at his body, too shocked for an adrenal reaction. So much had happened in so little time, it all had gained an unreal quality because of the backlog in my mind, and I still needed to catch up. Maybe, if I had been amped up from the beginning, I could have kept track. But I was lost, stunned. I watched in silence while they dug through Russ's tactical vest and came up with the keys to my cuffs. They unlocked them and tossed them onto the ground. I stared at the circles of metal. A quiet voice finally spoke up in my head: run!

I turned to bolt, and found a long blued steel rifle barrel hard against my front teeth, held by a soldier who was waiting, ready for me to try that stunt. He hissed something that would drop a house cat dead. I had to terminate my forward momentum, twisting my head away from the lethal weapon. I bared my throat, terror quadrupled, worried I was next to die.

My HUD flickered once, twice, then vanished from my vision. That scared me more than the weapon pointed at me, I recoiled like I had been hit.

"Turn around and walk into the ship," he said, lowering his rifle and pointing a much smaller device without a barrel at me. "If you don't, I'll stun you and carry you. You won't like that, I'll make sure of it." I held my paws up in a placating gesture, this was all horribly bad.

I kept my ears flat while I approached the foreign vessel. I knew freedom didn't lay in that direction, that with every step I took, it was actually further away. The men surrounded me in a formation, they were highly trained and silent. The fact that my HUD had gone inactive was a killing blow to me.

This was no fucking third party.

They locked me in a small room, and the first thing I did was inspect the urine collection pod in the comer. I poked my finger inside the receiver, and felt a pointy tip waiting inside. The modification I would need to help me piss. My ears wilted even further, I leaned up against the wall and slid down it onto my haunches. Well, wasn't this a fine plan, I had no means of escape. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. Oh, my Dog, they're taking me to my owner! Shit! I pulled at the collar around my neck, trying to slide it off my head as hard as I could.

When the last pair of gold stubs lost contact with my skin, a loud spark ripped through the quiet in the room. Every muscle in my body tensed up, then lost most of their strength. I twitched in a heap onto the floor, whimpering loudly, still clutching the collar tightly in my paws. I now knew three things: it wouldn't fit over my head, I wouldn't try that again, and Russ had been right: I really was fucked.

Russ, Cane, hurf. Dead? Wait, my team! I had almost given up hope, then I remembered my remaining team was still out there. The Hahkota was one hell of a ship, they would die trying to get me back.

Such thoughts were all I had as I felt the ship take off and enter space. FTL kicked in, another ZPD by the way I felt it in my chest, and we were en-route. I hoped we didn't get to where we were going.

We landed just outside a modern estate. I pined for a window in my cell, maybe I could have recognized what planet we wound up on. Two of the felines attached a leash to my collar, clipping it to a "D" ring I hadn't seen before, it must have been retracted, flush with the surface. They forced me to walk on all fours, pulling the collar hard when I got more than half a step too far away. This was not happening. Dirt and rocks stung my palm and fingerpads, they were relatively thin and soft from disuse.

I stared, all around us was a gorgeous colony of Rhenthar. Laborers glanced at both the soldiers and me, warily eyeing us with distrust. I didn't see any collars on any of them. I smelled familiar scents, the local flora and fauna seemed very earthlike, the defacto standard for all Rhenthar. I felt hella embarrassed, being walked like a dog. And at the same time, I had never been so terrified in all of my life.

My leash passed from slender black paws into bigger, black paws. I stared up at him, then backed up as far as the leash allowed, shock and surprise spiraling through my mind, tangling together into a tight knot of confusion.

"What? You? But, you're, you're Rhenthar..."

Indeed, he was. And very large, all black, his bright yellow eyes focused on me closely, the eyes of a wolf, staring down at me with intense scrutiny. He was tall, and he moved with the conservative grace of a predator. I couldn't see that the flickering green light on my collar took on a steady high frequency pulse.

My awareness of the trees and buildings around me slowly shrank, leaving just him. He smelled male, very satisfied, accomplished. Curious, but again I noticed, male. Of all the things to stare at right now, why couldn't I look at something besides his sheath? I tucked my tail between my legs in the presence of someone with such high authority. Wait, authority? Fuck that, fuck you! Take this collar off me! I've been waiting to tell you... something.

But it was missing from my mind. My coherent thoughts broke up, but they didn't stop. Words in my vocabulary dwindled, like in a massive data erase. I quickly chose simpler things to say, and was about to blurt it out, then they, too, were lost. I groped for them, feeling like something was caught in my throat. I knew they were there, but... what were they again? What's happening to me?

He crouched down on long knees, gravel crunched as he set his weight on them, he looked my body over with a critical eye, inspecting every hair that wasn't in the right place. He pulled at my fur where the autodoc had injured me, grimacing, all while I tried to come up with something to say. Dialogue flashed around in my head, now mere concepts instead of words. Ash... but who's Ash? Russ... who's Russ?

He pet me between my ears, like I was his dog. Who the fuck are you to treat me like this! My pupils widened, then narrowed, because it actually felt good, for some reason. I couldn't begin to remember why it shouldn't. I had a lot on my mind, things that made me very angry, and I was so tired of being angry. Things that made me afraid, and I was tired of being afraid. These things vanished when I tried to identify them. What was there to be angry at? Why be afraid?

The fight drained out of me, by the simple fact that I didn't even know what fighting was. That I should, could, or even would... ceased to exist. I looked back up at his huge black body, kneeling so close next to me, and I knew, he would know what to do.

"At long last, here you are. I've been waiting a very long time, Arrrick." He smiled huge, what was that reference, who's name...?

My tail slowly fell, and my mind seized to a halt. Before, it had been empty, now, it was jammed. It felt like a physical blow on my brain itself, and I had to look away, to the sky, the ground, him, back to the ground. Strong nausea rose in my throat, I quickly puked green bile up onto the ground. I felt so sorry and embarrassed, my body shook, I'm freezing, endorphins... way too much. A concept unlocked in my mind at the mention of that name, directed at me. I kept repeating it, bouncing it around, it became all I could think about.

He nodded, like he had expected this to happen. He continued to rub me behind my ears, and that was a comfort second to none.

"Keman," the thoughts in my head froze, ceased. Calm silence. "We're going to have ourselves an adventure, you and I." Adventure? I like adventures... a heavy weight lifted from my consciousness. The sound of his deep voice was soothing, and I still couldn't think of what to say.

I cocked my head sideways and splayed my ears, to let out small whimpers. My head still hurt a little, from all the effort needed to hold myself together. The foul taste in my mouth faded, but I was slipping, I couldn't hold it...

"We're going to unmake you, and then remake you. It's going to take a long time. I'm willing to invest it all, in you." My fur bristled, puffed up painfully, I stopped breathing. Something itched in my head, agonizingly, a lone neuron identified that concept, pointed out that's bad, real bad. A single word surfaced in response, I blurted it out, "Who-"

Fast as lightning, he grabbed my muzzle and squeezed my jaws shut tightly, digging his claws in. "Don't speak." He stared into my eyes, to make sure I understood. I wanted to look away, but there they were, and I was lost in his huge yellow eyes. Lost, and found. It was a command, and I was good at following commands.

Slowly, calmly, with precision, he set my fur to rights, flattening it all out. With each stroke, my heart slowed down, back to normal. I liked his touch a lot, I wanted more of it. What did I have to do... to get more?

He nodded at the two soldiers standing near us, they left. I stared at them as they went, then looked back up at him. He stood up, and pulled my leash gently. I should go where he goes, with that. Everyone knows this.

He led me into a big house with a lot of other people in it... coming and going, a blur.

"This is Keman," he says.

Many responses. "Congratulations." "Ohh, he's a good boy!" I am? "Finally." "So this is him?" It is! "He's so lucky..." I am! "You're so lucky..." He is! "Quite a find..." "How long until...?" My tail flew from all the positive energy, I soaked it right up. The excitement was contagious, people were looking at me, smiling at me, touching me. I could smell joy and comfort and support. Everyone was unimportant, though, compared to him. He was all that mattered.

Up on a platform, in a room, I was made to "lie down." I knew what that meant, everyone knows that. He produced a needle and blood was taken from my arm. It stung, and brought a variety of thoughts, vague, nothing I could recognize. I hated needles, but it was him doing it, so that made it ok.

Every inch of my body was inspected, some of it tickled. My teeth, my eyes, my fingers, my sheath. Urg... something about my sheath bothered me. Traces of pain, fear, anger. His fingers fondled my sheath, pulled it back, he stared. I tried to hump his paw, hopefully. Eagerly. Expectantly. He grinned at me, I and liked that smile.

"We'll take care of that, later..." I could hardly wait, whatever it was. He rotated my collar and positioned it just right, on my neck, which felt amazing. It was warm, I was secure, protected, his.

He lead me to where I was supposed to sleep. How did he know how tired I was?

I slept.

Chapter 6.

Flicker, static, jumble of colors. Brightness fades, like a camera pulling away from being pointed at the sun.

A white furry hand waves at me, dark pads outlined the palm and fingertips. Someone's dog replaces the hand, it grins. That's a Siberian Husky. The hand replaces the head, holding up a finger with a claw: wait.

I feel like I'm floating, motionless. I can't move, or even tell where my limbs are at. The silence is deafening.

Another flicker, static, *click* *pop* A thousand waves crash onto a shore, loud enough to make my vision shake. More silence.

"Hewwwooo." It's that Husky again, he's howling at me. Why are you howling at me?

"Iem nawt rowllin rat roo, Arrrri." His blue eyes stare at me with humor, what is this, some sort of a joke? Where is my body, where am I? I must be dreaming.

"Eeesh. No ream. You bied." What? It's like he can talk...

"Bied. You bied!" I don't understand, bied?

His ears go flat, he looks away. This is crazy!

"Download complete." An authoritative male voice, "initiating language feature."

"You died." The Husky stares at me. I what? I can't speak, but-

"Stop. I can hear everything you think, don't think too much. You died 600 years ago. You exist now, as pure data, running on a software program. My name is Zacharus, you can call me Zach."

Hah. Hahah-ha. What a crazy dream! The camera zooms out, I see... oh my fucking god. You're standing, you're huge! Oh, god, what is that, a costume? A costume with a sheath and balls, that's hilarious.

The Husky looks down at himself, then looks back at me with a snarl. "You think I'm funny? You're the one who killed yourself. Allergic to dogs, didn't you know that? I have the autopsy report if you want to read it. Feel foolish now, eh?"

Uh.

Whoa there.

Wait a minute, I never tested for histamine. My suit... would it have triggered? This is either the strangest dream in the world, or...

Or... I feel completely unsure what to say. So I say nothing.

I stare at him for a minute. Waiting to wake up.

He breaks the silence. "You died. Get over it, happened a long time ago. It's ok. Look at this." He, and boy is he, obviously a he, steps out of the way. I see a wolf stretched out on, he's a he, too, his back... but like Zach, he has a human torso, human arms and hands, long legs...

Zach glances at the legs, then looks back at me. "Those aren't long legs!" He points at the wolf's knees, "short enough to run on all four."

Yeah, ok. This is beyond crazy. I'm arguing with a talking Husky about how long the legs are on a wolf with hands and a human torso... wake up, Erick.

"Rhenthar. I'm a Rhenthar, and in a few minutes, so will you be." He points at the wolf, "this is you, Arrrick. Your name will be Keeemen." He shakes his muzzle, "you won't remember any of this for a very long time."

That... will be me? If I'm not going to remember any of this, why are we talking? I'm not even talking, really. I try to move my hands around, which seems to interrupt his response. This is so weird.

"It's not weird, you're weird!" He grins, "in all the right ways. Research shows, spending time staring at your next body helps ease into acceptance. Similar to, say, first five years of development as pup, being spoken to, read to, helps the brain develop. Make sense?"

Uh. Yeah? You're telling me... that's my body, my new body? Oh man, look, I'm so sorry I never went to church, I figured the bible was all bullshit. You're God, right?

Barking, howling, is that laughter? He's laughing at me!

"Hell yes I'm laughing at you. I'm not god... like I said, this is the future, we copied your mind, simple process, really. The original, is long dead. You're a copy, now we download you into a new body. But first, tell me what you see. Pay attention! Describe him."

He's... a wolf... um... this is all too much...

"Timber wolf. C'mon, Arrrick. Take it in, make the connections, and tell me what you see. I've waited so long to get your opinion."

He's beautiful. He has a mostly white muzzle from the lips down, I see black whiskers. Um. There's brown fading to black between his eyes, which have white patches above them... um... dark orange right around them. Black speckles below them, almost like freckles. Gray stripes around his neck forming a V. Creamy beige starting on his throat. Brown going down his arms and legs. Like, um... cream pouring down his chest, headed between his legs. Geeze, his, uh... stuff...

"Your stuff... continue."

It just, um, really stands out. What kind of clothing do Rhen, Rhenthar wear?

Zach wrinkles his muzzle, "clothing? Why would we wear that when we're covered in fur?"

Oh boy. This is crazy. The brown, it ends above his... my... knees, elbows. Shiny black claws, they look sharp. His sheath and the fur on his balls is very light in color, wow this is so embarrassing. I can see yours is white, which leaves nothing to the imagination!

His tongue lolls, he pants while staring at me. "I know all about you, Arrrrick. Don't be shy. Just watch me, watch this, important."

He trails his claws through the wolf's... my... fur. And I can feel it! Ow! That hurts!

"Calibrating touch sensitivity." There's that voice again.

Zach pokes the wolf's, my- head. Ow. Ow!

"There's a computer in here, your wetware. Top of the line, couldn't do this without it. You're going to love it, Arrrick."

His claws trail down my neck, deeply through my fur, across my chest. The sensations map strangely, if I wasn't watching, I couldn't tell where they were. But I see it, ow, hey, that burns! Now it's cold! So weird, he turns and looks at me again.

"Calibrating..." Can he hear that?

More claws through my fur, producing an itch, scratchy, prickly. Down my stomach, oh. Oh! So that's why dogs love their stomachs rubbed. That feels so good... erp. He has my sheath in his paw, and that... feels... god I want to look away, that feels so amazing. He pats it, and then digs into my thighs. Ow! Ow!

"Supposed to hurt," he licks his muzzle in concentration, trails his claws down my legs and tickles my feet. Thick, leathery pads are on my toes, ahhh! Hey!

I watch my leg spasm, it jerks away by reflex. "Good..." he mumbles, "stop! Need to prepare you. Reflexes normal, voluntary movement's a bitch. Could be very messy, your bladder and bowels are empty right now, for a reason, Need to make it so you can't bite your tongue off..."

He picks up a bundle of shiny steel cable, with some flat straps mixed up in it. He slides it over my head, works a couple of loops over my mouth, my muzzle. It's cold, and he pulls it tight, I feel my teeth clench together. It's like a dog muzzle, but made of steel.

He flattens his ears and stares at me, the camera? "It is a muzzle. I'm going to transition you now. Don't panic. Will take a while just to open your eyes. I'll help you!"

His words get further and further apart from his lip movements, I feel like I'm falling, sliding away, aaaaaaahhhh!

Darkness. Underwater sounds rising in pitch to a high hiss, then beyond... I hear crisp edges of noises I never even knew existed, must be into the 25-40 kHz ultrasonic range. Noises echo in that range, all around me, then dull pain in my chest, building... building. A slow bum, I need to breathe!

"Quit trying to breathe, silly!" The volume is deafening, compared to earlier. "Relax, breathing is natural, quit trying!" I let go, my chest pulls in a sharp breath. So dark, I can't see! Where are my eyes!

Fingertips massage my eyelids, yes, there they are. Open, how do I open them? There, ugh, bright! I shut them, then open them again. It's all I can do, my back shudders, the platform I'm on must be moving, I can feel it. Zach stares down at me from up high, panting, he shuts his muzzle, cocking it this way and that with an intense stare from his bright blue eyes.

"Try to get up." He crosses his arms and steps back. I still can't get over the fact that he's walking upright, balanced on his hind paws as if he were human.

Getting up doesn't feel like a good idea to me. But I'll try. Parts of me flop around and I feel pain as nothing works, bumping limbs into soft surfaces. Nothing works. Where are my arms? Which one is my left leg! What the fuck is that smell!?! I pause, concentrating on the odor. It's immensely complicated, unraveling as I scrutinize it. I don't know what it is, but it's amazing.

Touch, on my right hand. I twitch it open, then closed. The same on my left, I see Zach leaning over me, the smell is him! He touches my left leg, my right, I twitch them all in response, things begin to make more sense, I feel like I have a body again! But I can't get over his scent, it's the most unique thing I've ever... not seen and not heard. He rubs my stomach, I groan... there are my vocal cords. Please don't stop.

"Up! C'mon, you can do it. Sit up." I tense my stomach muscles, twist my left arm behind me and slowly prop myself up. I feel lightweight, and my hips are impossibly small. My spine is boneless in its flexibility, I feel... incredibly strong. I try to stare at Zach, but half of my vision is two strips of white fur with brown running down the center, whiskers sticking out at the sides, shiny black at the tip. My nose, my muzzle, shit... this is all canines can see? How am I supposed to see anything?

A clawed finger touches the top of my muzzle, pushing it down. Zach swings into my field of view. I tilt my muzzle up to look at him closer, and he vanishes again! He grips my muzzle and pulls it down once more, aiming it towards the floor. He points his claws at his eyes, then mine. He's laughing. I sit there, like a newborn infant, who just learned to stand up. But, I'm not even standing yet.

Some part of me is hurting, now that I'm up. Above my butt, ow... ow... I shift around and reach back, grab something fluffy, and pull it out from under me, but it's attached above my butt, it's my tail! Oh, shit... so much to take in, I can move it... left and right. Up and down, natural as can be.

I feel cold, between my legs, getting colder, uncomfortable. I look down and see pink, covered in fine red blood vessels, it's wet and shiny. My dick, staring up at me, poking out of my furry sheath by a couple of inches. Yikes, why is it doing that? I reach down and grab my sheath, pulling up on it. It stays up, warmth floods back into my dick, I look at Zach and grunt.

His tongue hangs out, amused. "Ipe." Um. I don't understand, I shake my head. "Ipe," he says again. More headshakes. "I P E. Ipe. Involuntary penile extrusion. You're a big boy, most times you sit like that, it happens. You fixed it the right way. Get used to it, your penis is an internal organ, now." He grins, "why don't you check it out..."

I'm male, of course I want to check out my stuff, I feel all kinds of mixed emotions over the fact that it looks nothing like what I'm used to. I stare down at my sheath and grip it, but this time careful of my claws, they stick out about a half inch and look pretty damn sharp. They don't retract, so I'm cautious... I squeeze it, slide it down smoothly. It feels like I'm erect, but I'm not... my penis isn't really flexible at all. I wonder how I'm supposed to pee. My sheath feels slippery inside, and I squeeze it, down and up. Doesn't feel like much... about as erotic as scratching my elbow. I look at Zach, worried, confused, am I broken? Is it because I used to be human?

"Awww! May I show you?" I nod. He reaches down and carefully grips my sheath, down low at the base; he gives it a couple of tugs. Waves of sensation shoot into my brain, my hips buck, something clear sprays up at my muzzle in a thin jet. It smells insanely interesting, and some of the pleasure remains, building... like the hottest erection I've ever had. It builds in pulses, waves... I glance down in shock, watching my sheath slide down, with two bulges filling out at the base, I feel ridiculous pride at how big I've grown. The area above where he gripped is my knot, I know what that is, I've researched canine genitalia, among all my other research and development, for canine genetics, my creations. I just... never thought I would know what it felt like.

It feels... fucking amazing. I wipe some of the stuff off my muzzle, onto my paw, then grab the steel cable at the front, looking at Zach.

He reaches forward fiddles with the cable, it loosens, then he pulls it off. I feel something on the top of my head catch, and I reach up, feeling my ears. They're thin and pliable, I pinch and squeeze them, shutting my eyes, I groan with pleasure. Now I know... why dogs like to have their ears scratched. Except I have thumbs and can do it myself... it's almost sexual in pleasure, that feels so good. My mouth loosens; I feel an urge to breathe faster. I pant, then shut my mouth, swallow, and stare at Zach.

"Muh. Rrrrruh. Sssssuh.

"Well, aren't you quite the talker?" Now I can see, his muzzle moves a lot, to make those sounds, and they aren't even English, but close, all chopped up, full of growls. It sounds normal to me, but I can tell that it shouldn't. I notice some red poking out of his sheath now, I stare down and pull mine up to cover me, feeling self conscious all of a sudden. He continues like he didn't notice.

"You're going to need heavy wetware augmentation to speak, at first. We'll activate a trainer program to help. Wanna try that?" I nod. "First, activate the graphical display by focusing on your nose. Understand?"

"Muh." I'm so curious! I focus on my nose, and my whole field of vision ripples- from the center outwards. Bright, sharp graphics scatter into the edges of my vision, data fields with arrows pointing at many objects in the room, all labeled EMPTY or UNSET. When I try to flick my eyes directly to one, it shifts into the center. Easy.

I see a flicker to my upper right, (Incoming Connection: Allow?) I hear some of the words, as well as see them, in the same male voice I'd heard earlier. (Zacharus ZK H23781x2E8H) A green light spirals around his body, highlighting him. More fields are listed next to his head, all marked EMPTY. I see text, (User Zach has suggested you enable vocal assistance. Activate? Learn more? Cancel? Block?)

"Just focus on activate." He starts panting again. I smell something new, and think it has something to do with the tube of lipstick between his legs. Why is it doing that?

Activate flashes twice, then darts to the lower right field of my vision, disappearing. I try to speak...

"Muh. Myyyy. Wwaa." I swallow, noticing that my tongue feels like it's a half foot long, and it is. It keeps wedging into all the wrong places of my mouth, "my guh, goduh. Whuh. Tuh. Whut, the foo-uchuh. Fuck."

Zach barks laughter. "And so it is. What the fuck? Your first words, and fine ones at that... but go slower, so your wetware can assist you. It will learn, and thus, so will you."

I reach up and point at his sheath. His gaze follows my fingers and he quits panting, reaches down and pulls up to cover himself.

"Arrrick... Keman..." He pronounces it, 'Key-men,' and I wonder if it has any significance, "I was employed to design your body. I worked very hard to produce something I thought you would like. As well, to produce a form that I thought would be liked by others. I'm bisexual, of course I'm attracted to you. And you just shot precum all over your muzzle, you don't think I would react to that?"

I don't know what to say, so I change topics, before I get more confused.

"Whuh. Why... Key Man. Keymen?"

Zach smoothes his whiskers back, which looks to me like a nervous expression, but I'm not sure. "That's what you are, the key to someone's heart, and you were a man. You're destined to unlock that heart."

"Who's?" I'm lagging, this is all too much to take in. I want to retreat to catch my breath, but there is nowhere in the world for me to do that yet.

"Someone... someone very special. Once again, you're not going to remember any of this, at least, at first, but I can't say his name. It might ruin the experience. I know what's in your future, Keman. I've lived it, to a certain extent, myself." He laughs at that, but it sounds sad, "everything else, I designed."

Even more confusion. "What doo yoo mean?"

"Your whole future, I designed it. That's why I laughed so hard earlier, when you asked if I was god. I hadn't thought of it that way, before... but. Well." He shrugs.

My elation dwindles, I actually don't like the sound of this. I stare around at all the equipment surrounding us. Tall, shiny machines with complicated workings, a lot of exposed wires. The floor is level with the platform I'm on, and both are padded, I notice. I can recognize... absolutely nothing. I could be in a machine shop, or a surgery. Maybe some combination of the two. I didn't want to anger Zach, I feel like I owe him my life. But, whose life is it? His or mine?

"Zack-kuh. Whut if... I sssay no?"

Zach leans close to me, and a new scent wafts into my nose, his cold blue eyes bore into mine. He laughs, once, then growls deeply, I feel the vibrations in my chest, he's so close. "You don't get to say no to god. Yes? Such decisions... are beyond the scope of your capabilities."

I stare back, feeling an old, undesirable emotion come to life. A new scent becomes present, my anger. I lift my lips, like he did, showing my pointy teeth.

Zach pounces on me, he grabs my muzzle tightly, digging in his claws, I see white teeth flash inches from my eyes, then he shoves me away with a yelp, bouncing away and quickly turning his back to me, with his tail held low. His shove felt like a reflex, and it all happened as fast as I could blink. I shiver and look around wildly, feeling too slow and too late to do anything to protect myself. Did that just happen?

"My mistake. You are not one of us, yet. Anger and direct eye contact, never a good combination to show another Rhenthar, not ever." I see his head nod, "this will be hard, I have to program an entire childhood into your mind. You would get killed asking for directions." Soft laughter, "I am so jealous of you, though. I can control your temperament through your memories..."

I shake my muzzle, air blows past my whiskers with a tickle, pulling at my attention. I want to stand up, I want to run, eat, and live in this new body... there is so much to do, so much to try! But... will that be something for someone else? Am I just a placeholder? Why did he need me for anything?

"Zack. Why nott beycomm this key yourrself?" I gesture around me, surely this equipment could modify his own mind, perhaps his own body.

Manic laughter, a soft howl, mournful. "I tried that already. I almost died for my sin." He nods to himself, "I would do anything for him." So he... is a he. How interesting that might be, I think to myself.

My heart slowly pats, various pieces of machinery quietly click and whirr around us. My ears point to each source of noise, all on their own. I think about what this creature has done for me so far. I died, and was alive, again. In a body I would have killed for, in my previous life.

I had never been satisfied with the human form; I had always hated my body, despite how attractive others often found me. Canines had always held something special in my mind, but there was little I could do about it, besides stare, and wish I was born as something else. Now I had been. No god of mine had ever offered such a destiny, only a lame death from an allergy to what I was trying to become.

I couldn't stop myself from laughing bitterly, it came out like a growl mixed with a cough. Zach's ears went sideways, listening to me as he remained with his back to me still. I feel a sudden pang of guilt.

"Ey. Eyem nawt laffing hatchoo. Hah. Hat you." I slow down, pulling my lips carefully over a mouthful of sharp, predator's teeth. I can taste copper and the scent of it is in my nose: I'd bitten my tongue in numerous places. "I am not laughing at you." Slower definitely worked better.

Zach turns around to stare at me. I see him wipe a tear from his eye. Oh. No animal on earth cries, but man. A sharp indicator from where Rhenthar originated, I start imagining the chromosome build, then shove those thoughts aside to the here and now. I need to make this right.

"Hey. Sso, there's this dude you want me to meet. I'll dooo it. I'm sorrry to have grrown angry. I should be flattered and thankful. You didn't just save my life, you've given me a whole new one. I owe you anything forrr that." I pause inwardly; shocked that I can talk so well, going slow, "just answer me this... is he hot?"

Zach seems lost to the question, then he gets it. "I would say... the hottest."

How can I say no? This is the chance of... my next lifetime. "Ok, what's next, Zach? You've helped me, I'll help you." His tail starts to wag furiously.

"Next, we strip you of your human memories and replace them with Rhenthar. Enough so you can function in our society. A lot has changed in six centuries, too." Er, I didn't like the sound of that...

"What's wrong with who I am?"

Zach covers his nose with a paw, "you stink. Your scent is all wrong, you act like alien. Imagine, what was it. Gray men alien, puts on a human suit. Walks around in city, says, take me to your leader. You would never believe he is human? It's like that with our nose. Your wetware has yours dampened by a thousand. Our whole world is one of smell. Rhenthar don't need watches, we can smell what time it is. You could never pass as one of us." He glances around him, "and... others are looking for you. Right now. You would stand out, people would know. Method used to bring you here, very illegal."

"Ah." A thousand times stronger? I can't even imagine that.

Zach quirks one ear sideways, "it's ok. It will all come back to you. We'll make you primarily Rhenthar, with a Rhenthar's history, but later, your human side will come out. It will be needed, for you to succeed where I have failed."

Zach reaches down and takes my paw, pulling me to my feet, "up..."

I gasped, kicking my legs out as I woke up. The dream faded and my focus returned to him, he's all I really cared about. Still, the thoughts of the dream lingered like the scent of someone else... memories of someone else. I stretched out, noting the scent of him still sleeping in the room, then curled up on my side and shut my eyes. Sleep returned quickly.

Chapter 7.

+365 days.

The collar locked around my neck was advanced technology. I thought that it only had electronics preventing it's removal, maybe it monitored my whereabouts. But I wondered if it did something else, something to my mind. That might explain why some memories floating around in my head were of me doing stuff only a dog would do. Still other memories existed, I could distinctly remember arguing with myself, wanting to speak, but refraining. Most of the time, speech completely eluded me. That, in itself, was indication of something, but I had no idea what.

There had been no more dreams like the one I had had of Zach. In fact, I only remembered it recently. It came with brutal clarity, dropping into my lap one afternoon, making me very confused. The implications sent my mind spinning, but I had no ability to talk to my owner or anyone else about it, to verify anything. I wanted it to remain only a dream, so that's what I kept thinking of it as.

I was awake, and it smelled like morning, just before the sun rose. My nose was sensitive enough to tell time by the changing of scents as temperatures changed. Strange. Wasn't it... always that way?

I was curled up in a comfortable bed on the floor, in the corner of my owner's bedroom. The bed smelled like me, it had padded walls about as high up as my spine, when I lay on my side. Rubber chew toys sat wedged in a corner, and I felt satisfaction upon seeing them, for they were mine. Sometimes I hated them, but not now.

I rolled onto my back and stretched my legs out, far past the edge of my small bed. I felt my morning wood poking past my sheath, shiny black and moist. Life felt good, I was content. I reached down to squeeze the base of my sheath, behind my knot, thinking it would feel good to paw myself off. I felt a hardness there, inside, and a tickle of pain crept up inside of me when I pulled. It was only for a moment, but. Was this new? The feeling of wellness danced away, it slipped right between my fingers as I pulled my paw away. I wanted it back, that feeling, so I ignored what was between my legs for now. Easy to forget. I took a deep breath and swallowed. I felt something warm and tight around my neck.

I reached up and felt it all the way around, it was a collar. Oh yeah... I remember now. But... it feels so new? Small bits of metal hung off the front, a couple of tags. I ducked my neck and pulled them up so I could read them. I couldn't, there was no way. I would have to find a mirror, and that would mean I needed to stand up. I knew there were mirrors in the house I lived in. But I couldn't remember where they were located.

A collar. For some reason, that idea really turned me on, it felt right that I wore one. I pulled at it, and noticed there was no fur underneath it. Then I looked at my hands, I saw big leathery paw pads, an obviously canine shape. Black claws, five fingers, I rubbed my muzzle and pulled at my whiskers, this all felt so new. Hadn't it always been this way? Confusion crept up on me like a predator, stalking me through the bushes.

The feel of silky fur covering my whole body, the fuzz of it around my balls, the sensations of my claws as I raked them up my stomach, fuck, I was horny. Hadn't I woken up and felt this all before? Standing on my hind paws, to see those mirrors, I'd get punished for that, but it hadn't ever happened, so how did I know?

Mirrors, my memories were like two mirrors facing each other, each showing the same reflection, but smaller, stretching off into the distance, forever. I focused harder, and my past shifted away from me even further.

Well. If I wore a collar, and it had tags, then someone owned me. And that felt good, I couldn't for the life of me think of why, but once more, it felt right. I took another deep breath, and when I exhaled, the stress and alarm faded away.

I got up and sat on my haunches, sniffed up into the air. The room had someone else in it, his scent smelled really good to me. Supremely dominant, laced with much confidence. Him. A reflex in my mind said to approach this person on my stomach, roll over onto my back, and pee in submission. Maybe I would do that.

I saw a bed in the center, and approached it, my claws clicking on the polished dark hardwood floor. I sniffed over the top, it was higher than I was on all fours, but the scent was stronger and I felt frisky. The scent was sooo familiar... another of those reflections stretching off into the distance. Maybe I should jump up there and find out. Up I went. . .

He was large and all black; he woke instantly and growled, "Keman!"

That's my name! I howled and yipped in delight, rolling around on the bed, even if he was mad. I stayed ultra submissive, grinding my muzzle against the covers to put his scent on me, then I swam under his legs, circling and circling. He sat up with a grunt and grabbed my collar, pulled my muzzle up to his. I looked away, showing my throat, panting to catch my breath.

He was having none of that, he wrapped a paw around my muzzle and pointed my head so I had to look him in the eyes. "You know better than to come up here." Maybe... but I have an excuse. I wagged my tail in a very wide arc; an overwhelming emotion had me in its grip. His deep, rich voice caused my sheath to fill out even more.

One sniff and he understood immediately, he shoved me away with a snort of contempt. He stared at me for a moment, yellow eyes, one ear sideways, the other flat, thinking.

"That's what you want? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It's been a long while since the last time. But-" His scent of anger shifted, fading, I dove back under his legs and took deep drags at his crotch. He smelled horny, too, and that excused everything, I knew.

He reached beside the bed and tapped a button on his computer terminal. I eyed that curiously, there was something about... when he did that, sometimes strange things happened. The symbols and language on it were not familiar, I couldn't make anything out, the times I'd stared more closely in the past. That I did remember.

Words drifted down into my mind like fresh snow. Faint at first, not in any particular order. A second later, they snapped into place, in the order I wanted to speak them. I blurted them out.

"I'm ho-" a sharp yank on my neck cut me short, the kind electrocution caused. My voice twisted into a whine and I shut up, remembering. My eyes shut tight, watering from the pain.

"No talking." He put some growl into it, I turned to look at him and averted my eyes, his ears were forward, he meant it. I could live with that, that was fine. Why had it seemed to matter so much, in the past? I felt terribly conflicted for a moment, but then I abandoned the thoughts and took the easier path, life was good.

He crawled up to me on his knees after observing my decisions, he saw my body language, my ears, my tail, and my scent. He was able to read the internal dialogue, and saw the outcome, and he smelled pleased. He took my collar in one paw, and sucked on one of his fingers to make it wet, then rubbed my tailhole with his finger pad. It felt amazing, like promises of things to come. The digit was twisted inside me, straight over my prostate, applied with enough pressure to make me whine and whimper. He added another finger, then another. Each made me harder inside my sheath. His claws occasionally stung, but I was so aroused, the pain became part of the pleasure.

He breathed into my ears, cool wind and a slick tongue, nibbling on them lightly. He asked me silly questions, like "who's a good boy?"

I almost answered, but I caught myself. It was a trick, and I knew better. I remembered... the last time I had failed at this, right here. Things ended abruptly. Stay focused, Keman. You want your reward, right? Words spoken to me many times. I liked rewards, didn't everyone?

This time, I only panted and gave a little whimper. I wanted more, much more! I knew by scent alone, he was aroused, and I wanted to feel his knot tied deep in my ass.

More satisfaction, he withdrew his fingers and let go of my collar. He shifted his position and hugged me from behind. I could feel his prick pressing under my tail, perfectly lined up, and I knew things were about to go much further. Wet slickness dribbled down the fur covering my nuts, he was worked up, must have had some good dreams, himself. He eased more weight on my back, and his sharp claws dug in just above my hips, he entered me. His narrow tip was wet and smooth, there was no resistance.

I tilted my muzzle to stare down at the bed and pushed back against him, panting and holding my breath, alternating with each new sensation. He arched his powerful spine and humped me, his back flexing with each thrust, all his pre paving the way for his knot, which hadn't grown much, yet. I felt it slip inside of me and then pop back out, with little twinges of pain each time. He was purposely saving the best for last, it was the canine way. He panted into my ears when he wasn't gnawing on the back of my neck, just above my collar.

"Puppy wants my knot, eh? You don't remember what happened last time, do you? Of course not, and that's intentional, it'll be this way for a long time, Arrrick. You'll learn everything I teach you."

I ignored most of those words, except for my name. The rest became unimportant. Too many disturbing thoughts lurked around that corner. Wait. What name did he just use?

My attention shifted as I focused back on his grinding slick shaft, it was poking and jabbing inside of me, never fully coming out, before slamming back inside, scalding my insides. Arousal spiked, previous thoughts... washed away. He fucked me hard and fast.

I felt his muscles tense up, his breathing turned shallow, and he jammed his prick all the way inside me, making sure his knot was buried. It swelled up with quick pulses as he reached his climax, larger... passing the size of a grapefruit. My eyes crossed, I swallowed back the pain. The pressure against my prostate felt incredibly intense, but the emotional satisfaction felt the best of all. He barked a howl of pleasure into my ears, his breath ruffled the fur on the back of my head, so much weight was on top of me. He reached past me and pushed a button on his terminal.

Sudden clarity. What the fuck? He's in me, we're tied... I'm tied to... what's his name? I've never even gotten his name.

"What's-" Erk, erk, erk. My eyes watered, the collar was zapping me, pouring liquid fire down my spine and I remembered. This fucker won't let me talk! My body stiffened up as I shifted gears, changing from pleasure to anxiety. I suddenly remembered being here, many times.

Like a movie in fast forward, the last year flashed through my mind, I could feel all the tips and edges of every emotion I'd experienced. Every bit of knowledge, every single lesson, it all ruthlessly poured down onto me and there was no looking away, nothing I could do to ignore it. I saw things with precise detail, catching me up to the present. I gasped and shook under the deluge, my sheath shrank, I whimpered in misery.

I had maybe used the term "mindfuck" in the past, but this felt like the literal sense of the word, the true origin. I owned that word, now, I was its author.

He shifted around on top of me, his huge wolfcock stuck in my ass so tight, it made me want to either laugh or cry. He was leaning down and reaching for something under the bed. His knot pulsed and throbbed, it wouldn't be coming out any time soon. Dog, I wanna bite this guy... but at the same time, I was still physically beyond horny, I could hardly see through the haze of eroticism as my emotions stabilized.

I felt so close, I would do anything to tip the edge into an orgasm, anything! I kept staring at the bed, watching him from the corners of my vision. He had something in his paw, it flashed like metal.

His weight settled back on top of me and he hugged me tight, gave me a couple of good thrusts and yanks, ow that hurt so good. His muzzle rested on top of mine, I felt more than heard a quiet growl of satisfaction deep in his throat. He reached down between my legs and grabbed my sheath, sliding it back... I felt a sting in the tip of my dick, then the sensation sank deeper, and I remembered feeling this once before. I knew what was coming next: me.

My back arched and my nuts drew up, my eyes shut so tight, the lids folded over each other, and I couldn't breathe! I needed to exhale and howl, I felt like I exploded as the best feeling of pleasure came over me that I had ever felt in my entire life.

I focused on that feeling, screw the psychology of who he was, or what I was doing, or how I wound up here. All that could be sorted out later. This was an orgasm, and I now clearly remembered my last, it had been so long...

Apparently, I had done things right, with him under my tail. This was my reward. He patted my side and played with the tags hanging off my collar, making them jingle. A familiar sound, part of me, part of everywhere I went.

"Someone earned this, that would be you. Such a good boy I have!" I bristled from the submission he was encouraging, but I would allow it. What choice did I have, really?

My knot was huge in my sheath, I was still clenching down on the mass under my tail, which was trapped off to the side, between us. I felt so good, drool dripped from my half open muzzle...

Muzzle... fur? Sheath... knot. I stared at my nose... nothing happened.

His paw came up under my muzzle and he held my jaws shut. I suddenly remembered, he didn't like me getting my fluids on his bed. Nothing exited my dick, the parasite was greedily consuming whatever didn't make it back into my bladder. Parasite. Oh, Dog... my ears went flat. Ears...

My god... my sense of time felt so strange to come online. Had it really been a year? My team... maybe they were destroyed. My ears wilted as I struggled to focus back on my orgasm. I knew what was responsible for my memory being like swiss cheese, it had to be the fucking collar around my neck. If I could just get it off. A collar, locked around my neck? Hurf, why did that turn me on? I loved the idea that I couldn't take it off, all the collars I built had locks. Wait. What collars had I ever built?

I switched between bitterness and pleasure several times, rapidly.

A half hour later, I felt his knot shrink, he pulled out with a tug, which felt like one of my organs being torn from my body. He removed what had been inserted into my dick, an electrical stimulator of some kind. I collapsed to the bed, panting. Most of my orgasm had passed.

I was thinking... I didn't want to be there on that bed. Didn't want to be there. Stay off the bed. I couldn't stand it, for a variety of reasons, ranging from his scent to... damn it, to lessons he had taught me.

I jumped onto the floor and sat on my haunches, pulling my sheath up to cover the rest of my prick, then I stared at my owner warily.

"Mmmm. That's more like it. I love the sparkle of intelligence in your eyes, the sign of some brains, for a change." I dared not growl, but I wanted to. I almost spoke, but I caught myself. I narrowed my eyes and flicked my ears, instead. I knew better than to respond. He nodded at me, like he'd come to a decision. He reached over to his terminal on the table and tapped a few buttons.

"Go on, speak, little one. Let's see what my omega has to say."

Speak? I flattened my ears, no memory contained anything like this. I swallowed, staring right at him, mostly his nose. Those big yellow eyes were hard to look at, no matter what I thought about him. He was huge, my instincts made me want to hug the ground with my tail between my legs. My tail...

I turned and stared at it, flipping it to the left and right. A peculiar scent reached me, his intense scrutiny, but I was mesmerized by my tail. I had a tail all my life, of course, but I could have sworn I remembered wanting one, once. Can't want what you've always had. I turned back to face him.

"Whut's yourrr nem." It felt really hard to speak.

He wrinkled his nose, "yeah, I thought so. This conversation has to be short. To you, Alpha will suffice." He seemed to mull that over for a moment, then abruptly changed his mind, "to anyone else, it would be Sin, short for Sinclair. Does the name mean anything to you?" I shook my head, there was a lot on my mind, but the name meant nothing.

"Last time we tried this, do you remember what happened?"

I clutched my right arm protectively, it had a nagging ache occasionally. I remembered him breaking it, after I bit him. Pain is the greatest teacher, he said. He healed me in just one night, but... the memory, I nodded.

"Good boy." I hated how I felt such pride at those words, but the idea of speaking and then hearing him praise me was truly unique.

Memories filled in with greater depth, another wave, lesser details sharpened. I wasn't the only one who had been injured, and that wasn't even the first time. We had both gained scars... but I was the loser in every battle, he was bigger, stronger, and faster. An underlying emotion threaded through it all: loyalty. Was that mine, or the collar's? What's the difference?

I felt bad for what I had done to him.

"Arrr you gone. To leave me this way? Please?" I'd beg, if I had to. I wanted to stay normal, wasn't this normal? My tongue felt a mile long, for some reason, and it kept getting in the way.

"Absolutely not. Some day, I hope. But not yet."

I puffed up, I didn't like someone else choosing my fate. Anger built up. I leaned my head forward and bared my teeth.

He lunged at me and grabbed my muzzle, wrenching my head up to flip me onto my back. The wind in my lungs left with a rush, and his knee on my chest helped the rest to come out. His claws squeezed my mouth hard enough to draw blood, he was making sure I couldn't look anywhere, but into his eyes. He snarled deeply, growling again, and again, into my face.

I held my paws out, not daring to touch him, my eyes darted to the left and right, only occasionally centering on his. I immediately looked away, the anger in them burned so bright.

Calm, menacing. "Do you want to talk and smell like a freak for the rest of your life?"

I shook my muzzle back and forth, just slightly. I didn't understand what that meant.

"Good! Then you'll do what I tell you to, and you won't fucking challenge me!" He released me suddenly, and got up, backing away. His eyes never left me.

I whimpered, confused, coughing to get my breath back. I sat up and pointedly avoided his gaze, staring at the floor.

"My team... they'll k-kill yuh, you. Some day." Don't know where those words came from, but there they were.

He laughed. "Your team. That's funny. You mean, my team?"

I swallowed and looked up from the floor, "yourrr?"

"It's been a year. You've had at least one recall. Let me ask you, what breed was your alpha, Zeek?" He sneered the title.

"Errrm. Sib. Siberrrian Hus husky." Lips... just not working right.

"Ok." He made a rolling gesture with his paws, "who else have you met that looked like him?

Er. Wait. No, that was just a dream... but in it. Zach. Zeek. They did look... exactly the same. "Nnn. No, thuh, that can't be..." shock must be responsible for why I can't talk right.

"But it is, Keman. Arrrick." He spoke the second name like it was an insult.

I shut my eyes, something felt wrong, my head hurt, I leaned forward and puked on the floor.

Sin mumbled, "Ah shit. Fucking Zach..." he took two quick steps to his computer terminal and slammed a key on it. He sighed, turning around.

"All right, Keman. It's alright... you're ok." He walked up to me and pet me between the ears softly, while I hacked and heaved. I was shaking, I felt like a complete wreck. Sweat dripped off my nose with long streamers of snot, my paw pads fought for traction on the smooth floor. I sniffed at the puddle of green bile in front of me and wrinkled my nose. I sneezed and shook the rest off my muzzle.

"Where's your toy?" Toy? "Go find your toy!" Toy!

I looked around the room and ran up to my bed, diving on one of my toys to chew at it, making it squeak and bringing it back to him, my tail wagging. I was so happy.

"Good boy!" He pet me between the ears and rubbed them deeply. I felt better than ever. "Zach and I need to have a talk..."

I looked at him curiously, then chewed on my toy some more.

Chapter 8.

Zach followed Sinclair through the various rooms and hallways of his estate on the colony planet, Allenvan. He knew this meeting was about Keman, but Sin hadn't given any specifics at the time, just "come." His team was confused when he had ordered them to abandon their current mission, but they couldn't handle the truth.

He almost had to run, to keep up, and Sin was doing it on purpose, but he wasn't about to object. It was a test, Sin performed them steadily, to gauge the reactions of those around him. Unlike Zach, Sin was a true alpha, such tests were instinctual in a wolf.

Claws scraped on expensive rare woods, caught in thick carpeting. Workers parted around them automatically, giving a wide berth. They reached a long hallway, and as they walked down it, Zach glanced into the windows on his right. Business executives were holding meetings in small groups, and he wondered how many credits were involved with each one. Clare Industries had passed its net worth of a billion credits since Sin had acquired it two and a half decades ago. Those executives were here for the sole reason that Sin required in-person interactions for all critical decisions.

Zach was worried about Keman, he wondered how his mind was coming along, and what Sin thought of him. He wanted so badly for this project to be a success. Finally, Sin spoke.

"He's been cycling in the higher levels; I've got some footage I want you to review." Nothing strange about that. Sin paused and stared at him, sniffing the air.

"That's normal, what will I see?" He twitched his whiskers, "he's not doing it in the lower levels?"

Sin flicked his ears in the negative, "no, but," he hesitated. "We had an interesting conversation yesterday."

Conversation? No! Zach's pupils widened, it was too soon to let him talk. The process of articulating speech could purge his artificial memories. His instincts, sensory processing, speech, his cultural nuances, all the things Rhenthar needed, to be Rhenthar. Zach stammered, looking around in silence, trying to hold his scent neutral. Finally he spoke, "Er, what did he say?"

They had reached their destination, Sinclair opened a heavy door and gestured for Zach to enter. "He said my Hahkota team was going to kill me some day."

Zach couldn't help it, he yelped and swallowed, trying to calculate the implications with a blur. "Oh." His legs felt like rubber as he walked past Sin into the room.

"Yeah," Sin tilted his muzzle to track him, "oh." He flattened his ears, "I made sure he understood who's team that really is, I blew your cover." He shrugged, like it was nothing. "He's definitely had a recall, so it was only a matter of time." He followed, and shut the door.

The scent in the room overpowered Zach, bringing forth many happy memories. Ripples of pleasure shot between his legs, this was Sin's bedroom. He reached down and shifted his sheath around, trying to push those thoughts away. He caught Keman's scent, his brought good memories, too.

Keman was asleep in the corner, and despite the underlying seriousness of the situation, merely seeing him in person was like so much water in the desert. He paused and stared at the big timber wolf, all curled up and dozing, then twisted his neck to look at Sin. "He's-"

Sin continued the sentence, "at a one. Been there since. I mentioned his human name, twice. No problem on a four, but at five... that was a mistake." Complex anger radiated from him in waves.

Zach flinched from the last part, he thought for a moment about how many years of effort had been invested in Keman so far. Zach had been born naturally as a Rhenthar, but the modification process had really screwed him up, he didn't want Keman to suffer the same fate. He knew so much more about how the mind worked, now. This time, it had to work!

Keman opened his eyes and stared up at the two new arrivals. He got up and stretched out, one hind paw at a time, then shook his fur out, wagging his tail as he trotted close, sniffing Zach's feet. Zach stared down at him, curious about what he might be thinking. Keman turned, glanced at Sin, then sat on his haunches and panted, seemingly happy.

Zach dropped down onto his hands and pet Keman between the ears. He pulled on his whiskers, playing with his lips, trying to irritate him so he could gauge his reactions. If his base memories were falling out too fast, his aggression would spiral out of control.

Keman took it all in stride, panting and quickly turning it into a wrestling game. He didn't put any real strength into it, and Zach knew precisely how strong those muscles of his could be, he had designed them. He wrestled back, grabbing at Keman's hands, "I've got your paws!" Keman howled and twisted around, trying to prevent his paw pads from being tickled. The weight of the situation faded the more Zach interacted with him, pulling on his tail, rolling around with him on the floor. Keman brought out one of his toys and together they played tug-of-war, growling at each other and howling, both. A half hour passed in what felt to Zach like seconds.

Zach glanced up at Sin, panting hard. He had been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, silently watching the whole time. His scent was of extreme pleasure, Zach felt embarrassed for a moment, he pushed himself up onto his hind paws to stand up.

"He has an amazing temperament, don't you think?" Zach looked hopefully at Sin.

"Fuck yeah," he said. "You were crazy on a one. I would have needed an hour with the autodoc, doing what you just did." He narrowed his eyes, "it was not pleasant, don't laugh."

Zach had a hard time remembering ever being at a one, the most rudimentary a Mark V collar supported, but it was funny. "Put him at a two?" he said. "You let him see it, right?"

Sin scowled. "Of course I let him see it," he walked to the side of the room and, with a flourish, tapped a button on the console beside his bed. He turned and looked at Keman.

I was panting and felt hot, like I had just gotten done running. I felt so happy, I looked around and saw him by the bedside table. Someone else was in the room, I glanced his way, curiously. His scent was familiar, and it was all over me. I walked up to him, my muscles were stiff, it felt good to move around. I sniffed at his feet, his crotch, then I looked up at his eyes, they were bright blue. I looked away. His scent changed, approval, happy.

If he was happy, then I was happy. I glanced at him, sniffing in his direction. Satisfaction. If he was satisfied, then I was satisfied.

"He's mirroring." The new one, still staring at me.

"That's because Keman's a very good boy." Ohhhh! That's my name! My tail flew as I ran up to him, panting. I sat, looking up at his big yellow eyes, then I looked away. I lay down on my stomach and peered up at him, sniffing his feet. I licked between his toes.

"Hahaha, hey, quit that." I rolled onto my side and gave a little howl, stretching out. Maybe he'd scratch my belly.

"He smells good. Do a three?" I turned my muzzle to look back at the new one, then glanced up at him as he touched... something. I cringed, waiting...

"Yep, he knows. Look at that." The Siberian, I turned and glanced at him, he's familiar. Zeek? But, what's he doing here? I walked up to him and smelled him closely, I could never forget that scent, my old Alpha, but I have a new Alpha. I glanced back at him, Sin... Sinclair. I felt silly, my ears splayed with shame as I walked back to him, to take his scent in a little closer. He smelled curious with a little bit of satisfaction. My confusion faded, I sat next to him on my haunches and leaned against his legs, staring at Zeek. My old Alpha, my old team... I had forgotten about them. For how long? Too long to care. Oh well.

"Stable, smells good. Let's try four." I wonder what Sin meant by that.

Sinclair pushes a button, and I know something is about to happen, I freeze. Words form in my mind, only faint at first. I want to speak them, but can't, I know I'm not allowed. I look up at Sin while leaning by back against him, feeling a little afraid. Zeek is in the room, my old Alpha, my old team... my old life! I don t want to dwell on the past, though, it doesn't make any sense, I don't even want to think about it, it hurts too much.

Sinclair reaches down and scratches me behind my ears. "Penny for your thoughts? Here's a dollar. Speak."

"But-" I cringed, waiting for the pain, but it doesn't happen. "Whu, why is, see," damn lips, "Zeekuh here?" I scented Zeek's sudden disappointment, and felt my ears wilt.

"Ahh, shit." Zeek rubbed his chin with a claw. "Talk some more, Keman."

"Whu, why am I herrre?" My heart picks up a beat, as I form conclusions... "Wherre haf, have you buh been?" I advanced a few steps to the middle of the room, and turned to look at Sin. Where I expect hatred to fill my mind, instead, it's pleasure. I turned and looked at Zeek, but instead of pleasure, there's hatred. He betrayed me! But, when? I haven't seen him in forever. His new scent hits me, distaste, concern, worry. I glanced at Sin and sniffed the air, some of the same, but there's one on top of it all: recognition. I don't understand, what part of me seems familiar?

"Yick, he is cycling." What? I turned and glanced at Zeek, I don't understand, help me understand.

"Suh, cycleeng? Who, me?" I stared at him, but he didn't answer, his scent only became guarded, neutral.

"Five."

I looked at Sin as soon as Zeek said it, my ears were sideways as I watched him push a button. Zeek. Zach. The dream, my previous life, life as Keman? No, life as...

I looked down at my hands and turned them around, thick, dark paw pads, canine. Something tight around my neck, I pulled on it, a collar. The tags jingled, the sound was very familiar. I focused on it, time slowed down. Forty-Six centies... my suit, my allergy, something went horribly wrong. I stared at my forearms, I'm not supposed to have fur on them, how will I go out in public? Panic rose as I stared closely at my fur, noticing that it's not even a single coat, it's thick and dense with an undercoat. I'll end up shedding, oh no...

"Look at that." Guttural, growly.

I slowly raised my sight to stare at a huge black wolf standing on his hind legs, looking at me with piercing yellow eyes. He had just spoken, but something was in the way, I couldn't see, I reached up and pulled at it, it's my face, get it off my face! I pulled and dug in with my fingertips, but it stung, I had claws. I looked at my hands again, in horror. Sharp, black claws. I felt around, in my mouth, a long tongue, sharp teeth. I looked at the other side of the room, my heart was pounding in my ears. A Siberian Husky, standing on his hind legs, too. Staring at me with intense blue eyes. Zeek, Zach.

"Keman!" I froze, staring at Zach. Zach had once been nice to me, but who's Keman? "Calm down..." He pointed a finger at me, leaning forward. Keman isn't my name.

"Muh nem is Arrr... urf." I held my head in my hands, shutting my eyes while the world swam around, it suddenly gave a violent lurch, I felt my stomach heave. Someone was shouting, "lower it, lower it!" I heard growling, some sort of argument. "No! Let him sort himself out." The growling got deeper, "too much!" I opened my eyes, everything had a red cast to it, the growling was me. "Not yet, a little longer... do you smell that?" Who's a little longer? I need to fucking kill something...

Grrr!

Gr.

Whine.

I felt lost and scared, but there's Sin, he's in my sights and I lunged at him, wrapping my arms around his legs, letting out long whimpers. I tried to sit every inch of my body on top of his feet, where I knew I'd be safe. He smelled strange, like he was afraid of me, and if Sin was afraid, I was really afraid. But the fear was only for an instant. Someone was licking my muzzle, which tickled, I shook all over, but that pink tongue kept hitting my eyes, it was Zeek, Zach. I hated him once, but I couldn't

remember why. Forgiveness was the canine way, so I licked him back, and he smelled wonderfully happy. I looked up at Sin, he was petting me between the ears and speaking words of comfort, I'm a good boy. Such a good boy. More licking and tickling, why yes I do want to wrestle...

Zach stood up, the game was over. I licked the sides of my muzzle, tasting my blood. When had I been hurt? It didn't hurt, much, I was ok.

"That was good." Sinclair stared down at me curiously.

"Good? That was dangerous, he could have, he would have... he needs time! Please, sir." He scratched me between my ears and inspected my muzzle closely. "Just give him more time." More time? Who needs more time? Words hovered in my periphery, it felt like if I reached out, I could grab them, but I wouldn't know what to say. I felt so tired.

"I agree, he does need more time." Sin stared, his eyes unfocused. "Hmmm," he tapped a few keys on the console next to him. "His scent's fucked up at the highest level, but that's where he needs to be at, in order to learn. In order to get past the barrier. We need to get him around more of our kind, but if they smelled him, that would be it. I could hire a team, disable their olfactory..." He looked around. "A team. Who can't smell. Can't smell much when it's real cold, can you, Zach?"

I tried to follow the conversation, but it was vague and I felt exhausted. I rolled onto my back and kept licking the blood off my muzzle.

"Erm. Cold? Zach laughed, then whimpered, "a sled team?"

"Got it in one. Who's a good boy?" Sin was all teeth.

Zach yelped, he held his ears sideways and looked around on the floor, thinking. He looked up. "No scent, he's partial quad, he can run on all four."

"Just like you can, mister sled dog.'

"I? Me? But I..." he stared at Sin. My nose scented frustration, submission. "Yes sir."

"Hey." Both Zach and I stared at Sin. "Keman, your bed is over there," he pointed. I heaved myself to my feet, "Zach, tell your team you're going to be away for a while..."

I plodded to my bed and fell down on it, curling up. I yawned, so much to think about, yet so few thoughts.

Chapter 9.

I woke to the sound of my leash jingling in front of me. That was my cue, I reached up and took the end, clipping it to the "D" ring on my collar, the same my tags hung from. I wondered where we were going?

"Keman, hup! Let's go..." Sin paused to let me stretch out, one hind paw, errrrff, the other. I shook my fur out, everything settled all smooth and proper. I licked my prick back into my sheath and then looked up into his eyes with a long yawn. "You are such a lazy dog... but not for long."

I wonder what he means. Thoughts come easily to my mind, this time. His scent was contagious, excitement and interest, so that became my own. My heart even picked up a notch.

The bottom of the leash stayed in my field of vision as we walked, I had learned quick what happened if I pulled it in any direction. Nothing fun, I was made to sit, lie down, and stay. I remembered it all clearly, and at the time, I had been completely at odds to that leash. Especially with all the exciting smells and sights we were often surrounded by.

We entered a bathroom and he walked me up to my urinal. "Potty." I mounted the collection pod, gave a good shove, and waited with gentle pressure against my bladder. What once used to hurt, didn't anymore, my bladder emptied with a nice feeling of relief, I pushed the flush button and felt warm water wash over my dick. I pulled out and licked myself dry, then looked up at Sin.

"Number two?" I shook my head. "All right, let's go."

We walked through some of the less familiar areas of his house. I sniffed the floor occasionally, drinking in all the scents. Sin seemed more than happy to let me pause to do so. Strangely, things I know I had smelled before seemed new to me. Recognition was delayed, but it came. Our claws clicked into an elevator with a white marble floor, veins of gold spread in all directions from the center. I sat on my haunches, next to him, while he selected a button near the bottom of the panel. My ears splayed with mild discomfort, I could remember a time when I was terrified of this elevator. We descended swiftly, and the doors opened with a chime.

We walked into an underground area full of heavy industrial equipment. Much of it was in use, running by itself. Sin unclipped my leash. "Go explore, touch nothing, Keman."

I smelled fresh polymers, cutting oil, welding gas, hot motor windings, ozone, metal alloys. My heart began to pound with excitement. I ran down the center of an aisle, pausing to take in each new scent. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands.

I saw baths of acid inside fume hoods, and I knew they were used for etching steel before electroplating and anodization. I didn't know how I knew that, but I didn't care. Words drifted inside my reach, but I was too busy exploring to need them. I watched a drop forge in action, loudly pounding on a billet to increase its density and hardness. A wheeled robot honked at me when I blocked its route, it was carrying two big rolls of purple and blue nylon webbing. I stepped out of the way and it mumbled at me as it passed. I panted in laughter as I poured on enough speed to jump over it, making it stop again to honk at me. But it was behind me, and I was gone.

There was no single direction I could look, without movement filling my vision. The area was vast, walls were only vague and distant. Occasionally, I spotted other Rhenthar working at some of the machines, but only rarely, almost all the equipment was automated. I watched waldo arms welding a long circular pipe as it was rotated expertly. I knew that was a form of tungsten inert gas welding, TIG. The trail of bright orange reminded me of heat patterns I had once seen up close, behind a shielding helmet I had worn, but it was flat, because I didn't have a muzzle...

What a crazy thought, it must have been in a dream. But I remembered a certain dream... and Zach was in it. Didn't I just see Zach, yesterday? Zeek. My pupils dilated, but a shower of sparks behind me got my attention. That's a plasma cutter, on an automated assembly, the only useful way to cut stainless titanium, and I knew that... because I saw it in a shipyard.

I stared at the sparks, showering down, spraying in all directions as the globules of white hot metal fell a dozen meters to spray into huge fireworks displays when they hit the floor. Totally different, when, in a zero-g environment, magnetic repulsion fields pushed the slag away before it damaged equipment as it floated in space.

Space. I could remember hoping one day my society would live in space. I looked at my hands. Those were some very sharp claws. Fear trickled into my mind, something was wrong.

A huge electric motor used multiple startup stages to grind into motion behind me, the hum of its superconducting cables made me spin around to stare, furthering my fright. A grinding wheel sent a shower of sparks six feet into the air to my left, yikes!

I sat on the cold floor and held my paws over my ears, keeping them flat, my eyes were shut tight. I wanted my Alpha.

The world slowly rotated around me, or maybe I was turning as I stared. All motion, sparks, hydraulic rams, cutting, drilling, welding, bending. My heart beat faster in my ears.

I turned and ran!

Wind in my ears. Faster.

I turned a corner and poured on more speed, the main central isle had a special high friction surface. I used it to run as fast as I could, holding my ears flat from the deafening wind as it rushed by. A steel "I" beam lowering a chain whipped past me on my right.

I put my nose in the air as I ran, left, no, right. I shot in that direction between machines as big as my old house, full of thousands of pipes, distilling who knew what. Sinclair!

I saw his black form hunched over a huge electronic sewing machine. I lunged at him and stopped with my head up against his leg, terrified, shaking. I ground my eyes into his warm fur and kept my ears flat. He smelled patient. Words withdrew from my mind.

"Interesting place?" He ignored my fear, and that made me want to ignore it, too. What was I afraid of? I looked up at him and shook my fur out, panting. I looked around. On my left, on a work surface, I spotted stacks of collars, just like the one I wore. Forty-Six centies.

An automated carrier chimed twice as it wheeled up to Sin. On its surface was a block of gleaming purple alloy. The second time I had seen that shade today. It was shaped like a "Y" with thick shiny black gel along the underside. It was curved and smooth, with angular windows on each side of the "V." It had a distinctly canine shape... like a head.

Sin picked it up and I saw that it had two flexible rubber tubes hanging out of the front, they wobbled around as he inspected all the edges. At the top, I could see the gel twisted into two convoluted hooks. He touched an activation stud and I heard the sharp whine of a fuel cell as it purged into life. He gestured for me to sit, I sat.

Sin set the heavy object on top of my head, every curve fit my muzzle perfectly. He put fingers behind my ears to point them straight, and wiggled the protrusions down into my ear canals. I heard a ratcheting click, the squeak of air pushed out, a little pain in my ears and then silence, which was a sharp contrast to all the machines filling the air around us. Sound returned, a moment later, though altered as if from a microphone. The windows over my eyes were tinted, and at first I thought they were completely opaque, but as my night vision dialed in, my sight came back slowly. Sin chuckled at me as I looked around, the rubber protrusions in front of my nose flopping this way and that. Metal covered my nose completely, it ran up the center of my muzzle and spread out on my forehead, ending in my ears.

"Keman, wanna be a good boy for me?" Sin chided, curiously.

I wagged my tail, all my fear from earlier was gone.

"Ok. I want you to be brave, because this is going to hurt. You can be brave, right?" Of course I could be brave. I panted and sat there.

Sin reached up to the floppy tubes hanging in front of my nose, and slid them forward, into my nostrils. They were barbed, and increased in diameter steadily. The crackling sound in my head sent flashbacks spinning through my mind, sharp pain followed with a click. I yelped and whined!

"Who's a big baby? Yes you are..." He ruffled my ears and looked at everything closely, inspecting the fit. He tried to peel it off my head, but it wouldn't budge, and it hurt my ears when he pulled. He touched another stud on my forehead, and the whole thing started to warm up. It almost became hot enough to burn, but then it leveled off. In just moments, I felt too hot, and I panted with my tongue far out. My paw pads all started getting slippery with sweat.

Sin touched the stud again, the warmth faded away. He walked over to a tripod and snapped his fingers a couple of times, pointing to a spot on the floor in front of it. I walked over to it and sat. "Stand up," he commanded.

I looked at him curiously, then eased my weight onto my hind paws, spreading out my stance, I lifted my body up into the air and stood up tall. I leaned forward only a little, my tail wasn't heavy enough to be a real counterweight, but this new vantage was amazing as I looked around. How long had it been since I last stood like this? The room stretched on forever in three directions, I spotted the elevator behind us. It chimed and the doors opened.

A green laser shot out of the tripod, it painted lines on my body. Sin walked up to me and moved my arms around, positioning them at my sides, just so. His ears went sideways when Zach walked by us, the little husky was half a meter shorter than me, now. I looked down at him through tinted glass and sniffed at him. He stared at me with wide eyes, then jumped when Sin moved, staring up at him. Zach showed him his throat, Sin returned the gesture, much less throat. It looked familiar to me, that exchange.

"Is he...?" Zach looked at me, then glanced at the machines in motion around us.

"Three. Four, earlier, on his own. Wigged out completely, you're going to need to keep a close eye on him." Three... four. Hm. That's my collar they're talking about. It is controlling me.

"Ok, I will. Is that the new cranial heater?" Zach peered up at my head, twitching his black nose. I reached out and tickled his stomach.

Zach snerked, like he enjoyed it, then shot a look at Sin. "Hey, no! Bad!" He bared his teeth at me.

I looked at the floor, surprised by his reaction. My knees felt weak, I wanted to be on all fours. Zach stared at them, saw they were shaking. He looked up at me and patted my side.

"Is ok... your mind has lost a lot, Keman. We'll keep putting it back in, and this time, it'll stay, for good. Show me your throat, remember?" I... did remember, now. I copied what I saw him and Sin do earlier, and lifted my muzzle to the side. I felt vulnerable doing that.

Zach sniffed me and wagged his tail, lifting his muzzle in a similar manner. His scent... changed. I caught the trace of fear, and somehow that made my comfort return.

"Now we are equal. If I showed you less, I would apply my dominance over you, or vice versa. Always do this before touching someone, Keman. Their response can tell you if you'll lose some fingers." It all seemed familiar, and I got it, wagging my tail.

Sin had watched the whole exchange in silence, he finally spoke up.

"Not where you're headed. Up north, customs are different. Very doglike, the two of you should fit right in. They're very... eccentric."

Zach let out a whine. "I hope it doesn't get that cold up there."

"It doesn't, usually. Minus thirty, tops. These heaters are safe to minus sixty. You'll head to the outpost near the pole, Aalba. They're performing core sample research, the ones we've been discussing. It's time to find out if what's up there is real."

The machine Sin had been working on earlier began moving it's needles in a blur, spitting out a tangled pile of purple webbing. Sin took it and began attaching metal pieces to certain areas. Click, snap.

"Sit over there, Keman." Sin gestured at a spot on the floor. I dropped to all fours and padded up to it, sitting. "Zach, your turn."

"Hurf, me? Oh." Zach stood up as tall as he could in front of the tripod. The machine next to it spat out a pile of blue webbing, just like the first. Zach eyed it warily.

"C'mere, Keman." Sin held up the purple bundle, I trotted up to him and sniffed at it, curiously. "Let's put this on you... hold still." I froze, he pulled the straps over my head, down my body. It felt tight at first, but as he tugged it lower, it loosened up over my stomach. It was shaped like an "X" in the front, two X's down the back, a metal coupler terminated just above the base of my tail. Sin tugged at it in a few areas, he smelled satisfied.

The machine finished with the pile of blue, Sin took it and crooked a finger at Zach. "C'mere, harness boy..." Zach mumbled and whimpered, he sounded embarrassed. "Turn around..." Zach bared his teeth. Sinclair leaned forward and whispered something into his ear. Zach yelped and turned to face me. Sin tugged the harness down, around his chest, and finished sliding it into place.

He checked the tightness of various straps crisscrossing Zach's body.

"Carbon nanotube webbing. I bet someone likes this, a lot." Zach whimpered, Sin reached down and gripped his sheath, giving him a couple of squeezes. "Oh my, maybe I should 'site you, too. It's the only way you'll leave yourself alone..."

Zach whimpered and howled, shaking his muzzle. I watched, fascinated. Of all the memories I had of Zach... Zeek, none were like this, it was a side I had simply never witnessed in him.

"Hm, yeah, I think you need one. You've got the rest of the night to prove your self control. And I know all the ways to test it..." Zach shook his head and gibbered. For all his noise, I scented nothing but pleasure from him.

"Maybe this harness needs a lock. You see, Keman's harness doesn't lock, how would that make you feel?" Zach kept howling and whimpering. I was learning, all right. I reached down and shifted my sheath around, something about all this was turning me on.

An automated carrier chimed, interrupting the apparent torture. Sin turned to look at it and pointed. "Go make sure that fits." On it was another cranial heater, just like what I wore, but in a shade of blue that matched his harness.

Zach padded over and picked it up, inspecting it before pushing it down on top of his head. He caught the prongs inside his ears and hooked them in place with a grunt. He looked around for a moment, like he was blind, then peered at Sin.

Sin gestured at the floppy tubes hanging out the front. "All the way."

Zach pushed them in, until they clicked in place. He sneezed a couple of times, gobbling to himself.

Sin walked up to him. "Does it fit evenly?" He squinted at it, then touched a stud in the back, he gave me a knowing wink. I wondered what was going on.

"Fit's fine." He reached up and touched the prongs lodged in his ears, pulling at them. He whined and pulled harder, but they wouldn't come out. Sin laughed, a deep rumble. Zach froze and stared up at him.

"Oops. I guess I gave you the one that locks. My bad."

Zach redoubled his efforts trying to pull the metal device off his head. Sin reached down between Zach's legs and tweaked his sheath a couple more times.

"Yep, you love it. Don't even bother trying to tell me otherwise. Let's head upstairs, Keman. I'll show you a few tricks with Zach you should know about."

Chapter 10.

Zach has my hands... my paws... held tightly, as I pivot to stand up. The room shifts around, I have a nagging feeling, like this is a dream. Echoes, of a dream which fade to black when I struggle to make changes, to take control. I'm back in my room, sleeping, on the verge of sleep... I drift back off.

I hop forward, ordering my feet to shift backwards, onto my heels, but where a heel is right below my ankle, there is nothing now, and my calves strain trying to stretch that far. I bounce back up onto my toes, instead of so much effort needed to hold me on them, it's almost no effort at all. I stare into his blue eyes, he laughs at me and pants. His hands are warm and steady.

"Stay on your toes! Look at your feet, you're digitigrade, not plantigrade. Your days of sprained ankles are over." I look down and see that he's right. My lateral stability compensates when my feet don't land square, even though the floor is flat, I can see what he means. Fascinating. I step my paws to the left and right while he holds me up, and if I concentrate on walking on the balls of my feet, it feels about the same as when I was human. My mind is full of a lifetime of muscle memory, but there is none of ever learning how to walk, it's too far back, I was too young. This all feels new, the motions I try to use only partially match up.

"Lean forward, I'm going to let you go."

I keep my knees bent, noticing my femurs are ridiculously short compared to what I'm used to. The steps I take are small, and when Zach lets go I fall forward immediately, onto my padded palms. So that's the compromise, no heels... less upright stability. My knees don't... can't... touch the ground. I think my ass is up high in the air. I turn to look at it, and am shocked to see that not only is it level with my head, I know I'm flexible enough to reach it. I see my tail, and the urge to chase and bite it feels poetic, that would be hilarious if I did that. Instead, I stare up at Zach and bring my muzzle way too high into the air again, he disappears behind my nose. He pushes it down, out of my field of view. This is going to take some serious getting used to, I didn't realize how much a human head could move without interfering with vision.

"Good enough. That put sockets into your brain, new areas I can fill with memories. It would take weeks to learn how to walk upright, but we're going to do it in just moments." He points at me. "This is the only way you can run, on all fours. Ready for some memories?"

"Um, sure." I feel lost, and hope understanding isn't part of what's needed.

Zach pauses, sniffing. "You say you understand, but your smell says no."

Oh wow. I realize Rhenthar must never directly lie to each other. The implications of that... a society built around honesty, trust. I can't even imagine it.

"I, uh, I don't understand." I pause, while he watches. He seems patient. Something else nags at my mind, "I'm afraid, Zach. All these new memories, losing my old ones... will I lose myself? Will my consciousness... quit? From my perspective, will I die again?"

Zach whips his muzzle left and right, "No, never! You wake up from sleep, memories come online, like... clothes you wore, as human. You look down, see blue shirt, yes? I take your blue shirt off, give you a red one. Make it like you remember putting the red one on, and even if you don't quite remember, your mind closes the gap, makes the connection, fills in the blank. Now, you look down, see fur. Too big of a gap. Need filler. You never wore fur," he pauses, grinning. "Except once, almost. That's why you're so special." He glances at my knees, they're wobbling. He points up into the air, near my nose. I stare at his finger, but it gets closer, too close, I fall back onto my butt. Now I'm sitting, with my knees around my elbows, just like a dog.

"Good boy..." He pets me between the ears, the sensation makes me pant with my eyes shut. I lean into it, thinking back to all the times I roleplayed with my friends, trying to get them to pet me like this. The lame act it often seemed, no matter how real it felt to me, I could tell they weren't into it. Not like I was, this blissed me out. I hear snuffling noises and the touch eases up.

Zach coughs and growls, more laughter. I open my eyes, thinking wistfully what I always think when someone pets me: that it didn't go on long enough.

"You like that. I knew! Too much code to go through, your brain. I made some interpolation. Hm. Stay, like shopping, I show you something."

Zach pads away and picks up a round circle of metal on a table. He tosses it at me. I try to catch it, but since my hands are supporting me, I fall over and it bounces off my side, it lands on the floor with a muffled thunk. I wobble back upright, using my feet to lever myself up upright onto my butt. The padded floor is cold directly against my sphincter, I don't have much for butt cheeks anymore. Thoughts of hygiene and guilt peak, then fade as I realize, yes indeed, I can reach that now, with my tongue. Zach is entranced with all this, and I look at the object he threw at me.

I pick it up, it's a metal collar with shiny gold stubs equally spaced all the way around facing inside, I count six of them. It feels surprisingly heavy, and I can barely see the gaps between small sections that make its surface smooth but flexible. I notice an inscription on the inside, I flip it around and can see that it reads "MARK V" ... I wonder who Mark is, is that the guy Zach wants me to meet?

He doesn't say anything, so I look at it closer. The stubs are spring loaded, but they feel hydraulically dampened. I know what this is, it's a remote control shock collar, similar to the ones I make, er, made, but infinitely superior. I feel guilt and shame, holding it, which is typical any time I see a collar, because there's another thought prominent in my mind, arousal. I feel coldness between my legs, again, but this time, no amount of pulling on my sheath covers it up. I feel even more embarrassed, and can hardly look at Zach, knowing he's staring at me. Knowing he knows.

"It's, um, nice." I set it down, staring at him, hoping he looks away. Can't he see I'm uncomfortable? He sniffs in my direction and looks down at the collar, lying on the floor. I notice part of the outside is shiny, I steal another glance, it looks like a tiny screen with even smaller buttons next to it. I want to pick it back up, so badly, it hurts. I want to try putting it on, I wonder if my neck is too big. I want to be alone, so I can really look closely at it. With pure force of will, I look away.

"Nice?" He laughs another of those sad howls. "What would you do if I put it on you, and told you that if you try to take it off, it'll kill you?" He goes on before I can answer, "what if it fucks with your mind, tears apart your memory associations, so when you wake up with a red shirt on, you have no memory of putting it on?"

"What if it make you stupid," he bares his teeth, growl fills his voice, "and eventually you figure out how stupid?"

I remember to look away, even though I'm not angry, myself. My shame furthers along with the warm erection between my legs. It sounds like the hottest thing I've heard in a very long time.

Zach steps forward and leans down, to my horror, he pulls my arm out of the way. He stares down curiously at my erection, then looks back up at my eyes. My shame explodes, I want to hide in embarrassment, and I ready some excuses, some long explanations about my kinks. I'm used to people thinking I'm a freak. He interrupts me before I can speak.

"And that..." he points at my dick, poking out for the entire world to see, "is why you're perfect." He backs up and laughs, my shame edges into confusion. "No time for history lesson, you wouldn't remember anyway. But, your race made us. Enslaved us. Long time ago, great great grandfather. No more slaves, we fought. Peace, for a while. Then humans all died, dirty eight. HIV, airborne. All dead. Thank Dog this not exist back then. We would all be slaves, today." He looks away, fighting with himself, mumbling.

"Rhenthar don't like collars, I take it?" Though he hadn't given me any acceptance, for what I obviously liked, my confidence built up quickly. I stumble over the thought of my race, my previous race... all dead.

"Fuck no! Not... what represent, not feeling around neck like Alpha's jaws always there, not being made into a dog after being made not a dog!" He shook, and though everything smells new to me, his scent seems warped, somehow. It feels like there is something I'm missing. I stare at the collar on the floor and pick it back up, looking at the little screen in its side.

"Who you meet. Hottest. He likes them a lot, too, just like you."

"He likes to wear them?" A familiar shame edges its way back in.

Laughter, a sad howl. "Oh, no. No. Not anymore..." he mumbles something I can't hear, "but he'll be very happy to see you in one." Cold blue eyes like chips of the deepest ice, sharp white teeth.

I keep trying to pull my sheath back up to cover my prick, the days of my private parts being private are apparently over. I stay hunched in on myself to give my skin the greatest slack. I quietly curse Zach for not designing my sheath longer, but then I look down and see just how long it would have to be. My knot adds almost three inches to the eight inches of glistening shaft in front of it. Good lord, I'm huge.

I think of all my canine roleplay in the bedroom, my collars, how stupid it all felt at even the best of times, yet, here I am. Slow anxiety begins to brew, as I know what happens to my mindset if someone approaches me on this subject in the wrong way, if they're not dominant enough, my pleasure becomes resentment.

"Zach, um, did he actually force one of these on you?"

A long howl, he shakes his fur out. "Of course. That one," he points, "is mine. Things... complicated. I want him to be happy, he likes a fight, enjoys resistance, my fight was real, his pleasure was real. My pleasure was real, but not real. I am not suitable." His last words are in a different tone, and I know that they aren't his own.

Being forced to wear this, woof, I look it over while shivering. "I'm sorry you didn't like it, Zach. But I kinda like things forced, sometimes." Always.

Zach barks laughter at that, "I know. But. There is much, much more. Collar not just for fun, this is a big complicated problem. Rubik's cube, yes? Many moves, toward solution, puzzle solved, everything moves at least once."

"How so?" He has my curiosity, now. All the games I ever played to wear something like this, none were ever grounded in reality. In the end, it was just a game. What other purpose could something like this have?

"As I said, you're not Rhenthar. Not smell, not act. Very... distasteful. I can program base memories, but they will be weak, not stand scrutiny. The mind adapts. Fine, in the beginning. Enough to get around. Ten years, maybe twelve. New memories in that time solid, real. Foundation falls away, new memories are at risk. Human memories fill in, mesh with new, create foundation. Old you, new you. Happy."

I considered that for a moment.

"Without collar? Crazy as shithouse rat, never work. Need associations kept apart, for a while, several years. Mind heals slowly. Tried to speed up, once. Old memories stored in language center," he barked a sad howl, "one must go. My speech much better now than it was. But emotions still fuck it up." His scent turns sad.

"That happened to you?" My prick warms up as it slides back into its sheath. This part wasn't erotic at all.

"Yes. Too quick." He smoothes his whiskers back, shifts around uncomfortably, "hated that collar..." he eyes it in my hands, loathing.

"Er, wait. Why not use something else? If you hate collars so much?" I gesture helplessly around at the equipment surrounding us.

Zach lets out a soft growl, frustration maybe?

"You not listen? Rhenthar not make that. Days of slavery over. Humans gone! Who make? Who!"

I stammer, unsure what to say in response. "Who?"

"Big question. No answer, yet. No idea how functions, method. Brainwave, resonance, new type radiation, maybe. All. Memories, mind, what I put in just a hack. Someone out there... much better at this than us. But they not Rhenthar... someday, we find them."

I think about what he said earlier, the time frame. "Am I going to live a normal Rhenthar life, then? For ten years or so, first? Is that how this will work?"

Zach nods. "Then, hottest come in, take you, make you his. You won't know, you can't know... perfect. Your future forced, with hate..." he reaches forward and shoves my arm out of the way, I flinch and cover my erection, "then love..."

Zach pants with his tongue hanging out. I can see some of the damage in his mind, now. I can see past it, to someone painfully intelligent and devoted to one cause in his entire universe. Whoever this guy is, he has to be worth it.

This goes way past collar games, being forced to eat out of a dog bowl. Way past dominance and submission. This isn't some act, with an ending of sitting down to pay bills and then go back to work during the day. What Zach was describing is crazy intense, I briefly consider what it might feel like to say no again. How, even if I live only another sixty seconds, they would be spent surviving the greatest disappointment in myself that was even physically possible. It feels like I'm staring over the edge of a cliff, and knowing that I'm not going to jump.

I turn the collar over in my paws. The greatest disappointment or the greatest pleasure in the world, my world. If only all choices in life were so simple.

"Zach, you really did your homework. This sounds... amazing. What's next?" He barks very loud at me, howling.

"Next, we find what best life for you to live, next ten years. Things changed, six centuries. Ah. Some fun? Adventure? Come this way, I show you..."

Chapter 11.

Chris padded up to the table Nick was sleeping at, his arms were crossed with his muzzle resting on top. She picked up the glass next to him and drank what was left, then slammed it down onto the table's surface.

"Oh! I'm sorry." She picked up the bottle that was next to it. "Did I wake you, Nick?"

"Huh? Last call?" His blue eyes were rimmed with red, they blinked as he looked around, he focused on her and wiped crud out of the corners. He was still a little drunk, and Chris had all the right curves in all the right places.

"Last call was last night," she said, screwing the top of the bottle shut. She set it up on a shelf, out of his reach. "And while corp has me doing things outside of my job description, I'm not your alarm clock!"

"Well." Nick sat up and stretched his arms out with a yawn, "I've got some drilling to do, wanna help? I need someone to hold my bit..." He stared at her Collie form, letting his tongue hang out with a grin. He was a red Siberian Husky Rhenthar with reddish orange fur around his eyes, a sharp white star ended above his forehead.

Chris stomped her foot on the wooden floor of the local outpost's pub, it also doubled as a dining area three times a day. "Out!"

"In?" He winked at her. This was his usual behavior, anything less, and people wouldn't be getting their Nickel's worth.

"Out!" Another stomped foot.

"Oh, baby, lets tie." He trundled toward the door with more effort than should have been necessary to keep upright. Gotta switch back to Gin, there's a reason they call it ta-kill-ya, he thought. "What's the hurry? Supplies don't arrive for another two days. You're interrupting my quality time here..." At least, he thought it was two days. Maybe tomorrow. What day was it again?

Chris held a paw over her eyes, shaking her muzzle. "You're hopeless. Two temps, for your team. Hello? Waiting at the landing strip?"

"I'm not hopeless, I've got all sorts of hope." He waggled his eyes at her, "tell me about this landing strip!"

Chris grabbed a wet dishrag and threw it at his head. "Out!"

Nick dodged the missile and opened the door, he jumped out. "In!" He laughed and shut the door before anything else could fly at his head. That's right, he thought. Two new temps... he just happened to have two openings on his sled team. Really, he had six, but who's counting?

He hustled down the snow covered street and shook his thick fur out, it was definitely cold out here. He spotted a temperature gauge hanging on a wall, and thought it felt a lot colder than twenty. Wiping some snow off the minus sign, he nodded, that's more like it. The sun was low in the sky, and it would stay there for the rest of the month.

Nick popped the door to one of the storage sheds lining the street, and reached blindly inside to flip a switch. A bare light bulb came on revealing his pride and joy. Four meters in length, he inspected it's fluorinated polymer coated runners, fired up the SAT/NAV. He opened each heated storage compartment of the sled, to make sure nothing had been left inside.

Supplies hung ready on the walls. Harnesses, straps, traces, snowshoes, ice shoes, poles, spikes, cleats, and shaped thermal charges... mmm, fun stuff. He thought back to the communication sheet he had read yesterday, er, the day before yesterday. These temps were supposed to come with their own gear. OK.

He took his harness down from where it hung on a peg and squirmed into it. A strap fell across his muzzle and he tried moving it to the right, then the left, but it wouldn't fit in either spot. He took the harness back off and laughed, it was upside down. He pulled it back on and got it all just right.

A few minutes later, he had the sled easing out of its parking spot. His legs were long and very strong, and though he couldn't run on all four, he had no problem tearing up through the snow to go pick up some newbies.

I watched as the transport plane built up enough speed to lift into the sky. The rumble of thunder reached my ears as it bounced off various things near and far, and it sounded strange through the cranial heater hugging the top of my head, in my ears and nose.

Zach had helped me put it on before we went outside, explaining that it was compensation for our lack of winter coats. He explained how most of my blood went through my head several times per minute, and the heater would pour much needed warmth into my body. A heavy-gauge coiled wire ran from it behind my forehead to my collar, delivering current to generate supplemental heat, preventing it from freezing to my neck.

My mind felt as stuffy and dampened as my ears, words were outside of my reach. My past was troubling, but my attitude was good, life might be good. Zach seemed aware of my issues, and spoke calm words that put my mind at ease whenever he saw me hesitate or turn solemn.

Despite my orders to follow his commands, he had a new submissive scent. Sin had secured all four of his paws to the floor and together we tormented him at both ends, for most of the night. He finally exceeded his limit and lost his load, spraying below him. At that point, the parasite lying in wait had no problem finding the source of what it sought. Sin kept his mouth occupied while it aggressively secured its new home. I couldn't get off, but the process certainly turned me on. Zach whimpered and whined a lot afterwards, but he seemed to enjoy the attention.

Now his movements were stiff, he mumbled to himself often and kept shifting his sheath around. We each had a metal penetrator in our pack, a device similar to what was in the urinals I used. I had been shown how to operate it, and it certainly was simple enough.

I wasn't prepared for the cold. When I stepped out of the terminal, the air stung my body like a living thing, I felt my nuts draw close and my fur stuck painfully on end. The word, cold, did no justice. It did not flay skin from bones, it did not evaporate water from blood. When I first felt it, I couldn't breathe, it didn't even feel cold, it burned. I staggered and looked at Zach, horrified.

He laughed and walked up to me, brushing his paws through my fur. Everywhere he touched left a long burning sensation as the skin that was retaining my heat suddenly lost it to the air. I yelped and batted his paws away, but he only laughed more.

The wind whipped up, and where I thought the pain was intolerable, it doubled. I turned from it and tilted my muzzle at the ground. Life wasn't feeling so good.

"Keman, don't look so down. Come here." I approached, he adjusted my heater and warmth flooded into my head to spread down to my extremities. "You'll get used to it, quick enough."

I let out a little howl of uncertainty, but held my tail out. When I breathed through my nose, the heater warmed and moisturized the air I inhaled, and caught the moisture from my breath when I exhaled. When I panted through my mouth, huge clouds of steam drifted up into the air and fell to the ground as they froze.

A hissing sound approached us, paws crunching in the snow. I had to turn my muzzle towards where it was coming from, before it became any louder, the microphone pickup in the heater was directional.

"Ahoy there!" A lone Husky Rhenthar halted in front of a long, narrow sled. He sat down just as the sled ground to a halt under him. "Name's Nickel, you can call me Nick. You two my new temps?"

Zach stepped forward, and I waited for the secret Siberian Husky handshake, but apparently there wasn't one. "Sure, that's us. I'm Zach," he pointed at me, "this here is Keman."

Nick looked at me, seemingly tasting my name. "Keman?" I wagged my tail. "We don't really bare our throats around here, but for you, I'll make an exception," he winked.

"That's ok, we'll do it your way. Keman doesn't talk much, Zach explained, "a traumatic event took his words, but he understands everything you say." He glanced at me with a smile, "most of the time."

"Not a talker, eh? Fair enough. I think he and Stew will get along just fine, don't think I've heard more than a dozen words from him in five years. Hey, are those the new heaters I've been hearing about?"

Zach nodded to that. "6000 btu, we'll stay warm. No winter coat." He pulled at his fur to emphasize how thin it was.

"Rich city folk, then." Nick laughed, "I'll keep you warm during the day, with this beast," he slapped his sled, "and at night, I can keep you warm, too!" He howled, his humor was contagious, my spirits rose despite the numbing cold.

"All right, I see you already have harnesses on under your packs. Let me guess, carbon nanotube?" Zach nodded. Nick held up his paw secretly and whispered to me, "I think someone likes harnesses." He pointed at Zach.

I glanced at Zach, grinning big myself. Zach's grin vanished and he yelped.

"Uh huh. Yessir! I've got you figured out. C'mon and help me turn her about and I'll get you all hooked up. Just remember, the view's always the same unless you're the lead dog, and that's me!" His tongue hung out as he made big plumes of steam while turning the sled. Zach and I walked up together and gripped the traces, lending a paw. The sled moved forward on the ice and snow like it was on glass ball bearings, but lateral movement was difficult.

"You can stow your packs inside these compartments," Nick explained, once we got it turned around. He opened airtight lids on pneumatic struts. "Hot or cold, take your pick."

I slipped my backpack off and dropped it into the red interior of a "hot" storage area. I held my paw against the inside, and though it was only slightly above freezing, the difference was hot enough to seemingly burn my paw pads.

Our packs were the standard CI issue cold survival setup. The stuffy feeling in my head felt a lot like being stoned on weed. What had been explained to me didn't stick much in my memory, but I remembered that it had food and a thermal tent inside.

"Hey, what's that around your neck, Keman?" Nick asked, staring closely at the band of segmented bright metal.

Words I had certainly heard before. Hearing them previously had made me embarrassed, but I couldn't remember when or why, just that it had a sexual undertone to it. I grinned and shrugged.

Nick quirked his ears sideways at Zach, who stammered, trying to fit his pack into one of the other compartments. "My my... someone is a little kinky!" He howled into the air. Zach splayed his ears flat and didn't say anything.

"All right, dogs, line up!" Nick carved lines in the snow for where he wanted Zach and I to stand. Together, we approached them, I took the spot furthest back. When Zach got down onto all fours, he looked just like a real Siberian Husky, because of his small size. I tried to picture what that meant I looked like, a concept which felt strangely new.

I'm a big timber wolf when I get down onto all fours. Why did that turn me on? I focused on the concept, and decided that I felt great about my body, a foreign feeling, but there it was. I panted with a new level of excitement. Life was good.

Nick attached trace lines to each of our harnesses, explaining that the sled was empty and that this would be a test run back to the outpost, fifteen kilometers away. He asked if either of us had ever pulled a sled before, Zach had, but I shook my head. He explained to me that I needed to pay close attention to the tension in the traces attaching me to the sled, not to let them go slack, but also, not to try pulling it all on my own, speeding us up.

"Pulling a sled is a harmony of effort. You'll soon feel what everyone is doing, compared to your own efforts, and that'll be important when we've got the rest of the guys with us." Nick tied in to the traces at the front, I noticed his legs were so long, he couldn't run on all fours, and again, a curious sensation lingered in my mind. Legs which looked familiar for some reason.

"Forward, haaa!" We were off, picking up speed rapidly.

It wasn't long before my heart pounded in my ears, the warmth in my head faded as my heater's thermostat dialed back, I was generating all the heat I needed, on my own.

The sensation of pulling a sled was unique, as no matter how much effort I pulled, I gained no distance closer to Zach or Nick. The tightness against my shoulders was spread out comfortably with black rubber pads in strategic locations on the harness. My paws warmed up, claws dug into the snow with ease. A new clarity trickled into my mind.

Words formed, words I could speak, I knew. But Sin had been clear, I wasn't to try and speak, no matter what. I tackled some problems in my head, sorting my thoughts out, veering away from the troubling things. Sinclair, I missed him, yes, definitely. I snapped back to reality as the sled got harder to pull.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, Keman!" Nick, running backwards and holding his paws up. Behind him, and getting closer fast, were a tight collection of outbuildings. I was shocked, that was an hour?

But the sun hadn't moved... and what I could smell, hadn't changed. I peered up at the sun curiously, as we ground to a halt, staring at it through the tinted windows in my heater. I looked at Zach and Nick, each, with a troubled expression.

"Oh, that?" Nick hooked a thumb at the sun, low on the horizon. "It'll be there all month, Keman. It takes some getting used to, this time of the year. Makes some people crazy. I wouldn't know anything about that!" He howled. I glanced at Zach and we grinned at each other.

I could see only two streets, perpendicular to each other. The buildings were a mismatch of prefab plastic construction and hastily assembled wood and steel structures. The cold started seeping into my paws the moment we had stopped, and warmth flooded into the top of my head once more. My ears and nose were sore from the parts of the heater stuck inside them. A dull headache was building, making it easier to accept that I had just run for an entire hour. I was beat.

We helped Nick park his sled in a metal storage shed, but he insisted we wait to take our harnesses off. "Normally, we just dive into the snow," Nick explained. "Where it's all nice and warm. Take the heat from the trail with us." He was in constant motion, shutting the door and walking us to a wooden structure.

The door opened into blackness, a rush of hot humid air hit me like a yawning mouth. Zach poked me in the back. "Just walk forward, Keman. You're a little snow-blind."

I held out my paws and wandered into the unknown. Smells, voices, people, dark shapes moved around me. I could see much better at my periphery, but when I looked at anything directly, that area was completely black. Nothing was within reach of the door, it was an empty area with nothing I could knock over. Probably intentionally so.

Zach helped me take the heater off my head, the gel inserts squeaked and popped as they slid out of my ear canals, the part in my nostrils hurt worse coming out than it did going in. I shook my fur out and wagged my tail, though my head was still a little stuffy, like earlier. Words were again absent from my vocabulary. I looked around with rapidly improving vision.

The interior was decorated with old dog sleds and various retired winter gear, all mounted to the wooden walls. Lighting was dim, above each small table, and I saw a half dozen with people seated. The floor was wood; it spoke of many years of wear and scratches from claws and objects dragged across it.

"Guys! Meet our new temps! This is Keman and Zach," Nick said as he pointed to each of us. "Who says CI doesn't appreciate our efforts, eh?" There was a general grumbling from the people present, some choice words spoken under their breath.

Nick brushed it off like he didn't notice, he pointed at various individuals seated at tables, eating and drinking. The smell of food and people made my mouth water, my stomach clenched up into a ball and growled at least as loud as I could.

"This here is Stewart, we call him Stew," he said, pointing to an Alaskan Malamute Rhenthar. He was big and muscular, white with gray going down his chest. "He talks at least as much as you do, Keman." Some curious looks came my way from that. "Over there," he pointed to a Rhenthar who clearly came from gray wolves, he had white around his muzzle. "Rico. He's our maintenance engineer."

"Lo." Rico waved. Nick looked at me and held a paw up to his muzzle, whispering "don't call him a janitor, or your toilet will stop working."

"Just yours, Nick." Rico laughed.

Nick winked at me and pointed at a female Collie Rhenthar, sitting behind a counter set up as a bar. "And the Lady Christine, in all her glory." She put her fists on her hips after standing up, glaring.

"You'll call me Chris, if you two have a shred of intelligence more than this clown." Black and white markings, shaggy fur, floppy ears. A little taller than Zach.

"Yes ma'am!" Nick wagged his tail, she snorted and looked away. "Last, but not least, Chiko is over there," he pointed at, what I first thought was a small black wolf, but the white in his ears and the star running up his muzzle terminating on his forehead said Siberian all the way. "Our very own gift from Mother Russia. He's just missing the bow on his head!"

"I tie bow on head hor you, Nick-ell. Eny time." I noticed his left eye was deep green, his other bright blue. He was short and smelled complex, like engine oil and spices, I liked him immediately.

"And that's why we love you, Cheeky!" Nick whispered to me, "any warm hole!"

"Don't cull me that, Nick-ell. I tie somethink else on head and let hang." Chiko drew a claw across his neck, "do eweryone fawor, ha ha!"

"Chris, what's on the menu for today? Our new guys are probably pretty hungry, I know I am!" Nick rubbed his paws together and licked his muzzle. Zach started helping me out of my harness, it was deeply embedded in my fur.

Chris picked up a steak in each paw from a cold storage bin, "Cow." She slapped them onto a grill, they started sizzling immediately. "Hot." She tilted her muzzle at Nick, "any other requests? Perhaps a Caesar salad, eggs hollandaise?"

Nick laughed, "she's just pissed cuz CI has her analyzing the cores from her

drilling platform." I noticed Zach staring with sudden interest.

"I'm a geothermal drill specialist. Not an archeologist!" She glanced at the grill and flipped the steaks with a metal spatula. "Steaks will be done in a minute, unless you like your cow extra crispy." She slapped another steak on the grill, then immediately announced, "Nick, your steak's done."

Zach hung our harnesses up on pegs along the wall, I caught on that Chris wasn't about to serve me, so I stepped behind the bar and found some plates. I speared the huge pieces of meat with my claws, and dropped them heavily. There was very little plate left, the meat stuck out over the edges. My stomach clawed at my ribs, I couldn't wait to dig in. Nick moved up beside me and brushed his hips with mine as he produced a foul smelling oily brown sauce from a container up on a high shelf. I wrinkled my nose, it smelled like diesel fuel. He bumped my hips a couple of more times, I leaned back and peered at his tail, enjoying the view.

"Want some of the good stuff?" he asked, with a big grin.

"Don't poison him, Nick. That stuff's gross..." Chris smirked.

I shook my head and walked back to the table, handing Zach his plate.

Before we left, Sin had ordered me to stand upright whenever was possible, something new in my training. I fought the desire to drop to fours, eating my meal under the table. With a little extra effort, I pulled a chair out and sat in it, across from Chiko. Zach homed in on me, his mouth watering.

"Iz good you no dlink Neek's sauce. I use kep skeeds on sled oi-eld. Haw!" I stared at him and wagged my tail, using my back teeth to scissor the meat into chunks, which I swallowed whole. Pure heaven.

"Hum. You no talk much," Chiko stared at my neck. "That iz slav collair," he narrowed his eyes at Zach. "You own heem?" Conversation around us dwindled to silence.

I kept on eating, like I didn't understand, but it was an old defense. I couldn't remember when, but I had certainly worn collars before, in fact I'd been in this situation, before. I felt embarrassed, and Chiko's rising scent of anger wasn't helping.

Zach shook his head. "No. I don't own him." Chiko's nostrils flared... truth. "But it is a slave collar. It's the only thing holding Keman's mind together, right now. So lighten up? He's been through a lot, and we're fixing him up." Truth.

Chiko turned and looked at me. "Iz tlue? Whut you tink? Collair, locked tight awound nek. Canawt take oof. Look at taks, jinkle, you wear, like dug."

I had stopped eating, and was now staring at my plate, feeling further embarrassed, I slouched down on myself to give my sheath the most amount of slack. What was saying turned me on, the more I thought about it. Zach stared intensely at me, cocking his muzzle this way and that, observing my reaction.

Nick broke the tension as he walked by, looking over my shoulder, between my legs. "Keman! Put that away, before you poke someone's eye out." He turned to look at Chiko. "Cheeky, do I need to tell these boys about the first time I fitted you for a harness?"

Chiko jerked his muzzle up. "No! Iz priv-"

"How you wanted to be left staked out in the middle of the valley..."

"Nick-ell, shot up!" Waves of embarrassment flowed from Chiko. I started to eat again, Chris laughed behind me.

"...bottle of bitch in heat all over your rump." More laughter, from around us. Chiko stood up from his chair and walked out, muttering "hav verk to do on sled."

Nick took the abandoned seat and shifted around on it. "Yum, still warm!" He devoured his mostly red steak. I stared at him, deciding that I liked him a lot. He was cute in a sort of backwoods way. I thought of his narrow hips bumping mine, and thought of other ways they could bump together.

"Bartender! Who's leg do I gotta hump to get a drink around here?" Nick looked expectantly at Chris. She shook her head.

"I think you're well versed with where the bottles are kept. But I'll be happy to show you where the glasses are. You should try one for a change!" Hooting laughter followed.

Nick got up and found a bottle with amber liquid inside. "What was I thinking? You only serve virgins." He uncorked the bottle and sloshed some of the alcohol into a glass. He left it on the counter and walked back to the table with the bottle in his paws.

"Our only virgin just walked out," Rico chimed in, slapping paws with Stew. The two howled laughter at each other.

Nick rubbed my headfur as he walked past to sit down. "Don't let Cheeky get to you,

Keman. He's just jealous, he probably likes your collar." Nick stared at the bottle, like he was missing something. He spotted the glass left on the counter. "Keman, fetch?" He pointed to the glass.

Zach mumbled something as I got up to get it.

"I'm just kidding," Nick glanced at Zach and followed my progress. "That one's on the house! It's all you, Keman."

I sniffed the alcohol, my nose stung, it was something very high proof. I lapped at it and my tongue caught fire, then my throat. My ass was clenching by the time I made my way back to the chair. I slouched with a big grin and finished the glass with a gulp.

"Now, that's my kind of dog! Bartender! Another round!" He poured me four fingers.

Zach reached across and took it from my hand, drinking it down himself. "He's probably had enou-" His eyes went wide as he stared at the bottom, swallowing again. "Oh my."

The world grew fuzzy at the edges, conversation became louder all around me. At one point, Chiko came back, and I remember him pouring me drinks. I don't remember much else.

Morning found me way too early. I was a little hung over, and memories leading up to it were fuzzy. I could remember a time when such a hangover would have left me crippled for the whole day. Such was not the case with a canine liver, I knew by the time I had my harness on, I'd be back in shape.

The living quarters we were assigned was barely heated. I could still see my breath, but the mattresses were soft and the covers warm. I squirmed into my harness and pulled it over my body. Zach was still asleep, so I went out on a limb and took his harness down and slid it over his head. His eyes popped open and I grinned at him, tugging it down his body. He grabbed his sheath and whined, pushing my paws away as he came fully awake.

"Erf, Keman." His ears went flat, "you don't understand my history with harnesses, ow, I can't believe he 'sited me." He pulled the straps the rest of the way around his body, and rolled over onto his stomach and hugged the webbing across his chest. "I didn't used to like these. Sinclair used association conditioning to build my appreciation, you might say. For years, I couldn't get off unless I was wearing one."

I wagged my tail and panted, that sounded rather interesting to me. I reached under his stomach and felt how hard he was, he batted my paws away. "No, no! Bad Keman! Don't make me shock you..." He quickly tilted his muzzle sideways, I had backed up a few steps, his words gripped my mind in a familiar, very pleasurable way. I felt through the trace of hate and resentment surrounding the emotion, what I found was highly erotic. I stared at the floor with a dopey grin, and panted.

Zach sat up, "you remember, don't you?" It wasn't a question, but I nodded a little. "Ohh Keman, there's so many questions I want to ask you, but it would hurt you in ways you can't comprehend. Just focus on those thoughts and don't think too deeply. If you start hating yourself, just remember... the real you is coming back. And believe me, he likes who you are, a lot. I would tell you more but it would only complicate things, make it harder for you to figure yourself out."

I tried to picture that, but I couldn't bring it together. The thoughts slipped out of my reach, I lost my footing and stepped into ice cold water. Too big of a part of me hated my collar, hated the control, hated everything about my situation. I pushed it all away and took a deep breath.

Zach sniffed my way. "Aww. There it goes... c'mon, let's go get some breakfast. That'll help." My stomach growled, I was starving. We took our packs and headed on out.

This time, there were three more of us in front of the sled, forming up two rows of two, then one, and Nickel out in front. The sled was loaded up with heavy power storage cells, freshly recharged from solar power. Each outbuilding had a roof glistening with arrays capturing the sun's energy. The outpost's location had been chosen because of the natural protection being in the bottom of a valley offered from winter storms. Walls of ice stretched like mountains a half click to each side.

The storage cells, basically high density batteries, powered a drill rig located thirty clicks to the north. That was an area of interest to CI, originally for its potential as a highly stable hot spot for geothermal power, now, as something else. The wind blew through my fur, stripping my body of its precious heat. I wondered how hot a spot it could possibly be, up here on the top of the world.

"Nick, you figure an extra ten cells with Keman and Zach?" Chris said, peering into the storage holds, inspecting the large brick-shaped objects. They weighed much more than they appeared.

"Ah, yuh. About that. Ten to one, is a half dozen plus four, to another." He was finishing with laying out the trace lines for our harnesses.

Rico shut a hot locker after putting food supplies in it. "Supplies for a week, as usual, but you should be back in two days." I stared at him, curiously. "Always bring three times the provisions you need," he explained. "Up here."

"Plus one," Nick added.

I lined up next to Chiko, at the back, grinning at him from behind the windows of my heater. He nodded at me, "You ohkay, en my buk. Any dog dlink much as you did iz good to me, no slav."

We were in motion not long after that, paws clawing at the snow, the whisper of runners right-behind, me, everyone forming a cadence as we followed Nickel. The Sat/NAV setup in the sled beamed course corrections to his wetware, taking us over the least treacherous ground conditions, avoiding raised walls of ice that could span dozens of meters into the air.

Once again, clarity trickled down into my mind, the pumping of my limbs and the sway of Zach's raised tail in front of me producing a hypnotic trance. I watched the way his body moved, and liked the flex of his muscles under his smooth fur. Black patches ended just above his knees, they reminded me of something I once built, it would have looked similar to that. But those days were over, this was a new life.

I watched his tail, and remembered the first time I had seen Zeek. How familiar his appearance had seemed, but I couldn't place it at the time. Now I remembered that tail, right up against my stomach as I buried my knot into him, how amazing that had felt. Such marked the beginning of my new life, and now I was past that, too, wasn't I? Third life, but the same body. My old mind, new body, but my new mind, too.

I felt like I could almost stretch my thoughts around it all, but it was like trying to imagine infinity. I just couldn't do it. Anxiety surged as conflicting opinions of my past bubbled forth. What I felt like, being human. What Keman the Rhenthar thought of once being human, so distasteful and shameful, and what Keman thought of the present. It just didn't mesh, not from the inside. I focused on my limbs pounding, panting, pulling.

I focused on what all of me appreciated, pounding, pulling, panting. Zach's tail, whipping through the air. The view's always the same, yep it was. My tags jingled as I ran through the snow. They jingled when Sinclair was on top of me, too, and that was an insanely hot thought. I almost stumbled when piercingly cold air startled me when my prick came out of its insulative sheath. It hurt something fierce, so I dialed those thoughts back. Damn, I was horny, pain shot up into my bladder in waves, the parasite didn't like the cold anymore than I did.

I focused on the fact that I couldn't paw myself off anymore, and that turned me on with a whole new passion. The fact that someone else had control of my sexuality. Control, like how my collar was controlling me. Ow, ow! Between my legs, such pain! I focused on the snow, passing under us. I looked up at the sky, limitless blue and ocean deep, periodically stars were even visible, the brightest of them. I wondered where Earth was, if it circled one of them. I wondered if I would ever own a starship, and where I might go with it. Could anyone ever want as much as me?

I thought about my wants and desires and wondered if anyone could ever have so much as I already did. Perhaps the two concepts were related, somehow. I pounded my paws through the snow, and we leapt through the arctic air, pure white flying in our wake.

We arrived exhausted, and per Nickels suggestion, I dove into a loose pile of snow and curled up to keep my warmth. Someone else could set up one of the thermal tents, if they wanted it, but if they were depending on me, it wasn't going to happen any time soon.

I could hear Chris working on the drilling rig. My curiosity got the better of me, and I made my way up to it while she swapped out power cells. It looked like a gun pointing up into the air with a big roll of cable next to it.

"It's a smart bit, see? No torsion rods, it pulls itself in any direction we want it to." She was staring at a graphical display which showed its position, speed, and a representation of where it was at below us.

She pointed off to the right, where the system had ejected sharply compacted pellets about a half meter long and a dozen centimeters wide. "That's what CI is so interested in, they couldn't give two shits about geothermal power."

I reached down and picked one up, it was heavy and had sharp edges. I saw layers of metal... chips of something fell away into the snow, showering like dust. It looked like what would come out of the business end of an industrial e-waste compactor.

Zach padded up next to us and held his paw out, gingerly taking the pellet from me. His eyes grew big, as more debris trickled out into the snow. He gibbered and squawked, shaking it briefly. I picked up a piece and held it up to the light, what looked like traces of circuitry were clearly visible.

"How deep are these from?" Zach asked, digging through the other pellets, some visibly contained more metal than others.

"Eleven clicks, roughly. Pretty crazy, ay?" Nickel answered as he walked up to us, pointing behind him. "Tents are set up, if you guys wanna get some rest."

Zach shook his head. "Dates. How old? How old would be that deep?" He turned and looked at Chris.

She shrugged. "Maybe ten thousand years, possibly fifteen. Somewhere in between. Why?

Zach laughed. "Um," he said, turning around slowly. He looked to me like he was making sure he really was at the North Pole. "This is impossible. No previous civilization has ever existed on this planet."

"Looks like someone was here, before us, eh?" Nick said, nudging one of the pellets with a hind paw.

"But all races have well documented colonization and civilization records." Zach sounded in his element. "And don't you see? None leave! None have ever left, not unless the planet was a carved out hulk of toxic waste, first."

No one responded to that.

"Keman, get some of those pellets all in a one meter square, please." I picked up the shiniest ones and started stacking them next to each other, while Zach picked through his backpack. He produced a small, cube shaped device that looked similar to a camera.

It emitted a line of brilliant white light, brighter than the sun, in a focused, sharp line like from a laser. Even through the heater, I smelled ozone as the line passed over each pellet. Snow surrounding them steamed and melted away. Zach held it steady until the last sample had been scanned over.

Nick cocked his head sideways. "That's, uh, not a Kodak, is it."

Zach held the cube up for everyone to see. "Mass spec, handheld. First of its kind." His eyes lost focus, and then he stared at the samples again. He stammered, yelped, and nodded. "Several unique alloys CI has never encountered are in there."

Chris smirked and shook her head. "Wait a minute, who are you guys? I thought you were just temps CI gave us to fill some missing positions we had."

Zach grinned. "Let's just say you're about to get a whole lot of funding, like right now."

She shook her head, "on who's authority? Are you pulling my leg?"

Nick got excited. "Ohh! The "F" word, I'll pull your leg for that!"

"No joke," Zach said., shaking his head. "This comes from the very top. Sinclair officially expresses his apologies. CI is a very large corporation. Big wheels, take a long time to get into motion. I am Sinclair's PA. Appropriate cost structure documents will be transmitted to you each personally, within the hour."

Chris grew quiet, she seemed uncertain about this.

Zach held up his paws in a placating gesture. "We're not about to take this project out of your paws. It remains yours, but certain criteria will need to be met. This whole site needs to be dug up, all the way down, for at least a dozen square kilometers. I trust you would want such construction powered by geothermal?"

Chris smiled. "Now you're talking... but tell me, who's he?" She asked, pointing at me.

Zach stroked the fur between my ears. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. Keman is someone... very special. Right?" I shut my eyes and panted from the attention.

Nick joined in and rubbed my stomach, "Well, I know who's buying all the drinks when we get back!"

Chris rolled her eyes and padded toward the tents. "Chiko, Stew, wake up! We got some planning to do! Big changes..."

Zach led me back to one of the tents. I was a lot more exhausted than I had realized. He popped the heater out of my ears and nose, disconnected it from my collar, and set it down next to me. I curled up on the satiny floor and watched him. The tent material popped and shook in the wind.

"You're doing really well, Keman. You've made a lot of progress in just three days. You're showing stability I wouldn't have expected for another year." He stretched out and laid down on his back. I sat there quietly and yawned.

I reached down and squeezed my sheath, letting out a soft howl giving Zach a shy grin.

Zach saw, and splayed his ears. "That's... something between you and Sin, I can't help you there. I would if I could, but maybe you forgot. Climax's are dangerous for you, Keman," I contemplated that, once again feeling a strange familiarity to his words. We had had this conversation once, before. A long time ago.

"Just trust me, they have to stay a rarity for now." I nodded and reached forward, grabbing his sheath. I squeezed the hard part behind his knot. Zach barked and gobbled to himself with a whimper.

'That's... something between me and Sin, too. Oif. I hate it, but that he put it on me... I think maybe you understand what that comes with."

I did.