*DEPRECATED* Die For My Sin - Prologue
Die For My Sin (C)2015 Sinclair Diavante
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...