Chapter 1
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.