Air tastes rancid outside of your body. There are filters and reserves cycling the air through your lungs. Now, it's just acrid, putrid filth filling much less efficient sacks of meat. You're not unplugged yet and you hope that means you'll be able to go out again. The pilot's hatch opens and your heart sinks at the sound, but then a sweet and wonderful scent wafts over you. Her perfume, so perfect it evades identification, swirls up and fills your mind before she speaks. While grabbing your chin, she commands, "Drop it," and any tension in your body relaxes. Your bounty drops from your mouth and she yanks out the tubing from your throat. It hurts and you retch while she tears out your neurolink, too. You can't help but yelp in protest, yearning for the cold hug of metal superior to anything. But that's wrong and you should know better.
Your handler, strong as they come, lifts you from the cockpit and tosses you onto the scaffolding holding up your body. Your mind is hurting, stomach swirling, and heart racing so fast it wants to explode. She didn't tell it to, though, so it doesn't. She scolds you and you know it is deserved. You are punished by her immaculate judgement to be "rolled over" for the next week. That means no missions, no meds, and no contact with her. Tears drip down onto the ground as you are dragged off the scaffolding and away from her. She doesn't even look as you whimper and whine. You are marched into a kennel and strapped onto a concrete slab pretending to be a bed. The phrase, "this is what you deserve," repeats in your head endlessly as pain racks your entire body. You think pins are being pressed into every square millimeter of your being inside and out. Nobody checks on you, the stench of puke and piss stinging in your lungs until a week passes by. The door unlocks unexpectedly and your handler steps in before kneeling beside you.
"Did you learn, mutt?"
You whimper.
"Good, now get cleaned up and report for duty."
She leaves and as soon as she crosses the threshold the door slams shut. A thunk sounds before water shoots from an access port right above you. It is scolding and beautiful like her hand slamming into your face.
You shake and shiver as she guides you back into your body. Gently guiding your limbs into sockets before tenderly inserting the tubes once more down your throat, still raw from the week of puking. Then, she whispers into your ear as nutrients and medicine are pumped into your stomach, "Be good on this mission and I'll shave that ugly stubble for you." Ecstasy shoots through your veins. This makes your pupils go wide as your body wakes up. Time passes instantly as you are moved into a hangar, a plane, and then a field with your litter mates. Your handler chimes into your ear, "Listen," as stimulants are sent rushing through your body. You're running again but not alone. Other mutts are chasing and racing you and each other. Explosions and gunfire sound ahead, fueling your adrenaline haze even more. A blink and your claws wrench a man in body armor apart like a stuffed animal. Another and a building begins to topple around you as you force your way through it. Blood drips from your maw hours later as you sit upon a cracked, ruined street amidst a burning city waiting for extraction.
She keeps her promise, carefully sliding the razor across your throat. As she taps it against the counter, rinsing off your whiskers from the blade, she speaks.
"You were a good mutt today. I hope this means you'll behave from now on."
You don't respond. She doesn't want you to.
"Goodness, just a week without your hormones and suppressants, and it's already hard to tell you're a good girl and not a boy."
She teases you and you whimper in response. She didn't want that and slices your cheek.
"But you are my good girl, mutt. Don't forget it, you're mine."
You are hers completely, doubtlessly, and pathetically. She places a bandage on your cheek and you relish in the warm ghost of her touch long after she tells you to, "go lay down." You dream of her kindness.
