by Loki Renard
“We’ll just use the electric prods on her. Zappy zappy, get in the sacky.”
“Don’t say that! She can hear you. Humans understand us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We were literally just talking to her.”
“Then why are we treating them like food class animals?”
“We’re not going to eat her. We’re going to reclaim her as a Galactor asset, and you know what that means.”
“Mmmm,” the other murketeer says. “Paperwork.”
“The juiciest paperwork. We will feast well tonight. We just have to get the human into the net so we can process her. There will be reports on top of reports.”
“I can taste it already.”
“We should probably lose her somewhere in the process, and then find her again, generating a separate set of paperwork which will have to be…”
“Collated,” they chorus cheerfully.
Catching me will make their day, and ruin my life. But I don’t know how much longer I can fight. What’s the point? It never ends in freedom. It always ends in being hunted down.
The murketeers are creeping closer, the net held high between their hands.
For a second, I think I’m going to let them catch me, but as the net comes down, I dodge to the side, throw a butter knife at the nearest murketeer, and run again. I physically cannot give up. It’s not in me to do it. And frankly, the murketeers are too pathetic to catch me. I can only be caught by something a whole lot stronger, and smarter.
I run, chancing a glance over my shoulder. The last I see, one of the murketeers is trapped in his own net and the other one is underneath a pile of suddenly shed tea towels.
I flee across the strange terrain, across a planet which has been turned into one massive mall. I do not encounter any other murketeers. I do not encounter anybody or anything else, besides a never-ending series of consumer products, some of which I recognize, others which are too strange to imagine their use. This planet is not a place of living things. It is a warehouse of items yet to be sold. When I saw it from the sky it looked wild, but the green hue must come from the lights which gleam day and night. There’s nothing real here. Nothing emerges from whatever dead hidden soil must lie beyond the crumbly footing which crunches lightly beneath my toes.
I miss John.
I don’t want that thought. He abandoned me for money. He left me to my fate. Fuck John.
“Yeah,” I mumble to myself. “Fuck John.”
“Who’s John?”
I swing around and find myself looking into the eyes of a young woman about my age. She’s human with short blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a figure made for labor, round and strong.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Ethel, isn’t I?”
It’s hard to understand her because she says it more like: oiam eythol oisn’t oi.
“I don’t know, are you?”
I look around to see if there’s anybody else I didn’t notice, but it seems to be just the two of us.
“Saw you running,” she says. “Good one.”
“Thanks. Are you an escaped pet too?”
“Me? I’m a farmer, isn’t I?”
Every sentence she utters is constructed with a question built right in which threatens to undermine the statement it contains. But she doesn’t seem uncertain of herself. She doesn’t seem scared, either.
“You work for Galactor?”
“Work for myself,” she says. “Growin’ these pillows and cushions. Sell ‘em to Galactor, don’t I.”
If she works for Galactor, that makes me think she’s going to give me away, or already has. But I also know that pillows and cushions don’t grow, which makes me think she might have lost her mind. Maybe Galactor broke her, just like it tries to break every human.
“So, you’re a free human?”
“Of course,” she says.
There’s something not right about this. The world I find myself in is strange, but I have never met a free human, which this one is pretending to be.
“I thought all humans were owned.”
“I thought all pillows were cushions. But they ain’t. All cushions are pillows, though, work that out.”
“I’ll think about that,” I say. “I have to go. Sorry to have disturbed your field.”
“You won’t get far,” she says. “They already know where you are. The birds have eyes and the murketeers have your papers. You should give up and come farm stuffed goods with me. You walk around the fields, you keep the pillow rats out, and you get enough food to survive on. It’s a pretty zombo deal.”
I look down and I notice something I didn’t see before. There’s a chain around her leg. She’s attached to an anchor point somewhere, unable to go beyond the limit the links set.
She sees me looking and smiles. “Sweet, huh. Got me the fly chains.”
“What is a fly chain?”
“It’s a chain that stops me from flying off when the planet turns. We all have to have them or we fall off when it goes upside down, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t have chains.”
“Sure you do. You just can’t see yours.”
I’m not sure if she’s profound, or mad, but I know I need to get away from her for my own safety. Someone has to be tending to her. Feeding her. Someone has to be keeping her alive because woman cannot live on soft furnishings alone.
“I will see you later,” I say.
“Maybe. You never know.”
I leave the happy captive and continue on my way, wandering this strange world with a growing sense of loss. The natural light of the sun is beginning to fade, and what is left in its wake is the green glow from a near infinite number of lights casting their mockery of natural color over the scene.
The murketeers have not caught up with me and I am starting to think that they’re not going to. I’m starting to think a lot of things, actually. I look up at the stars and wonder what the hell is wrong with me. This is what I’ve always wanted, to be on my own, away from any aliens who might try to lay claim to me.
But it doesn’t feel good. There is no triumph in it. Instead there is a strange hollowness I’ve never felt before, right in the pit of my stomach. It is like being hungry, but I know there’s no food which will ever fill it.
It’s a John-shaped hole.
I really miss him.
“Idiot,” I curse myself. “You fell properly in love.”
So fucking stupid. I’m finally out, and I want to go back in. I want to be held in John’s arms. I want to kiss his face. I want to feel him inside me. I want more and less than that. I want to sit next to him and look out at a universe of possibility. I want to hold his hand and feel his power and strength in every part of him.
But he left me here.
Abandoned me.
I sniffle to myself in a sorry sort of way until I hear a sound in the distance, a faint rustling which suggests someone is coming.
I start to move away, quick as I can, heading in no particular direction. The best way to run is at random.
But this time, I can’t escape. Whatever is chasing me is faster than I am. It’s not a murketeer.
I go faster, running as fast as I can, but it’s not fast enough, especially over the soft ground which makes my legs sink into the soft underlays and padding.
A hand fastens around my arm, swings me off my feet and turns me into the hard armor-plated body of the scythkin I love.
“You’re harder to track down than I thought,” John says.
I love him. I want to kill him. What do I say?
“It’s hard to find people once you abandon them and let them be taken away.”
“I would never leave you,” he growls, holding me so close it is hard to breathe.
“But you literally did!”
“For a moment,” he says. “You had to get free, so I could catch you. Otherwise it would have been a bloodbath, and some of that blood may have been yours. Did they hurt
you?”
“No,” I say. “You did.”
“I’m sorry,” he replies, his hands on my arms. He bends down to look me in the eye with his fierce, flaming gaze. “There was no time to formulate a plan. I had to rely on you doing what I knew you would do. What you’ve always done. Escape.”
My eyes are wet, but I don’t want to cry. Tears don’t work. Running away does. But John won’t let me run. He’s holding me in place, embracing me, whispering and growling promises that he never wanted to let me go, and that I am still his, and that he’s sorry he couldn’t explain his plan before it happened, and that he would never have let anything happen to me, that he was keeping an eye on me the entire time.
“There's something wrong with this planet,” I tell him. “There’s a woman who thinks she grows pillows in a field.”
“There’s a lot wrong with this planet. There are many humans held captive here in various forms. You’re the one I am concerned with. I apologize a thousand times for letting them take you, but this ruse was always dangerous. I’m here now. I’ll never leave you again.”
The ruse by which he got the funding for his mission of vengeance. “Was it worth it? Did you get what you wanted?”
“Definitely,” he says. “Come on. We have to get back to the ship. I need to put my suit back on before we go. Had to take it off to track you.”
I have to wait for him to struggle back into the suit, which he had secreted somewhere about his person. I’m still not happy he abandoned me, but I guess it’s nice he came back. I guess.
Once he is safely hidden in the skin of a bastardi once more, we head back toward the ship. I don’t want to be as happy about this as I am, but I’m excited to get the hell off this weird planet.
“Excuse us!”
A row of murketeers are suddenly standing in our way. I can see the ship in the distance. This has to be the part where John will burst out of his suit, slay them all, and then we’ll run away forever and ever, amen.
But for a second time today, that’s not what happens.
We come to a complete halt and we let the murketeer speak, which I do not like as an approach. I'd like to see those creepy smiling heads removed from their equally creepy bodies.
“Excuse me, sir,” the lead murketeer says. “We are hunting this human. We are going to take her for retraining, wipe her brain, and install a more compliant program.”
“Throw yourself down a well,” John says. “I don’t want a compliant human. I want my human, just as she is.”
“And there’s the problem. That’s not your human. That’s Galactor’s human.”
“She is my human. I have papers to prove it.”
He starts rustling about in his foot-pockets.
I was sure he’d abandoned me as a lost cause, taken his money and run. I thought by now he’d be on his way to the nearest Q’Ren gathering to do something terrible to them. Instead, he is here, ready to do horrible things to the murketeers.
“Sir…”
“She’s mine,” he repeats. “I have all the necessary documentation. Signed in triplicate, authorized, double filed, and stamped by a notary public. Here. Check them yourselves.”
He throws a bunch of very complicated looking papers at the murketeers. Their eyes swivel and they cannot resist. He has provided them with a fresh hit of pure bureaucracy. They fall upon it with cries of glee, their wide mouthed chompers attacking the papers, digesting the legalities.
The moment they are distracted, John grabs me.
“Run,” he says.
I do not need to be told twice. We run as fast as we can back toward the ship, covering the vast distance in a lung burning panic.
The floating colors and shapes which surround us on all sides no longer feel mystical and soothing. They feel threatening and imposing.
I have never felt as much relief as I do when we throw ourselves into the shuttle.
John closes the hatch, bursts out of his suit, and hits the control panel to initiate as swift a departure as is possible in the old shuttle.
“Are you alright?”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
He sweeps me into his arms and holds me close. “I am so, so sorry, Itch. I should never have put you in danger.”
We both agree there, but now is not the time to rub it in.
He kisses me and holds me. He snuggles me and nibbles and holds me until I start to feel better, which is a rather long time. I have had so many feelings and thought so many thoughts. I thought I wanted to be free, but now I’m starting to think that freedom was never what I really wanted. I think I wanted to be loved. John isn’t perfect. He’s nine feet plus of pure murder and occasional documentation. He’s ruthless and he’s demanding and possessive. He’s an undeniable monster.
But he came back for me.
Nobody has ever come back for me. Nobody has ever wanted me the way he wants me, with a steady passion which never seems to wane. He never questions whether he wants to be with me. Not like me. I wanted to run, and then the moment I thought he had left, I wanted him back.
This is terrifying, to find myself suddenly acknowledging that I need John, not just to survive, but to be happy. He has made me feel things I never thought I would feel. He has changed me at the very core of my being. Even if I wanted to be free of him, I never would be, because he is inside me now, forever.
“How did you get them to let me go?” I ask the question when I am composed enough to ask questions.
“I wasn’t lying. I bought you.”
“How much did I cost?”
“There’s no money left,” he says.
“Wow. They saw you coming. Ripped you right off. I’m not worth anything.”
“You are worth everything,” he says gently, caressing my face with the back of his hand. “But I did not buy you for myself. I bought you for yourself. And I bought more than your freedom. I bought your memories.” He gestures toward the computer. “They are all in there. You can watch them and it should unlock your own memories.”
“So, you’re saying you can make me remember everything that happened before I was sold as a mind-wiped pet?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. I don’t want them.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to remember. I don’t care. Nothing that came before can matter as much as this. I want you to be the beginning of my life, and the end.”
“Morbid little human,” he muses.
“No, it’s not morbid. It’s romantic. Like human marriage vows are to death do us part…”
“Again,” he smirks. “Morbid.”
“No, romantic. This is how my kind loves.”
“Then I will take your love and I will return it,” he says, holding my hands in his great clawed paws. “I will love you, Itch, as you want to be loved. You will be mine as long as you choose to be.”
This, I know, is close to blasphemy for a scythkin. I am sure every fiber of his being is screaming out in rage against what he is saying. His natural impulse is to claim completely and never let go. But I believe that he is fighting his nature in order to try to make me happy, and that is something no other owner has ever done. Nobody has ever cared for me the way John does, relentlessly, remorselessly, without concern for himself.
“I do choose you,” I tell him. For the first time in my life, I don’t want to run. I don’t have that gnawing craving for freedom, because I am no longer trapped. Instead, I am loved in all the ways I need to be.
John
I thought I needed my brood in order to function, but though I will always mourn them, this little human has expanded to fill the hole in my heart. With her, I no longer feel alone. Saving her was more important than revenge against the Q’Ren, and keeping her as my very own forever is more important than waging war and claiming territory.
“I bought us a little homestead,” I tell her. “It’s on a human-occupied planet called Patch. I’ll have to wear a human costume when we are in public, but in t
he privacy of our ranch, we can do as we please. You will have your own kind to interact with, a truly human world to explore. And I will have you.”
She smiles so broadly that for a moment she looks as though she could be part murketeer.
“We own property on a human planet?”
“We do.”
“And I can do what I want there?”
“I am sure there are laws of one form or another, but yes, theoretically.”
“What are we waiting for?”
“The spatial drive needs to…”
I roll my eyes at him. “That’s a rhetorical question. It means let’s go.”
9 Patch
John
“This is it?”
“This is it,” I confirm.
This is not where I thought I would end my days. I am sure it is not where Itch thought she would end hers either.
We stand on a remote piece of what might loosely be described as farmland, though at the moment the ground is growing nothing but cracks in the drought-hit dirt. The land around us is arid and desolate. The structure which is supposed to serve as our home is dilapidated and rotting in places, with light beams filtering through the roof and walls in a way which strongly suggests it is not weatherproof.
I paid far too much for this.
“Huh.” She kicks a stone and we both watch as it rolls down the slight slope toward a row of withered cabbages. “This is a desolate planet. Lawless. Hopeless.” She turns to me. “I love it.”
“You do?”
“Look how open it is! Look how alone we are! Nobody is going to bother us here.”
“That is true. Hopefully.”
“Yep.”
Two weeks later…
Itch
I step outside, stretch my arms and try to work out whether I want to tend to the slugs or the cabbages first. It’s not an easy decision.
A slug makes its way over the cabbage plant at my feet. I pluck the leaf, roll the slug up inside it, and take a bite of my breakfast. Crunchy, gooey, and full of protein, so I’m repeatedly told.
Okay, so the food isn’t great. I’m not going to even try to convince myself that it is. This place is wild and cruel and kind of hard to survive in, but I have John by my side, and we have managed to find somewhere remote enough that nobody bothers us. It’s just him and me, a universe of two.
