ANIMAL CONTROL - PART IX

Rex, not the first cyborg I’ve seen – there’s a few at the Returns Agency – was basically Hachiko in his timeline.

While getting him used to talking, and after embarrassing Meganie into deep regret over giving him the power of speech at all, he regails me of his past.

His owner had been a soldier, and he was a real dog, once. He preserved his faithful pet in a robotic body due to galactic tours of duty taking decades to complete and come back from.

Then, one day, as it always goes, his master did not return from war. Rex had lived a few centuries by that point, always waiting dutifully by the space-port for his owner that would not come home again.

Rex recalls how after being numb with grief for so long, there was this liquid metal cat, it flickered and writhed like fish seen through water.

A far more expensive pet than he.

Something about it rekindled those long dulled canine instincts, and Rex bolted after the hi-tech approximation of a feline.

The rush he felt after years of lethargy.

The disconnect with his biology he’d never realised was there.

The sense of fun that returned as though he played with his master once more.

“Then I got hit by a truck.”

His voice modulator, amusingly low resolution compared to how incredibly advanced his cybernetic chassis is, hisses with static as he talks about being isekai’d.

There was the force of the impact, until there wasn’t.

The smug shimmering cat preening itself on the curb, until there wasn’t.

No pain, no sensors screaming of crushed limbs or compromised organ containment. Just the moment of contact with the lorry, then nothing.

“A void. My master by my side. He pat my head, said ‘Go on!’, and threw something, so I ran.”

Rex lost all sense of time in the white expanse between dimensions. His owner receded into an infinite horizon, the ‘thing’ he had thrown somehow still in flight.

“Then there was the graveyard,” exactly where I was meant to extract him from had I read Meganie’s brief in full, and not been so distracted by Nya’lah, “I thought it was all a dream while I napped outside the space-port.”

That’s why when the Captain of the Guard found Rex by the cemetery, he just went along with the knight.

The evolved monkey-man was very curious about how such a finely armoured wardog could have come to be. Seeing such loyalty to a fallen master, so assumed the Captain, due to Rex sitting before the graves, he was moved to recruit him.

“He stayed and talked. I could not speak, but he felt familiar.” from a life spent living for a far off soldier, Rex could sense a veteran regardless of era. Though they ended up with less than a day as rider and steed.

The scent of Nya’lah once again reigniting those ancient instincts that had drawn him into being transported to another world once already.

He must really hate cats.

“I really hate cats,” Glad to see my own instincts right on the money, “but I respect a warrior more.”

He imprinted on the catgirl while they fought.

A greater master than the City Guard, a closer match to his long dead owner, someone to feel alive for, again. That is why he let us flee upon his back. Nya’lah had become Rex’s new master... whether she likes being trailed around after by a dog or not.

Getting Meganie to give him some of those nano-machines wasn’t just to make things easier for Rex, but to make bonding easier for Nya’lah.

It was also a nice little challenge for my dear scientist, so she could feel useful and needed again. Invaluable even.

Meganie was right.

Minus those first words of course.

I can’t just solve everything straight away.

He paddies off to keep the catgirl distracted while we pack.

People need time... 

* * * 

“Hey, Rookie!”

An office lady with an unreasonably balanced athletic hourglass figure looms over the desk I’ve been assigned.

“Hello! How can I help you?” my rehearsed professional speech rolling off my tongue to mask the abject terror at being alone in the adult world.

Not even six months out of high school, a few part-time gigs here and there, but now through a Temp Agency, I’ve ended up in an office. More regular hours, decent pay, and a whole different work environment I have zero experience with.

The black haired beauty, in her kitten heels and pencil skirt, grins menacingly.

I don’t know whether she intends it that way, or if that’s just her smile, but I am torn between following anything the intimidating(ly attractive) person before me tells me to do, and running for me life.

“Take five minutes and come get a coffee.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, but she doesn’t move either.

It wasn’t a question or request, it was an order, and who am I to refuse.

It takes a moment for me to buffer.

When I eventually realise what’s happened, I just stand and stare, expecting her to lead the way. “God, you really are wet behind the ears!” she laughs and slaps me on the back.

Honestly, I had been hoping to follow from behind with how tight her skirt is, but alas... instead we walk shoulder to shoulder, almost in step, while she carries the conversation for both of us. Turns out, she’s the Supervisor for Accounts... and can talk forever.

Even if I hadn’t had much to say, and am not very confident yet, I don’t think I could have gotten many words in edgewise. 5 minutes quickly turning into 15.

Beeeeeep-beepbeep-beepbeep!

Her watch alarm gets one full chirp out before she stops it, and ends our break, “Oh boy, thanks for the chat, Rookie! Back to work...”

What was that?!.

At the last moment, something slipped.

Her chipper attitude all throughout, and then right at the end, it wasn’t just the usual jokey ‘doesn’t work suck’ kind of tone. Something raw poked through you’re not meant to actually see.

“...I’m Kia, by the way. See you tomorrow, yeah?” the barrier restored.

As she walks back to the Accounts Department, with a wink and a wave, I finally get that little peak of heaven.

That point where tights suddenly become darker poking out the bottom of her skirt and two subtle lines chevron through all those layers.

What was I thinking about again?