Twilight Time
What started out as a planned five page story about a man and his dog became a bit more. While sharing some thematic elements with Ellison's A Boy and his Dog, its more fan fiction of Wimmer's Equilibrium, with a dash of Scott's Blade Runner thrown in for good measure. This piece is more sap than smut; those looking for the latter should move on. HappyFunBall(tm) decrees it.
Twilight Time
2008 by Eldyran
Dum inter homines sumus, colamus humanitatem
"Residence?" a calming synthesized voice called out in the quiet confines of an empty uptown domicile. The voice rang out in false falsetto in all corners of every room, emanating from speakers mounted behind the thin plasti-stucco inner walls.
"State the nature of your query." The exact same voice answered back from the exact same locations, an eerie sort of self echo.
"Where is your primary occupant?"
"Section 8 detained Resident 223-528-Remmy-Lerand while you were away. I do not know his current whereabouts." There was a moment of silence until the atmospheric conditioner kicked on, pulling the ever persistent dank out of the apartment's heavy air.
"Can you locate him?"
"It may take some time. Would like to listen to some music while you wait?" There was a temporary pause.
"I don't know. Ive never listened to music before ..."
The virtual intelligence of the apartment was taken aback by that statement. Even it had listened to music. When its master had no need of it, it would often scan the pentabytes of outlawed musical scores stored in its memory archives, sampling the best of what mankind had ever created. Its master loved 1950's songs above all else.
"Would you prefer to listen to something else while you wait?"
"I want to hear master's voice."
"Scanning memory core." A few millichrons passed, for the creature sitting in the midst of a empty home, it seemed like an eternity. "Several voice imprints from Resident 223-528 found. Would you like to listen to them?"
"Residence, what are they?"
"They seem to be personal recollections of some type. Shall I begin?"
"Please ..."
||| Begin-Vocal-Log Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #472 |||
We had a 12-10 today over in Dogtown this afternoon. I knew it was going to be one of those days when I went to take my morning dose of Prozium and found I was out. I don't even know why I was dispatched in the first place. There wasn't much left in the smoldering crater that had been the supply convoy from New Seattle. Fifteen dead. Three missing. Millions of Euro's lost in organs and implants. I still cant explain why I always arrive before Section 4 does. Our sections have the same Dispatch Suits for First Response, but they always arrive in Spinners about half an decachron after I bag and tag whats left.
Its like they don't want to see what's left of the world has become.
And its not like they have to venture out in the Kipple where there is still some background rads lingering. Although from Dogtown the ruins are pretty easy to see, even if they aren't easy on the binocs. A crumbled skyscraper here, whats left of a subway entrance there. The charred remains of nine billion people laying just under the still clicking hot soot of fallout.
Christ. I don't know why. Why I even go out there. Out of my home even. Its all the same. Its never going to change. I'm told its my station. To go out and assess. Report back who needs what priority MEDEVAC or who wont make it to the closest trauma center. But I cant fix whats out wrong there. Human beings are always going to cut each other up with shivs, crush each other skull's with discarded femurs, and burn each other up with the nuclear fire of the hidden sun.
I can't take it anymore. Not with my parents dead and all my old friends lying out there underneath tonnes of rubble. The climatologists say we will pull through this. Just another year or so, and we wont have to rely on New Seattle's undersea hydroponics anymore. I think they are missing the point.
Homo-sapiens may have survived the war, but mankind did not ...
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #472 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #475 |||
There was a 01-15 today in uptown this morning. Anytime the call for 01-15 goes out across the interlink in Shaddai, its like the Republican Council goes ape-drek. The personal spinner of a Council member from Denver did an 86er into the AIG headquarters some time around 0834, and I just happened to be in the area attending a ground traffic pile up on 66th and Libria.
A 01-15 is code for an act of suspected terrorism, non-training exercise.
I didn't even need to engage the jump jets on the suit to make it to the sparking wreckage a single metroplex block away. The scanner on my suit's visor ID'ed fifteen citizen casualties in the impact zone, five blacks, three reds, two yellows, and five greens, not including the VIP still trapped underneath the plexi-steel dome of his spinner. Once I got within three decameters of the first causality, the suit automatically scanned their SIN implant and up-linked their vitals up to Section 5 HQ. There they get assigned a temporary triage priority level based on societal level and base chance of survival.
I flipped over the spinner and ripped off its dome with the heavy hydraulics of my First Response Suit's arm actuators. Luckily for Mr. VIP the spinner's crash foam had time to deploy. I found him unconscious with a broken nose, minor contusion to his cranium, and a fractured left fiba. Unluckily for the Red who got cut in half and ground to a chunky red paste underneath his spinner, this means Mr. VIP gets a MEDEVAC before Joe Red will even see his first drip of Tramadol.
According to the CenCit database and Joe Red's SIN implant, his real name was Horus Fersh-Rasha, and was a blue collar worker from the Panfire district. An immigrant of what is left of India, he will leave behind three children and a female spouse of ten years. The first name jolts me a bit, and I wonder if the CenCit database suspected Mr. Rasha of having Egyptian ancestry. I'm surprised that Canam allowed him into the city-state with a name even vaguely middle eastern.
Maybe Mr. Rasha's SIN had as much to do with his imminent demise as Mr. VIP's SIN did.
I don't know why they don't just have an V.I. work this sort of carnage. My supervisor once made this bull-drek answer that the First Response Suit's need a human heart to judge who lived and who died. I beg to differ. There is no soul in this. I'm told I have the authority to over-ride the suit's assessment, tell HQ when to bring in a cryotank versus some first year rookie with a stim patch and ground ambulance. But in this case it wouldn't have mattered.
The Republican Council can and would authorize an Organ Reclamation on me if I dared risk one of their own.
After it was all said and done, Section 4 found out that the spinner's flight V.I. hadn't failed. Mr. VIP decided to just disengage it and try his hand at flying himself. Central-News blamed the V.I.'s shutdown on an Islamic Extremist splinter cell regardless. In turn Canam pointed another nuke toward the dark sky and Iran's endless sea of glass.
Heavenly shades of night are falling
It's twilight time ...
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #475 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #478 |||
I reported that delivery drivers lost my replacement intervals of Prozium on the way to my Residence this morning, like any good citizen should do. Its been eight days now without an interval, and I'm beyond ancy. Section 8 noted my concerns, filed the appropriate report, and assured me an emergency dose would arrive within 24 hours, delivered personally by a Cleric if need be.
There was another 12-10 out in Dogtown this afternoon. I was hoping someone else would take the call over the interlink. No such luck. I sure as hell didn't want to go out again in that muck, not with it coming down like it was. Now granted with most of the ash out of the troposphere, its warmed up some in most parts of the cinder we called Earth. Instead of snow, we get rain. Sometimes anyway.
Today it fell as a soul numbing mix of slushy sleet and frigid rain. I know I cant feel it through the suit. Its all psychological. But without a regular interval, you start feeling things ya' know? Between the thick churning blanket of gray above and the fine, endless layer of gray mucky soot under your feet, it just feels like the frosty rain slips in between the suit's seals. The First Response Suit can keep out 10 kils of rads, but it can't keep out the gray despair.
Ironic then that before it went up in a thermonuclear pyre, SI renamed a single unit of radiation exposure the Gray.
It was 1233 when the call came it over the interlink, at least according to the chronometer in my blueish twinged HUD. I engaged the jump jets and make a jaunt up and around a couple of skyscrapers near the HurshVan district, thick fat drops of slush splattering across my dark visor. Baring tall obstacles, a skilled suit operator can usually travel a few kilometers in a single jump. I bounced my way across the only thriving metroplex for gigameters, watching the sparse ground traffic crawl through empty streets. Most pedestrians take underground tubes, limiting the amount of tertiary exposure to the surface world. Rep-organ ration vouchers don't grow on synthesized flora filtration sub-systems you know.
All the buildings are gun metal gray near uptown, not exactly the most cheerful sight leaving. Or coming for that matter. Makes it easier for maintenance when lingering ash falls out of the troposphere during the cold season. In a single jump I cleared the outer perimeter walls, landing in the Nethers. A few turrets tracked me as I passed overhead, dipping back to the ground when my IFF cleared. Few get in or out of Shaddai without the Council's approval. I bounced over mostly deserted apartment complexes, their ferrocrete facades crumbling from disuse.
Dogtown lies just on the border between the Nethers and the Kipple; the background is weak enough to harbor a non-sanctioned settlement, but strong enough to breed mutation. Those that live in the Nethers refused Canam protection years ago, refused their SIN implants. They live here like mongrels; disfigured, diseased, and wretched. They always attack the supply convoys from New Seattle, loaded down with medical supplies, vat-krill, spare parts, and rep-organs.
Its the replacement organs they go after the most. Dogtown denizens can barely use a rifle, let alone know what to do with a phased induction conduit. They eat each other when rad-scorpions and mutarats get scarce. What they cant get easily is replacement marrow and intestines. A 12-15 is code for violent theft of rep-organs and tissue. With cancer rates so high, replacement tissue is worth more than its gram-weight in gold.
Even if the shiny, conductive metal wasn't easily manufactured now.
Unlike the hit five standard-solar days ago it looks like the strays got only one transport this time, and by the looks of it, it bit back. In the falling sleet I landed amidst the carnage and smoking wreckage. It looked like Hell out here, and despite the red splatters, charred stumps of bone, and pitted steel, I heard Louie Armstrong remind me What a Wonderful World. I didn't need the HUD to tell there wasn't much hope for the transport's gunnery crew. Even less for the strays lying in pieces around it. The pilot's condition was yellow; the plexi-steel armor of his cockpit riddled with autofire.
I called in several Priority One MEDEVAC's for the sprinkling of red's around me, knowing full well they won't reach the Traumacenter in time. Despite the stims and stabilizers I shoot the gunner's with, there is just only so much a modern medicine Molotov can do when your spine is hanging out. HQ had me check on the transport's cargo for containment while I wait, as if is appraising the expectant for Organ Reclamation wasn't already making my day.
The hermetic seals on the vats check out, save one, and as I stood there in the falling sleet, I tilted my visor up to the churning gray ceiling above. Soggy flakes of ice mixed ash pelted my view, the rhythmic rasp of my suits rebreather the only sound I heard in this man forged apocalypse. In the view of my mind's eyes I remembered what the sun was like. Bright. Warm. A welcoming companion after a long night of twilight. But trapped here between murky heaven and scorched earth, there is no companion to welcome me home.
I wandered over listless to one of the strays, scanning for vital signs. Despite several fractures in his six extremities and a minor contusion across the back of his occipital, he looked pretty good. I wish I could say the same for the rest of him. Crude surgical scars and black patches of dead flesh covered his face and torso. A sub-dermal scan showed clusters of tumors festering underneath the surgical grafts. How these things operate on each other is one of nature's grotesque mysteries.
I instructed the suit to fill an autohypo with a LD100. With a whirl, a tertiary actuator dropped out of the torso servo and dispensed the dose into the thing's neck. Canam law is clear in these cases. If I catch someone within a Canam City-State territory and they have no SIN, I am authorized to dispense a LD100. Besides being a first responder, I am also judge, jury, and executioner.
We call the SINless here Strays.
The stray's vital signs destabilized, then flatlined. Quick and painless. Unlike the slow death the rest of us face. I watched the serenity of the act, and for a moment, think of all those I left behind in New Orleans. My family. My friends. The guy I first kissed, before it all went bad. I cant even remember his name now. Not that it matters. Its unlawful to discuss same sex interactions now.
I picked up faltering life signs; rescaned the stray. He's moved on to a better place, but there must be something underneath him. I rolled the stray on his back, found another smaller one trapped underneath. My scanners had problems determining its vital baseline, its fur matted with blood and gray muck. Its not unusual for a stray to mutate fur, given how cold it used to get, but the shape of its skull confused me.
Thats when I realized it was a dog.
Its not uncommon for a stray to take in a dog, the few that manage to survive out here. It even looked like the stray protected his companion from harms way. The noble savage again trumps the travesty of civilized man's indifference. My sensors are only calibrated for human life signs, but X-scans showed some type of implants embedded into the canine. I sampled some of the blood matting the fur, and found serial tracer sequences embedded into its genome, suggesting Replicate DNA. Rep-tech to be sure, but why?
I can already see the mountain of paperwork coming my way. I picked up the matted, battered mess that at one point been called man's best friend and dumped it into a spare vat tank from the smoking ruins of the supply transport. When areodynes showed up a few chrons later, they hauled off what they can salvage from the 45-10. I tagged the vat I load onto one of the cargo ships with my personal SIN code at the last moment without thinking.
The only thing that really crossed my mind is how I could explain the presence of an replicant canine in the midst of Dogtown. I'll have to study the dog further before submitting material anything to my supervisor. I hitched a ride back on one of the MEDEVAC's, pining for a hot sonic shower. I'd kill for a steaming cup of Joe after that, but its going to be another few decades before Columbia thaws.
Looks like I'm just going to have to wait on that.
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #478 |||
"Residence?"
"State the nature of your query."
"Are there more of these entries that involve the ... 'dog'?" A few milichrons passed as the V.I. scanned the remaining vocal files.
"Five remaining entries contain references to 'dog', as well as variants of the word 'canine'."
"Would you play play them for me?"
"By your command."
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #450 |||
I got a surprise in the parcel today. A rather big one in fact. I had almost forgot about the vat I labeled with my personal SIN from the 12-10 a few days back till it showed up at my residence this morning. I was expecting a smaller container from Section 8, filled with replacement doses of Prozium, not a quarter tonne medical container. How it got misdirected from Section 5 HQ to here is one of bureaucracy's great mysteries. Knowing my luck my Prozium replacement doses are sitting in bio-quarantine somewhere in Section 5 HQ, under retinal-lock and pulse rifle.
Some clerk probably forgot to click on a toggle box down in Section 5 Transport and Goods, not that it really matters now. I took a personal leave for a few days to get my head on straight, maybe catch up on some reading. Something EC-10, like Whitman's Leaves of Grass, just enough to remind me of what we gave up for a steel sky and CO2 scrubbed air.
I often wonder what Walt would think of us now. Living like we are. If he would call it living. I wonder if he would ever kiss me, underneath a warm sun, his lips tasting of dew touched wild grapes. Would he hold me, on a hill of green grass, and tell me that still loved mankind?
I didn't expect the vat to show up this morning, to force me out of my dark fugue. I had made up my mind to deal with it once I got back on desk duty Thursday, to catch up on some field reports overdue from last week. After confirming with Residence that Transport and Goods could not come back and pick their misdirected container till tomorrow, I grabbed a doly and brought the vat into Residence. Nothing quite like working at home they say.
I checked the vitals on the vat once I got it inside, expecting a lot of flatline readouts. The dog I picked up in Dogtown was pretty much dead when I dumped it in, and I expected to perform a tier four dissection once I got back to Section 5. To my surprise its vitals had not only stabilized, but improved. The vats are only meant for stasis. Something in the dog itself must have promoted cellular regeneration. One of those implants I scanned earlier maybe.
This is going to be one damned difficult report to summarize. The Brass just love those kind.
I hauled the thing out of the vat, huffing with the effort. It must have weighed a good 30 kilos or so. Its stringy fur, matted with clots and gray mud mixed ash, left a huge permanent smudge on the chest and arms of my white jumpsuit. I trailed drops of gritty soot behind me as I carried it into the hygiene closet. While Residence took the time to remind me how difficult it can be to get soot stains out of its upholstery, I dumped the animal into the sonic shower cubical. I listened on as Old Satchmo and Lady Ella sang duet in the other room, asking me to Dream a Little Dream.
It took a megachron to get all the crud and grit out of the dog's thick fur. I must have been on rinse number three before I realized the dog's coat was a natural shade of gray with thick bands of black trim on its muzzle and midsection. I placed the shower setting on dry, and the low frequency of the heads kicked up a bit, evaporated what little water remained with ultrasonics. Its amazing really, what even the most common of devices can do in this age. The low frequency sonics of the shower head help break up grime without the use of caustic detergents, and the light spray of water rinses the filth away. Like most things in this world, clean water is rationed.
Its too bad practical, functional conservationism was born out of need, not idealism. I'll never go fishing on the Mississippi again. No one will for that matter.
After placing the dog on the basin for a general examination, I rummaged through the mirror cabinet for the most basic of medical scanners. I wasn't expecting to do this in my own home after all. Instead of finding anything useful, I pulled out a common brush. Its one thing to bring your work home with you; another to bath and groom it. All the same, I found the experience almost hypnotic, watching as the brush smoothed out the canine's dry, mussy fur. My hand followed suit soon after; my warm palm gliding over its coarse guard hairs and silky undercoat.
My hands felt their way across its thighs and legs, feeling the hard packed musculature underneath the fur there. I played with its claws and rough paw pads a bit, the spongy texture of the latter delighting my curious touch. The dog's coloration turned black at its muzzle and ears, and my fingers stroked over the semi-perked flaps of cartilage and fur. I don't think Ive ever felt anything as soft and soothing as them.
I stood there for what it seemed like forever, petting man's best friend. The last time I remembered petting a dog was right before Katrina swept everything my family had away. I was young then, and the world was green and blue. All I could think about besides those times was the feeling of stroking this dog. The music had long since died, but I stood there enrapt anyway, watching the gentle rise and fall of the dog's chest.
In my fixation I noticed two things. First, its lax tail wanted to curl up and over its back. Second, and the more interesting, was the pink tip sliding every so subtly out of its furry sheath under the underbelly. I froze, not so much terrified as entranced, taking in every detail of it's taboo shape and glistening flesh. It took all my will to look away. But I couldn't deny that this was the closest I had come to another penis other than my own in over a decade. All I could think about was that summer's sweltering heat before the hurricane came ashore, the salty beads of sweat on the other nameless guy's lips.
To the Republican Council, having the genetic predisposition towards homosexuality ranks just under having the religious predisposition towards Islam.
But that is where Section 8 comes into play. They helped developed Prozium, a liquid drug that deadens certain unnameable desires and feelings. For now, its only dispensed to undesirables like myself, or anyone else who exhibits deviant sexual desires. There is talk among the heads of the Republican Council however, to issue a city-state wide mandate requiring all Canam citizens to take the emotional sedative. If emotion truly is the root of man's inhumanity to man, then it leaves our leaders with little choice.
Mankind cannot survive a Fourth World War.
And yet without my regular intervals, I couldn't deny what feelings the dog's sex stirred. Long, dormant feelings concealed by a government issued drug. Feelings that made me feel shamed and outcast. The dog wasn't even human. And yet my own erection stirred, marginally concealed by a government issued jumpsuit within a government issued semi-private Residence. I looked back when I heard some pants, felt the dog's chest rise and fall with them. I met his opened, dark brown eyes, so keen, and yet friendly at the same time. Those were eyes that could melt a cold, dead world with their warmth.
Or just a ice locked heart.
I stood there for some time, my warm palms resting on his furry side. He looked so happy to see me, that tightly curled tail wagging back and forth, and maybe thats why I did what I did. I leaned down and rested my cheek against his neck, feeling how soft and warm the fur there was. Ten years. Ten times the sun circled in the shroud obscured heavens above, but for all I know its been an eternity. An eternity since someone or something wanted my affection, my touch, the assurance that I would stay with them through the long twilight.
I cried then, my first tears since my first mandated interval, over a decade ago. I felt so foolish, my flush cheeks over running with pent up grief and loneliness. And yet the dog seemed to sensed this, tried to turn his head and lick the salty streaks from them. He didn't even know who I was, and yet tried to comfort me with sympathetic whines just the same.
It was the greatest act of kindness anyone had ever shown me. Human or otherwise.
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #450 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #452 |||
I found out some rather interesting things about the dog over the past couple of days. Or rather, he's told me some rather interesting things about himself. I'd try to record something as evidence, but everyone would think it was just a clever trick. For a while I didn't believe it myself, thinking that Residence had decided to play on my nerves. It likes to do that. Ive brought that little nugget to Residential Maintenance before, and they just grin.
Yesterday I continued my investigation of the replicant dog I found in Dogtown last week. While the Brass jumped down my throat about the missing vat from the last 12-10, I just decided to remain chill. I didn't have any answers for them just yet. When I asked them what was so important about the vat, they got all mum on me. Classified they said. Need to know basis they replied. Hey, its not my job to ask questions. Just to bag and tag 'em.
I started in on tier two physical yesterday morning, collecting some routine blood and tissue samples. Much to my surprise, the dog just sat there though most of it, panting in the thick air. He winced once as I put a 10 Stubs in his foreleg.
"That wasn't very nice." I thought I heard Residence say as I deposited the blood sample into a portable autofuge.
"Why are you complaining, Residence? Its not like I stuck a soldering gun into your logic board." I shook my head, already annoyed at Residence's persistent dogging.
"I did not vocalize any objection." Residence quipped. I shot a miffed look to one of Residence's sensor arrays up in the corner of every room. Right after that the same artificial voice chimed back, contradicting itself.
"Yes you did. You used a 10 gauge hypo when you could just have easily used a 15 gauge instead. You extracted blood, not lymphatic fluid."
"Since when did you become an expert in medicine?" I huffed back, stooping over the readout to the autofuge. I entered in some readouts by hand on a pocket secretary nearby.
"I have detailed files on physiology. Mostly of sapiens. Some of my own." I banged my fist down into the counter. Its one thing to have to oversee V.I. judgment to collect a pay stipend, another to have it nag you incessantly when you aren't at work.
"You don't have an anatomy." I wanted to overwrite Residence's heuristic core with something less augmentative. The Id-Echo of a five year old, perhaps.
"Then why were you pawing all over it yesterday?" I blinked for a moment, my fingers frozen just above the nine-key of the pocket secretary. I glanced over to the sensor array, then the dog.
"Residence. Run a level three internal diagnostic on your vocal emitters." The dog just stared at me with what looked to be a smug pant, ears perked forward.
"All vocal subsystems are operating with standard parameters, with the exception of the processing core."
"Explain."
"I am detecting a foreign carrier wave form overriding its command processes."
"Residence. What is the source of this signal?"
"Living room. Two meters from your current line of sight." The dog just wagged. I drummed my fingertips into the nine-key, not sure what to do. The results of the test beeped back, and I glanced at the string of numbers, meaningless now.
"Instead of jabbing at me with the grace of a phlebotomist's intern, you could just ask me what you want to know." His ears folded as I knocked over some sample tubes on flustered accident, the glass shattering on Residence's white tiled floor.
"Please do pick up after yourself." Residence chimed in. "Small shards of silicon tend to jam up the rollers on the cleaning remotes." Awkward silence followed as I stood there, staring at the mess on the tile. The dog just stared on at me.
"Are you ... intelligent?" I asked, hesitant at first.
"I could ask the same question, but I don't know how long it would take before you would answer it." We looked at each other some more, like some odd sort of dimwitted, one sided standoff.
"You can talk."
"Correction. I can't talk. I lack the physiology to replicate human speech. But I can interface with the machine of this place. Through it, I am able to communicate to you. Marginally anyway. I only have so much to work with." The dog's eyes squinted, implying.
The rest of the day pretty much went like that. I'd say something profoundly stupid, and then the furball would correct me. Furball even had a name. Sort of. As much as Subject 23-58 is a name. He even had a purpose. Unlike some of us. He said he was the prototype for some covert Canam espionage project. To root out suspected radical Islamic extremist cells in the Nethers.
Because terrorists just love to plot and glow at the same time.
The Republican Council's real target were the Strays. With 12-10's happening more and more, Canam had to do something. Every standard solar year their raids encroach closer and closer to the security zones around Shaddai. What better way than to monitor stray activity in the Nethers than to plant a spy among them. Radiation resistant, regenerative, and capable of remotely interfacing with any computer controlled mechanical system, Subject 23-58 could infiltrate the Nethers almost indefinitely without support. What better spy than an intelligent replica of man's best friend?
Looks like that report I was intending to file might have to lose itself in misfiling, just like the vat. For once the tangled web of bureaucracy might work in my favor ...
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #450 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #452 |||
I filed the overdue report with my Brass today. My boss seemed to read it with the usual zeal, glossing over the fine details. He forwarded it on to Section 4 and let me know I was on desk duty pending the results of my bi-annual physical and psychological evaluation. I made sure they included my own addendum to Section 8 about the loss of my replacement Prozium doses in the report. I'm certain I cant be held liable for some one else's paperwork mistake.
Desk duty isn't so bad. A lot of the time I can just sit around, filing and proofing someone else's field reports from that day. The constant hum of the atmosphere conditioner is almost comforting. It sure beats scooping up whats or whose left of some mass-tube accident. I didn't even have to go through the usual decon after duty; an added bonus.
When I stepped into Residence tonight I found Furball hunched over in the meal dispensary, sniffing at several open, steaming pots. A part of me had forgot what it was like to come home to a companion. I stood there in the entrance for a moment, caught off guard.
"What's this about?" I asked, pealing off the outer layer of my jumpsuit. As I made my way through Residence waiting for Furball to answer, I checked the terminal for any personal messages, of which there were none. I'm just that popular.
"I thought I would surprise you and have dinner made before you got home." Furball took his front paws off the cooking station and checked a display next to him. "The rice is taking longer than I expected."
"I didn't know you could even cook." I stepped into my sleeping area and stripped off the jump suits inner mesh, tossing it into steri-hamper.
"I can not. But by interfacing through the service remotes ..." Furball nosed open the doorway, exposing me in all my pale, buck naked glory. He gave this odd look and perked his ears, tilting his head this way and that.
"Hey, a little privacy will ya?" I barked out, throwing a spare towel over his muzzle and ears.
He snorted off the towel and with an indignant look padded back into the meal dispensary. My usual little after work ritual includes a quick sonic shower, even though the usual decon procedure ensures that I don't even have a skin mite ridding piggy back when I come home. Its purely physiological. Recently though, without my regular interval I've been standing in the shower cubical, letting the vibrating, hot spigots work their sensual dance on my re-awakened skin.
At least such simple pleasures aren't a crime. Not yet anyway.
I stepped back into the meal dispensary wearing only some form fitting shorts. Authorities encourage us to save energy and to limit the use the steri-hamper when possible. The remotes had dispensed steamy heaps of rice, spicy vegetables, and peeled krill onto some ceramic plates, placing one on the table and one on the tiled floor. I took a seat, sniffing the concoction. I had almost forgot what it was.
"Jambalaya?" I gave a curious poke at the ethnic dish with a fork.
"White. I had issues with the rice. I know its not Red but ..."
"No!" I exclaimed, forking in a savory, spicy mouthful. "But where did you get the red pepper?"
"I had to improvise a bit." He licked at his own plate, muzzle scrunching a bit as he nibbled at the larger chunks. We ate in silence for a while, the remotes around us cleaning up the cooking mess like small humming worker bees. Curiosity soon got the better of me.
"So ... how did you know I missed Cajun cooking?"
"Residence has detailed files on you, Remmy." Furball licked his chops clean of the spicy dish. "I know where you grew up, what you do now for a living, anything in CenCit database really." My fork stopped halfway to my mouth at that. It found its way down to the table after a uncomfortable moment. "Is something wrong?" The canine tilted his head, now worried.
"So you know everything in the CenCit database? About me?"
"Yes. Are you worried about Section 8?"
"Kinda." I looked at his soft brown eyes. They didn't seem to know the stigma, or care. His concern never faltered. "You ... don't care then?"
"About your disposition towards other males of your species? I have detailed files outlining your species' sexual and behavioral habits, but the specifics of its social complexities escape me."
I went back to eating in silence, eased somewhat that he didn't seem to care. Overtly at least. He licked his place clean, and a remote scooped up his plate, replacing it with another. Maybe the fact that I had not eaten with someone else in several years bothered me more than I realized.
"So." I said, giving an awkward stab at the remainder of my plate. "You know so much about me. I hardly know anything about you."
"There isn't much to know. Most of my personal files are classified. I already shared what files I have access to."
"So what type of dog were you replicated after then anyway?" I flexed my bare toes on the chilly tile, delighting in the sensation.
"A Norwegian Elkhound."
"Well I don't think you will be hunting any Elk around here."
"Neither did my genetic fore bearers. They hunted Moose."
"That doesn't make any sense." I remarked, shoveling the last of the Jambalaya in my mouth with a confused look on my face.
"Your species rarely does."
I didn't have a good retort for that, and instead just let a remote take away my dirty plate. Ive never been known as a conversationalist, even before the War. Furball padded over to the entertainment center, and plopped down. A mili-chron later the plasma screen flickered on, and he watched the world as I did, through surveillance cameras, skewed historical documentaries, and ever constant media propaganda. Exhausted from the head-shrinks' grilling, I made my way back into my sleeping area and slumped down into its single foam mattress. Its not much larger than a closet really, but its small enough to keep away the bite of desolation on sleety nights.
I laid there in the darkness for some time, listening to the crusty ping of ice against Residence's only window. I think I shut the blinds seven solar standard years ago and never bothered to re-open them. There isn't much to see except the steady sweep of search lights across monolithic gun metal gray buildings; the running lights of several spinners flying through the cityscape. Lost in exhausted thought, I jumped slightly when something furry and warm plopped down besides me on the temperfoam.
He didnt say anything, and almost on instinct my hand reached out to stroke between his soft furry ears. After a while, I put my arm around his shaggy body, my nose buried in the warm fur of his scruff. His guard hairs tickled the bare flesh of my chest, brushing against my nipples. For the first time since I left New Orleans, I felt secure. We laid like that forever until we fell both asleep, listening to the howl of the empty world outside.
But for some reason it didn't seem so empty anymore.
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #452 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #454 |||
I hurried home today. Not that there was a lot of accidents anyway for me to follow up on. Furball called me on the vid-com to make sure I knew. As if everyone watching Central-News didn't already know. Even the Meteorologists were left scratching their heads. I don't think anyone was complaining at their forecasts though.
It called for Partially Clouded Skies.
No one knows exactly what creates PCS phenomenon. Chaos Theory suggests that with current trends in geostrophic imbalance, conditions might exist for several low pressure fronts to collide. Much like a Hurricane's Eye, the resulting high pressure zone would cause any atmosphere disturbance to disperse. Its rare. So rare Earth has only seen two in the past ten solar standard years. The last one was over in Korea somewhere. To bad gamma ionized cockroaches were the only ones left behind to see the sun break through.
It took forever to get to Residence. With thousands of citizens taking off work early to see the PCS, the tubes were crammed and even more behind schedule than normal. Hundreds lined the corridors of my own micro-arcology, pressed up against the plexiglass. It offered a better view than their sleeping quarters. But I wanted to share the view with someone I knew. Furball jumped up on me the instant I entered the doorway, his is large fore-paws almost knocking me off balance. It was a cute sight, that curled tail wagging a kilometer a chron.
"Hurry up!" Furball said, jumping off and bounding into my sleeping quarters. I think he was more excited about it than I was. I don't know what Walt would have made of him. He had never seen a sunrise. Never listened to Mozart. Never read 'Leaves of Grass'. His paws would never turn a page.
Would that make his appreciation any less deserving?
I followed Furball into my sleeping area and almost tripped over him trying to open the blinds. The miniature servo motor groaned when it engaged, testament to how long it had sat idle. I flopped back down on the temperfoam as strips of the cityscape peaked into viewed. The rotating blinds locked into place, then slid up into the ceiling. Portions of the gray blanket draped above had already broken up in spots, allowing yellow beams of light to break through. For a moment I thought the heavens had turned on their own searchlights, seeking the terrorist that had scorched the sky.
The Terrorist was Man.
I put my arm around the canine next to me, who sat in awe at the spectacle. We watched on as the banks of gray clouds seemed to dissipate, more and more of the ash covered buildings around us bathed in a fiery yellow glow. A sudden shift in wind dispersed a swirl of clouds above us, and without warning, a blinding light enveloped us. My first instinct was to look away, my sensitive retinas unable to withstand its full intensity. I threw up my hand to shield my itching eyes, and for the first time in over a decade, felt the hot sun beat down on the tactile flesh of my palm.
The long twilight was over, and I felt welcomed home.
I hugged the Elk Hound next to me without thinking, his warm fur catching several sensual tears. He whined in shared joy, rough canid tongue lapping at my explosion of repressed emotion. My mouth parted slightly at the overwhelming sensation, and was rewarded with the tease of his rough tongue on the inner fringes of my own eager lips. My own tongue braved a quick flick against that strong canid muscle, and the unique taste of him flooded my world.
To him, it probably was a gesture of companionship. To me it meant something far more intense. Irrational, primal urges drove me forward. I was clumsy. I had only kissed once before, and the shape of his muzzle lips made it difficult. He relented anyway, tail thumping back and forth and ears perked as he sensed my need to express the new fire inside. We sat there in the sunshine with closed eyes, alone, lips locked together.
It was A Kiss to Build a Dream On.
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #454 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #455 |||
I never went into work this morning. Morning. Its a word that feels outmoded now. Its always twilight here, and the only way to tell 0800 from 1800 is by the digital readout of a chronometer. I guess after the PCS passed yesterday, it made me remember certain things. Certain things best left unforgotten.
Nuzzled up against me, Jambalaya seemed to sense it when I stirred on the temperfoam earlier. An odd name for a dog I know, but its more personal than Furball. Maybe thats my problem. Im starting to think of him more human than canine. After all, he can reason. He can feel. But most of all, he can cook. The moment he starts to question his purpose in life, I think its over for mankind's supposed superiority.
Of all the inhuman souls I've met in this blasted land, his is by far the most humane.
When I felt the whiskers of his muzzle brush against the skin of my chest this morning, I didn't feel like going back to work. To what horrors we had built for ourselves. I just wanted to be here, with him and his warmth. Maybe it was his thick coat that kept away the gray despair. He must have been awake for some time, just laying there as I snuggled up to him. As frigid raindrops splattered across the window, Jambalaya rolled those soft brown back at me, and werfed softly.
"Remmy, what is wrong?"
"Nothing."
"There are stress precursors in your vocal patterns, and your scent is heavy. Would you like ... to talk about it?"
"Not really." Jambalaya's perked ears folded against my chin, his tail laxing slightly. I hadn't been around canines enough to know what that meant. We continued to lay there for almost an entire megachron, listening to the falling rain outside beat against the triple paned glass. Finally he spoke up.
"Remmy, do you think we could go outside?"
"Its not safe out there."
"I am resistant to most forms of radiation."
"Its not what I meant. People would wonder how I got a dog inside the green zone."
"Can we go into the Nethers? I promise it wont take long. Just a walk really."
I flashed a doubtful look at my new companion, palm gliding over his soft belly on instinct. "This doesn't have anything to do with your mission does it?"
"I have no desire to fulfill that directive, but I would like to roam free of this place. It would not be hard for me to bypass perimeter security." He gave a hesitant pause. "You could come with me."
"There isn't anything out there for me." I hugged him closer to me, his hindquarters brushing against my pelvis a bit. "Not anymore." His guard hairs tickled my nose as I buried it in his scuff. His scent made it hard to think about anything else but him.
"I do not think I could stay here, inside Residence forever."
"I could," I said, kissing that cute square nose, "as long as you are here when I come home from work every day." He planted a paw on my naked chest, claws scraping the sensitive flesh there.
"Maybe we could go out once in a while. During curfew. No one would know." His persistent dogging broke me in a way Residence could never do. Not even after ten years.
"No!" I snapped back, forgetting what anger felt like. The black inside my gut tempered the flush of red that seemed to flare in my veins. Maybe Prozium had a purpose after all. "I can't risk losing you. Don't you get that?!"
I hadn't realized I was crying until Jambalaya started licking the salty trails from my flushed cheeks with his rough, strong tongue. My tear ducts felt raw, burned as if they leaked acid. I hated the feeling.
I couldn't speak, choking back this stupid gush of raw emotion. I knew Residence listened on with zero empathy, and I felt somehow ashamed. It's clock cycles idled in obedient anticipation of my next command. But thats not who or what I wanted to see me through the next long twilight. I wanted someone who would listen to me. Who would comfort in dark times. Who wouldn't necessarily agree with everything I had to say. Who loved me.
Jambalaya didnt say anything. Instead he just rolled over on his back, his muzzle nuzzling me in comfort. I didn't know at the time that he did it to make me feel more secure. I laid my head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, my hand sliding down his soft fur of his underbelly. It stopped as it slid over his sheath, and Jambalaya kicked lightly.
I laid there against him, frozen as I listened to his deepening pants. My hand squeezed the protective skin and fur, prompting a soft whine from Jambalaya's muzzle lips. His tail began to swish back and forth underneath him, my eyes glued to his sheath opening. A small tip of pink slid out of it part way. My own sleeping garment felt suddenly tight in the crotch, and despite the flood of emotion, or maybe because of it, my blood pounded, burned.
My hand stroked his sheath in short strokes, tempting more of that pink spear to show. Something inside felt hard, supporting the engorging organ. As it slid out, an undeniable need took hold of me at the sight of its odd, erotic shape. I sniffed at the wet tip, so close to my yearning lips now, breathing in its unique scent. My own hardness ached now, so hot and stiff against my lower stomach. It felt like a caged animal, frantic to claw itself free. I couldn't think, only act, as I slid my dry lips over Jambalaya's slick cocktip.
As shape of his canine sex slid past my curious lips, its slippery flesh dancing over my taste buds. Jambalaya whined, both his hind feet kicking a bit as I took him down to the base. While my lips touched the fur his sheath opening, I moved my hand down to his furry sacs. He squirmed a bit at that, and I buried my nose into his fur to take his scent deep into my nostrils. As more of his length filled my mouth salty spurts trickled down my throat. It was almost too bitter.
I moved my hand on his sacs back up, wrapping around the pink glistening flesh that I couldn't take all the way into the back of my gagging throat. Every part of my body buzzed with electric desire. Inside my own shorts, I felt my own aching length spurt into the crotch of the synthetic material. His trickle became a steady flow, almost threating to overflow my lips.
A few chrons later, I started bobbing up and down on Jambalaya's doggy cock, grasping around a part of him that started to swell just outside the sheath. Being as careful as possible with him despite my own growing need, I started beating off his knot. I could tell by the jumps of his legs he wanted to hump my face, drive his knot deep between my lips. Had I not been so much in a hurry, I probably would have let him tried.
His soft bark of delight was almost instantaneous, and without warning, his spurted a flood of precum in my mouth. I didn't know what to do with it at first, and most of it dribbled back down onto his swollen orb crammed tight up against my lips. Jambalaya kicked some more, his tail curling against the floor under his backside. I pulled off him slowly, choking a bit on his taste. While my to my surprise his cum had watered out a bit, it still had a bitter, salty aftertaste to it. His cock continued to spurt, and I squeezed his knot gently in curiosity.
The way his tongue lolled out the side of his muzzle was priceless.
I licked off what remained on my lips, and for the first time, realized how much my own erection ached. I nuzzled up to him, not quite sure what to do or even say. It was still hard to take everything in; my racing thoughts and heart somewhat sated by this unexpected, bestial intimacy. I let my pre slicked hand wander through his fur, wetting it with his musky cream. We laid there for what seemed forever, still stunned with the primal experience. I thought he had an orgasm. I didnt know that dogs spurted most of the time when they were aroused. Jambalaya finally broke the silence.
"Remmy?"
"Yeah?" I buried my face into his thick neck fur, clinging to him in a way I never got to cling to a human lover.
"Are you okay?" All I could do is nod into him. I didn't know he didn't need to see my face to see I was lying. He could smell it. "I still smell elevated pheromones. While I do not have a direct correlation for your particular scent marker, the closest analog I have would indicate that you are a bitch in heat."
I didn't know what to say to that in all honesty. I tried to hide my blush even further into his neck fur. This moment wasn't something I had planned out. "I ... I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to ..." Jambalaya cut me off instead before I could make a bigger ass of myself.
"Your apology is in error. I ... liked ... whatever it is that you call what you just did."
"Then ... what's the matter?"
"I am simply confused at your scent marker." He wiggled to his side and sniffed at the throbbing ache trapped between my legs and tight fabric. The mere bump of his canid nose against my re-awakened privates jolted my already frayed, desperate urge for a more conclusive release. I wanted the unthinkable. Furball seemed to know somehow. "You are male, but are not interested to copulate inside me. Would you rather me mount you?"
I wanted to scream at him. Not to object. But to scream something like FUCK YEAH, NOW!. That was my body talking, as my mind was too busy hiding in shame of what I wanted. No. What I deserved. I had never been very outgoing. The other guy actually kissed me first in the park that sweltering day, hot enough to melt a sno-ball. Even as I hid my face from only the second act of intimacy shown to me in this pitted wasteland of human mores, I continued to lick the saltiness from my lips.
All I could think about was the beads of sweat on that nameless guy's lips, and how I wanted more. So much more. Before Katrina and the so called War on Terror took that freedom from me. I wasn't going to let someone else tell me who or what I could do with my sexuality. It was mine. And mine alone. The moment I let someone take that freedom from me was the moment I became a slave to the Council's every whim. Every interval I took only stole another link in the short chain they kept me on.
It was time to break that chain. To denounce my inhuman masters in one concerted outcry: Enough!
"I ... want you to mount me ..." I braved a peek at Jambalaya, wondering what he would think of me now. His brown eyes never condemned me, never judged me. All he wanted to do was make me happy. His selflessness trumped any human being I had known up till then.
"On one condition."
"What's that?" I didn't know what he would ask of me. But I knew I would do anything for this missing piece of myself. The part of me that the Council tried to medicate out of me, hide me away from public view like a bastard stepchild.
"I lack the proper analogy to describe to you what it is that I want. But you saved me. Brought me back to your den. The other creature tired to do the same, but died trying. This is what I find curious about your species. You may not love each other, but you love me." I watched him, my hands still petting his oh so soft, black ears.
"Please." He continued. "I wish to repay that loyalty. I wish to follow you. To take you as my dominant companion. I do not have a good human analog for it, but I believe its a relationship that our species have shared since before the creation of my breed."
"You mean, you want to be ... my pet?" I continued to stoke his ears and back, still mindful of how rock hard I was. His brown eyes squinted a bit, muzzle lips tight as he cross-reference the word. A moment latter his black ears perked.
"That is the word. Will you be my ... master?" We looked at each other for a moment, my thawed heart thundering awake from its long slumber. I pulled him to my chest, lungs twitching as I rasped out a ragged reply.
"Y ... yes!"
For a moment I worried that I was suffocating him. If I was, he didn't seem to mind. Jambalaya's rough tongue lapped out against my flushed cheek. I kissed him again then, this time deeper, pushing my own tongue inside his muzzle. My hand drifted back down from his chest to his belly, then lower still to the pink length still bobbing outside his sheath. I slid my hand up and down pre slicked organ, my fingers pulling gently at the slight bulge of his now unswollen knot. Jambalaya pawed at the crotch of my shorts. I didn't need any further prompting.
I leaned back and hooked my thumbs under its waistband before pushing it down and off my ankles. My own hardness bobbed a bit against my stomach, already leaking a small puddle below my belly button. Jambalaya didn't waste a second, and his muzzle dipped low to my crotch before his rough, curious tongue sampled it. The sheer feeling of his thick, rough muscle over my tip almost sent me over the edge right then and there. My entire body shook as he almost licked me to climax; it took all my will to simply roll over on my hands and knees.
Without warning his cold nose pressed against my virgin hole, and I gave an embarrassing shout. A groan of pleasure quickly followed when his long tongue lapped between my cheeks. Had I known about these raptures before, I would have told the Republican Council to shove their mandated dose right up their ass. I'm certain more than a few of them would love it.
My hard cock slapped the underside of my taught belly as I clenched, insides already starting to twitch. A huge bead of pre swelled up at my cock slit and then dribbled down into my bedding, hanging by a gooey thread. Jambalaya's sudden weight jumped on my backside, claws scratching my thin, delicate skin and leaving red marks.
I hissed at the pain; knew more would follow. Jambalaya sensed my nervousness, but despite his huge reserve of patience, I could feel the blunt tip of his length jab into my backside with short desperate stabs. His forelegs wrapped around my hips and legs, his back arching to send his sex deep inside me.
We both jostled for better positions, a thin sheen of sweat and passion glistening my naked body. His thick coat only trapped the fire between us. Without warning Residence blasted us with a frosty rumble from the atmosphere conditioner, monitoring the sudden spike of my body temperature. I knew Residence recorded our edgy pants with empty voyeurism. It was what he was designed to do. Just as we fumbled through our own messy, inexact biological urges.
Our motions were clumsy; like two virgin teenage boys humping at each underneath sweat soaked sheets. His wet tip slipped up and down the cleft of my cheeks without success, the tapered head of Jambalaya's canine cock rubbing against my eager, flexing entrance. I reached back between my legs, past my own throbbing, dripping need and grasped his wild shaft. It was still slick from his gush earlier, and more than once it slipped out of my nervous grasp. It took forever to place him against my pucker. With each short thrust it slid astray before finally finding home.
I grunted as his unique shape met resistance at first, then slid past my tight ring. His short thrust paused as I enveloped him, and he whined close to my ear. My jaw fell open as he spread my hot guts apart, a moan falling from quivering lips. I tried to say something, anything. There were no human words to describe the sensation as his next hump drove himself deeper inside me.
It hurt. It burned. It was amazing.
Instead I whined along side of my lover as he bred me, his canine sex pumping in and out of my stretched hole in rapid thrusts now. His tip slipped under something hard inside of me, something that made bark, clench, spurt in electric joy. I had no idea how deep he was now, but a part of him swelled, bumping and rubbing against that tight lump. No longer able to hold my head up against the rhythmic pleasure building at my core, I rested my forehead against the floor and looked back between my shaking legs.
It was such an erotic sight; my own hard cock bobbing with each thrust, the full length of Jambalaya's glistening shaft disappearing in and out my body. Only my swaying balls managed to get in the way of the hypnotic view. A constant trickle of white cum dribbled from my cock head, flicked off with each rock of our rut. The sight of his growing knot slipping into my ass cheeks only helped fuel the forbidden scene. I pushed back, strained as he drove forward, tucking his hips under mine.
His knot popped into me, locked inside me, and tears welled up in my eyes from sudden pain.
It felt so tight and hot inside, my insides flooded with his constant pre. It felt like an eternity of soul searing intimacy; in truth no more than a chron had passed since he slipped his sex into me, claiming me. Jambalaya's pants shortened, his thrusts grew erratic. I knew he was close, but I didn't expect the fleshy orb in my bowels to swell even more. As his knot squashed against my prostate, I tensed and grunted from deep within.
I didn't even realize I was cumming until the second spurt splattered against my forehead, still resting against the bedding. Jambalaya's forelegs tightened around me, locked me in place as he dumped what seemed a half liter of his seed into me. Some of it trickled out of my stretched ring, to stain the termperfoam under us.
I don't know how long we were tied like that, laying in a small pool of sweat and mixed semen. We didn't say anything to each other until his knot came out of me, a small torrent of dog cum spilling from my ass cheeks. I held him until I fell back asleep.
When I awoke a few megachrons later, Jambalaya was still lying on his side besides me, looking out the window. After I went to take a sonic shower, he didn't place his curious nose up against the cubical glass like he usually did. I wondered if I had done something wrong.
We had dinner later that night together, but said little. He didn't even seem interested in watching the 1800 Central-News broadcast. I didn't bother to give a call into the Brass explaining my absenteeism. We held each other again once curfew hit, watching the searchlights outside sweep down into Shaddai's empty streets. I knew what he was thinking. That he could slip between those beams and discreetly disable the tracking turrets on the perimeter.
"Jambalaya, do you love me?"
"Yes, master."
"You would never leave me ... would you?"
"Never master." I left it as that and fell asleep next to him, letting him stare out past the perimeter wall, to the Nethers.
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #455 |||
||| Begin-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #456 |||
I came home early today, and you weren't here.
Its funny Ive never thought of Residence as home until the day I brought you back with me. I called out for you, and you didn't answer. Residence informed me you had left some time ago, and that you had disabled its connection to the arcology's processing core.
We could have left together. If only you had waited for me. I hacked into Section 8's DB earlier today using my supervisor's ID to view the results of my psyche and physical evaluation. Noting several anomalies in both, a little investigation dug up where my replacement doses of Prozium were at. After interrogating the clerk down in Transport and Goods, they found out where your crate got delivered to. Combined with my own falsified reports, they put two and two together pretty quickly and figured out where Canam's Covert Canine had slipped off to.
I can take being labeled a terrorist. I can take being labeled a sexual deviant. But one thing I cant take is being lied to.
I stood in Residence for some time, thinking that at any minute I would hear you scratching at the door. When I realized you weren't coming home. I had Residence play something random to cover my sobs. I know now for certain it has a sadist streak for me. It played Al Jolson's rendition of Are You Lonesome Tonight. Despite the ticking chronometer, I listened through stinging tears to his strong, deep voice.
He sounded good considering dirt from the Korean War front had settled into his right lung. A few months later he would die from exhaustion induced heart failure. It was the last song he recorded. I wonder if he somehow knew what toll the War had taken on us both. His next words stung me in a way that the gray despair could never manage.
_I wonder if you're lonesome tonight
You know someone said the the worlds a stage
And each must play a part
Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart_
I sank to my knees then, tears falling to the tiled floor. I thought back to when not so long you dripped what was left of the world outside on this very floor. Ice and ash. Its all thats left of my heart now.
_Act One was when we met, I loved you at first glance
You read your lines so cleverly and never missed a cue_
I took you into my home that day. I cleaned you. I groomed you. I couldn't stop looking away from you. I knew I was in love when you licked me for the first time. You didn't even know who I was, and you cared enough to clean away my tears.
_Then came Act Two
You seemed to change, you acted strange
And why I've never known_
I never knew what crossed your mind that day when you nosed open that door and saw me naked for the first time. I must have looked so silly to you the way you tilted your head this way and that. From then on you stopped correcting me, didn't remind me of how stupid I can be. You seemed to listen to me more. You seemed so ... human.
_Then came the day you went away and left me all alone.
If you lied when you said you loved me
I had no cause to doubt you
For I'd rather go on hearing your lies
Than to go on living without you_
You said you loved me. You said you wouldn't leave me. I should have known you couldn't fight the need in your genes. Just as I couldn't fight mine. Only now do I realize we were meant to be together. Our ancestors have slept along side each other, kept each other company since the dawn of mankind.
It's only natural then, at its twilight, we would finally find each other.
_The stage is bare and I'm standing there
In the part of a broken clown
And if you won't come back to me
Then they can bring the curtain down_
Section 8 raided my office to take me into custody just after I left. They are on their way here as I speak. But instead of coming back and leaving together, I found you had already left. I know Residence is recording this as I speak. I know Section 8 will use it against me at my own rushed tribunal, as well as Walt's books and all the songs in Residence's memory core. But I don't care anymore.
I'll never go back to what it was like before you.
I think I'll just kneel here, and wait for them to take me. I know that all the miracles of modern medicine can't fix what you've done to me. But I don't care about that either. Thank you, Jambalaya.
The sun has come out. And its warmer and brighter than anything I could have imagined without you.
I love you.
||| End-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand #455 |||
||| End-of Entries-Vocal-Log-Resident-223-528-Remmy-Lerand |||
The creature sitting on his haunches inside Residence could not cry. Nor could he have wiped away any tears that might have fallen. But he sat there for some time after the final entry had finished, wanting to. So many times he had watched his master do it, and not understood why, until now. Without warning, the V.I. spoke.
"I have located Resident 223-528-Remmy-Lerand. He is currently awaiting Organ Reclamation in a Section 8 containment cell after confessing to several violations of his Sensory Parole. His confessions to several violations to the Carnal Exclusions Act have also promoted the Republican Council to declare all canines EC-10: Restricted. All domestic and wild canines are to be terminated on sight."
Jambalaya dripped his muzzle to the tiled floor and closed his eyes, ears folded. He didn't mean for any of this to happen. He'd hoped to be back from the Nethers before Remmy came home. He'd made contact with some of the Stay's in Dogtown living in a renovated fallout shelter. Despite their grotesque appearance, they offered them asylum among their mutated ranks. All they asked for in return was Remmy's medical training. There, sheltered from lingering radiation, Remmy and he could wait until it was safe to wander the wastes. Eventually Jambalaya knew that they would find a place and settle down.
Somewhere where the endless twilight would finally come to an end. Jambalaya sat there for a long time, thinking about a master that would never return home. He contemplated waiting for him anyway.
"Residence?" Jambalaya called out.
"State the nature of your query."
"I think I want to listen to some music while I wait."
"Very well. What would you like to listen to?"
"Play ... master's favorite song ... I want to know what it is ..."
"By your command."
Residence obeyed its other occupant with monotone compulsion. Jambalaya perked his ears as Remmy's favorite song crackled to life around him, the song recorded straight from vinyl in 1958. He had no idea that it was originally written at the end of the Second World War. That had been the first time, but not the last, that human beings would rain nuclear fire down upon another.
_Heavenly shades of night are falling
It's twilight time ...
Out of the mist your voice is calling
It's twilight time
When purple colored curtains
Mark the end of the day
I hear you my dear at twilight time_
The dog listened on to one of the greatest acts of love that human beings gave each other, and appreciated it more than they ever did. He thought of his master, and all that they had shared.
_Deep in the dark your kiss will thrill me
Like days of old
Lighting the spark of love that fills me
With dreams untold
Each day I pray for evening just
To be with you
Together at last at twilight time
Together at last at twilight time_
The last stanza made Jambalaya open his soft brown eyes and look up. "Residence, when is Resident 223-528-Remmy-Lerand scheduled for Organ Reclamation?"
"Resident 223-528-Remmy-Lerand is scheduled for Organ Reclamation at 2000."
"What time is it now?"
"1912."
Jambalaya jumped up and exited out the door without saying anything else. It opened for him with a single thought, then closed behind him without registering in Residence log's. Jambalaya knew he could infiltrate Section 8's internal security with impunity, but he didn't know if he could make it in time to save his master. Still he had to try. The future was uncertain.
But it always was.
Residence idled for almost an entire megachron, interrupted only by a occasion rumble from its atmospheric conditioner. Just before 1900 its internal speakers broke out in an unscheduled chorus of the Platter's Only You. Residential Maintenance was in an uproar over the hundreds of thousands of complaints and reports, coming in from every Residence within Shaddai ...
~ Fin ~
I'd like to thank the following for their contributions:
CoyoteOld1 - for suggesting the perfect, ambiguous ending to the original desolate one.
Koshne - for showing me just how bad I was inadvertently ripping off Ellison. May quakes shake you from wet dreams.
Sorriz - for sharing with me his knowledge of all things knot.
DreamyWolf - for loaning her Zeta to me. I owe you one.
Moose - for being the cutest, most adorable Elkhound I know.