Short Story: Strays

In some run down little block apartment, thick with an undergrowth of assorted trash that made her gag as soon as she’d entered, Mercy was silently begging for it from her back on the couch. She’d folded so easy it was almost embarrassing. The woman shook her awake at the bar and laid into her with some sweet words, pushed her against the wall and nuzzled her, and picked up her tab.

Nobody ever took Mercy home.

Not for the normal reasons you avoided the quiet thing drinking herself to sleep in the same corner every night. She wasn’t some broken stair or derided as some hopeless drunk. She was just a fixture, and surely if you tore up a piece of wallpaper or absconded with a lamp from someone’s place of business someone would notice. Right?

The woman – Sab or something, she was really only starting to sober up now and had mostly missed her name – had her pinned to the couch with muscular arms hidden between those breezy blouse’s sleeves. Those teeth kept brushing up against her jugular, breathing so hot and wet it was beginning to leave condensation on Mercy’s skin.

“Sab!”

The voice sounded familiar. Mercy couldn’t wrap her head around who it could be between holding her eyes closed and trying not to think about anything beyond the little drops of drool hitting her neck like a leaky faucet in the middle of the night.

After the woman had been dragged off her, there was some kind of hushed argument between the two of them. Mercy just held her position on the couch – neck exposed and dangerously easy to take advantage of – for a few more moments before finally peeking an eye open and adjusting her glasses and pulling the shoulder of her cardigan back into place.

The new woman was taller. Muscular, but fraying at the edges with brand new scuff marks on her prosthetics from the accident at the warehouse this morning. Kay Arson had refused to go to the hospital for the injury, or to file the proper paperwork for a workplace injury Mercy had tried to force on her, instead finishing out her shift with her head down. Why was she here?

“I told you to stay away from her,” Kay hissed at the woman she was pinning to the floor. Laying all her weight on top of her, head to the floor, asses raised. Like a pair of dirty mutts fucking in front of the houseguests.

The smaller one, Sab, let out some kind of whine that didn’t even have the decency to pretend to be words. Mouthing something or other. Mercy sat up and adjusted her clothes. She accidentally silenced the room when her feet, still clad in her work boots, hit the floor.

“I should go,” Mercy said quietly, hopefully politely, as she snatched up her purse and made for the door before Kay grabbed at her. Don’t touch me! Her lip trembled, unable to spit the words as she turned to look down at the little warehouse drone, on her knees and looking up at her with those desperate eyes.

Mercy looked at the two of them, closer now that she had a second. The skin scarred at the scruff of both of their necks. Bits of matte black steel and a faint glimmer of contact surface. Pilots. Oh. Oh no. Kay could see – maybe smell. Animals could smell fear, right? – the moment that it hit Mercy what the two of them were.

As she pulled herself loose, ready to make a break for the door, Kay rushed. “I’ll tell people about that collar in your bag.”

It worked. Mercy stood one step away from where she started, clutching her purse to her chest with newfound dread. She wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that. Mercy had never even served in the military. Ever since the war ended suddenly she had to hide things like that because people would start making weird associations with everything that had come out after the war. The various programs the old regime ran in their pilot corps.

I’m not like that.

“I wanted to talk,” Kay continued, heedless of the silent words Mercy choked on. “I’m sorry about her.”

“Sabrina is a former pilot,” the little therapist sat next to Sab in Mercy’s dreary little office in the warehouse, a mere two weeks after their first encounter, explaining the job placement program. She described Sabrina at length, trying to make her sound less dangerous to calm Mercy’s obvious nerves. Kind, but misplaced. She was far more worried that the little thing would screw this up for everyone.

Every once in a while the therapist would slip up and let loose phrases like treatment resistant and something that rhymed with violent tendencies. Things that she’d already been explained in much fewer words by Kay. The job program putting these damaged things back into society for reintegration was a delicate, but necessary process for healing the scars of the war. Whatever.

“Can she drive a forklift?” Mercy asked with a smile. Like nothing else in the conversation mattered.

The woman was cagey about that. Putting a pilot back into a machine could be dangerous. You wanted to put them into roles where they could forget or move on, right? But that was what the job opening was for. Mercy had let someone go this close to the holidays to make the position available for this stupid mutt.

“We can put her in one and see how she does. She’s certified as a pilot, right?” Mercy offered the therapist a kind, easing smile. The kind she had to give out to the little drones constantly. “Might be a bit too simple for her, though. Even I can operate one of these.”

Sabrina vanished into the back of the small mech. They used to use these things on the old production lines or for transporting the parts for the combat machines around big hangers. Now they were just for moving big parcels around the back of the warehouse. No wartime logistics operations here, only making sure people’s holiday presents were shipped on time.

Mercy talked out the rest of the deal while letting Sab do a few small tasks with the forklift. Excruciating. Every second of this awful little plan of theirs made her gut twist over and over again. What if she’s the one that fucks this up for those two? A shock of fear runs across her as she fakes another one of her little smiles for the therapist and continues to try to say the right thing over and over again. What if these two fuck this up for me?

And when it was blessedly over she couldn’t even retreat to the bar. Sab and the Therapist left to finish the paperwork, she’d gotten the job. Mercy would scuttle any attempt to dig into the poor guy who she had to let go to make this happen. She would move Kay out of last-mile and into the warehouse to work Sab as soon as she could make it work. They would get to be together in their steel.

Disgusting freaks made me do it. This is blackmail.

In the quiet of her office where she was trying not to throw up from the stress of this several hours ordeal and what she’d done, she realized that it felt good. She was helping someone, right? Sabrina spent all her time at home, having a continuous two-year breakdown while her partner tried to keep it all together for the both of them. Bonded pairs were supposed to have a calming effect on both, right? That’s what those documents said.

Those things made her do it. But everyone was happier and felt better because of it. Nobody was hurt by this. Mercy had done nothing wrong. As long as she didn’t think about whatever drone had to go home to their family and tell them they got let go because of a wartime accident they never disclosed on paper. Mercy kept a lot of little secrets like that.

Poor guy. Or girl. She’d already forgotten them.

It only took a few weeks, almost riding up on the holiday break, for Sabrina to make her first mistake. It was something small. Poor girl had been doing so well, but misjudged the depth of a box and clipped it against something. It was bad, but it was minor. No damaged product, nobody got hurt, but it made a big sound and put all the drones into emergency mode. A headache for Mercy to fill out some paperwork.

Even if you couldn’t see Sab’s augments, she reeked of pilot, from her trembling at-attention pose to the way they wore their uniforms. It took a whole day to get this girl to stop trying to pilot half-out of her coveralls down around her waist, baring the contacts on her spinal augments for a combat mech’s connections – though watching her climb out of the forklift with her tits out made something in Mercy’s terrible little brain buzz every time she saw it.

It stood in her office, tugging at its coveralls, shifting uncomfortably.

“It’s okay,” Mercy said.

It was not okay. More precisely Sabrina wasn’t okay, the thing flinched when Mercy approached it and for some gods forsaken reason started trying to take off its coveralls. The blinds of the little warehouse office weren’t even closed.

“Stop that.” It stopped.

“Do your uniform up properly.” It did so.

“You are going to take the rest of the day off and go home.” It stood for a moment in the flickering fluorescent light that gave Mercy a migraine every day of her miserable life.

“You are excused.” It nodded and left promptly to follow her last order.

Mercy sucked air through her teeth as she processed what she was going to do about it. About both of them. She promised their assigned therapist – seeing how they operated in person it was a laughable title, they were just Handlers-lite trying to force broken, misshapen gears into the new machine – that she would pay close attention to the two of them.

How involved was too involved? How much attention was too much attention?

The images of the two of them on their knees, begging her to help them played behind her eyes like a silent movie. She was already too involved. The least she could do now was try to keep them on a short leash and help them get better, right?

Stupid fucking mutts.

Mercy passed by the bar. In some dark corner of her mind she was scared that not going in and having a few drinks and a nap in the back corner would alert them to something. Through some series of events, improbable yet believable, they would send the police to her apartment and find it all. The crate and the bowls and the ears and the plugs. A weird sight for a woman who lived alone but ultimately harmless. But, then somehow they would find her with two pilots. They would assume she’s just like the people from all those declassified files. And would they be wrong?

But they were so cute on their knees. Who could say no to them?

These horrible fucking mutts are going to ruin my life.

Once again down the snowy little street and up dangerous, icy concrete stairs, and down the grungy little hallways of the block the two pilots lived in. Mercy found herself tugging her sleeve up to cover her nose and mouth as she knocked on the door, bracing herself as best she could.

The door opened just a crack, several chains keeping it closed. Sabrina looked through, eyes terrified for a moment before slamming the door to rush off all the chains. When she opened it again she was trying to hide a shotgun behind her like she was embarrassed about it.

“You can come in, sir.” Sab’s voice was weaker, much less confident than she’d sounded the first night they met and about as confident as she’d sounded whenever she wasn’t in her little forklift.

Mercy slid in. The air still stung her eyes a bit, but it wasn’t as bad. Probably had to clean up a little bit if her therapist had come to pick her up here and drop her back off. The shotgun found a home in a little nook by the door. It wasn’t that dangerous a neighborhood, was it?

“Do you need something?”

Watching Sab shrink back, shuffling over garbage, trying to hold herself slightly presentable in whatever dirty clothes she’d pulled off the bed or floor. Kay was right that she wasn’t able to hold herself together. Nervous, aimless wreck, unable to push herself to any task. How many of those pilots ended up like her?

Mercy put on her best client-facing smile and responded, “I wanted to check on you. Kay’s shift will be over in a few hours but I got worried after you left.”

Mercy raised her hand gently, letting it hang in the air for a second. Sab tensed and looked at it, waiting to see what she was going to do. Oh, you poor thing. She gave the wretched thing a soft pet and felt it shudder at its core. It’s legs just about gave out too.

“You did a good job,” she said softly. “How old are you, by the way?” They redacted that kind of information from hiring processes now. Fair employment laws or something.

“Thirty-four.”

It took every muscle in her body working in concert to compress the loudest laugh that Mercy could produce down to an odd wheeze. She just gave her a bit of a harder head rub and any question as to what that sound was vanished. The woman had ten years on Mercy and was falling apart under her for nothing more than a good job and a pat on the head.

Disgusting and pathetic. Kay was even older, wasn’t she? And these two women wanted her? Laughable. Contemptable. Mercy was a struggling little paper pusher trying to manage a fulfillment warehouse who couldn’t muster half a heart to do anything she’d ever wanted to in life. A pointless, dying gift from a dead empire to a useless nobody woman.

And it tasted so much sweeter for it.

“Can you clean this place up a bit?” Mercy asked.

Sabrina’s eyes turned into distant, glassy orbs as she stopped her awful little giggles. “Nnno. Ahh,” suddenly she’d retreated somewhere inside. As if looking for something. “Oooorder. It has to be…”

But it wasn’t a question in the first place. It wasn’t supposed to be. She wasn’t asking if the stupid thing was capable of cleaning. Nor was she asking if it would. It was as much a question as when Mercy asked the little worker drones at the warehouse to focus on their work and not whatever little pamphlets they were passing around that week.

Clean this place up. Now. “What do you mean, it has to be an order?”

She pushed forward, leaning the woman against the wall. Mercy just wanted to feel its breath on her shoulder and down the back of her neck. Short and shallow, almost hyperventilating. She was going to have to calm it down wasn’t she?

“Oorder. Not a question. Nnot a request. It has to be.”

Shut up. Why haven’t you started cleaning yet? “Why does it have to be an order?”

“I need orders,” Sabrina sputtered, suddenly a bit frantic. “Please. I’ll do anything, sir. Whatever you order me to. Please.”

Mercy took a step back and looked at Sab briefly before looking down the awful, messy hall. It was disgusting place. Fit for a pair of mangy dogs, but not for Mercy. Mercy needed things to be tidy. Not sterile and scrubbed of imperfections, not free of the mess of being lived in, but tidy and presentable and comfortable.

Mercy tilted her head so kindly with her client-service smile. “What does an order sound like?”

“You give them at the warehouse all the time…”

“Okay,” she nodded. It took her a moment to center herself. This was no different than at work. She was even here with an employee. Giving an order to complete a task that would be normal at the worksite. It shouldn’t be that difficult.

Firm. Clear. Unambigous.

“Clear me a place to sit and take out all this trash.” It felt forced and stilted and nothing like when Mercy was giving out orders at work.

“Yes, sir.”

It would have been nice if her entire demeanor changed, if her back was straighter and her voice clearer and her eyes focused. It would have been interesting if she acted like they did in those declassified reports, suddenly a completely different person with different body language, bestial in some fashion. Instead she moved with the same dedication to purpose that she did in the warehouse. That made sense, in a way.

She swept off a place at the small one-and-a-half person table for Mercy to put her things down and cleaned up one of the chairs quickly. As Mercy sat down to get comfortable and survey the scope of the work, Sab vanished into the cupboards to fetch trash bags and got straight to work. Diligent and focused.

This was a multiple day project. It could be done in a day if Mercy helped, a few hours at most if Kay helped out. A running tally of tasks to be done forming in her mind like any other day at work. Trash had to go to get a good picture of the underlying issues, but she could speculate about other things that needed with cleaning or outright replacement. Another mess to clean up that she didn’t ask for, didn’t have a hand in making, and should have been someone else’s responsibility. Another mess she felt too bad not doing anything about to leave alone.

After an hour of very diligent work from Sabrina, Mercy decided to finally get up and start looking around at what else needed to be done. She could clean up the kitchen a little, since the first trash to be taken away was the things in her direct line of sight from her seat.

“What are you doing here?”

Mercy turned to see Kay Arson once more. Tall and imposing and broad shouldered. Still in her blue company coveralls and high-vis vest on, her little work bag dropped on the floor. Hand balled up into a fist.

“I was about to start helping Sabrina clean this place up. Is there a problem with that?”

Tension fell as Sabrina shuffled through with filthy hands, but it didn’t seem to bother her beyond attempting not to leave further messes as she grabbed and shoved things into thick black construction-site trash bags. The slightest smile on her lips as she dutifully followed her directive to completeness.

“Sab, what’s going on?”

Sabrina crouched on the floor, gathering a bunch of loose containers that had found a home in the corner beside their stove, and hummed something to herself. “I’m taking out the trash. I know you kept asking me to. But it’s getting done now.”

“I’ll help,” Kay pushed past Mercy before turning back, some deeply conflicted expression on her face. “You can sit back down. Do you need anything?”

Ah! How courteous. Finally the first bit of hospitality. “I haven’t been offered anything to drink yet.”

”We don’t have anything right now.” Kay undid the carabiner hanging from her waist and tossed the keys over to Mercy, “My wallets in my bag. This’ll take a bit.”

Mercy could feel her face contort at the sight of the two of them on their knees, gathering up every loose piece of trash. Sabrina was so diligent to pick up, by hand, every smaller piece of trash that would be better swept with a broom, while Kay tried to work around her to help speed things along.

Oh, they were such good girls. Mercy had to cover her mouth as she turned to leave to not let that slip out loud.

Once more, Mercy found herself pinned under Sabrina Arson, former — with as much derision as possible — pilot, and current forklift operator. Pushed up against the wall of the latter’s little block apartment while Kay worked on cooking the three of them dinner. Heavy breathes against her neck as the scrawny thing salivated down the front of Mercy’s blouse.

“What should I do next?” She breathed.

Get off me. “What do you want?” Mercy whined as the pilot squeezed at her wrist with enough force that it would definitely bruise.

“We’re finished cleaning,” it panted at her. “What now? Tell me what to do next.”

The Arson household was spotless. No trash littering the floor, mail sorted and dealt with, carpets cleaned of as many stains as it could be, and they’d even gotten rid of the awful smell coming from the little air vents. Mercy had pushed herself come over and every day since the mandatory two week holiday break started — a blessing to have something to do even though the cute bartender did call to check in on her when she hadn’t come in for several days — and pushed herself to the brink to issue the little orders that Sabrina and Kay needed to get their life together.

Get off me you filthy mutt. “Please let go.”

Something shifted as Sabrina pulled back. “Order me to. It’s not hard. You just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you say.”

“It is hard,” Mercy whined. Not that a pair of people so broken the way that Kay and Sab were would ever understand what it felt like or what they were really asking of her.

“It’s not,” Sabrina looked like something out of a horror movie. The way the actors who play the psychotic serial killer would contort their face into that unhinged smile. An act of over-emoting meant to sell the moment, right? So why did Sabrina’s face look so natural in that position. Like everything before had been some kind of lie. “You can do it, sir. I’ll show you you can.”

Sabrina dragged Mercy’s trembling form into the bedroom and tossed her down onto the bedsheets that still smelled of that unscented detergent Mercy made them purchase and use to wash all their stuff. The awful mutt stripped off the clothes that Mercy had picked out for her before reaching down and grabbing at Mercy’s clothes.

“Please,” Mercy attempted.

“It just takes one word,” Sabrina said as she fumbled the buttons of Mercy’s second-favourite cardigan, suddenly slowing so as to not damage anything. ”Just one word, even something as fucking pathetic as you can manage that right? If you can’t what was the point of any of this?”

The stupid mutt peeled layer after layer off Mercy, with force when needed, until she was bare on the bed. Sounds stopped in the kitchen momentarily as Kay entered the room to check what was happening. She was a reasonable woman, she would stop Sab like she did before, right?

“I don’t think she’s going to tell you to stop, Sab.”

“She smells like a virgin,” Sabrina snorted, “and look at that, she’s already wet.”

I’m not a virgin! But she was soaked. With every little order she’d given, watching their eyes focus slightly as they immediately set to work, it had gotten to her. Mercy couldn’t deny she wanted it, but even she could say stop if she really wanted to. She could. She would.

Something flashed in the uneven, yellowing light of the bedroom lamp as an object was passed from Kay to Sabrina. A kitchen knife with a gleaming straight edge and a nasty looking curve to it.

“A steak knife? Couldn’t get me the big one?”

“I’m using it. Dinner in fifteen.”

Come back here, you stupid dog. Her voice was caught in her throat. This was exactly what she was worried about when she started getting involved with these pilots. The flat of the blade dragged against her side as Sabrina mounted her until it passed over a breast and the sharp turned to meet her neck.

“Last chance, sir.”

“Hold on,” Mercy managed to wheeze, pushing through as best she could. It would have been nice to get a little more comfortable on the bed before all of this, spread out a little bit more. The mutt should have really been pinning one of her arms down with that augmented pilot-strength of hers too.

As the blade slowly pressed into her neck Mercy realized that the knife was about as sharp as any steak knife. It cut on the draw. Pressing it flat into her neck was just to scare her. All at once any tension and fear left her body as she traced patterns in the spackle of the ceiling with a stupid, pleasant smile on her face. They couldn’t hurt her, could they? They were completely incapable of it.

“Tell me to stop.”

Mercy had to suppress her laugh into another awful croak. ”You can’t do it, can you?”

“I can. I will.”

“Not unless I say so, right?” Mercy pushed back against the knife and felt it instantly retreat. Sabrina backed down, shame painted on her face that she almost hurt Mercy by accident. Now Mercy’s heart was pounding something fierce. “Answer.”

Sabrina’s shoulders went slack in an instant. “I can’t, sir.”

“That’s right.” Mercy lifted a hand and pressed it against the stupid dog and watched it tumble off the bed onto its ass. “No pets on the furniture.”

Sabrina’s voice trembled with something deeply unwholesome and such a treat for Mercy’s ears. “Yes, sir.”

Mercy got dressed and moved out to the kitchen, Sabrina meekly following in tow with a too-big stupid grin on her face. She got what she wanted, right? There was nothing to feel bad about. Kay handed her a plate full of steak that they had to burn savings for and some assorted greens — a proper holiday meal — and took a seat at the kitchen table.

Sabrina was handed a second plate as she passed by. Mercy’s face was hurting from grinning as Sabrina stood awkwardly beside the kitchen table for a moment while the gears in her empty head locked and ground uselessly. As Kay approached, she incorrectly identified the dilemma.

“I’ll eat at the counter,” Kay declared, as if that was how it was going to go.

Sab turned almost too quick and nearly spilled her plate to grab at Kay’s clothes. In that excited, trembling voice, Mercy’s new favorite mutt said, “No pets on the furniture.”

Mercy nearly kicked the leg of the table off as Sabrina knelt on the floor next to the dinner table and abandoned her utensils, save the fork which she used to pin the steak, and loudly buried her face into her food. Perfect. Oh, what a good dog.

Kay looked at her partner with some shifting expression. Pity? Envy? There was a lot going on in her head, but eventually she got down on the floor too. You’re such a good dog too, aren’t you? Kay opted to use her utensils, though she seemed like the type to mind her own mess which was appreciated.

Mercy and her new dogs ate their first meal of the new year together, and despite some lingering guilt it was the happiest she’d ever been. She may have been pathetic and worthless, but she was happy.

Mercy stirred from her sex and alcohol addled stupor to the sound of a distant argument. Sabrina was asleep on Mercy’s belly having her own little puppy dreams. She only had one drink right? The days were so long and agonizing now, all she wanted was for work to be over so she could come straight here to her beloved hounds.

The argument moved down the hall, in hushed tones. Mercy moved Sab and shimmied a shirt on as best she could before the door opened. It was the little therapist! She was usually a pleasant woman, but something seemed to have upset her as she glanced from a half-dressed Mercy to the naked Sabrina.

Mercy snapped to awareness in a moment and shook Sabrina awake. “Have you been going to therapy like you’re supposed to?”

Sabrina mumbled something and sat up.

“You’ve canceled your appointments six times,” the woman began. Though she kept glancing towards Mercy with some kind of scorn.

Six times? Mercy grabbed Sabrina by the face and locked eyes with her. “I told you that you still have to go to therapy.”

“What am I supposed to tell them?”

“The truth, you stupid dog,” Mercy hissed. “Go get dressed and go with her.”

Sabrina rolled off the bed and scurried off to the closet to get dressed. Somewhere behind the therapist in the doorway to the bedroom was Kay, mouthing apologies for letting the woman in.

“You’ll lose your job,” the annoying little woman growled.

Mercy chewed on that while the woman listed out all the reasons what she was doing was wrong and why she would lose her job when it was reported. She beckoned Kay over with a hand, who dutifully came to kneel by the bed where Mercy could give her pets.

“Did you finish cleaning the kitchen?” Kay nodded and received a little kiss from Mercy. “Good girl.” Watching them shudder and giggle at it never got old. But there was a more pressing matter at hand. “Kay, if I didn’t work at the warehouse anymore, would you two leave me?”

“No, sir.” Kay nuzzled her head into Mercy and wrapped arms around her to hold her tight.

“Then,” Mercy tilted her head up to the distressed therapist and gave her the service-perfect smile that landed Mercy her job in the first place, “I supposed it wouldn’t be that bad if I had to quit. If they get to stay together at the warehouse, and I won’t lose them over it, I could find work anywhere else.”

“Do you think you’re doing them a favor?” She was becoming less cute by the minute, especially taking that tone.

Mercy shrugged. They were the ones who dragged her into this mess, but all that mattered to her now was getting to stay with them. The salary cut would hurt, but she had savings and they could move in together properly. It wouldn’t be so bad.

When Sabrina came back, dressed in presentable, clean clothes, the therapist made a face. Sab probably went in whatever she could find like how she dressed when Mercy first found her.

“Sabrina,” Mercy beckoned her over to her other side to give her a quick pet. “She’s probably going to ask how we met and what’s been going on. Answer all her questions honestly, okay?”

“Order,” Sabrina muttered, almost too quiet to hear.

“Sabrina. Go to therapy. Answer all her questions truthfully.” Mercy was getting better at using the voice, and the dogs were getting better at responding to her when she wasn’t using the voice. It was still embarrassing to order them around like that, but she had to do her very best for both her hounds. They needed it more than her, after all.

“Yes, sir.”

The two of them left, and Kay sat quietly while Mercy gave her some much needed attention. Sab monopolized so much of her time, Kay deserved more of it for everything she did. Taking care of two was difficult, wasn’t it? There was a chance everything worked out.

“Wanna go for a walk?”

Kay perked up with a grin that nearly matched Sab’s stupid, cute little face. Oh, they were both such good girls. Mercy really was just so lucky.