Human Pet Pound (Possessive Aliens)

by Loki Renard

“What?”

  “I saw one of them once, a juvenile. It was only small, but it trampled half the audience at the circus.”

  “It’s not an Antiklan Tiger Elephant.”

  Tyank opens the door.

  It is dark inside. I hear something. A scuffling and rustling and whispering. It doesn’t sound scary to me. It sounds frightened. And it sounds familiar.

  But it can’t be what I think it is. This is the one place humans are looked after as though they matter. The scythkin are our guardians, looking after us when other alien species want to exploit us.

  And yet…

  My eyes don’t lie. When Tyank flips the light on, there is no denying that there are human women in there, locked up in a cage in the same way I once was. They look at us with hunted, angry eyes. Their hair is messy and matted, and their bodies show the unmistakable wounds of captivity. Bruises and sores on their legs and arms. They are not well tended to. There is a stench in the room, unwashed human and worse.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  I need more swear words desperately. Fuck doesn’t cover what I’m seeing. It doesn’t begin to touch my rage. I turn and punch Tyank as hard as I can right in the middle of his gut. It does nothing to him, but it hurts my hand very badly.

  I curse as I am swept into John’s arms. I’m sure he’s going to punish me, but he doesn’t.

  “Same question,” John growls, though he doesn’t punch Tyank.

  “Calm down. It's not how it looks,” Tyank says.

  “It looks as though you’ve locked up human women like food-class animals.”

  “Okay, then it is how it looks, but we had a very good reason. These aren’t women from the simulation. They’re free humans who joined an organization exceptionally hostile to our own kind.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re Q’Ren rebels,” Tyank says. “We caught a pack of them out by a grass planet. Most of them have been shipped off to their original species of origin to be dealt with by their authorities. But these ones are human, and they have nowhere to be held to face justice.”

  “This isn’t justice,” I say. “This is inhuman.”

  “Quiet, Itch.”

  I look at John, and I know what he is thinking. His horns are pricked forward. His brows are drawn down, and his eyes flash with fury.

  Some of these women, or maybe all of these women were responsible for the death of his brood. Maybe these are the only people he’ll ever be able to hold responsible for it, even if they’re not the ones who were directly responsible.

  “You think these are the ones who…”

  “Yes,” John growls.

  “They what?” Tyank interjects.

  “They blew up his ship.”

  “Oh.”

  Tyank sighs. “So this will not work at all. We can’t have someone who wants to destroy them in charge of them. It will have to be someone else.”

  “Not Karen,” I say.

  “Not a human. Perhaps not even a scythkin,” Tyank says thoughtfully. “Hm. Well. Anyway. Never mind.”

  “Never mind that my mortal enemies are confined here before me?” John murmurs the question more or less to himself. I can see him struggling with natural scythkin desire to destroy those who destroyed his family, and the other scythkin oath to protect human life at all costs.

  “Your mortal enemies are six human females. One could say that allowing them to have destroyed a ship makes your brood rather careless,” Tyank says, with all the tact of a charging bull. “If you’re killed by a human, did you deserve to live?”

  That has to be one of the most offensive things possible to my human ears, but after a moment of heavy silence in which I am almost certain John is considering just murdering everybody, he laughs.

  “I warned them,” he says. “They left port without sweeping the ship. We knew there had been Q’Ren activity there…”

  “Excuse me?” Karen pops up out of the ether.

  “Excuse you what?” I say.

  “You said Karen activity.”

  “No, Q’Ren activity. The Q’Ren are a merciless female force of destruction. And then there’s you…”

  Karen narrows her eyes at me. I know she’d like to see me punished again. I don’t intend on giving her the satisfaction.

  “We are thinking of building a new simulation,” Tyank says. “Something like the Interstellar Human Petting Zoo, but one which allows us to discipline and contain humans who have committed crimes. A stricter place with harsher consequences for humans who need more discipline.”

  “Good idea,” John says. “Some humans need to be broken.”

  I look at him, wondering if he really means that, or if he is trying to scare the women in the cage. I don’t know if I like either option.

  “You think humans need to be broken?”

  “Not now, Itch," he says, shutting my question down.

  But I want to know. I want to know if that's what he really thinks.

  “Would you have broken me?

  "If you had tried to kill me and my brood? Yes. I would have broken your will and left you capable of nothing but blind, unthinking obedience. I would have put you on your knees and kept you there forever.”

  His words are so harsh, his tone so merciless that I find myself believing him. John is scythkin, and at his core, that makes him every inch the monster these captive rebels believe him to be.

  “Come,” Tyank says. “It’s best not to talk too much in front of the captives. They use the information they gather to get the better of us.”

  I am led away, but I cannot stop thinking about what I have seen. The women left in the dark, the ones the scythkin want to punish. What will happen to them? Will they be put into some harsh simulation? Or will they be given to others in Tyank’s brood to be used?

  12 Something To Fear

  Itch

  “Maybe I can help them?” I bring the subject up several days later, once we have settled into our quarters. John immediately knows what I am talking about, which means they are on his mind as well.

  “If you go near those humans, I will thrash you, Itch. I swear it,” John growls. “They will be punished as they deserve to be. It is not your business.”

  Of course it is my business. They are humans. They are my kin.

  “But…”

  John gives me his sternest, most ferocious look. “We have been welcomed here, in a place where we can both live in peace, somewhat among our own kind. You will not put that in jeopardy by interacting with those women. They chose to rebel against us and they chose to commit heinous crimes. Including killing my family.”

  “We don’t know that these specific ones killed…”

  I trail off as he raises his gaze to me, fierce and intense.

  “You will not interfere in the justice those women are going to receive, unless you want to be severely punished yourself, Itch. It is not your job to save every human in the universe from themselves. Some of them need to suffer for their own reasons and in their own ways.”

  I still feel bad about leaving the woman who thinks she grows pillows behind in Galactor’s fields. The truth is, nothing is fair. I am being treated well now, but I was hurt many times before any good came to me, and I am sure the women in that cell have experienced the same cruelties in different ways.

  There’s no point discussing it with him. I know he is struggling with knowing that they are there, and not being able to take matters into his own hands. All his scythkin instincts must be telling him to destroy them. But they are human women. They are precious, and he is sworn to protect them, no matter what they have done.

  “I’m going to go talk to Tyank about patrols,” John says, getting up. “Stay here.”

  Stay here, in a suite of rooms lit with reflected light, away from anything that matters. I could lay down in the comfortable bed and watch comfortable shows which I have discovered are beamed into the simulation almost nonstop. There’s one with a mustachioed det
ective on a tropical island which I find particularly enjoyable.

  John leaves me to go do important scythkin things, and I am left wishing I could do something useful. I can’t leave those women captive. I just can’t. I spent far too long locked away to let them stay locked away.

  So I go.

  I go even though I know he will punish me if he catches me. I go because I have been where they are, and I know they need some kind of hope. Maybe I can help. And maybe, even if I can’t help, trying to is the right thing to do.

  There are six women locked away behind a scratched warning. I know their rage. I know their pain, and I know that it will only be assuaged by someone who is able to love them the way they need to be loved, by someone who can hold their anger and absorb their rage and turn it into discipline and pleasure.

  I slip through the halls and corridors more or less unnoticed, I think. The way back to the holding cell is not straight forward, but I manage to make my way there, where Tyank’s hastily carved warning serves as one last barrier between them and me.

  The outer door is not locked. It is the inner cage which keeps them confined, so I am able to go into their presence without resistance. There are not nearly enough guards to keep a loose human out of trouble in this place. I’m surprised they don’t have one on this door though. Humans are excellent escape artists. Nobody knows that better than me.

  The women are huddled in the far corner of the cage. They’re whispering among themselves. I can’t make out what they’re saying, and they don’t seem to notice me.

  “Hi.”

  A half dozen pairs of eyes swivel toward me almost as one, their collective gaze making me feel awkward.

  “What do you want?”

  One woman with dark hair and dark eyes, and a beautiful but fierce face addresses me. I think she is perhaps in her forties. There is a streak of gray in her hair and traces of wrinkles under her eyes and around her mouth. She has obviously lived a hard life and experienced harsh captivity.

  “I want to try to help you,” I say.

  Hope sparks in her eyes. “You’re going to let us out?”

  “Well, no. I can’t let you out, because then you’d run away.”

  “That’s exactly what we’d do. How are you going to help us, if not by letting us out? Did you bring food?”

  “I… did not.”

  “Water?”

  “No. I can get some food and water, though. Let me do that now before we talk.”

  I rush off to gather some supplies. I should really have thought of this to begin with. I know what it is like to be captive, and to be dependent on others for the essentials of survival. It is terrifying.

  I return with armfuls of food and supplies for them. They clamor at the bars as I push them through, feeling satisfied and charitable at having done something nice for these poor captives on the wrong side of the law.

  They eat, and I assume that I have made some headway into befriending them. I am very quickly proved wrong. The ringleader turns to me, her pale eyes full of derisive hatred, and demands something more.

  “Are you going to let us out?”

  “I don’t have a key.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I just came to talk to you and let you know that it can be better. If you can let go of your hatred, you may find a scythkin you can like, maybe even love.”

  As the words come out of my mouth, I can hear how lame and meaningless they are to anyone who hasn’t been through what I've been through. There’s no way they’re going to understand me, let alone believe me. Not any more than I would have believed someone who tried to tell me the same things when I was a captive pet. I had to go through a lot to come to trust a scythkin.

  “Pathetic,” the woman spits at me. “A lackey for the most evil species in the universe. Bet you like taking that scythkin cock.”

  “I do, actually,” I say. I will not be shamed.

  “I bet you do.”

  “I do,” I agree again.

  She’s so angry, and my refusal to be upset only makes her angrier. She wraps her hands around the bars and snarls at me through them like an animal.

  “Free us. Let us go. You owe us that at least.”

  “I don’t owe you anything,” I say. “I survived without killing anyone. You could have too.”

  “You survived without making any sacrifices.”

  “That’s not true. I sacrificed my freedom for love.”

  “Love,” she sneers. “You can’t love a scythkin.”

  “I can, actually. Some of them are nice, and most of them want to preserve our species. We’re important to them. So stop fighting and…”

  I don’t know why I’m still arguing. My brain is telling me to shut up, but my mouth is still moving.

  “They sent this pathetic wretch to try to break us down,” she says to the others. “You see how they use the broken ones to their advantage? This is propaganda.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Silver.”

  “Good luck, Silver,” I say. “You’re going to need it.”

  And so am I, if I am going to get back to our suite before John returns and works out what I’ve been doing. I should have listened to him. I can’t help these girls. I can’t save them. They're not ready to do anything besides hate, and though I can’t blame them, it’s frustrating.

  “BITCH!”

  Silver throws the word at me like a curse as I turn to leave. She obviously doesn’t know that’s my full name.

  “Not so fast, human.”

  The door opens just as I turn to say something snarky to her. Oh fuck. John’s found me. I am in for it now. I prepare myself to plead my case before all the inputs register properly. He called me ‘human.’ I thought we were past that. Maybe he’s mad? Also, the voice doesn’t actually sound like him. Maybe he’s so angry with me that it has changed the way he speaks?

  When I look up, the face is not the same. The eyes are bright blue and glaring, the jaw is squarer, and the fangs sharper. This isn’t John. This isn’t Tyank either. Who is this?

  Whoever he is, he speaks into a communication device clasped onto a strap on his chest.

  “One of the humans has escaped their cage. Don’t worry. I have her.”

  “You don’t have me. And I didn’t escape the cage. I’m one of the humans who lives down here. Ask Karen, the manager.”

  “Karen?”

  “Yes?”

  He clicks the communicator again. “Hey, Karen. I have a blonde thing here saying she lives with you and Tyank. Are there any other free humans, or is this one an escapee?”

  There’s a slight hesitation before Karen replies.

  “Take all humans to the prison simulation, thank you.”

  “NO!” I shout the word. “No! She’s lying. I belong to John! I’m not a Q’Ren member. I’m John’s human.”

  “John?”

  “He’s a scythkin.”

  “No scythkin is called John,” he laughs at me. “You should learn the ways of our kind better before you try to lie.”

  Oh no. Whoever this is doesn’t know John. And John doesn’t know where I am. And that means…

  “She’s one of us,” Silver pipes up, sealing my fate. “She just likes to think she’s better than us.”

  Oh, that fucking… I look over my shoulder at her and see her smirking cruelly. I have been twice betrayed by my own kind. Where is John? He needs to come and save me from whatever horrors are about to befall the others.

  “Where’re your lectures now?” She sneers at me. “Where’s your scythkin master who loves you so much?”

  “He told me not to come here.”

  “You should have listened to him.”

  “Yeah, no fucking duh.”

  “You’re a human, and you will be punished with the other humans,” the scythkin says. “You’re one of them.”

  I feel his big, cruel claws close around the back of my neck.

  “No! Get John! John!�
�� I am taken from the room kicking and screaming, much to the amusement of a half dozen other scythkin who must be from Tyank’s brood, freshly returned from wherever they were to handle the human rebels.

  Marched between them, I feel shame and rage coursing through me. I am going to fucking kill Karen. She will pay for this forever.

  Behind me, I can hear the other girls being pulled from their cage. Some of them are resisting by the sounds of things. Silver’s screeches are particularly satisfying. But I’d enjoy them more if I wasn’t about to share her fate.

  I should have listened to John. I should have stayed in our room and watched the detective with the mustache and bright shirt be attractive to human women and also solve crimes. But no. I had to try to help, and of course, that has backfired.

  Marched by my own personal scythkin guard through the halls, I scream repeatedly for John. I scream so loud I’m sure they can hear me all the way up above in the Interstellar Human Petting Zoo, where people have no idea they don’t live on planet Earth. Lucky bastards.

  “We’ve been preparing a special place for you,” my guard says, squeezing the back of my neck too tight to be comfortable, but not so hard it harms me. He must have handled humans before. He knows just how to keep me under control, and to stop me from squirming away from him.

  “JOHN! THEY’RE GOING TO FUCKING KILL ME!”

  “We have no intention of killing you. We have every intention of teaching you a lesson you seem very slow to learn.”

  PRISON!

  The sign above the doors appears to have been hastily constructed, but seriously.

  “I’m not one of these women! I never rebelled against the scythkin!”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Not like they did! I never blew anything up!”

  “That is merely a matter of degree, disobedient little human.”

  We push through the doors, and there is the prison, waiting for us. It doesn’t look like a prison. It actually looks more like a hospital. There’s a row of beds attached to various machinery which does I can only begin to imagine what.

  I do not like the looks of this. I would have preferred a dark cage to this big, light, airy room with the beds where I don’t think anybody is going to sleep. But the beds aren’t the worst part. They’re pretty bad, but they’re not the worst.