by Anna Adler
Once back inside her apartment, Alyssa recovered somewhat. Anger burned in her chest.
“I’m going to file a complaint,” she snapped at the security guards when they placed Jax in his cage and prepared to leave. “The Citizen Affairs Department will hear about this. Your actions were inhuman and cruel.”
“Just doing our job, Ms. Cressfield,” the guard said. “Capture and educate misbehaving pets. He could have jumped in front of a train and disrupted service. We can’t allow a danger to the general population.”
“He wasn’t a danger! He wasn’t trying to disrupt anything. He just tried to run away.”
“You do know what happens to runaway pets, don’t you?”
Alyssa held the man’s gaze with scorn. “Of course I know. But I was there to claim him. You should have handed him right back to me.”
“I suggest you keep your pet in the house until he has learned to behave. No more outdoor excursions, if you can’t keep him under control. Good day, Ms. Cressfield.”
Alyssa slammed the door behind the security guards.
Brutes! Incompetent jerks!
She went to check on Jax, kneeling beside his mattress and placing her palm on his chest. His strong heartbeat told her he was going to survive. She lifted his shirt and hissed at the sight of the livid bruises all over his torso. This wasn’t what she’d envisioned about their first walk together.
She knew Jax would attempt to run away at some point. It was inevitable, and the sooner he got it out of his system, the better. That’s why he’d been so keen to behave—so that Alyssa would take him outside and he could take off. But she knew there was no escape for him. No matter what his skills were, security and pet surveillance were simply so tight that he wouldn’t get far. Today was supposed to be a simple lesson. If Jax chose to run, Alyssa had hoped he would end up gently restrained and returned to his cage. Not tortured and rendered unconscious. This was…wrong.
She ran her hand over his bruised abs. Anger at his cruel treatment made her see red. She stalked out of the cage and went to her VR monitor where she typed a long and sulfurous complaint to the Citizen Affairs Department.
At length, Jax stirred. He sat up, clutching his side and letting out a string of curses under his breath. Alyssa’s attention was on him in an instant. She approached and sat down on her favorite floor pillow in front of his cage.
“How are you?”
He shot her an annoyed glance. “I’m a fucking prisoner and I just took a beating. Use your imagination.”
Alyssa frowned. “You don’t have to talk to me like that. I tried to stop them.”
“I’m supposed to be grateful for that?”
“I’m trying to take care of you, Jax. You shouldn’t have run away from me.”
“Yeah, I got that message loud and clear.”
“I’m sorry they hurt you.”
“The hell you are. Piss off and leave me alone. I don’t feel like jumping hoops right now.”
His words cut. Alyssa reasoned that he was angry and disappointed because his escape attempt failed. It was only to be expected. But this was the first time he didn’t want her company, and it hurt. Alyssa rose and went to her bedroom. She felt under-appreciated. She was doing her best to be nice to her pet; the least he could do was recognize it. It wasn’t her fault the security forces were assholes. She grabbed her phone, threw herself on the bed and called Lucia.
“Hello, I’m at wo-ork,” Lucia sang into her phone at the other end. “Can’t talk. Busy.”
“Then why did you pick up?” Alyssa retorted. “Can’t you get yourself a cup of coffee? I need a friendly chat.”
“Aren’t things going well in your pet owner paradise?”
Alyssa sighed. “No, it’s a bit rough. We went out today for the first time.”
“Ooh, exciting! But I guess it didn’t exactly go as you’d planned?”
Alyssa rubbed her temple. “No. He ran off on me. That’s okay, I expected something like that—he’s still wild and everything. But he ran to the Silverhall station, and station security was a bunch of incompetent jackasses.”
Alyssa described to Lucia what happened.
“But you’re all right and you got him back, right?” her friend asked when she finished.
“Yeah, except now he’s angry with me as if it was my fault the security guards hurt him. And I’m just trying to do what’s best for him.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, you’re doing great,” Lucia said. “They’re all difficult at first, tamed or untamed. Did you hear about Laila Preston’s Sisi? She told me when she took her out the first time, the pet went completely bonkers, had been indoors for too long, couldn’t handle the change of environment or something. And you know Lizardians—they climb vertical walls like nothing. Sisi went up the wall and stopped somewhere around the fifth floor and wouldn’t come back down. Laila couldn’t get her to budge. Security showed up. Then the fire brigade. Then the media. They were there all night. They couldn’t zap or sedate Sisi because she would’ve fallen and died. Finally, in the morning, she got hungry and Laila managed to lure her down with a pack of crackers. It was nuts.”
“But at least Sisi wasn’t hurt,” Alyssa said grudgingly.
“They were right outside Laila’s apartment, so security let it slide. You’ve only had your pet for a week; don’t let these things get to you. Shit, my boss! I gotta go.”
Lucia hung up and Alyssa returned to mulling over the situation. Lucia’s advice was sound, but Alyssa couldn’t help this affected her. Someone had hurt her pet and she’d been unable to protect him. When she went back to Jax, he still didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Worse yet, he refused to leave his cage. He didn’t want to go to the gym, he didn’t want a bath, and he even refused the food Alyssa cooked. He emptied the water bottles she slipped into the cage, but that was all. He didn’t want to talk to her, either.
Alyssa began to despair. Was Jax going to turn depressed, after all? Would he turn passive and unresponsive?
In the evening, she received a reply to her complaint. The Citizen Affairs Department rejected it, claiming that the security guards had acted commendably facing a dangerous, untamed pet. Their use of force was considered appropriate for the situation. According to the department, pets needed to be punished for such stunts. Alyssa stared at the reply with a mixture of confusion and annoyance.
“Don’t worry. After this, he won’t run away from you again.” The memory of those words chilled Alyssa. She hoped Jax would recover. She refused to believe the security guards had done anything good. They obviously relied on guidelines from a previous century. Alyssa was confident that her gentle, psychology-based pet training methods were superior. She made a silent vow: she would never let anyone hurt Jax again.
The next morning, Alyssa woke up to Jax coughing.
Why is he coughing? she wondered, half-asleep, wrapped in her comforter. Strange. He hasn’t done that before.
Alyssa woke up properly and realized he didn’t sound good. In fact, he sounded sick. Frowning, she rolled out of bed, put on her morning robe and went to the living room to check on him. He lay listless on his mattress, half covered by his blanket. His face was pale, perspiration beading on his skin, and his breathing was hoarse and irregular. His bloodshot eyes followed Alyssa, the look in them glazed with pain.
She gasped at the sight of him. “Oh no.”
Her instant suspicion was that the security bots had done something sinister. Severe internal injuries! Why hadn’t she checked Jax more thoroughly? The poor pet had suffered through the night and now he was dying.
“How long have you been like this? Where does it hurt?”
Jax merely scowled at her in annoyance and shook his head. Alyssa’s gaze darted around the room, looking for help.
What do I do now?
Then she took a deep breath and tried to think logically. No, if they had done real damage to Jax, they would have informed her so that she could take the appro
priate measures. This had to be something else related to yesterday’s excursion. Realization flashed through her mind.
“You’ve caught something.”
“No shit,” he rasped out.
“Okay,” she said, wringing her hands. “You must have come into contact with some new germs when we were out. I know you’ve been vaccinated against all the serious things—it says so in your file. But we have some nasty flu strains here. We don’t have much in the way of illnesses…everything on Silenia is kept clean and sterile…but the few viruses and bacteria we do have are vicious. Do you have a fever?”
She knelt in front of the bars. She wished she could reach out and feel his body. He looked like he was burning up and she ached to know how bad it was.
“Fever, check,” he coughed. “Just let me sleep. It’ll go away.”
Alyssa shook her head slowly. “No, I’m worried about you. You’re new to Silenia, and I don’t know how your hybrid body reacts to things. I have to call a veterinarian.”
“A what?” Jax blurted out, his head popping up.
“A veterinarian. It’s a doctor who—”
“I know what a vet is! Fuck. Just what I needed…what a fucking brilliant day…” He dropped back down and slapped a hand over his eyes.
Alyssa went to make the call. Twenty minutes later, a young woman in a neat, white uniform arrived. She carried a simple white suitcase. She introduced herself as the duty veterinarian, Judy Smith.
“Where’s the patient?” she asked in a bright, professional tone.
Alyssa led her to the living room. Jax didn’t react to them. He seemed too sick to care about what went on around him.
“I see,” Judy said. “Looks like a flu strain indeed. I have to run a quick analysis, so if you’ll open the cage and let me examine him…”
“He’s untamed. It’s not safe to go into his cage.”
“Yeah, it’s not safe to come in here,” Jax growled wearily. “I bite.”
“Oh?” Judy looked at Alyssa with a raised eyebrow. “You have my respect, Ms. Cressfield. It’s hard work training your pet yourself.”
“Yeah, but it’s rewarding, too,” Alyssa replied with a smile.
“I’m sure it is. Just remember; never risk your own safety when taming a pet. If you even suspect you’re about to lose control, give him to a professional training center. It’s better than having an unruly pet put down.”
Something cold touched Alyssa’s heart. No one was going to put down her pet.
She glanced at Jax. “So how do we go about this?”
“It’s all right,” Judy said. “I examine wild creatures on a regular basis. I’ll just use the long range analysis.”
Judy opened her suitcase and tapped her wristband. A tiny robot resembling a flying insect sprung up from her case, flew into the cage and landed on Jax. He didn’t seem to notice. It crawled on his arm until it found a suitable spot. A needle emerged from its belly, which it jabbed into Jax’s arm. The cylinder in the robot’s back turned red, indicating it was drawing blood. Now, Jax came alive.
“What the hell?”
He tried to swat the bug, but the illness made his movements clumsy. The robot gracefully evaded and returned to Judy in a soft whirr of wings, landing on her wristband. It seemed to run its findings through some kind of spectrometer because a color pattern appeared on the screen. Judy nodded. “Yes, it’s a C-strain flu. We’ve had several of these cases this year already.”
“How serious is it?” Alyssa wanted to know.
“What did that thing do?” Jax demanded, rubbing his arm.
“It only took a sample, Jax,” Alyssa replied. “It’s all right.”
“When did I consent to being sampled?”
“You’re sick. We’re trying to figure out how to help you.”
“This flu strain is aggressive, but he’ll be fine,” Judy said, reconfiguring the tiny medical bot sitting on her wrist. “I have the medicine with me. Just a quick little injection and he’ll be back to normal in a few hours.”
Jax stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time. His face turned livid and he rose. “No one,” he growled, “is going to inject any shit into me.”
“It’s medicine, Jax,” Alyssa tried to soothe him, but he shook his head, not taking his eyes off the veterinarian.
“Go ahead and try it, bitch. Come over here and try it. I’m not gonna have any more of those fucking needles.”
“Jax, calm down,” Alyssa said, but he ignored her.
Judy’s expression remained calm and detached, as if Jax was nothing but a noisy TV program. “I think I’ll also administer a sedative to make sure he sleeps comfortably.”
“No! I’m not gonna have any of that shit!”
“Jax, it’s all right,” Alyssa said, moving to stand as close to him as she dared. “You’re ill. We’re going to help you get better.”
“No one’s going to inject anything into me, you hear? I’d rather fucking die!”
“Look, this is important. It won’t hurt, I promise.”
“He’ll calm down shortly,” Judy said in a matter-of-fact tone. She entered new commands on her wristband. The insect-robot took wing once again and flew into Jax’s cage.
This time, Jax was ready. He snatched the robot in his fist and Alyssa heard a crunch as he crushed it.
“Oh dear,” Judy said. “I’ll have to use the dart gun instead.”
“You’re not using anything on me!” Jax bellowed, rattling the bars.
“I better hurry before he gets too upset,” Judy said, digging into her suitcase. “We don’t want him to get overexcited in his condition.”
Jax paced his cage in a fury. “I’ll show you upset, you bitch! I’ll show you overexcited!”
“Jax, stay still,” Alyssa said. “It’ll be over soon.”
“No!”
“You’ll get medicine. It’ll help you.”
Judy loaded the dart gun and pointed it at Jax with a sure, professional hand.
Jax stalked to the corner nearest Alyssa and fixed his fever-bright eyes on her. “Alyssa, don’t,” he growled in a low voice, clutching the bars so hard his knuckles turned white. “Anything but this. Don’t do this to me.”
Something clicked inside her and made her breath catch. She hadn’t heard Jax beg before.
“Wait,” she called out to Judy, raising a hand. Her heart thumped in her chest, torn by conflict. She wanted to spare Jax from suffering. Reason told her to listen to the vet and give him the medicine—just get it over with. He was a pet and he was sick; he didn’t know what was good for him. But her instinct said that Jax was reaching out to her and she should not—must not—ignore it. It was imperative that she listened to him.
Alyssa’s gaze darted from Jax to the veterinarian and back. “No sedatives or medicine of any kind. He can heal on his own, right?”
Judy lowered the gun and looked at her in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t want you to do anything to him.”
“Why not? You want him to recover, don’t you?”
“But it’s just a flu. With good care he’ll recover even without medicine, isn’t that right?”
“Yes…he should be able to shake off the flu without medicine, but it’ll take time and effort. Why on earth would you want that?”
“He doesn’t want treatment.”
Judy raised an eyebrow. “You let your pet decide that?”
“I don’t want to force him.”
Judy’s brow creased with disapproval. “Ms. Cressfield, you are the owner here. You should make the decisions.”
Alyssa regarded the veterinarian coolly. “That’s right, I make the decisions. I want you to tell me how to nurse him through this. That’s all.”
Judy stared at her for a few seconds, incredulous. Then she sighed. “All right. As you wish. Dehydration is bad, so make sure he drinks. He needs to rest, of course, so keep him in his cage. And try and cool his body down. I’m not sure how to go abo
ut that, considering he’s untamed.”
“Thank you, I’ll think of something,” Alyssa said.
Judy snapped her suitcase closed and cast one more look at Jax. “He’s a handsome specimen. Most people would give him the medicine. Even though it is just a flu, his body is new to Silenian microbes and it’s somewhat risky to leave him to recover on his own.”
“I appreciate your advice, doctor, but I’ve made up my mind.”
“You should, of course, call me anytime if you change it.”
Judy departed, leaving Alyssa biting her nail, wondering about her decision. Jax leaned against the bars, watching her. She couldn’t read the look in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said.
Alyssa flashed a smile in his direction. “No problem.”
Jax continued to stare at her strangely. “No, I really mean…thank you. For not doing what the bitch lady suggested. You listened to me instead of her. That was nice of you.”
Touched, Alyssa didn’t know what to say. “It didn’t feel right to force you,” she finally admitted.
“I could use some water.”
Alyssa smiled. She had assumed him too delirious with fever to think straight, but he had paid attention. Evidently he wanted to get better; he merely wanted to do it his way. She had a feeling she made the right call—she and her pet were on the same page.
“I’ll bring you a new bottle. Do you want something to eat as well?”
He shook his head wearily. “No. Just water.”
Chapter 9
Jax slept most of the day. Alyssa listened to his coughing and laborious breathing with concern. He drank dutifully whenever she brought him more water. He also drank the herb tea she made him. When she tried to bring him chicken soup, he crawled to his toilet and retched. He said he couldn’t even stand the smell of food.
Alyssa ate the soup herself and only made sure Jax had enough water in his cage. She worried about his temperature. Judging by his looks, the fever seemed to be going up rather than down. She wondered how to cool him down, and decided wet towels might help. She could simply hand him some towels through the bars, but she wanted to take a closer look at him.