Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 47529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47529 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
She’s trouble, but she’s also very pretty. We do not mate outside our species, but there are rumors that some human females, and indeed males, have made intimate companions for our kind. I, of course, have never mated the merchandise, and I do not encourage it. But suddenly, I understand it.
I wish she was not back in the deck in her cage. I’d like to have her ride in the front seat beside me. I’d like to talk to her about her life before this moment and explain what awaits her on this world. I’d like to see her purr instead of hiss and growl. But for now, I know she’d probably leap from the moving vehicle the very first chance she got.
I want to tame her.
There’s a challenge to this human I haven’t encountered before. I know it won’t be easy. I don’t want to break her spirit. I just want to break through this untrusting exterior and see her soft. I want her to feel safe with me. I want everything every pet owner wants, for his pet to be happy.
I do know this: there’s no chance of selling her again. Not now she’s gone and bitten someone. If the authorities discover that, they’ll impound and destroy her. She’s a liability. A danger. And she’s mine.
I should have known it when I captured her…
A few Earth days ago…
Hidden from the view of the people scurrying below me, I sit in my cloaked shuttle and watch the city humans, looking for one or perhaps two who might make suitable pets.
I am looking for a very specific sort of human. One who is not connected strongly to a familial group. Humans become very distressed if you accidentally take a mother or a father. Their young suffer terribly, so I never take any human who has previously bred. This is obvious in the pheromone readings. I have my drone probes flitting through the streets, taking samples from those who pass by, alerting me to any potentials. This gives me time to cast my gaze over this section of the ruined city.
Once upon a time, this was a proud city. Now it is a haven of decay and depravity. Law, such as it is, is enforced sporadically and with great violence. Crime is ubiquitous.
And yet, life finds a way to limp on. In the burned-out shells of what used to be mass retail outlets, peddlers and scavengers sell their wares. They attempt to emulate old styles of commerce with handmade banners and sales pitches. Almost all of them are armed to the teeth with improvised weapons. Seen in a certain distant and rose-colored light, there is a certain cheerfulness to the entire proceedings.
But the people are not well. They are suffering and they are in danger. For every successful trade, there is a raid from a thief and perhaps a small band thereof.
Young males roam the bullet pock-marked streets in large groups. These groups harass others, and when they encounter other groups, large fights break out that leave some dead, many maimed, and all traumatized.
A law enforcement cruiser slides silently and unseeingly past a man who is on the ground being kicked by three youths who asked him if he had a cigarette, then proceeded to beat him when he said he did not.
The man on the ground survives only because he has secreted a handheld incendiary device in his pocket. I watch, fascinated, as he deploys it in a thin stream of what looks to be very unpleasantly hot fire. Their screams make the microphones on my drone probes rattle unpleasantly.
Once upon a time I used to try to intervene in these scuffles, but I quickly discovered the law of unintended consequences, not to mention it becoming absolutely impossible to police. I have a permit to capture humans in the wild, but I am not permitted to intervene in the progress of their civilization in general.
I refocus my probes. At the moment there is great demand for young adult females. One such human is owned by one of the most influential families on Euphoria, and as such, the type has become most sought after.
The problem with finding humans of this type is that young adult females very rarely venture out into the streets of this or any other city. They are kept indoors for their own safety, for all social conventions have eroded over time. The same bands of youths who set upon men will snatch women if given the chance.
I have to hope to catch a female when she leaves the safety of cover to scuttle for fresh cover.
Appearing almost as if on cue, my probes detect a female. Most of them move swiftly, with their heads down and their hair and faces covered in the futile attempt to avoid the ravaging male gaze. She does not bother. She strides out into the street with purpose and a hint of aggression.