The Human Pet: A Sci-Fi Romance

Part 18

Kayla

Usually, Tarak rushes off to work in the morning, but today, even though I pretend to sleep, he yanks the sheet off me.

He pulls me into his lap and holds luscious berries in his palm. Oh, it's playtime.

I'm excited to play, although this has nothing to do with the fruit. I've come to adore these bonding moments with Tarak. I get to lean on his well-built chest and gaze into his beautiful eyes. Maybe it's the light from the wall, but this morning his eyes are blue, like the sky on Earth. It doesn't take long until his pupils engulf the irises and I gaze into pits of darkness. What makes this more addicting is that while we play, all his attention and adoration is on me. Tarak holds out a piece of fruit that I have never seen before (it is purple and the size of his fist, basically too big for me to eat in one bite). Tarak gets out a knife and slices the fruit into little cubes and feeds me from his palm. I eat everything, lick his palm and chest, and then lean against his chest. I could stay like this, with my alien, forever.

The wall beeps.

At first, Tarak ignores it at first but when red symbols flash across the wall, he puts me back on the bed and then...

The message must be important because he makes the hand signal in front of the door and then leaves. Now it is just me alone in his apartment. Already, I miss him.

Focus! I have one main goal for today: to learn everything I can about what might have led to the lobotomy. If I am going to put a stop to any future lobotomies, I must accomplish this.

I clap, illuminating the computer.

I scour Hydra's data, skimming as much as I can. Although I can find rules and regulations and numerous documents about human pets, I feel like I have found absolutely nothing.

So out of frustration at some point during the day, I re-enter the number on the back of the berry carton since I can now read what I find. I never would have thought berries would have so much documentation about them, from the planet of origin, optimal conditions for cultivation, and the map.

This time, the map fascinates me, probably because I had not understood it the first time. First, the map reflects Hydra's immensity; this ship must have thousands of rooms. The map is complex; although some dots do not move, other dots zip across the map, while others move slowly as if stuck in syrup. I pace around the room, holding the berry box to my chest and when I study the map, my eye falls on a slow-moving dot that suddenly stops. That's when my sluggish mind has a new thought: is that slow-moving dot on the map me, or rather, the box that I carry? I resume pacing and yep, the dot moves once again.

I zoom out of the map and with those additional insights, there is more I can figure out. The room with what looks like hundreds of unmoving dots must be a storage room with berry cartons. The fast-moving dots are probably berries moving about the ship by those robots. Finally, an occasional single slow or non-moving dot must be when the berry box is at its destination. So, with one number, I have access to all this information, from a storage location to final delivery. The fact that such a map exists and tracks the movement of supplies is intriguing. Can all products be tracked on this ship? If berries, which are likely unimportant to most scourges, are monitored like this, I think the answer is probably.

A new idea pops into my mind. What if I had the product numbers for medical goods? Surely that would enable me to also figure out where medical supplies are stored, transported, and delivered. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but as I pace around the room, I become obsessed with this idea. If I could get the product numbers for medical supplies, then maybe I could get closer to figuring out more about where the unsanctioned lobotomies happen.