The bulky being paced around the cell for the thousandth time... though his body was locked down and restrained, his mouth and mind were not…
“I say” He spoke, even though there was nobody there to hear. ”its time for another recapitulation. It all began around three weeks ago, when…”
“Again with that?” A feminine voice chirped from his metallic collar. “You keep going on, and on, and on every freaking day… there’s no damn audience, just you and me… who already know that story from top to bottom.”
“Shushhh…” The diamond dog voiced back. “I’ve told you already about the importance of keeping track of current events, especially on a confusing cesspool of turd, ice, radiation and nutcases that is the wasteland.”
“If you’re so smart, how the heck you ended up here?” A slight tone of frustration could be picked up on the voice, as if it were obligatorily resigned to a task it didn’t liked the slightest bit. “You know… no matter how much you recall events, the outcome remains all the same.”
The prisoner merely stopped in front of one of the walls of his cell, his scrawny dark fur and tired amber eyes were a sign that time and nature had taken its toll on him… not to mention the current events that led to his imprisonment.
“That’s hardly the point.” He spoke, stopping to yawn loudly. “A being who doesn’t bother enough to keep track of its past doesn’t have much of a future .The key to remain up to date with your surroundings and have a limpid view of your current situation is the frequent recapitulation of key events.” The creature barked to nobody in particular. “I’m talking to myself, you only listen because you desire to.”
“Hardly.” The voice talked back. “I strictly do it because that’s my job, as if I didn’t have anything better to do…”
“On a cranky mood today, aren’t we?” The diamond dog slyly remarked. “So, anyway… I was minding my own business, being a new arrival on these parts and all… when THESE people” And he pointed to the collar. “Launched a concussive blast with their technological thingamajig and disobligingly relocated me to this cramped quarters for no apparent reason but to…”
“Oh, for Celestia’s sake!” The voice from within the collar interrupted. “Before this, you were just a homeless bum, a loner wandering the northern wastes with no purpose or motive… we gave you a home, an opportunity to help us help yourself.”
“No purpose? I have a purpose, and a noble one… you know it, lady…”
“A quest doomed to failure, I know it way too much.” Her voice stung. “Don’t you think we’ve been using our scanners to look for them as well? Let me tell you, our network of informants is way more robust than yours, and yet, I am speaking with the only one subject we could find around these parts... not even hellhounds brave this edge of the world.”
“Not that you crew is doing too well… the Steel Rangers used to be a force to be reckoned in the past…” The diamond dog smiled ironically. “Nowadays, after you guys got your ass handed over on the Ponave, you’re just a bunch of hiding cowards…”
“We are just suffering a minor setback, that’s it.” The collar angrily snapped. “In no time we’ll roll back into our former glory.”
“It’s okay…” The diamond dog sat on the bare floor, smiling like a foal that just got a birthday gift. “I would too hide in the deepest, coldest hole that I could find if I were bitch-slapped by none other than the new cocksucking republic…”
“You brought this on yourself…” She voiced back, and one second later, a continuous current of electricity flowed from the device, sending the prisoner rolling on the floor on a fit of pain, making his teeth clack wildly , his body stiffen up and detracting all his conscious thoughts towards the feeling of pain.
After a while, the stunning effect of the electric shock has passed and the creature slowly regained his train of thought. He knew they wouldn’t risk killing him, but that didn’t impede them from controlling him through pain.
“So, moving on…” He slowly continued “I woke up on this scumhole, just to find that I’ve been not only trapped here against my will, but deprived of my stuff… having been left only a loincloth and this blasted collar, a leash that is combined to a torture device, though the worst of it is having to hear the lady behind it, a scribe gal designated to oversee me… she’s been nagging me straight for a week, and since she wouldn’t tell her name to a “lowly subject” , I’ve been addressing her as “the jailor”, which happens to be quite appropriate, since…”
“It’s fortunate that I’ve learned to dismiss such trash-talking from my previous experience with others of your ilk…” She cleared her throat. “If you were only a tad cooperative, dirtbag, you would be able to see what we’re actually doing here… we are helping you.”
The diamond dog rose from the floor and pointed his finger to one of the walls of his cubic prison, it didn’t mattered to which wall he pointed, the rangers had everything monitored. “First, if you’re going to speak to me, lady, get my damn name right… it’s FLEA-bag, not dirtbag, deuchebag, or scumbag.” Then, the creature pointed a second finger. “And secondly, you expect people to be in their jolly moods after you guys not only catch them against their will, but lock them up into a stupid 4x4 cubicle of metalic walls? For serious?” Fleabag snarled loudly. “Knowing you steel rangers and all of the shiny technological wonders you guys keep bagging for yourselves, I would expect something cooler, at very least… stasis chambers or cryogenic tubes… why do you guys get cheap on me?” And he angrily waved his fist to one of the walls. “I want to be left on suspended animation! I want to be fed through osmosis! I want to have those little rubber tubes sticking from me while my body floats through a rich nutrient solution! Anything would be better than this, being left without anything to do but eat and poop, for a whole week…”
“You think you’ve got it bad, buddy?” The jailor’s voice once again filled the prison. “You’ve been given a home and spare time to boot for a week, while I have to monitor you FOR THE WHOLE DAMN TIME! You have no idea; I can only take a break while you’re sleeping… I can’t afford to take my eyes off you for a second if I want to be eligible for that promotion.”
“I’m flattered, really…” The diamond dog sarcastically remarked. “But why would you have to go through all the pain to certify that I am taking my meals regularly?”
“Of course, to keep your mutt-addled brain out of harm’s reach…” The jailor explained. “And to keep you from getting too potty-mouthed.”
“Not much around here that can harm me, you guys pretty much rounded every sharp corner, placed protection over every wall socket and locked up the drugs cabinet…” Fleabag resumed walking through his minuscule containment cell. “The only thing that could really kill me is your temper combined with this collar of yours.”
“You wouldn’t believe how many subjects engage on self-destructive behavior after they learn of their fate, which is why it is protocol to leave them on a probative period of one week to let them get used to their surroundings and with us.” She quickly replied. “And about the collar, think of it as just another protective measure… I am sure that one as familiarized with the wasteland such as you already recognized it from somewhere…”
Fleabag gazed at one of the reflective walls and slowly caressed his own neck… it took a while for him to get used to the new accessory, and getting used to the lady on the other side of it was a much more challenging task… yet, he knew where the device came from.
“It is one of those slave collars used by slaver folks, I’ve heard about them…” The canine lowered his eyes to the shiny gleaming leash… a silver collar that strapped him to the jailor’s will. “It has been said that they have explosives inbuilt into them, and the owner can rig them to blow the slave to smithereens if he disobeys… though I am pretty sure that the default collars are unable to send an electrical discharge like mine…”
“It’s because they have been customized to fit our needs. We couldn’t afford losing valuable subjects and collateral propriety damage by blowing them up in the instant they displease us.” The jailor retorted. “We’ve removed the explosives from the collars, adding a shock Taser instead… so we can properly deal with the subjects on a both educating and entertaining fashion. Plus, as a safety precaution, there’s a second feature on the collar, just you don’t get funny ideas if you somehow disable the Taser: a syringe that can administer butt load doses of sleeping powder, a powerful narcotic which ought to buck your senses straight to the moon without doing harm.”
“So, if I get everything right, you guys meant everything so that I wouldn’t get hurt…” Fleabag shook his head distrustfully. “Why?”
“As I’ve said already, you are the only uninfected subject we ever located. Gathering data about you might be the key to developing a cure to the condition that afflicts the hellhounds…”
“You don’t expect me to believe all this bullshit, do you?” Fleabag said as he sat back against a wall. “I know about you steel rangers. I know that you guys couldn’t care less about helping the wasteland… all you do is hoard technology and live your “shining knight who is morally above than the rest of us” delusions… the agenda of “charity” and “selfless” helping is done by that load of stinking anarchists, the followers…” The diamond dog focused his gaze at the empty ceiling. “The way I see, you want to keep me to gather data in order to get an edge while fighting the hellhounds, find their weakness and cripple them or somehow turn them to your cause… so you can get your hooves on their tech.”
“Believe what you wish, fact is that you can’t really do squat about it…” The jailor spoke from the collar. “You’re into a contention cell, three levels down into a bunker which is deep underground, and also, your equipment is impounded and you are monitored 24-7, there’s not a thing you can do without me knowing about It, plus the collar and the fact that there is a whole squadron of power-armored paladins close by, ready to mop up anything that might be a threat to us… in essence, you’re all bark and no bite.” And she laughed for several minutes. “Trust me; everything will be better if you act cooperatively during the whole thing.”
“Not like I have other choice than being your guinea pig, do I?” Fleabag lazily slouched on the floor. “It is just that doing nothing is killing me, right now...”
“Don’t fret… tomorrow you will complete your one-week probative period, thanks goodness… we already have a lifetime worth of footage showing a fully grown diamond dog itching his scrotum” And she sighed heavily. “Then you will earn your keep by performing special tasks designed to… well, analyze your capabilities and catalogue your behavior, everything destined to feed our database.”
“Let me guess…” And the diamond dog held his chin, thoughtfully. “You’ll be perching over my neck the whole damn time to make sure I do as you ask, do you?”
“As if you weren’t used to it already…”The jailor chirped back. “Somepony has to make sure that you don’t screw up, and you better do not. I need this promotion badly…it is bad enough that I spent a whole year searching for a promising specimen, and the best we could get our hooves on was, well… you.”
“I usually cause that impression on most people” The prisoner laid on the floor and waved his paw in a dismissing gesture. “Now, if you excuse me, I have a full day tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep. Wake me up then, will ya?”
“Just don’t over-strain yourself before the assignments” The voice on the collar spoke. “Its sure as hell most of them won’t be a walk on a sandy beach.”