I am serialising my dystopian/retro-futuristic sci-fi story here. Here is the fifteenth (and final) chapter, titled “The Pet”.
All chapters can be found here.
I will be publishing the story as an ePub on Feb 14th 2026, if you prefer to read it in one package. Also, if you have read the story this far, I hope you have enjoyed it. Here’s the final tense chapter…Enjoy!
Chapter 14 – The Pet
It was late when the knock at the door came. A hard, stern knock that meant only one thing— he was back.
She opened the door, and there he stood, dressed all in black, cap on his head, one eye staring at her. He had two Secpol troopers with him.
She moved back from the door, and he stepped in, followed by the troopers who closed the door and stood by it, watching her through the visors of their helmets.
“How are you tonight?” He said, removing his cap and tossing it on the sofa.
“I…I am good,” she said, her voice weak and timid.
He smiled, exposing his yellowed teeth, his one unblinking eye fixed on her.
“It is good that you are good,” he said. “What is for dinner?”
“M…mutton…” she said. “And powdered potatoes. They are seasoned.”
“Mmmmm, lucky me!” he said, removing his coat and tossing it on the sofa. “Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”
She felt flustered and uncomfortable. The man with one eye scared her during his last visit, and now that he had returned with the two other men, she knew that whatever scant luck she possessed was all gone. All that remained was the inevitable outcome of her actions and the man with one eye.
The last two days had been a painful living agony. Every noise she heard out in the stairwell, she thought was him returning. She stared out of the window, smoking and drinking, as she watched The Ghetto slowly come back to life, and the quarrymen heading from their apartments, hurrying to the Maglev depot to go smashing rocks.
She had ventured out, buying mutton and powdered potatoes, hurrying to the store in a state of paranoia and anxiety, glancing at the heavy Milpol presence and the masked faces of the guards on the backs of the armoured patrols, observing the people coming and going.
She was sure she was being followed, and as soon as she bought the supplies she needed, she hurried back to her apartment, locked the door and sobbed, smoked cigarettes, and drank brandy.
She had studied the blaster, clicking on and off the safety, wondering if she had the strength to kill herself, but she didn’t.
And so she sobbed more, smoked more cigarettes, drank more brandy, and waited for what she knew she was going to have to do.
And now he stood before her, his one cold, unblinking eye studying her. Her only defence now was the performance, and tonight, she had to give the performance of her life.
“I only have brandy,” she said, flashing him a brilliant, seductive smile.
“Then, brandy it is,” he said.
She poured two drinks, handed him one, clinked her glass against his, and took a sip. He put the glass to his mouth and gulped it back in one.
“Get me another,” he said, and she did as instructed.
When she handed him the drink, she moved her body close to him, pressing her breasts against his body, her mouth close to his ear.
“Can we have some privacy?” She whispered in his ear.
He sipped his drink this time and studied her. His eye twitched again, then he turned to the two troopers.
“Wait outside,” he said, and the two troopers snapped to attention and left.
She placed a hand on his chest and began unbuttoning his jacket.
“How was your day?” She said, running her hands over his chest, caressing his nipples through his shirt, loosening his tie.
“Interesting…” he said, studying her, his face cold and emotionless.
She took him by the hand and led him to the sofa, where they sat. She took two cigarettes and lit them both, then placed one in his mouth, her hand moving to his thigh.
“Tell me about your day,” she said, smiling and seeming quite relaxed.
He puffed his cigarette, placing his drink on the side table. He took something from the inside pocket of his jacket. It was two printouts from surveillance footage of the labour exchange.
“Do you know these men?” He said, handing her the printouts.
The frames were of the two squadron commandos. She studied the images blankly.
“No,” she said.
He chuckled, puffed his cigarette and sipped his drink.
“We can get to the questions later,” he said.
“Should I know them?” She said, trying to appear innocent and unaware.
“I will find out later exactly what you kn…” He started to say, but before he could finish, her lips were at his mouth, kissing him like a lover.
They kissed for a while, her hands roaming his body. When she pulled away, she giggled playfully, puffed her cigarette and sipped her brandy.
“I don’t feel like cooking tonight,” she said, standing, taking his glass and refilling both their glasses. “I feel like doing something else.”
She handed his drink back to him and sat, her hand immediately returning to his thigh.
“What did you have in mind?” He said.
She kissed him again, then whispered in his ear.
“Fucking and sucking and sucking and fucking,” and she giggled, her hand moving to his crotch.
“I do my best work in the bedroom, not the kitchen.”
His eye twitched again.
“Will you let me be your pet?” She purred.
“You may not enjoy that. I am quite a harsh master,” he said, licking his dry lips.
“I like that,” she said. “I have been a very naughty pet, and I need a master who can punish me and make me a good pet.”
“What have you done that is naughty?”
She stood, taking him by the hand and pulling him to his feet.
“You will have to punish me first, to get me to tell you.”
She led him to the bedroom, closing the door, and sat him on the edge of the bed. She knelt and began removing his boots, then began tenderly undressing him. Beneath his trousers, he wore the lingerie he had stolen from her. When he was undressed, she stood before his pale, scarred body and undid her dress, letting it fall to the floor.
Underneath, she wore sheer, stringy lingerie and stockings, except for the panties Riker wore.
He stared at her, and his eye twitched.
“Someone stole my underwear,” she said, pouting, and then giggled, pushing him back onto the bed, and climbing onto him, straddling him.
His calloused hands were on her, squeezing her breasts and groping her roughly. He bit her nipples through her bra. She gasped, pushing herself against him, kissing him.
“Take off my patch,” he whispered. “I want you to see your new master as I really am.”
She did as instructed, gently removing the patch, exposing the gruesome black hole that looked back at her. She didn’t flinch.
She pushed his head to the side, kissing his neck as he groaned, his one good eye closed. As she kissed and licked him, her hand moved gently under the pillow, emerging with the blaster.
She moved the weapon to the back of his skull, clicking the safety off. His eye snapped open, filled with sudden realisation. There was a flash of blue light, a muffled crack, and blood sprayed across the bed and her face.
She lay frozen, his arms flopped down onto the bed, and she pushed herself up. The back of his head had exploded and was smoking, with brain and bone and blood splashed seemingly over everything.
His one eye was open, glazed and lifeless, staring off into nothingness.
She stood and stared at his corpse, her final performance complete, then calmly walked to the bathroom. She stripped, throwing her bloodied bra and stockings into the toilet, then washed the gore from her hair, face and body. She returned to the bedroom and dressed in his trousers and boots, pulling on his black shirt and tucking it into the trousers, which she tightened with his belt to fit her. She lit a cigarette, picked up the blaster, and walked to the living room. She pulled on his ill-fitting coat and stood, staring at the door, trying to find new courage to open it to where the two troopers waited, and what she was sure was certain death.
Suddenly, she heard a raised voice and two cracks of a blaster. She took a step back, raising the weapon, pointing it at the door with a trembling hand.
The door burst open, and there he was —the man who had given her the weapon she held stood before her, dripping with sweat, a blaster in his hand.
His frantic eyes saw her pointing the weapon at him.
“Is there anyone else here?”
She nodded.
“Where is he?’ He said.
She didn’t know what to say or do. She just stood there, hand trembling, not knowing if she should shoot this man or not. Beyond him, she saw the bodies of the two troopers on the landing with puddles of blood growing around them.
“WHERE IS HE?” He demanded.
“D…dead,” she said.
“We have to go, now!” he said, his voice urgent, holding out a hand.
She lowered her weapon and moved toward him, took his hand, and they fled.
They raced down the stairs to the first floor, along a corridor to the end, where the man blasted the latch of one of the units. It was vacant, with the unit facing the rear of the building.
He smashed the window, then climbed out, taking her by the hand.
“We have to jump onto the roof of that maintenance locker below,” he said.
She peered out, then climbed out of the window, and the two of them jumped down onto the locker, crashing through the roof, which broke their fall, and down onto the ground. They hurried through the back streets until they came to a busier street. He hailed a tuk-tuk, and the pair of them climbed in. He pushed the blaster into the driver’s ribs.
“Don’t fuck around, or I will kill you. Keep away from the main streets. Head to the old city. Go!” He ordered, and the driver did as he was told, and they sped away through the back streets, toward the crumbling ruins of The Ghetto.
She was in shock and terrified. The tuk-tuk zipped through the backstreets, and as they approached the decaying old zone, they heard sirens blasting. When they could drive no further, he cracked the driver over the head with the blaster, knocking him out, and tying him up. They continued on foot, running through the rubble of the decaying buildings.
Copters started buzzing overhead, and the tannoy system made announcements that they couldn’t hear in the blind panic of trying to escape.
They made it to the ramshackle hut near the wire covering the entrance to the sewer system. He pulled the manhole cover away and told her to climb down.
She climbed down the ladder into the darkness, trembling. He followed, pulling the cover back over the opening, and they were in total darkness.
Suddenly, a light came on, and he was standing before her, a flashlight in his hand.
“Where are we going?” She said.
“We are leaving,” he said, pushing past her, pulling on a backpack, taking her hand, and moving along the tunnel.
She followed him and tripped over something on the floor. She shrieked. She had tripped over the body of his comrade, shot in the back.
“Get up,” he insisted. “No noise.”
And they disappeared down the tunnel, then down another ladder, and into The Ghetto’s old sewer system.
* * *
Hours had passed with sirens blaring and calm announcements of the reimposition of martial law.
Over the prairies, copters and gunships patrolled, with searchlights and thermal scanners roaming the grasslands.
Colonel Riker, the commanding officer of Secpol special operations, was dead, along with two troopers, adding to the bloodbath of the Deputy Director’s assassination at the quarry, and the hunt was on for the ‘terrorists’.
Five clicks from The Ghetto, at the poisoned lagoon, the fugitives emerged from the rusting sewer pipe. They were filthy and wet, covered in shit and grime, and exhausted after crawling through the pipe.
She fell out of the pipe, plopping down into the stagnant, stinking slurry, shivering and trembling. He followed and immediately dragged her into a patch of tall rushes. He peered back to The Ghetto, seeing the patrol copters moving through the darkness, looking for them.
“Stay down,” he said, taking the remote trigger from his jacket.
He primed the switch, then clicked it. In the distance, a blue ball of light filled the night; moments later, a boom echoed across the prairie.
He watched as the copters suddenly banked, racing back towards The Ghetto. He grabbed her arm, dragging her out of the rushes and into the open.
“I cannot…” she protested, exhausted and flopping to the ground.
“Get up or die!” He snapped, pulling her up and taking her in his arms, hurrying toward where the speeder was hidden.
He put her down, pulled the holocamo away, then activated the speeder’s propulsion system. He lifted her onto the rear seat, put on goggles, and climbed onto the machine.
“Put your arms around me. Hold tight. Keep your eyes closed,” he said, and she did as she told him.
The speeder shot away, racing across the grassland, heading south through the darkness. She glanced back over her shoulder, seeing the brightly lit ghetto, and her life, shrink into blackness behind her.
She clung to the man, her eyes closed shut as the wind whipped around her, as they sped through the night. Tears leaked from her eyes, gusted away by the rushing air. After what seemed like an eternity for her, they arrived at the canyon where the drop ship was hidden.
After covering the speeder in holocamo, the pair scrambled down the canyon walls and found the ship as it was left. He activated the rear ramp and pulled her onboard.
“We have to go now,” he said, closing the hatch, moving to the cockpit and clicking switches as she watched, bewildered. “We have to change into the flight suits.”
They stripped off and donned the spacesuits.
He helped her into the copilot’s chair and strapped her in.
“We are going up into space. There will be no gravity. You will feel scared and sick, but everything will be okay. Remember to breathe.”
She nodded as if she understood what he was saying and what was happening, but she didn’t. He placed a helmet over her head and attached an air line.
He strapped himself in, donned his helmet, and then fired up the drop ship’s anti-gravity drive.
The ship shook and vibrated, then slowly lifted off, hovering above the ground as the undercarriage retracted. It then shot forward, flying out of the canyon and racing low across the terrain toward the southern pole, where they would make their escape, unseen, from the slave planet.
At the pole, the ship climbed and shook, and the g-forces pulled her body into the chair. She screamed and began hyperventilating and passed out.
When she awoke, they were in space. The drop ship, compared to the dozen or so Kantary freighters in orbit, was a speck of nothingness in the enormity of space. She watched wide-eyed as they glided along the side of one freighter, then disappeared into the darkness of a gaping exhaust vent attached to the freighter’s redundant anti-gravity drive.
The Pilot found a well-hidden spot and anchored the ship to the freighter’s superstructure. He pulled off his helmet and sat there, eyes closed, slowly breathing. She watched him.
“Who are you?” She said.
He sat motionless for a moment, then opened his eyes and turned to her, reaching out and removing the helmet that floated above her. He smiled, faintly.
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that. Maybe, one day, I will be able to tell you, but not yet.”
“What has happened? Why am I here?”
He unclipped his harness, the straps floating in the air. He drifted out of his seat and smiled faintly again.
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that either. Operational security. The less you know, the less you can give up, under questioning.”
He unclipped her harness and helped her weightless body move from the cockpit to the cargo hold behind. There were two hibernation pods fixed to the wall. He helped her out of the flight suit and wriggled free himself.
“We have to clean ourselves before we go into hibernation. It will get cold inside here very soon, and we have to move fast,” he said, gliding over to a cabinet where he retrieved a packet of antibacterial wipes. “Bacteria on the skin…when we are in hibernation…can cause skin infections. I will have to cut your hair off as well.”
“What is hibernation?” She said, floating, her hair matted and filthy, her face smeared with grime, her cheeks streaked with tears, her eyes puzzled.
“We are going somewhere far from here, and it will take many months to get there. When we are clean, we will each get into one of these pods, called hibernation pods, and we will fall asleep, and a machine will keep us alive until we get to where we are going.”
She stared at him, blinking.
“And where are we going?”
He pulled a wipe from the package and wiped her filthy face and smiled faintly.
“This freighter is going to Terra. Before we arrive there, we will wake up, jettison from the freighter, and head to where we are going.”
“And where is that?”
“I am afraid I cannot tell you that,” he said. “Strip. Clean yourself, and then I will cut your hair, get you new clothes, and we will load carbs for hibernation.”
He turned his back to her, floating, and stripped down, wiping himself clean while she did the same.
“Am I safe?” She said, her voice fragile and uncertain.
He pulled a clean overall from a locker and passed it over his head to her, which she took and pulled on with some difficulty. He dressed himself.
“Are you decent?” He said.
“Yes,” she said, and he spun himself around, looking at her dressed in the ill-fitting orange flight suit.
“There is a war going on,” he said, rolling the cuffs of her sleeves up. “We, I, am fighting against the people who control your planet, down there. The people who live down there, like you, are kept as slaves who work to make the people who control the planet richer and more powerful. After the things that have happened down there, the war will get worse, and everything will be more dangerous.”
There was a moment of silence. She looked into his eyes, and he looked into her eyes.
“I cannot tell you everything will be okay, but we are safe now, and I will do everything I can to protect you.”
She smiled, faintly, and so did he.
“Now let me cut your hair.”
He rubbed a setting agent through her hair, then shaved her head of her matted, filthy hair, while she drank carbohydrate mix from a carton through a straw. He jettisoned their dirty clothes, the soiled wipes, the trash, and her hair, and they were ready to go into hibernation.
“Who was the man?” She asked as he gently guided her into her pod and fastened the straps across her body.
“Which man?”
“The dead man in the tunnel. The man who came to me at Terminus. The man who told me that he wanted me to copy the captain’s files.”
He avoided eye contact as he continued to set up the pod.
“He was…my comrade,” he said.
“What happened to him?”
“He…he didn’t make it,” he said flatly.
There was silence.
“And the other man?”
“What other man?” He said, finishing with the set-up, and looking at her.
“The man with the bald head and one eye. He was dressed in black. He came to my apartment. He had pictures of you and the other man who died. I killed him with the blaster you gave me.”
He looked at her, his expression incredulous.
“Riker? Colonel Riker from Secpol was at your apartment?”
“I don’t know.”
He laughed, suddenly stopping himself.
“You killed Colonel Riker?”
She shrugged, “I don’t know.”
“What is your name?”
“Margo,” she said.
“If you killed Colonel Riker, Margo, you are a hero!” he said, laughing again.
She suddenly found herself laughing as well, not that she found anything funny. Maybe it was because she was so exhausted, or maybe it was a feeling as though an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“Time to go to sleep, Margo,” he said, and he tenderly placed a hand on her cheek, then clicked the control, and the doors to the pod slid shut.
She looked at him through the glass, and then he drifted away from her pod and climbed into his own pod. The lights in the cargo hold dimmed, and a wave of exhaustion washed over her body, and her eyelids became heavy, and her eyes closed, and she went to deep sleep, heading to the who knows where and who knows when, but no longer a slave, a performer, a pet, or a Milpol whore, but as Margo, free, and a hero.