Miller found himself in front of another suit, or what Delta had begun to call monsters. The room was sparse, a metal table, a few chairs and the tastefully depressing décor they called paint. He found the hospital on base was more welcoming than this bleak room.

The suit across from him sat down quietly, a false predatory smirk plastered across his face. It almost made Miller want to punch the man. He set down a small rectangular device in between the two, pressing a button on it before he began talking.

“Good morning Handler Miller, how are you doing today?” The suit smiled as his fingers melded together.

“I would like to discuss purchasing a piece of demilled equipment.” Miller stated the best he could with a deep breath and his own false smile.

The suit raised an eyebrow. “At the moment or after your contract?”

“After my contract is up.” Miller clarified.

“And, um what piece of equipment in particular?” The suit asked, his arms crossing as he leaned back in his chair.

“I would like to purchase the HOUND unit.” Miller finally declared with a nod.

The suit cleared his throat. “Um, sir you do realize that the HOUNDS are proprietary and you can’t just go about purchasing prototypes.”

“But if it was demilled or knocked out, then it would be of no use to anyone.”

The suit suddenly shifted in his chair and leaned over to the recorder, pushing that same button he had just pressed just moments before. His eyes were now locked onto Miller, his eyebrows furrowed as he just took in the soldier across the table from him. The suit then retrieved the small chip from the side of the device, popping it into one of his shirt pockets before pulling out another and placing it on the table.

“What’s your angle here? I don’t get it, did you fall in love with it?” The suit bemusedly asked.

Why is he hiding something? Miller thought to himself before speaking. “Depends on your definition of love.” Miller coughed, the images of the night before playing through his head, his cheeks coloring.

“You guys can’t just take your paycheck and leave can you?” The suit pressed him, though to Miller it seemed as if his attitude had changed, as if he was probing for something.

“I can’t…” Miller declared.

“Do you even know how much one of these mechs cost, how much it takes to train the AI?”

Miller noticed the slip of the tongue. Throughout everything he had read, and heard from Artemis it was almost like law that they didn’t refer to training, but instead Calibration. Is he on my side? Miller’s thoughts continued as he shifted in his chair, leaning forward.

“More than your contract, and I suggest you not bring that up again.” The suit continued flatly.

“I want to get it out of here.” Miller decided to trust his inclination. “You can’t tell me that it doesn’t hurt your soul in the slightest to see what they did to it.”

The suit didn’t respond for a long while, he just sat there, studying the man in front of him.

“Your unit has OOR, you know this, Artemis knows this…They almost knew that you were being belligerent with several of the techs during a routine inspection.” The suit took a long pause at that, something in his gaze begging Miller to take the hint. “The service life of the third generation HOUNDS have run out, and at this point they’re just collecting additional data, no one is going to question if a unit is destroyed in combat.” The suit tapped the table, a small device suddenly appearing, with a note underneath it.

“We’re going on a few missions, I take it?” Miller tried to follow along. “And the odds aren’t in our favor?”

“Yes, and that was the original purpose of this meeting. But as Artemis knows, you tend to go off on your own tangents, make sure from now on they don’t feel you tugging on your leash.” The suit continued. “Your unit has OOR, its lifespan is running short and you need to find a good point to wash your hands of this mercenary work, they won’t be continuing your contract as a Handler.”

“Why haven't they replaced me yet?” Miller asked earnestly, his voice cracking as his heart began to pick up.

“Someone in the company has pointed out that it's not worth the cost worrying about a generation at the end of its cycle, and those resources would be better spent elsewhere.”

“Is OOR permanent?” Miller decided to keep pushing, to learn all he could.

“As far as we can tell, there are ways around it, though it was deemed not cost efficient.” The suit returned, spite drenching his words, before he slid the device closer to miller. His eyes flicked down to it and back up. “As far as Artemis is worried about, all gen threes will be scrapped by the end of your contract, find a way to disconnect from this mess and move on, find a nice world to settle down, maybe in the Barnard system.”

Miller slid his hand over to the new device when the suit’s hand retreated. Grabbing hold of it he slipped the device and note safely away. 

“Thanks for the advice, I’ll make sure I enjoy my retirement.” Miller announced with a small nod.

“Alright now let's see here…Oh no…It looks like there’s an issue on this memory card, I’ll have to put in a new one, so we can finally start the meeting.” The suit stared, seemingly content that the hound in front of him wasn’t going to start tugging on the leash anymore.

“Before you do that…can I get your name?” Miller asked.

“Call me Jack, Now let's get on with your operation.” He declared right before snapping the new card into the device and pressing record. “Sorry about that again Handler Miller, you know how technology can be.” Jack wore that now all too familiar Artemis smile. “Now about your orders for the next few weeks.”

 

~~~

 

Delta awoke at some point in the night, at least that’s what it assumed since all it could hear was the soft breaths and occasional loud snore of the marines around it. The Pilot propped itself up, feeling around until it re-established the mental image of the world around it. It had been several days at this point, tomorrow would be the last day before they were sent out on another mission. During this time it had begun to get used to the world around it, putting up these invisible walls that shifted in its mind as it moved.

Hearing Miller softly sleeping, surprised it, as he wasn’t able to do much of that as of late. Delta didn’t want to wake him just so that it could have an escort to the facilities. It would be fine going by itself, it knew the way.

Delta nodded to itself softly and clambered off of its cot that was attached to Miller’s. Its soft footfalls pattered across the concrete of the hanger as it finally made it to a wall, counting the steps over it finally found the door. This process was repeated as its daily stroll to the showers and whatever other trips necessary, slowly demystified the process. It had got used to counting the steps, the turns, the doors it went through to make it to the slick shower tiles.

The entire trip Delta didn’t hear a single soul, not until after it had finished its business. The first sign it knew something was wrong was that the footfalls weren't the familiar booted or barefooted ones of the marines. It was like the squeaking cries that had always burst through the hallways before the techs ‘tests’.

“Stupid thing.” A male voice broke through the silence, barely loud enough to fill the entire room.

Delta’s core ran cold, it didn’t recognize the voice, its ears cried out as it lost itself in its ringing. Delta stood there, unable to move, unaware of where this intruder was. The sudden squeaking slide of their shoes broke forward as sharp pain stabbed around its bicep. Delta desperately wanted to cry out, its voice once again stuck in its throat as it was dragged away. It lost all sense of direction as it was thrown against one of the brick walls. The pain now spread throughout its body as tears began to fall from its unseeing eyes.

“You even think about telling anyone and we’ll upload a kill code to your mech, and your stupid fucking marines will never even know.” The voice threatened, as Delta’s throat was gripped tight. Its gasping breaths uselessly fought their way out as its limbs struggled to find it support. “I know about your fucking messages.”

The voice continued as Delta could feel the body glove slowly being ripped from its skin. Its heart followed its tattered clothes, ripped from its chest as the familiarity of this hell replayed the moments to come. Everything was just so wrong, it wanted its new life, it didn’t want to go back. It wanted its marines, this wasn’t Miller or Harris, it was calibrations.

“Quit fucking struggling or its over.” The voice growled once more, gripping and pinning the few remaining free limbs.

Please stop. 

Delta wanted to plead, it didn’t want calibrations, it starved for the world that only the marines had ever shown it. The pain returned, taking Delta’s breath as its limbs grew limp. 

Please stop.

He didn’t, he couldn’t read it’s mind after all. Its body ached as the time dragged on and on, unable to escape, it returned to what it knew worked.

I just want to go back to my Miller.

That bright flower that had blossomed inside the pilot was once again uprooted, trampled, and filled with an unending dullness. Its one blessing, that the actions no longer hurt, its body no longer feeling anything.

“Hey! Get the fuck off her!” A voice barely broke through the haze.

 

~~~

 

Miller was still groggy, he knew that Delta had walked off, thought he might’ve felt it leave, probably off to the bathroom. Miller had known the pilot had been memorizing the path. He could see it in its posture, pretending to not keep track. The thought made him smile as he shambled out of the hangar, rubbing his eyes as he went.

I better just check in case it got lost.

That smile turned to mild annoyance as he heard the soft grunts of some man coming from the direction of the locker room. 

Great, one of the guys is taking care of business, I hope Delta didn’t accidentally walk in on that, maybe it found a different way back, or climbed into Harris’ cot.

Though as he grew closer, the sound grew clearer - they didn’t sound like the muted grunts of someone alone. The hint of fear began to eat away at his mind, so he began to jog…though as his thoughts began to get ahead of him, he desperately needed to dissuade his fears, soon turning into a dead sprint. Busting through the doorway he could barely make out the struggling shadows around the corner, someone atop of another, and that fear finally was realized. Bursting around the corner, he saw the dull eyed Delta.

“Hey! Get the fuck off her!” He blared, half in rage, half hoping this might alert others.

The one atop a nearly comatose looking Delta didn’t have time to react before Miller tackled him off the pilot. His fist battered into his worthless skull over and over again, blood staining his uniform, the ground, the creature's face. He lost himself, knuckles numbly stinging as each punch accepted the man’s blood donation. His knee pounding over and over into the man’s ribs, until he could hear cracking through the blaring rage that gripped the Lieutenant.

He kept swingwing and kicking even after he was suddenly pulled back from the man. His arms struggled against these new captors only long enough to see the camouflage uniforms of his own men replace him. It was only after he was pulled all the way out of the room that his hearing fully returned.

“Get the fuck off me!” Miller finally broke out as he tried to burst back around the corner to go back in. “I’ll fucking kill him!”

Harris stood in front of him pushing him back against a wall and then down to take a seat. He was now easily restrained by two marines, who both pushed their knees into his chest and looked as if they wished they hadn’t had to do this.

“Sit down, shut up, settle down. I’ll take care of it.” Harris declared as he turned around and marched into the locker room, his sidearm at his waist.

Miller was forced to sit there in his slowly simmering rage, shuddering breaths rocked him as he tried to calm himself. The unseen struggling mass of bodies carried out their deeds for several minutes.

“Get the door.” Someone within the locker room called out. 

At this point the whole unit was awake, several of them looking like they were prepared for an excursion. Delta seemingly nowhere in sight.

“If you’re not with forth squad, get the fuck out of the way!” Harris yelled as the procession dragged their prisoner away.

They left quickly, their heavy bootfalls barley hiding the groans and mumbled apologies of a creature they dragged through the hallways. The creature’s blood liberally coated the path, the last he wished he would have to see of that creature. It was over for Miller, his body only now began to realize…allowing himself to remember that Delta's night would never end.

“I'm sorry…”