Lt entered the garage to see that Delta was still diligently sitting where it had been verbally imprisoned. It had only ventured outside its cell if it needed something vital, though with the marines giving it their various protein and candy bars from their MRE’s, it didn’t need to venture too often. It thoroughly enjoyed the flavorful options to the thick, bland protein slurry the techs normally supplied it. You could’ve seen its tail wag, if it had one, whenever it would eat one of these tasty treats.

Giving Delta an ear scratch, before flopping on the couch next to it, LT began to talk. “So…how do you talk? I mean like inside the armor, your mouth was a bit preoccupied when I pulled you out.”

Delta suddenly remembered that its jaw actually felt quite comfortable at the moment. The time outside the pod and its life support systems were so pleasant that it had been easy to forget about it. It finally shrugged as it wasn’t sure how to explain how it and the other HOUNDS communicated.

“Have you ever talked?”

Delta had to think back, and unfortunately it was that same door it had tried to bar closed. It simply shrugged, its eyes downcast.

“Hey it’s alright, can’t remember that far back?”

Delta nodded quickly, hoping that he would move on from the current inquiry.

“How many years can you remember?”

The pilot sat there, as it tried to figure out exactly what he was trying to get at. Its concrete memory only went back a few months, though it had vague memories going back at least two dozen years. Finally it flashed two tens and then four fingers but after a few seconds repeated the action this time holding up three tens.

“Huh, so memories go back to when you were six? Now…you’re thirty?” LT put together, his shock at the revelation only earned him a worried pilot in front of him. Afterall it was already pushing the boundaries of age that the previous generations never made it to. “Oh no, don’t worry you just don’t look older than twenty.”

Delta allowed the compliment as it happily snuggled into the now happy marine, earning a few more pets of its hair. LT didn’t seem to mind having this companion.

“Oh geez, you seem to be doing better, what sort of fast healing drugs do they put in you.”

Delta simply continued to nuzzle into the marine as it didn’t exactly have a good way of explaining anything.

“Fuck I hate this…I wish there was a better way to be able to talk to you.” LT bemoaned as he smacked the back of his head against the wall with furrowed brows. “Oh I’m a fucking dumbass.” LT declared to the world after a few seconds.

Delta pulled back as the marine took out a small tablet from his admin pouch, displaying the device triumphantly to the pilot. Delta was now instantly interested in the marine well beyond his affection. It remembered when the other marines had shown each other various things before the mission. It had seemed inefficient to the pilot at the time, why would someone need a device to show them something when you just sent the mental image to someone within the HOUNDs network. 

After several presses with his fingers he held it out towards the now attentive pilot. Delta took the tablet and studied its screen. It could tell that it was some sort of blank document, but beyond that it had never seen the interface.

“You can read, right?”

LT earned the annoyed eye roll, before Delta returned its gaze to the tablet. Most of its interfacing was done by reading its mind, so it began to concentrate on spelling out what it wanted to say. It only grew irritated as nothing seemed to be happening.

Lt chuckled softly to himself as he leaned over to point at something. “Oh right, uhh see this button here?” 

LT apologized as he clicked a button that had several rows of tightly aligned squares, a few being a bit larger than the others. As he did, a larger version of the icon appeared, covering nearly half of the screen. Across each of the keys, the all too familiar alphabet their Handlers used appeared on each of the keys, though seemingly spread at random. Clicking each of the virtual buttons it began to type out its first words.

To its irritation it took it a lot longer to find the correct keys as it picked at each one.

Thank you. This inefficient, annoyed, takes too long.

LT smiled warmly as he read the displayed text. “Well I guess it's time for proper introductions. My name's Lieutenant Charlie Miller, though most just call me LT, or Miller.” He then held out his hand to the pilot.

Confused for a second, Delta decided to dip its headd down under his grasp and push against it, the now universal sign of allowed headpats.

Miller heartily laughed as he allowed this form of handshake. “N-now what’s your name.”

Without thought it simply typed. Hound 176-Delta.

“Seems a bit uptight, anything they call you besides that, anything you like to be called?”

This time it took it longer to think. It, Delta, good girl. After several seconds of further thought, it couldn’t come up with anything else and simply looked at Miller, happy as ever.

“It?” Miller’s voice was drenched with worry as he tried to process the pronoun. “Are you sure? Not a girl? Boy? Person?” He seemed to offer the three options he knew of.

Delta simply nodded once again writing, it, on its tablet.

“How do you treat an, it?” Miller questioned as he seemed interested in treating it like it wanted.

Delta simply grabbed Miller’s hand and gently placed it atop its head.

“You’re a treasure you know that right?” Miller chuckled as he conducted his fourth ritual at this point today. “You seem to be getting pretty good at typing, a bit of a natural learner.” He observed as its pace quickened.

Handler said training is equal to math and science masters degree, though different.

Miller whistled. “Damn, I guess if I didn’t need to do a presentation I would’ve gone that far.” He chuckled. “A bit much for someone…or something?” He corrected looking for Delta’s approval, to only earn a careless shrug. “Something that's going to be labeled as equipment.”

It trains it to be a sponge, gotta be adaptive.

“I guess that makes sense. Hey, maybe we could figure out a way of putting one of these in your armor, you know, allow you to talk in the field.” Miller relaxed against the couch before looking over to see Delta’s response.

Handler won’t like. Delta shook its head, distilled worry began to creep into its blood.

“Handler can shove it up their ass for all I care.” Miller huffed.

Handler rewards progress, also punishes.

Miller sat up as he started to realize it was a bit more serious. “Rewards are like?”

Reward like. Delta paused as it hadn’t really thought about how to describe the sense of relief, pleasure, and satisfaction it got after each kill. It had received drips of rewards during its previous mission, though never received its final reward before it passed out. Like headpat, but stronger, and here. It finished typing, to gently place its hand on its delicate chest.

“And punishments?” Miller seemed to instinctually ask, and he soon regretted doing so.

Delta’s hands began to shake as a wave of abandonment drowned its soul. Its ears began to ring as a frigid wind that no one else could feel struck it to the bone.

“Hey hey hey it's ok, I shouldn’t have asked, it’s going to be ok alright.” Miller tried to reassure it as he tightly embraced the shaking pilot. “We’re going to figure out how to turn that off ok? I don’t care what those corpos say.”

Delta began to sob softly as it barely managed to type out its response. It would be awhile till Miller ever saw that response, though as he loosened to see, he returned to hug it tenfold.

Best reward yet.

 

~~~

 

Once Miller seemed content that Delta had gotten enough affection, and had properly calmed down, he made his way over to vent out his frustration. Venting in his mind seemed to be taking the mech apart one panel at a time till he found the center of this pavlovian reward system.

Delta had remained curled up on the couch, resting quietly as it listened to the curses it threw towards its creators, to Delta's delight . The pilot seemed to enjoy its rest, though curiosity finally took hold of its mind as it hadn’t actually seen the insides of its mechanical body.

Stretching softly until the dulled pain of its wound finally kicked in, Delta sauntered over to Miller as he laid over the panels. Hovering behind him, Delta watched him murmur and trace the criss crossing cables and tubes that made up the nervous system of the mech. At this point it seemed that he had figured out there were a series of cylinders that fed into the pilot's suit.

Delta, for the life of it, couldn’t understand just why Miller seemed so determined to take out the system that directed its actions. It dreaded punishments, but it never crossed its mind that there was a life for it outside of the system, much like how it didn’t think anything aside from mech kills would give it pleasure. One could argue its conditioning was what made it not understand the severity of its treatment, but just telling it wasn’t going to convince the pilot.

As the hours racked up, Delta began to notice a natural talent Miller seemed to have, yet never boasted about. He was somehow able to find every sharp corner in the compact system. His knuckles were painted red by the time he finally found the Stalkholm system he had been searching for all morning. Pulling on the tube that supplied what he assumed was the reward half, his ability flourished once again as he battered his knuckles against the reinforced container. Along with the new bruises the tube decided to color his hands in the wonderfully mysterious liquid.

“There, one down, one to go. Don’t need no fucking corpo drugging us.” Miller began to mutter under his breath, as he began to wipe his skin of the chemicals.

It didn’t take long for Miller to get confirmation that he had pulled out the correct tube. Delta only realized as it found itself suddenly pinned to the ground. Miller breathlessly loomed over its neck, his lips willing to ravish the pilot’s neck. He stopped with enough self control to wait for permission from his prey. The restrained pilot inquisitively cocked its head as it didn’t know what to do with the suddenly carnal man. It thought for a moment it was dreaming, but the delicious pain of it being controlled so roughly had never felt so real in its dreams.

Delta’s heart continued to flutter the longer he held dominance over it. It was stunned with intoxication as whatever had blunted its pleasure centers seemed to have missed a few points. It was used to drowning in the overwhelming flow of artificial lust it received after each kill, but this was far different. Its body longed for this exotic pleasure but couldn’t seem to be able to express it.

After several lifespans Miller finally came to his senses. To Delta’s dismay, he pulled back with a shocked gasp. He couldn’t seem to look at the pilot, as the soft cough of someone else broke the silence. Miller scurried to his feet, curtly apologizing as he left the room. The interrupting party warmly smiled as he crouched down to help the stunned pilot up.

“Hey Delta, you doing alright? Wanna go hang out outside for a bit while they work on the mech?” One of the kind marines, Delta saw often, spoke kindly, as two marines stood in between it and the room Miller escaped to.

As Delta was being escorted out by the kind marine it could hear Miller call out from the other room.

“Staff Sergeant…wear some damn gloves and remove that other tube.” His voice gave away that he seemed to struggle with keeping what remained of his composure.