Epoc hated scans. Lying in the world’s loudest sarcophagus more likely to give someone a suntan than anything, and at the end she got to hear what kind of fucked she was. No thanks. But she couldn’t say no to Antimony. Legally. 

When the machine was finally done, she was slid out, like food out of a microwave. “Ding,” she said. “I’m done. Bon appetit.”

“I’m glad you’ve still got your sense of humor.” Doctor Sheffield stared at the screen with the kind of frown you really didn’t want your doctor to have when you came out of a scan. The kind of frown that meant you were about to go home with a few phone calls to make, probably to your parents. Which wasn’t fair to the doctor, because she’d had great bedside manner. “How are you feeling?”

“Anxious, doc,” Epoc said. “I feel like that’s appropriate. What have you got for me?”

“Uh,” she said, leaning back on the chair and spinning to face her. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. And bad news. And, uh, really bad news.”

Epoc blinked. Great. “Much as I want to know how many hours I have left to live and if I have time to use the bathroom, let’s start with the good news? Maybe?” She grimaced. This fucking sucked. Doctors sucked. No offense to Sheffield. She consciously knew they were the people that kept her alive but right now it was also the doctor who was going to rip whatever rug of blissful ignorance she’d been dancing on out from under her. 

“Well, the good news,” Dr. Sheffield said, “is that you don’t have to stop piloting.” She put a scan of Epoc’s head on one of those backlit panels they were presumably contractually obligated to have.

“That’s good!” Epoc said, perking up. It had been, like, her number one fear! Whatever else came after that, she’d have this. Hell, maybe she didn’t have much longer to live but she’d be able to live it as a Frame pilot! “So what’s the catch?”

“Well,” the doctor said, “it’s, uh, all you’re going to be doing.” She paused and looked at Epoc. “Ever. On  your own, anyway.”

“What, uh, does that mean?” 

“During your, hmm, stint, with REM accelerants, your brain adapted to an extremely rigorous and specific schedule of data processing. You programmed yourself into a machine that eats, sleeps, fucks, pilots, shoots, and obeys commands. Have you tried studying anything after that? Learn any languages, play an instrument?”

“Y-yeah,” Epoc said. “I tried learning the guitar for a bit. I was shit at it for the most part. My ex taught me some bars though. I could probably play you Wonderw–”

“No need,” Dr. Sheffield said with a smirk. “That’s the, uh, second bad news. It’s kind of, um, folded into the first one. Hmm. Like one of those combined pretzels. Um. I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about.” Epoc shook her head. “Okay, so, basically, you can’t learn anything on your own. If you go out into the world, you wouldn’t be able to hold a job unless someone is very stern with you. As stern, in fact, as you were. Unless someone is very stern with you.” She tapped on a file next to her. “According to Ms. Winter – don’t worry, this is all confidential – you’re extremely susceptible to suggestion. If someone engages with you through one of your, hm, chosen fields, shall we say, they can program new commands into you.”

“So…”

“You wouldn’t be able to pilot a Mako Group Frame if it wasn’t for the Hound program. Or any Frame you didn’t explicitly train for at the Academy. The connection between Handler and Pilot is what allows you to learn how to interact with new systems. Without a Handler in your ear, you would be mostly helpless.”

“That’s… but that can’t… how did I never…”

“Take a breath, Epoc. Can I call you Epoc?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said. 

“Epoc, this is a lot to take in. I understand that. But you can still have a very full life. I’m going to recommend a strong regimen of vitamins and I’ll confer with some colleagues within the company and see if we can do something to reduce the severity of your condition. In the meantime, I strongly recommend against contacting anyone outside of Mako Group, and not talking to anyone you don’t implicitly trust with your life. Which brings me to my final point.”

“The really bad news.”

“Yes. Nobody wanted to say anything until we were sure. There was the possibility that you were a mole of some kind. We didn’t want to risk it. It’s… It’s perhaps better if I show you. I imagine it could be hard to believe.” Doctor Sheffield stood up and walked over to a small glass isolation chamber and stepped inside. She held up a small com in her hand and closed the door. Her voice now came out of a small speaker outside of it. With a regretful look, the doctor pressed a button on the com. 

Winter’s voice came out of the speaker. 

“Kill.”

Why was the doctor doing this to her? This was unfair! Not only that, but all of this was ridiculous! She was being accused of something she hadn’t done and now this person was trying to tell her that she might have been a mole and he was trying to take her life away from her! She snatched a scalpel off the table. Without the Doctor, there was nothing stopping her from piloting Nexus Alpha again. Sheffield was in her way. And Winter had said it was okay. She’d ordered her! If she did this, she’d get a reward! She’d get a treat! She’d be a good–

“Stand down, Hound.”

Epoc caught her breath. She was panting like a dog, kneeling in front of the glass containment chamber. It was covered in scratches. Small holes. The whole room had been destroyed, and all of it with the intent of breaking through the glass barrier and killing Sheffield. Several scalpels stuck out of it. Her knuckles were bloody. She didn’t remember hitting it. 

Doctor Sheffield stepped back out. “Would you like to see the footage?”

“No,” Epoc said. “Thank you.” She curled up. “What the fuck do I do?”

“Well,” the doctor said, taking her hands and, after rummaging around for a second, disinfecting them, “we’re going to see what we can do to undo the worst of the damage. In the meantime, it is my professional medical opinion that you go out on sorties but that, this time, we don’t leave you out there for another Frame to pick you up.” She dabbed Epoc’s knuckles. “We think that, after your fight with Gecko, you were briefly intercepted by a hostile agent who imprinted certain key phrases to you. Then, at some point during your mission yesterday you were ‘activated,’ and relayed information back to them. We don’t know what information you shared, but whatever it was, you told them about your activation phrase. That’s our theory at least. And now anyone with Ms. Winter’s voice can repeat those phrases to induce some kind of trance. So far, it’s likely just the phrases ‘kill,’ ‘speak’ and ‘kneel.’”

She held up the folder again. “While that doesn’t seem like much, that does seem to cover about half of your utility as a pilot, if we include ‘speak’ to mean ‘tell us trade secrets’ then you could be heavily compromised.”

“Question,” Epoc asked. “This feels like more than just medical advice. How are you involved in this?” She frowned. 

“Oh,” Sheffield said, rolling her eyes. “Figures Ms. Winter didn’t tell you. I developed the Hound program in its current state. I wrote half the contract you signed. And as for the theories of what happened to you.” She rapped her knuckles on the file. “I used to be in military intelligence. Quite frankly, it’s what I would have done.”

“So what now?”

“Now,” the doctor said, “you’re seeing me daily. Then, once I have – proverbially – cracked open your head so we can figure out what you told our competitors, once a week.” She stood up. “You are valuable property, Epoc Mako. You might be the world’s most specialized pilot. You conditioned yourself into a human weapon whose emotions, morality and loyalty can be turned off, and it only takes a little conditioning. Speaking of which.” She wrote something on a piece of paper. “Please hand this to Ms. Winter. It’s best we don’t communicate about this over coms for now. For safety.”

“What is it?”

“It’s the go-ahead for specialized conditioning.”

“What?!” Epoc said. “Why?! Didn’t we just agree that the conditioning was the problem?”

“Epoc,” Doctor Sheffield said. “If someone can activate you with a key phrase, we had better make that key phrase more complex. The more locks we put on your mind, the more secure it is. And you aren’t capable of putting those locks in there yourself. Not anymore.” She gave a little smile. “I’m really sorry this is happening to you, but it’s not the end of the world. Like I said, you’ll still live a full life. It’ll just be a little… different than that of most people.”

“No shit,” Epoc said.

“Would you mind if we tried something?” the doctor asked. “I can’t imagine how the suggestion feels to you, though going by your immediate physical response, you may not mind much.”

With a deep sigh, Epoc closed her eyes. “Go ahead. But don’t do the kill thing again.”

“Don’t worry,” Sheffield said. “Not that.”

She raised the com again. Winter’s voice came out of it. “Speak,” it said. 

Epoc barked, happily. That the happiness sat in her chest even after the words had been spoken made her feel dirty. That might not even have been Winter’s real voice, just a simulated one. 

“Speak.”

Bark. 

“Speak. Tell me about your Frame.”

Epoc barked and then kept barking. She barked numbers and specs of the Frame she’d piloted. She couldn’t stop herself. The words came out like a waterfall until the artificial Antimony told her to stop. 

“Are you okay?” Sheffield said. “Ready for one more?”

This was foul. But it was the best way to get to the bottom of all of this. Yeah. 

“Speak.”

One more bark. She even sat upright, horny for her Handler’s approval. 

“Speak. Did you contact someone outside of Mako Group?”

“No.”

“Speak. Did someone outside of Mako Group contact you?”

“Yes.”

“Speak. Did you divulge any proprietary information to this group?”

“Yes.”

“Speak. What did you tell them?”

“Yes.”

“Speak. What was the question?”

“Is the Hound program still in effect?”

“Speak. Did you tell them anything else?”

“No.”

“Speak. Who contacted you?”

“Eat my shit and hair, Mako Group. I’m going to fucking kill every last one of you if it’s the last thing I fucking do on this shit fuck forsaken planet.”

If Epoc was biologically capable of looking at her own mouth in abject terror and confusion, she would be doing so. As it stood, she was going to have to settle for the tip of her nose.

“Did you hear that?” Winter’s voice asked. Wait, it hadn’t been a modulator? Why hadn’t she been in the room? But that meant Epoc had done well! That meant she’d been doing as her Handler said! She smiled a little to herself. Because it had also meant she hadn’t divulged Mako Group secrets. Maybe they hadn’t known how susceptible she’d be to questioning.

“Antimony?” she said. “I didn’t think it was you!”

“It wasn’t, for most of it,” Antimony said. “We had to make sure. Thank you, Epoc.”

“I heard it, Ma’am,” Sheffield said. “That’s good news, at least.”

“Yes. It means our secret is safe.”

“Um,” Epoc said, “would anyone mind filling me in? I have no idea what’s going on.”

“I’ll tell you everything later,” Winter said. “For now, suffice it to say that we have a stray dog to catch. One that is all bite and not very bark at all. Whether that’s to our advantage or detriment remains to be seen. For now… Epoc, return to your quarters.”

Doctor Sheffield handed Epoc the com and returned to her desk. “Handler?” Epoc said as she left the med bay. “Were you listening the whole time?”

“Yes,” Winter said. “Of course I was. It confirmed a few suspicions and allayed some fears I had.” There was something in her voice. Something strained. Tears?

“Are you okay?” Epoc asked.

“Relieved. This could have gone a lot worse. You’re compromised but… everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

“Thank you, Handler.”

“Epoc?”

“Yes?”

“Welcome home.”

“Thanks, Antimony.”