Three days passed. Three days of not sleeping. Barely able to move during the day. Refusing to go to the med bay because by day two, Epoc was scared she’d be given something to help her sleep and that might make things even worse. That any single thing that was given to her would be the thing that erased her mind permanently and then the little voice in the back of her head wondering, wouldn’t that be nice? Never worrying again? Letting her Handler take care of her, now and forever. Treat? Sit. Treat? Sit. Bark. Treat? Kill. 

Devah, Aaliya, Diana and Hexacorallia took turns looking after her whenever they had time, even Winter when she could spare her attention, which was more and more divided. Mostly they had to keep Epoc from sleepwalking up to the top floor of the Nexus Alpha hangar bay. She went up there to look at her Frame, but the chances of her stepping off a catwalk in her current state was much too high. 

On the fourth day of hell, she was taken to the med bay by Levi Mercer. Epoc thought she was hallucinating at first and mewled in weak protest. In response, the woman just picked her up and carried her all the way in her arms like she didn’t weigh more than a housecat. She couldn’t even complain. Her eyes were heavy and stung, but she refused to close them. If she fell asleep, the worst could happen. There might be more dreams. On the plus side, Levi carrying her meant nobody had any quippy remarks. Nobody wanted to risk a glare from her.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Doctor Sheffield told Epoc as Levi deposited her on an examination table. “It’s taken some time talking to my colleagues to figure out what we could do and we have good news and bad news.”

“Wzfl,” Epoc said. The whole world was swimming. She was pretty sure the med bay wasn’t supposed to have little lights in it, but waving them away didn’t help. 

Doctor Sheffield turned to the corner behind Epoc, took off her glasses and cleaned them. “I’d prefer not to give you any medication, so this will be a little unpleasant. I apologize in advance.”

“Epoc. Speak,” Antimony said. Epoc shot upright. Her brain, on a collision course with unconsciousness for the past three days, suddenly went into overdrive and veered back onto the road. It was like being mentally splashed with water. There was a tiredness in her bones she knew she would have to make up for later, but right now, she was wide a-fucking-wake. 

She barked, and then spun around to look at her Handler. 

“Winter!”

“Epoc,” Antimony said, putting her hand on Epoc’s shoulder. “Breathe. Relax.”

“Yes, Handler,” Epoc said, and tried to calm down. Her mouth tasted awful. She had been force-fed some soup from time to time, but brushing her teeth hadn’t happened as often as it should have. Her eyes still stung, but at least she was awake. 

“So, while we have you,” the Doctor said. “Let’s go over it. Bad news first. We can’t cure you.” She sighed. “I’m sorry, there’s no way to sugarcoat this. Your brain damage is pretty extensive and we can’t undo the damage done by almost a decade of REM-accelerators. Uh, this is a small aside and not the good news I’m referring to, but with your permission I’d like to publish a paper on this that’ll likely revolutionize the way we look at sleep-enhancers.” She coughed when Winter shot her a glare. “A-hem. Anyway.”

“What’s the good news?” Epoc said. “I mean, how could there be any?” Exhaustion and anxiety crept back up her spine and made her scalp tingle. 

“We can mitigate the damage,” Sheffield said. “And give you a measure of control back?”

Epoc sat upright, intrigued. “How?”

“As it stands,” Sheffield said, “we’ve identified three markers to the way your brain interprets commands.” She stepped over to a whiteboard, because why not, if Epoc was apparently going to class it might as well be legitimate. “Anticipation. Gratification. Execution.” She wrote down all three. “You easily slip into a suggestive state, during which you anticipate commands. It’s a state of heightened arousal, and your brain looks for external stimuli to latch onto.”

Epoc was more than a little familiar with it. All it took was one command from her Handler, and she was putty in the woman’s hands. She had practically rolled over as soon as Winter had applied even the slightest bit of pressure. “Yeah,” she said, “that makes sense. So… why now? Why didn’t that manifest beforehand?”

“In my opinion, for two reasons,” Doctor Sheffield said. “The first is that your anticipatory state requires that stimuli come from a source you’re particularly receptive to. In this case, Antimony Winter, though I suppose other women you find attractive could likely bring you into a similar state.”

Thinking back to Diana’s punishment and how likely Epoc would have been to agree to pretty much anything the large woman would have said. “You’re saying it’s because my previous employers weren’t hot bossy women?”

“Yes,” the Doctor said matter of factly. “And no. There is another factor. It requires a degree of trust and a power imbalance. The Hound contract creates a unique relationship of power, and physical, emotional and sexual stimulation. And that does bring me to point two.” She tapped the board. “Gratification. It’s standard conditioning.” Sheffield held up her hands. “Stimulus. Response. You associate one with the other. Only, your brain instantly links those two when the stimulus comes from the source – in this case, Ms. Winter – and the response is sexual. Your suggestive state kicks into high gear and you are brought to an almost trance-like state of suggestibility.”

“That’s a little relieving, isn’t it?” Epoc said after a few seconds of thinking. “That means nobody else can just reprogram me.”

“Well, we’ve already seen that’s not true,” Sheffield said. 

“Oh, right.”

“It means that anyone who can accurately simulate Mrs. Winter’s voice can use anticipation and gratification to condition you into your Execution state.” Dr. Sheffield tapped the board again. “When you’ve been given a stimulus-response cycle, your brain ‘stores’ the appropriate execution to bring you from one to the other and fires it off at the slightest provocation. In other words, it takes next to no time to program you, and when the programming is in place, it takes only one word to bring it back out.”

“So what’s the good news, then?” Epoc demanded. “Because this sounds like I’m fucked!”

“Not necessarily,” the Doctor said. “We think we can shackle all three states.”

“What?”

“All three of these phases – anticipating your commands, execution of commands giving you pleasure, and the more ‘mindless’ final state – are ones we think we can isolate. It will take training, but when we get there, it would essentially allow us to set certain ‘keys’ for each phase.”

“What kind of keys?” Epoc asked and blinked a few times. Her vision swam a little, but she genuinely couldn’t tell if it was because she was getting emotional at the idea of the chance of getting her life back, or sleep was catching up to her. She rubbed her hands on her face. 

Doctor Sheffield put her hands behind her back. “Well, there’s a few things we’re thinking of. We originally considered a literal, physical switch, but considering you can’t even scratch your nose when you’re in the cockpit, we think text phrases would be best.”

“But wouldn’t anyone with those phrases then be able to activate them? Doesn’t that take us back to square one?”

“Not,” Winter said, putting her hand on Epoc’s shoulder, “if you’re the one to use the first key.”

“Call and response,” the Doctor said. “It’s probably the best way to go about this.” She nodded, took her glasses off. “Additionally, after deliberation with Ms. Winter, it’s my professional opinion that your Hound contract is null and void.”

“I… what? Excuse me?” Epoc said. That was… that wasn’t right. And that she felt like that wasn’t right was equally strange. Wasn’t there supposed to be a sense of relief? She had signed her life away, and she felt like she should have regretted that. But all she felt was fear. Trepidation. She was about to lose everything! Her handler! Nexus Alpha!

“Medically,” Doctor Sheffield said, “I think it’s fair to say that you were, even if unintentionally, coerced into signing the Hound contract.” She held up her hands when Epoc looked up at Winter with a look of panic. “I genuinely believe Ms. Winter did not act with malice. But you are uniquely… coercable.” 

“So… now what?”

“For now,” Winter said, “we’d like to offer you an alternative.” She sat down on the table next to Epoc. “We would like to keep you here. Help you set up the keys to your chains or shackles or whatever you want to call them. We work you through regaining a sense of autonomy. And then, once you’re the one in control, we’ll give you the option of signing again.”

“And in the meantime?”

“You’re free to stay here,” Winter said. “While legally we can’t force you to stay on the premises, we also would prefer not to send you out into the world. There’s a lot of proprietary information in your head and someone is out there gunning for Mako Group who knows about you. You’d be an honorary Hound, though I’m not sending you out in Nexus Alpha until we have a handle on your issues. If someone can broadcast my voice into your head, you could be a danger to yourself and your allies.”

“Don’t, don’t remind me,” Epoc said, remembering her dreams. “Do you think it’s possible?” she asked her Handler. “I don’t want to go.”

Antimony Winter stepped off the table and stood in front of her, taking her hands. “Epoc, do you think I am a liar?”

“I don’t.” Her eyes were heavy. 

“What did I tell you?”

“You’ve told me a lot of things, Handler,” Epoc said, slurring her words a little. Her mouth was starting to fail her. “I’m not sure what you’re, what you’re talking about.”

“I told you you’re my responsibility. Even without a contract to force me into it, you are in part in this position because of me.” She smirked and squeezed her Pilot’s hands. Epoc looked up with a little, tired smile. “And I’ll admit that there’s a little bit of selfishness in here. You’re a tremendous pilot. I… like you a lot, Epoc. So I will do what I can to ensure your safety, happiness and, contrary as that is to our initial contract, autonomy.”

“Thank you, Handler,” Epoc said. 

“Just Antimony,” Antimony said with a smile. “For now.”

“Okay. Antimony.” Epoc was fully drowsy now. The boost she’d received from Winter ‘activating’ her had worn off, and she was back into her near-catatonic state. Still, she kept her eyes open. She didn’t want to risk falling asleep. Not again. Not after last time. She swiped at Dr. Sheffield when the woman came up to her with an injector. “No drugs,” she mumbled. No touching her brain. It was already fucked.

“It’s a mild sedative,” she said. “I’ve been told about your… sleeping issues. I promise, this will not affect your brain in any major way. We spent almost a day ensuring your unique neural function wouldn’t react badly to it, and it won’t exacerbate anything either. And you won’t dream.”

“No dream?” Epoc looked up almost hopefully. 

Antimony ran a hand through Epoc’s hair as the doctor put the injector against the pilot’s arm. “No dream,” Winter said, and with a little hiss the sedative was administered. “Rest, Epoc. I’ll see you when you wake.” 

As it turned out, that was going to be quite some time. Epoc had sleep to catch up on. Her eyes drifted closed, and stayed that way for a day.

Elamimax

That was rough, but I promise, Epoc's been through the worst now. things will get better (for her) from here on out :)

And remember kiddos, if you wanna read all my other stuff right away, read it here!