Chapter 17 The Last Collar
The Last Collar
Horgox
There is an OOPS jumpsuit on the bed.
Orange and white. Official courier colours. Station supply adjusted it for my frame, which means it will fit across the shoulders and chest without splitting seams, though the leg length is an approximation at best. The fabric is durable, practical, designed for work rather than presentation.
But that's not what stops me in the doorway.
On the shoulder: a name patch. White embroidered letters against the orange fabric.
HORGOX KA'REEN
Not HX-347. Not a product designation, not a subject number, not a facility code. My name, stitched into clothing that someone prepared for me because I have a job and a partner and a place in a system that wants me here.
Krilly feels the moment land. She's in the kitchenette, making something that involves the beverage dispenser and a level of concentration usually reserved for bomb defusal, but her hands still and her attention sharpens.
She doesn't come over. Doesn't crowd the moment.
Just lets her warmth reach me while I stand in the doorway looking at my name on a uniform.
"Put it on," she says from across the room. "I want to see."
The fabric settles over my skin differently from anything I've worn before.
Not the rough utility of arena combat gear.
Not the clinical functionality of facility jumpsuits.
Not the borrowed station clothes that never quite fit.
This was made for me, adjusted for my body, and the OOPS insignia sits over my chest like something I've earned rather than something I've been assigned.
I catch my reflection in the viewport glass. Emerald skin, obsidian horns, circuit traceries visible at the collar. The claiming color threading through my markings in opalescent pulses. And the orange jumpsuit with my name on it, fitting like it belongs.
"You look official," Krilly says softly from behind me.
"I look like I belong."
She crosses to me. Reaches up to straighten the collar, which doesn't need straightening, but the gesture isn't about fabric. Her fingers brush the circuit traceries at my throat, and the touch resonates through the bond.
"You do belong." Her voice is steady. Certain. The voice she uses for things she's measured and verified. "With me. With OOPS. Here."
My hands settle on her waist. "The orange is for rookies."
"The orange is for beginners. Which you are." Her grin. "We'll earn darker colours together. That's the point."
Together. Beginning at the bottom. Earning what comes next through competence rather than violence. The concept settles into me with a weight that's warm rather than heavy.
"Bebo," I say. "How do I look?"
"You look like a courier who could bench-press the cargo he's delivering," Bebo responds from the core unit. "I have updated my visual recognition database. You are now flagged as 'Horgox Ka'reen, OOPS Security and Logistics Specialist' rather than 'unidentified Varkaani threat.'"
"That's an improvement."
"Significant improvement. My threat-assessment protocols have reduced your danger rating from 'extreme' to 'allied extreme.' The distinction is meaningful."
Krilly's laughter, bright and warm.
The station medical bay is quiet at midday. Radley, the med tech from our initial processing, looks up when we enter.
"Mr. Ka'reen. Courier Baxter." Her expression warms with recognition. "Right on time."
Mr. Ka'reen. The name still sends a jolt through me, and Krilly feels it, her thumb finding my pulse point in the gesture that has become our private language for I'm here.
"Mother Morrison forwarded the authorisation," Radley says, pulling up her datapad. "STI has approved tracker removal per the terms of your OOPS employment agreement. Standard procedure: magnetic locks disengage, minimal pressure, quick and clean."
Standard procedure. As if this is routine. As if every being who sits on this table has worn a lifetime of restraints and is about to feel the last one come off.
I sit on the exam table. Extend my leg. The motion is mechanical, the same compliance response I performed when the tracker was fitted, but Krilly catches the difference: my hands aren't fisted this time. My face isn't blank. I'm not dissociating into arena-stillness.
I'm present. Fully. The fear is there, but so is everything else.
Radley kneels to examine the tracker band. Professional, careful. "You might feel some pressure as the magnetic locks release."
"I am familiar with restraint removal."
The words come out harsher than I intend.
Old memories: arena handlers removing combat collars between bouts.
The relief that never lasted because removal meant the next fight was coming.
The facility band that replaced the arena collar.
The drones that replaced the facility band.
The STI tracker that replaced the drones.
Always something on my body that belonged to someone else's authority.
Radley pauses. Looks up. Meets my eyes directly, and her expression carries something that isn't professional detachment.
"This one's different," she says. "You're not escaping. You're being freed. Officially, legally, permanently." A beat. "Big difference, Mr. Ka'reen."
The color in my markings warms. She is correct.
"Activating release sequence."
A soft beep. Not the arena collar's aggressive warning tone, not the facility band's clinical chime. A soft, clean sound that means finished.
Magnetic hum. Pressure releasing. Weight lifting.
The tracker splits and falls away.
My ankle. Bare skin, pale where the band sat, a slight indentation from weeks of wear. No device. No monitoring hardware. No blinking indicator confirming that someone, somewhere, knows exactly where I am.
For the first time in decades, no one is tracking me.
The realisation doesn't arrive as relief.
It arrives as vertigo. The specific disorientation of a nervous system that has been monitored for so long that the absence of monitoring feels like freefall.
My body keeps waiting for the next restraint, the next collar, the next band, the next device that confirms I belong to someone else's system.
Nothing comes.
Krilly feels all of it. The vertigo, the freefall, the body searching for chains that aren't there.
She moves. Her hand touches my ankle, fingers tracing where the tracker sat, the faint indentation in the skin.
The same hands that removed my harness in a jungle cave.
The same hands that grabbed my horns at oh-three-forty-seven.
The same hands that have been reframing every piece of technology on my body from a chain into a choice.
"How does it feel?" she asks.
"Light." The word is inadequate. "Strange."
"Strange good?"
I flex my ankle. Test the range of motion. No weight, no drag, no slight pull of metal against skin. Just muscle and bone and the phantom sensation of something missing.
"Strange... free." My voice catches. "I have not been unmonitored since before the arenas. My body doesn't know what to do with the absence."
Her thumb traces a circle on my ankle bone. Her certainty flows into my uncertainty, not overriding it but sitting beside it. Companionship in the freefall.
"Your body will learn," she says. "The same way it learned the cafeteria and the clothing terminal and the gym. Freedom is a skill, and you're a fast learner."
"Krilly." Rough. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For kneeling." The words come out before I can examine them. "Every time something is put on me or taken off me, you kneel. The harness. The tracker fitting. Now this." My hand finds her hair. "You make yourself small so the moment feels safe."
Her surprise. She didn't realise she'd been doing it. The instinct to bring herself to my level when the technology changes, to make herself the thing that stays constant while the hardware shifts.
"I'm an engineer," she says, blinking. "I get on the floor for circuitry. It's habit."
"It is not habit. It is care. And I will remember it for the rest of our synchronised lifespan."
Her eyes are bright. She presses her lips to my ankle, right where the indentation sits, and the gesture is so tender that opalescent light floods my markings and my vision blurs for the first time since the hearing.
Radley clears her throat gently. "You're cleared, Mr. Ka'reen. For records: residence?"
I stand. Full height. Unmonitored. Uncollared. Free.
"Junction One. Room 314, residential block C. With Courier Krilly Baxter."
Radley logs it without ceremony. Routine data entry. But to me: everything. Official residence. My choice. My home.
"Congratulations on your freedom," Radley says. "Both of you."
In the corridor, I stop. Look down at my ankle, visible below the jumpsuit hem. No band. No tracker. No device of any kind.
"We should celebrate," Krilly says.
"I agree." The beginning of equilibrium. The vertigo fading as the absence becomes familiar. "But first, I believe you promised to attempt cooking."
"I promised no such thing."
"You mentioned wanting to try the kitchen equipment."
"I mentioned that the kitchen equipment looks like it might achieve sentience if we press the wrong button. That's not the same as promising to cook."
"I would like to witness the attempt."
Her eyes narrow. "Are you asking me to cook because you're hungry, or because you want to watch me fail?"
"Both."
The protein is on fire.
Not smoking. Not browning aggressively. Actively, visibly, unambiguously on fire, with small flames licking the surface of what was supposed to be a simple pan-seared portion.
"It's caramelising," Krilly says, waving a utensil at it.
"That is combustion."
"Caramelisation and combustion are on the same spectrum."
"They are not on the same spectrum. One is a cooking technique. The other is a safety hazard."
Her stubborn refusal to admit defeat mixed with the dawning realisation that she has set dinner on fire. The combination is absurdly endearing.