Free Episode One: Look Back in Anger by S.N. Graves Page B

Morris. Dogs chase their tails. They also dig holes and nose your crotch. I’m sure all of this was in the breed brochure you got before your purchase.” Sam clapped her hands and the animal fell on its butt. Tongue happily lolling from its parted jaws, the dog trotted over to shove its nose in her face, all waggly tail and slobbery maw. She chuckled as she lifted her head to keep the overly excited pup from licking her eyeballs. “The retriever model is especially known for these things.”
    “I didn’t pick the damn dog. It’s my boy’s; I just paid for it.” The man sneered and pushed his hand over his bald head, the few wisps of hair he had left sticking up willy-nilly in the wake of his swipe. “Can you imagine what the neighbors think? I see them laughing when they walk by.”
    She scratched at the dog’s ears and glanced around at all the perfectly landscaped yards and the redundant houses, each damn near identical save for the occasional pastel yard gnome or vividly painted front door—a ticky-tacky village with cute little cut-and-paste Stepford homes, courtesy of AnyTown USA. Why anyone would choose to live in one of the AnyTown projects was beyond her. If the dress codes and uniformity weren’t enough to be distasteful, the chemicals in the water more than did the trick. “They probably think he’s adorable.”
    “They think he’s cheap. They think I’m cheap!” The way the man roared, they probably thought he was a bit of an ass too.
    “Mr. Morris, there is little I can do. At best I can reset him to factory defaults, but that—”
    “Then do that . It’s what I’m paying you for.”
    “Sir, I can’t do that. You don’t want me to do that. It will kill him.”
    The man’s brows furrowed. “Then take him back and have him junked, for all I care. Just get me a working dog.”
    Sam sighed. Her head settled on the dog’s own. Why did people get pets if they saw the animals as nothing but lawn ornaments? It certainly made it easier to understand why most of the districts now required licensing and so much red tape. Living, breathing creatures were almost impossible to acquire because of people like Morris. “If I set him to factory default, he’ll lose everything that he is. He’ll be a completely different dog. It kills the dog you have now. Erases him. Wipes him clean. You don’t want that.”
    “Why the hell would I care if it’s a completely different dog? As long as it’s a dog that doesn’t run around in circles making my whole family look like idiots.”
    Sam snorted. Apparently, that was his job, and he was seriously protective of it. “Don’t you think your son would miss his dog?”
    “He can keep the damn dog! Just fix it.”
    “I really don’t feel comfortable with that, Mr. Morris. It’s just cruel and needless besides. He behaves like an authentic, and there is nothing cheap about that.”
    The man seethed. His teeth pressed together in a snarl, and he paced away to kick a defenseless concrete gnome before stomping back to wag his finger menacingly in her face. She had the bristling urge to bite it. “Listen, you fucking cow. I paid for the full service plan. I don’t give two flying shits what some pig parading her fat bags around for all to see feels comfortable with.”
    Sam’s face grew hot, her hand lifting to cinch her blazer closed to hide what little cleavage she knew was visible from her crouched position. She should have been used to the insults by now, to how colorful men got when being hateful. She wasn’t, and she knew herself well enough to know she probably never would be.
    She might as well have been the last fat girl in existence, so all the assholes in the world seemed to leap at the chance to fling their stored-up vitriol her way on sight. It was rare for anyone who wasn’t perfect to show themselves anymore. People like her, who had some medical condition or were simply too poor to afford a trip to a physician or a handful of pills to