Cry Havoc Chapter 10 - Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

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When I woke up, consciousness slammed back into me like a railgun round. I was in complete darkness. I had no visual feed, no tactical display, nothing. I tried to move, and I couldn’t… My wrists wouldn’t separate. I was bound, helpless, and they had taken me out of Kerberos, ripping me from my body and imprisoning me in my flesh once again. I flexed against the cuffs, testing their strength. No give, but no unyielding metal that could be brittle, either… military-grade fabric, probably.

I was, as my Handler had intended, a captive of the Children of Elysium.

I hated it.

I rolled my shoulders, feeling the familiar weight and pressure of my bodysuit—they hadn't stripped me. My visor was still over my face, but they had disabled it, probably taking away its power source. Without it, I was effectively blind. By the familiar pressure against my ear canals I could tell my earpieces were still in place beneath the hood, but when I tried to activate my communications system, I got nothing but dead silence. I felt a vibration on the floor beneath me, probably a generator… but nothing else. The constant stream of tactical data, environmental readings, and mission parameters that normally filled my consciousness had gone silent, leaving me stranded in my own head.

I tried to steady my breathing, tried to fight the rising tide of panic. This was just another mission parameter. Expected. Manageable. But… but… god damnit, it was hard to think with nothing but darkness pressing in from all sides, nothing to do, no actions to take, and nothing but my memories since waking up to keep me company. Most of them outside of Kerberos had not been pleasant… and now my body had been taken by the enemy, and I couldn’t be sure if I would ever be inside her again.

"You will allow yourself to lose."

With no input from the rest of the world, there was nothing for me but to have his words echo in my head over and over again, sending familiar ripples of discomfort down my spine. That order had violated every instinct in my augmented body, had gone against every fiber of both conditioning and my own will.

But I obeyed. I always obeyed.

Fuck Cernunnos. Fuck his orders. Fuck being told to roll over like a bitch in heat before opponents I could have ripped apart. If I'd been allowed to fight properly, I could have crushed them both. They weren't even in Archangel's league. I clenched my teeth, rage building in my chest. If it had been Archangel who'd captured me, I could have at least respected that. She was a worthy opponent, by her legend and reputation… But these two? They had been average pilots. And instead of fighting, I meekly rolled over like a bitch, letting my beautiful Kerberos fall limp while I played dead inside. All so these resistance fuckers could "capture" me and bring me to their precious Haven's Deep. All according to plan.

I hated it I hated it I hated it I hated it…

My chest tightened, a pressure building against my ribcage that had nothing to do with physical restraints. The darkness pressed in, bringing with it memories of another darkness—the isolation tank I had woken up in after my conditioning. The place where Hound-91 was born and whatever came before was erased. My breathing quickened, and to my own surprise I found myself fighting back what felt like a panic attack. I forced myself to regulate my breath, counting the seconds between inhale and exhale. Four in. Four hold. Four out. Four hold. Repeat. Panic was irrational. Weapons did not panic. Weapons didn’t feel anything at all.

Keep calm. Tactical assessment, I told myself. Focus on what you know.

I was in Haven’s Deep. I had been captured after the cave-in. My systems were disabled. My hands were bound. I was alone, and…

Something touched my arm.

I flinched, jerking away from the contact. I hadn’t been caught by surprise like that in my memory, but with the hood completely covering my ears and my ear implants disabled, I couldn’t hear shit, and the vibrations of a generator beneath the floor must have muffled the feeling of footsteps. I tried to squirm away from the touch, but another hand landed on my shoulder, then my neck. Multiple hands now, holding me down as something cold even through the fabric of my suit pressed against my chest, my abdomen, my temples. Monitoring equipment. They were attaching sensors to track my vitals.

I thrashed against the restraints, blind rage replacing tactical thinking. "Get your fucking hands off me!" No response. Either they were ignoring me, or I couldn’t hear them even when they were talking right to me. I felt violated as the unseen hands kept moving across my body, attaching more sensors. I couldn't hear them, couldn't see them, could only feel their touch against my skin through the thin material of my bodysuit. Each contact sent a fresh wave of helpless fury through me. I was Hound-91, elite pilot, Ka Corporation's finest weapon. Not some helpless toy to be poked and prodded.

Something pressed against my face—hard plastic forcing itself between my lips. A respirator mask. I tried to turn away, but the hands held me firmly, forcing the apparatus over my mouth and securing it with straps that dug into the material of my hood. My ability to speak vanished entirely, reduced to muffled grunts that no one could hear. The mask sealed tight, allowing me to breathe but nothing more. No biting. No spitting. No screaming obscenities at my captors.

Complete control taken from me, just like when Cernunnos...

No. Don't think about that.

The hands lifted me suddenly, multiple people carrying my bound form. I tensed, anticipating what was coming next. For a moment, I hung suspended in their grasp. Then the hands released me, and I plunged downward.

Lukewarm liquid engulfed me, soaking through my bodysuit in an instant. I sank beneath the surface of what felt like thick, viscous water. As the liquid closed over my head, the last hints of sensation vanished as I floated, weightless. The sensation was more than a little familiar… In a way, it was like being suspended in Kerberos's cockpit, where shock-absorbing fluid cushioned my body against the brutal g-forces of combat maneuvers. That was where the similarity ended however. In my body, I was connected, plugged into a constant feed of sensory data and tactical information. Here, I was adrift in absolute nothingness.

The respirator cycled air into my lungs at a regulated pace. The fluid surrounding me was temperature-neutral, neither warm nor cool against my skin. The darkness behind my disabled visor was complete. Without my audio feed, I couldn't even hear the sound of my own breathing. Just silence. Absolute silence.

Within moments, time lost meaning. I tried to keep track, but with no external stimuli to track the passing of seconds, my mind stretched and contracted around empty space. This sensory deprivation was complete. I knew what I had to do… Establish an internal rhythm. Count. Create structure where none existed.

One. Two. Three.

Four. Five. Six.

…

21828. 21829. 218… 30?

After hours, even my enhanced brain started to lose track. The moment my attention drifted, it was hard to remember what number I had been at. Somewhere over six hours, at least. Had I been floating for days? Weeks?

What brought me out of the sullen, listless daze was when I started to feel a strange tingling sensation spread across my skin, starting at the exposed areas—my mouth around the respirator, the hole cut for my cunt—and spreading inward, creeping along my skin inside of the suit. I recognized it immediately and panic surged through my system.

Styx.

The tank was being fed with pumps… and they had started pumping in water laced with Styx bacteria.

A raw spike of panic screamed through me like someone had hooked up an electrode directly to my amygdala, and as far as I knew, maybe they had. I didn’t even know what I was panicking about, but I remembered this sensation… trapped with Styx, the extremely powerful and deadly bacteria infecting me, overwriting my genetics in an uncontrolled sequence. When had I felt that? It wouldn’t have been when I was conditioned… As a fifth-gen augmented human, Styx would have been used in my augmentation process to make the targeted genetic and neural changes, but it wouldn’t have been an uncontrolled flood ravaging my entire body, and that was what I remembered. I didn’t know where the sense-memory came from, but it flooded back at me now, and I was suddenly thrashing in the tank, kicking violently against the curved edges of the glass that contained me. I knew my augmented nerves were fine-tuned, but even they couldn’t actually feel each of the millions of microscopic organisms pressing against every pore, seeking entry, looking for ways to infiltrate my system. It didn’t matter… I was certain I could feel each of them anyway.

Styx was the true treasure of Elysium, the reason the planet was so valuable. Its discovery had led to truly unprecedented capabilities in generic manipulation, medical treatments, and life extension. Properly controlled, it was capable of making changes so fine that it beggared the imagination. Left unchecked, it could reduce a healthy human to a mutated pile of goo in just a few days.

I tried to count. I tried to stay calm. One. Two. Thr—

The memory hit me like a physical blow.

Cockpit breach. Red warning lights. The suspension fluid contaminated, turning cloudy as Styx bacteria multiplied exponentially within the enclosed space. My screams as they found the interfaces where my nervous system connected directly to Kerberos, using those pathways to enter my body.

The agony as they spread through my bloodstream, burning me up inside. They hadn’t been controlled…No one had been rewriting me that time. The bacteria had been trying to feed and grow wild, consuming me alive. My skin burned from the inside as muscle and bones alike were feasted on, and the memory was so vivid, so all consuming, that I continued to thrash wildly.

My name. Over the radio, someone was yelling at me… telling me to eject. They were calling my name. It was—

The memory fractured, breaking apart before I could grasp it. I tried to hold onto the fragments, to piece them together, but they slipped away like water through spread fingers.

The counting wasn't working. I was panicking.

A sound cut through the silence—a soft click in my ear, followed by a quick burst of static before it was replaced with a nearly subharmonic hum. My audio feed had been restored, my ear implants reactivated. The change and my curiosity anchored me, gave me something to fixate on in the endless void, and I clung to it like a dying sailor clings to flotsam. Was I receiving orders?

"Cernunnos?" The word was sloppy… The respirator muffled most of the sound, making it hard to speak.

Another soft burst of static, then it was clear, and a woman’s voice was in my ear. "Can you hear me?"

I had never heard the voice before, had I? It was familiar.

"My name is Dr. Victoria Rathe," the voice continued, coming directly into my ears. "You're currently in a medical facility within Haven’s Deep. We've placed you in a specialized isolation tank containing a controlled solution of Styx bacteria." Her youthful voice was measured, calm, like she was explaining a routine procedure to a nervous patient rather than a prisoner of war.

I had read all of the briefing files on the rebellion that Cernunnos had given me. Dr Victoria Rathe, the leader of the Children of Elysium. One of the xenobiologists who had been sent to study the world’s unique biology by the Ka Corporation years ago, and who had rebelled after the discovery of the Styx bacteria. The creator of generation four and five human augmentation.

The woman who had successfully deprogrammed Hound-39, turning Viper back against her masters.

I was in her grasp… and she thought she could do the same to me.

I remained silent, partly because of the respirator filling my mouth, partly because there was nothing to say. My mission parameters were clear: infiltrate Haven’s Deep, gain access to their security systems, disable their defenses from within. Victoria Rathe was an obstacle to be overcome, not an ally or someone to discuss things with.

"I know you can hear me," she said after a moment. "Your neural activity indicates conscious awareness. I’m certain that your conditioning prevents you from responding, but I want you to know that I’m not your enemy. We're trying to help you."

She was wrong about that… She was my enemy. Help me? The concept was so absurd I would have laughed if I could. I didn't need help.

"Somewhere in there, you have memories of who you used to be, before Ka Corporation turned you into Hound-91," Victoria continued. "You had a name, a life, a family. They can’t be removed without causing permanent brain damage… Only your mental routing has been changed to avoid them. I should be able to restore those memories, undo the conditioning they've forced upon you."

Something stirred in the depths of my mind at her words—a fleeting sensation like fingers brushing against a scar. My pre-designation identity. The person I was before becoming Hound-91. A forbidden line of thought that my conditioning immediately tried to suppress.

"We’re going to be giving you a treatment of Styx bacteria," Victoria explained. "They can break down the artificial connections without damaging your original personality structure. Stay with me, and try not to struggle or worry… I’ve done this successfully before."

She sure had.

"This process will be uncomfortable," Victoria warned. "Your conditioning will fight back. But I promise you, there's freedom on the other side."

Freedom. The word triggered conflicting responses in my system. My programming identified it as a threat concept, associated with rebellion and disloyalty. But beneath the conditioning, something responded to it—a flicker of yearning so deeply buried I could barely recognize it as my own.

I imagined I could feel the first waves of the specialized Styx bacteria inside me targeting the neural pathways they wanted it to go after. Almost like an RNA molecule, the bacteria had been modified to only be able to interact with the specific points it was to connect to. Then it would inject its payload, whatever genetic or chemical compound it had been fed prior. Doubtless something that was supposed to break down a specific neural pathway or create a new one, trying to unravel the complex web of programming that made me Hound-91.

It felt like fingers probing inside my skull. Like my brain was being raped.

Just as Cernunnos invaded my body whenever he pleased, these rebels thought they could invade my mind. Force their way in. Rewrite me to suit their purposes. Different masters, same violation.

I knew I couldn’t actually feel the bacteria at work, but what I could feel was my biology’s reaction to it. The Ka Corporation geneticists had not been idle… My augmentations fought back, flooding my system with endorphins that reinforced my loyalty programming. Pleasure as a reward for resistance. Pain as punishment for wavering. "Your vital signs show distress," Victoria noted, her voice still maddeningly calm. "That's normal. Your body is fighting what it perceives as an attack. Try to relax and let the bacteria do their work."

Relax? While she tried to mind-fuck me into some kind of obedient doll for her? Fuck her. Fuck her and her rebellion of scum. I was Hound-91, the finest pilot in the galaxy. I was a weapon. I wouldn't break. I couldn't break.

"I can see the bacteria finding purchase," Victoria said, excitement creeping into her voice. "We’re going to get you out of there, hon. You're doing well."

I wasn't doing anything, bitch. My conditioning was fighting her bacterial invasion with everything it had. Every time the Styx organisms managed to break through one layer of programming, another reinforced itself, adapting to the attack.

The pain intensified, spreading from my head down my spine as the bacteria followed the neural interfaces that connected to my augmentations. My body convulsed in the suspension fluid, thrashing against restraints I still couldn't feel.

"Stay with me," Victoria urged. "I know it hurts, but the pain is temporary. Your true self is still in there, fighting to get out."

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up! This was who I was. I was Hound-91. I was a pilot.

But as the bacteria continued their assault, something shifted. A crack appeared in my conditioning—tiny, almost imperceptible, but there. And through that crack, a memory leaked through. Sunlight on water. The feeling of wind against my face—my real face, not covered by a visor. A name called from somewhere behind me. My name. The shores of a lake, water lapping gently against my bare feet. The sun, warm on my skin. The breeze carrying the scent of… Elysium wildlife. Flowers. I wasn’t wearing a uniform, or a bodysuit, but… shorts, and a shirt. I turned as someone approached—

The memory shattered as my conditioning slammed back into place, the security protocols doubling down to seal the breach. Pain exploded behind my eyes, so intense I would have screamed if not for the respirator.

"There’s a connection!" Victoria exclaimed. "That’s a pathway to focus on. We're making progress. Stay with that memory. Try to hold onto it."

I couldn't hold onto what wasn't mine.

The tank around me seemed to dissolve, the sensory deprivation giving way to vivid hallucination as the bacteria and my conditioning waged war inside my brain. Colors swirled in the darkness—impossible colors that shouldn't exist in the lightless tank. Sounds broke through the silence—whispers, screams, fragments of conversations I'd never had. "What's your name?" Victoria's voice asked, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once, echoing inside my skull. "Not your designation. Your name."

I didn't know. I didn't want to know. Knowing would be betrayal. Knowing would be failure.

The hallucinations intensified, reality fragmenting around me as the bacteria pushed deeper into my system. Victoria's voice faded into the chaotic swirl of sensory input, and I lost my tenuous grip on the present, falling backward into fractured memories that might or might not be my own.

I was falling, drowning, dissolving into the past. Not just one past, but many—fragments of a life I wasn't supposed to remember scattered like shards of a shattered mirror, each of them reflecting a tiny and disjointed picture of what might have been true.

Sunlight streaming through tall windows. A training facility. My hands wrapped around the controls of a simulator. Pride swelling in my chest as the instructor's voice announced, "Perfect score. Again."

The memory shifted, warped.

Standing at attention in a line of recruits. All of us volunteers for the Fenrir program. The best pilots…

Another shift, more violent this time.

The interior of a Fenrir cockpit. Was it Kerberos? I felt the suspension fluid warm around my body, the neural interface humming as it synchronized with my nervous system. The rush of power as the mech responded to my thoughts, moving as if it were my own body. The exhilaration of flight, of combat, of victory. That was what I was made for.

The memory fractured, splintering into darkness before reforming.

A red warning light flashing. Containment breach. Styx bacteria flooding into my cockpit through a hairline crack in the hull. "Mayday! Mayday!" My voice, panicked. "Containment breach in sector seven!"

I screamed as the organisms penetrated my skin, my bloodstream, my nervous system.

The memory shifted again.

A laboratory. Sterile white walls. My body strapped to an examination table, tubes and wires connecting me to machines I didn't recognize. Scientists in Ka Corporation uniforms monitoring readouts, discussing my condition as if I were a particularly interesting specimen rather than a human being. An asset. Not a person. An asset.

Pain exploded through my skull as they began the process of unmaking me. Needles inserted directly into my brain, pumping specialized Styx variants that targeted specific neural pathways. Some dissolved, others reinforced. Memories erased, loyalty protocols installed.

Pain, white-hot, searing through every nerve.

"You are Hound-91."

"I am Hound-91," I repeated, and the pain stopped, replaced by a wave of pleasure so intense it bordered on sexual.

"You serve the Ka Corporation."

"I serve the Ka Corporation." More pleasure, stronger this time.

"You will obey your handler Cernunnos, and the corporation’s will."

"I will obey Cernunnos, and the corporation’s will." The pleasure peaked, my back arching off the table as my body responded to the programming taking hold.

The memory dissolved, reforming into something darker.

Cernunnos, standing over me, his face impassive as he inspected his new asset.

"Good dog," he murmured.

The memory shattered, fragments spinning away into darkness as my conditioning reasserted itself, fighting back against the Styx bacteria's intrusion. Pain lanced through my skull, my spine, every nerve ending as security protocols engaged, burning away the foreign organisms that threatened my programming.

I gasped around the respirator as reality snapped back into focus—the sensory deprivation tank, the weightless floating, Victoria Rathe's voice in my ear.

"—strong resistance," she was saying, her voice tense with frustration. "The bacteria are being neutralized faster than they can dissolve the pathways. They've built redundancies we didn't anticipate."

"Increase the bacterial concentration," Victoria ordered someone I couldn't see. "And add the secondary strain. We need to hit the loyalty protocols harder."

I felt a subtle change in the fluid surrounding me as they adjusted the mixture. The tingling sensation across my skin intensified as a new wave of Styx bacteria sought entry.

But my conditioning held firm. Layer upon layer of programming, redundancies built on redundancies. I was Ka Corporation property, and all the bacteria in the world couldn't change that fundamental truth.

I almost pitied Victoria Rathe. She had no idea what she was up against.

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Hours passed. I drifted in and out of consciousness as they sedated me again and again, time losing all meaning in the sensory deprivation tank. The Styx bacteria continued their assault on my conditioning, wave after wave breaking against the fortified walls of my programming. Each attack triggered fresh hallucinations, memories surfacing only to be dragged back down into darkness by security protocols. My body ached from the constant battle being waged inside my nervous system, but my conditioning held firm.

"—eighteen hours with no significant progress." Victoria's voice cut through my semiconscious state, frustration evident in her tone. She must not have realized the intercom was still on… She wasn’t talking to me. "The conditioning is adapting faster than our bacteria can break it down."

"It's like they knew we'd try this approach," a male voice responded. "Like they specifically designed her to resist deprogramming."

"They did." Victoria's voice was grim. "After we succeeded in freeing Lucia, the corporation must have completely redesigned their conditioning protocols. They learn from their failures."

Eighteen hours. With what I’d counted before… I’d been in this tank for a full 24 hours while they tried to break me. A tiny flash of pride swelled in my chest at the knowledge that I'd resisted successfully.

"What about the memory fragments?" another voice asked. Female, younger. "She showed response to a few of those memories."

"Surface-level only," Victoria dismissed. "We're not reaching the core identity. I can make some progress there, but it doesn’t threaten the main memory blocks or her loyalty conditioning.

A bitter satisfaction spread through me. Of course my conditioning was holding. Ka Corporation didn't make the same mistake twice. They'd studied Hound-39's defection carefully, identified every vulnerability in the old programming, and eliminated those weaknesses when they rebuilt me.

And yet...

Buried beneath layers of conditioning and loyalty protocols, something in me stirred, a flicker of disappointment so faint I could barely recognize it as my own. The fragments of memory I'd experienced had felt real, had felt like they belonged to me. The woman I'd glimpsed in those broken shards had been strong, skilled, free. But that woman was gone. Erased.

I was Hound-91.

"We need to try another approach," Victoria said. "The Styx bath isn't working.” She sighed. “I hoped to avoid a second experimental treatment… but I don’t see another option. Get her out of the tank and prep her for a physical examination. I am going to need to get at those neural interfaces directly."

"Yes, Doctor," a voice responded.

I heard movement around the tank, the sounds of equipment being activated, and the Styx-laced liquid began to drain. They were taking me out of the tank, which meant direct physical contact. I let my body go completely limp as gloved hands gripped my shoulders and began lifting me from what little was left of the suspension fluid. The respirator was removed from my mouth, leaving a dull ache in my jaw muscles. Cool air hit my wet skin as they raised me fully out of the tank, liquid streaming from my bodysuit back into the reservoir below.

Though heart didn’t start racing, I still began to warm as my augmented body turned its metabolism up, processing the drugs in my system far faster than a normal human would.

"Pulse and respiration steady," Victoria reported. "She’s exhausted."

“Be careful with her,” another voice said. “She’s still dangerous.”

“Don’t hurt her!” Victoria protested as one of them pulled on my bound arms sideways. “Be careful!”

Idiots.

They pulled me across the room and laid me on a gurney, my arms still bound behind my back while I remained blinded as ever. "The neural connections at her temples are our best access point," Victoria said, approaching the gurney. "But we'll need to remove that visor to get to them."

One of the technicians rested a hand on me… I could tell where he was by his hand. "Is that safe? I thought the visor was fused to her neural interfaces."

"It's connected, not fused," Victoria corrected. "An integration system like this still needs to be subjected to field maintenance. There's a release mechanism."

Her hands moved toward my face, fingertips searching for the hidden catches that secured my visor. I felt her touch against the sides of my head, pressing specific points that would disengage the locking mechanisms. Her fingers were so gentle…

Victoria found the release catches, and I felt the visor disengage from my neural interfaces. A series of soft clicks as the connections separated, followed by a hiss of escaping pressure as the seal around my face broke. Then my face would be exposed to open air, my eyes able to see directly rather than through digital interfaces for the first time in…

Well, ever as far as I could remember.

"Careful with her," Victoria murmured as she slowly lifted the visor away.

I felt the weight of the metal lifting from my face, cool air rushing against skin that hadn't felt direct contact in months, perhaps years. Light pierced my closed eyelids, bright and unfiltered by my visor's automatic adjustments. I opened my eyes, able to see for the first time since my capture, and I looked at the odd device the doctor was holding. It was a small, bubbling tank with tubes leading to it, connected to a control tablet. She connected those hoses into the same ports that the visor had just vacated, and my head started to feel funny as liquid raced up to the tubes and into me, but it didn’t hurt.

The technician nearest to me was a male in his early thirties in a lab coat, approximately seventy kilograms, right-handed. No visible augmentations. Easy target. The other technicians looked like they belonged to the same set as the first. They had relaxed slightly, their guard lowering as they watched Victoria work. They thought I was helpless. The female technician had moved to a nearby counter, preparing equipment for the examination. The second male stood at the foot of the gurney, monitoring my vital signs on a display. “Isn’t this a dangerous level of exposure, Doctor?” he asked. “This is probably more Styx than ever made it past her blood-brain barrier during the accident.”

Victoria set my visor aside on a nearby tray. "It would be if it were an active colony,” she said. I think she was trying to sound more confident than she really was. “These should be inert… waiting for instructions. I’m… not sure how else to proceed. If I can’t deprogram her through the existing methods, I’ll just have to go in even more directly and use Styx manually to override the conditioning pathways."

“Even more direct Styx rewriting? A… generation six?” the female tech asked.

Dr. Rathe made a face. “You know I hate those labels. So dehumanizing. She’s not a product with a serial number coming off an assembly line… She’s a person.”

The younger tech blushed. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I mean, Doctor! I didn’t mean… I know she’s yo–

"Her vital signs are staying normal," the male technician at the side of my gurney noted, stepping in to interrupt the other tech and save her from the foot she’d just put in her mouth. He leaned across my body to look at the monitors. "It doesn’t look like it’s hurting her. You can probably start your pro–"

The fool had just put his throat within striking distance.

I snapped into action without warning, my body going from feigned sedation to lethal motion in a heartbeat. My legs shot upward, wrapping around the technician's neck in a scissor lock. He barely had time to register surprise before I twisted violently, using my augmented leg muscles to wrench his head at an unnatural angle. The crack of his spine breaking echoed through the laboratory.

The screaming started a second later.

"Sedate her!" Victoria shouted, stumbling backward from the gurney.

The female technician lunged for an alarm panel on the wall. Too slow. I jackknifed my body upward, my bound hands limiting but not stopping me. As the first technician's lifeless body slumped to the floor, I launched myself toward the second male, who was frozen in shock. My forehead connected with his nose, smashing cartilage and bone with a wet crunch. Blood sprayed across my face, warm and coppery. He staggered backward, hands clutching his ruined face.

I followed through, driving my knee into his groin with enough force to cause rupture. As he doubled over, I brought my knee up again, catching him under the chin. His teeth snapped together, biting through his tongue. He collapsed, choking on his own blood.

The female technician had made it to the alarm panel, her finger just reaching for an emergency button when I hit her from behind. My bound hands made conventional fighting difficult but not impossible. I rammed her against the wall with the full weight of my augmented body. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs in a satisfying whoosh.

Before she could recover, I spotted what I needed on a nearby tray—a laser scalpel. I rolled across the surface, seizing the tool with my bound hands behind my back and activating it in one smooth motion. The blue energy beam hummed to life, and I spun back toward the gasping technician.

One slash across her throat. That's all it took. The beam cauterized as it cut, leaving a thin black line that quickly welled with blood as arterial pressure overcame the heat sealing. She clutched her neck, eyes wide with shock as she slid down the wall, leaving a smeared trail of crimson.

Victoria was already fleeing, sprinting toward the laboratory door with surprising speed for a woman who had to be at least in her sixties. Then again, she didn’t look like a woman in her sixties, either… Her youth had been extended by Styx treatments, and she barely looked a day over 30. She wasn’t faster than me, though. I launched myself after her, leaping over fallen equipment. My hands, still bound behind my back, threw off my balance, making me slower than I should have been.

She reached the door, frantically punching a code into the keypad. The door began to slide open, but not fast enough. I slammed into her from behind, driving her against the door hard enough that we both rebounded off of it. We both went down, Victoria beneath me, the breath knocked from her lungs by the impact. I kicked off the wall, shoving us away.

I rolled off her, coming to my feet in a twist made jerky by my bound hands. Behind me, the door was closing. Victoria was trying to crawl away, her face contorted with fear and desperation. I stepped forward and kicked her in the stomach, hard enough to make her breath explode out of her and for her to roll violently across the floor.

"Some rebel leader," I muttered, towering over her as I stepped after her.

I finally got my first good look at the so-called Mother of Augmentation. Dr. Victoria Rathe looked a hell of a lot less intimidating sprawled on the floor with her ass up and her arms outstretched like she was diving for cover. I caught the full, unfiltered view even without my visor and I had to admit that the woman was a marvel—a goddamn work of art, if you like your scientists built like predatory cats and dressed like they were about to lecture at a medical school. Her hair was black, shoulder-length, and perfectly straight, falling into her face in sleek, sharp lines that matched her features: high cheekbones, strong jaw, lips that were always pursed as if she was perpetually judging everyone in the room and finding them lacking. Her skin was flawless, a living advertisement for the rejuvenation regimes she helped invent. The kind of skin you could lick for days.

She wore a white lab coat, obviously, but it flattered her body enough that I wondered if it was tailored. Underneath the coat, I caught flashes of a black synthfiber shirt and pants. Beneath those pants she had legs for days, and as she squirmed on the ground trying to get away it showed off an amazing, firm ass. Her hands, stretched out on the floor, were elegant, long-fingered, nails painted a midnight blue that almost matched her hair. I was close enough to see the faint pearlescent shimmer at her temples where the neural interface laced into her skull. Her eyes, when she glanced back to see how close I was, were the color of mature grass, bright and green and sharp.

And they were wide with panic.

I licked my lips.

Victoria scrambled backward, but I matched her every move, prowling after her. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air, the curve of her large breasts outlined under the partially unzipped coat. She backed herself up against the wall, hands braced behind her for support, eyes wide and lips parted as her genius brain tried to decide if she should beg or run or fight. "Please," she gasped, still struggling to regain her breath. "I’m trying… to help… you…"

"Help me?" I laughed, the sound harsh. "By violating my mind? By making me serve you instead? No thank you.”

I needed my hands free. The restraints were polymer cord, too strong to break even with my augmented strength. I tried to adjust the laser scalpel, see if I could slice the polymer with it, but the angle wasn’t right. Thankfully, there were other ways. I took a deep breath, centering myself. What I was about to do would hurt, a lot… But pain was temporary.

I bent forward at the waist, relaxing my shoulder muscles while simultaneously rotating my arms upward behind my back. The strain was immediate, joints protesting as I pushed them to their limits and beyond. I visualized the anatomy, the ball and socket construction of the human shoulder. All I needed was to create enough space...

With a sudden, violent motion, I drove my shoulders up and forward while keeping my arms in place. Twin pops echoed in the corridor as both shoulder joints dislocated simultaneously. White-hot agony lanced through me, my vision blurring momentarily as the pain sensors in my augmented nervous system went haywire.

Victoria watched in horror as I worked my bound arms upward, over my head and past my dislocated shoulders. Now my hands were in front of me, the restraints still in place but no longer limiting my movement. I straightened, facing Victoria with my arms before me. My shoulders hung at unnatural angles, the dislocated joints clearly visible even through my bodysuit. The pain was excruciating, but I compartmentalized it, relegating it to background noise. Then I backed up a step, and slammed my right shoulder into the wall. Another pop, another wave of agony as the joint relocated. I repeated the process with my left shoulder, the relief almost as painful as the dislocation had been.

I rotated both arms, confirming proper function despite the damage I'd just inflicted on myself. They were going to swell up horribly, but I trusted my augmentations to handle it, and I could ignore the pain. The joints were operational. Good enough.

Victoria had used my moment of self-repair to scramble backwards. Her eyes darted around, seeking escape, finding none. The room was empty save for the corpses… no security had been summoned, no other staff was here. Just the two of us. It looked like the lab was isolated, and most notably I couldn’t see any security cameras. That wasn’t lucky. Cernunnos expected it. In a lab dedicated to Styx use and augmentation, the security watching any camera wouldn’t have the security clearance to see what the camera saw.

But that also meant no one would be around to hear the doctor scream.

"I didn't want to hurt you," Victoria insisted, continuing to back away, rising up onto her feet. "Everything I did was to free you from Ka Corporation's control."

I laughed, a cold sound devoid of humor as I casually cut the slaps connecting my wrists with the scalpel’s edge. The doctor turned and began a stumbling run, but I was on her in three quick strides. I seized her by the hair, yanking her head back sharply. The scalpel's beam hovered millimeters from her throat, close enough that she could feel its heat against her skin.

"Now," I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. "Let’s have a discussion, just the two of us. You and I have so much to talk about."

The fear in her eyes was intoxicating, sending a rush of pleasure through my system. I had the power here… I didn’t need my real body to be strong right now. I was stronger than these weaklings even without it.

I dragged Victoria back towards the medical table by her hair, my fingers twisted tight in the black-gray strands. Her feet stumbled and slipped on the polished floor as she kicked and struggled. I dragged her right past the technician with the broken neck and with a vicious shove I forced her onto her back on the exam table, her head hitting the padded surface with enough force to bounce.

Victoria was wild-eyed and still stunned by the fight, her body tense as a bowstring as she tried to squirm off the table. I shoved her harder onto her back, pinning her with a forearm across her throat while I figured out how to immobilize her. I thumbed the scalpel’s setting down to its smallest blade, and started slicing through the front of Victoria’s crisp white lab coat. The nano-fused fabric shriveled away from the heat, curling back in neat, stinking strips. Victoria tried to knee me in the gut and almost succeeded, but I caught her leg with my elbow, wedged it under my arm, and finished cutting a long strip from the bottom hem of her coat. The edge was still hot as I wrapped it around her ankle and tied it to one of the rungs of the table. I caught her other leg, jammed it down, and repeated the process, binding her ankles so wide that her whole lower half was splayed for inspection.

She thrashed, trying to kick at me, but her legs didn’t move. I cut the sleeves from her coat, used the strips to tie her arms down at the wrists the same way before I wrapped a final length around her neck like a makeshift collar, cinching it tight enough she had to gasp for air. I had her stretched out like a field-dressed animal on the lab table, her thighs trembling and her face twisted in terror and humiliation. The laser scalpel felt weightless in my hand as I twirled it, enjoying the little electric whine it made at every twirl. It was reasonably thick, about the size of my three smallest fingers bunched together. Victoria was trying to talk, but she was still too breathless, her mouth too dry from panic.

"You were right. After you succeeded with Hound-39, Ka Corporation adapted." I admitted. “They don’t make the same mistakes twice.” Victoria's eyes widened with fear as I lifted the glowing scalpel, the light casting eerie shadows across her face. I traced the scalpel through the air above her body without touching her. "They designed me to resist the same methods."

The scalpel hovered over her throat, close enough that she could feel its heat against her skin. "You failed, Doctor."

Victoria swallowed hard, her throat working beneath the hovering scalpel. Then I moved the scalpel down to the collar of her lab coat, the beam slicing through the fabric with surgical precision. "Let's get more comfortable, shall we?"

I used the blade to slice open the front of her synthfiber shirt and coat, exposing smooth skin and the pronounced rise of her breasts beneath her bra. The synthetic material parted cleanly, leaving nothing but flesh beneath. I leaned low so my voice was just for her. "You’re going to give me what I want," I told her, "and then I’m going to make sure you never trouble the Ka Corporation ever again."

Her lips parted, a retort forming. “Don’t do this, As—”

I cut her off by dipping the tip of the scalpel down into her sternum. The smell of singed flesh filled the air. She cried out, and I leaned in so close our faces nearly touched. "You're not going to be a hero, Victoria," I whispered. "You're going to be a lesson."

Victoria flinched as I continued cutting, the scalpel moving down the center of her shirt to make the rest of the fabric fall away, opening her like I was unwrapping a gift. I traced the scalpel along the edge of the bra, letting the beam graze her skin just enough to leave a faint red mark. Victoria gasped, her body jerking against the restraints.

"Sensitive, aren't you?" I observed, moving the scalpel to the center of the bra and slicing through the connecting fabric. Her breasts spilled free, large and firm enough they didn’t entirely flop flat while she was on her back. "The great Dr. Victoria Rathe, reduced to tits and tears."

I continued downward, the scalpel cutting through her belt, then the waistband of her practical slacks. The beam sliced down the front, exposing her plain white panties beneath. More tears streamed down Victoria's face as I methodically stripped away her dignity along with her clothing.

"You're making a mistake," she tried again, her voice breaking. "You don’t have to do this, yo—"

"Shut up," I snapped, pressing the deactivated handle of the scalpel against her lips. "There is only one thing that you could say I’m at all interested in. I don’t want to hear any other lies from your treasonous mouth." I sliced through her panties with a quick flick of the scalpel, the last barrier falling away to leave her completely exposed. Victoria closed her eyes, turning her face away in shame as I surveyed her naked body stretched out before me.

"Not bad for your age, Doctor," I commented, running my free hand along her inner thigh, feeling her muscles tense at my touch. "I can see why you hide all this under those practical clothes. Wouldn't want anyone to think less of your brilliance for all your beauty, would you?"

Victoria's breaths came in short, panicked gasps now, her chest rising and falling rapidly. The laboratory lights cast harsh shadows across her naked form, highlighting every curve and vulnerability. Her body trembled beneath my gaze, fear and humiliation radiating from her in waves. “A—”

I rolled my eyes at her helpless, trembling little whisper and without warning jammed a handful of her ruined panties into her mouth. She shrieked into the gag and thrashed her head to the side, but I held her jaw and stuffed the cloth deep, packing her throat so she couldn’t spit it out. I loved the way the panic bloomed in her eyes. I’d told her to shut up. Now she would.

Victoria's cheeks bulged, spit already soaking the fabric. I patted her face with the hand that had violated her mouth, smearing a line of her own tears down her cheek. "Much better," I said sweetly. "Did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much, Doctor?"

She whimpered, but it was little more than a muffled vibration in the air. I set the scalpel aside, content that she was no longer a threat, and leaned in close so she could see the whites of my eyes, the tangle of hate and adrenaline in my stare. "You want to know what I want, Doctor?" I whispered, just loud enough for her to hear every syllable over her own noisy gasps. "It's simple. You give me the security codes to the system grid of Haven’s Deep. That’s all I want from you. If you decide to give them to me, go ahead and start nodding to let me know. Until then, I’m going to use every tool in this lab to see how long it takes to turn a genius into a vegetable." I brushed her hair back from her face, not gently. "Until then, keep quiet. I like you better that way."

I walked around the table, enjoying the view. Victoria was beautiful and strong, the sort of woman who didn’t care about looks until someone forced her to. Her body was a map of subtle scars, most earned from years of handling dangerous specimens and not giving a shit about personal safety. She had the muscle tone of a woman who lived in a lab but never skipped a workout, every line elegant and tight. Now all that capability and intellect boiled down to a quivering, humiliated body, helpless to stop me from doing whatever the hell I wanted.

I straightened, admiring my handy work. Victoria Rathe, creator of human augmentation, mother of the resistance, lay completely naked and helpless before me. Her clothing lay in tatters around her, cut away with surgical precision. Red marks from the scalpel's heat traced patterns across her skin where I'd allowed the beam to graze her.

Victoria strained against the restraints, but the synthetic fabric was tough, and her augmentations weren’t anything as extreme as mine… she was still just a normal woman beneath her perfectly youthful looks. All the strength in her pretty body wouldn’t let her close her legs and shield herself from my gaze. I twirled the laser scalpel in my fingers, its weight and balance satisfying in my hand. The blue energy beam hummed softly, its glow reflected in her terrified eyes.

"Let's keep this simple," I said, standing between her spread thighs. "Give me the security codes, and we can be done right away."

Victoria shook her head, her jaw clenched tight despite the fear radiating from her body.

I sighed dramatically. "Wrong answer, Doctor. But I expected as much." I deactivated the laser scalpel, the blue beam disappearing, leaving only the cylindrical metal handle. "That's fine. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t resist.”

I ran my hand up her thigh, slow and deliberate, feeling the heat radiate off her skin and the coiled terror in the muscles beneath. Victoria tried again to clench her legs together, but the bindings forced her open and vulnerable. Her body shivered at my touch, the smallest flinch betraying how much she feared what came next. I moved higher, tracing the red lines I’d left with the scalpel over her hips and belly. I could see the sweat running in thin rivulets down her sides, every pore standing at attention. I pressed my thumb into one of the hot red marks, making her jolt and moan around the gag.

Then I slid my hand up, cupping her breast, rolling it and pinching the nipple between two fingers. The flesh was firmer than it looked, truly youthful and not at all plastic. Her whole body spasmed at the contact. I dug my nails in, leaving half-moon indentations, and watched her face as she tried to keep from making a noise… and failing with most of her exhales.

I wasn’t satisfied with those small noises, however. I pinched her nipple harder, twisting it until she howled through the panties, then let it go so it bounced back into place. I smiled, genuinely pleased. "Resistance gets you nowhere. There’s a lot you need to learn, Doctor. But don’t worry—I’ll teach you."

I circled the table and came up by her head. She tried to look away, but I gripped her jaw and forced her to meet my eyes. Her tears were flowing freely now, streaking her face with vulnerability. I leaned down and whispered, "You want to keep your dignity? Then you give me the codes."

For a moment she didn’t move. I could see the calculation, the fear, and the determination. I almost admired it. Then I reached down and pinched her nose shut, cutting off her air. Her eyes went wide, and she thrashed, but I held her skull against the table and counted the seconds as she started to panic. When she was flailing hard, legs kicking uselessly against her own bonds, I released her nose and let her gasp desperately through the cloth in her mouth.

Then I smiled and pressed the cool metal of the scalpel handle against her exposed pussy, watching her body tense at the contact. "Last chance before we begin properly. The codes."

She grunted desperately through the panties. "That's not a code," I replied, and drove the handle into her with a single, brutal thrust.

Victoria screamed, her back arching off the table as the cold metal violated her dry passage. I worked the makeshift dildo deeper, twisting it to maximize her pain, watching her face contort in agony.

"So, how does it feel, Doctor?" I asked, continuing to thrust the metal cylinder in and out. "Feeling someone fucking around inside of you? It isn’t a lot of fun, is it?"

Her only response was choked cries through the panties filling her mouth, so I continued the assault, each thrust making her body jerk against the restraints. The metal handle was slowly growing slick now with her body's desperate attempt to lubricate and protect itself from the invasion, but her pussy’s juices weren’t much to spare herself

"The codes," I demanded again, twisting the scalpel handle sharply to emphasize my point. "Give them to me, and this stops."

Victoria shook her head again, those stubborn green eyes glaring at me through the pain. Defiance, even now. It was almost admirable. Almost.

"Have it your way," I said, twisting the handle sharply to the left. Her entire body jerked in response, straining against the restraints. I could see the tendons in her neck standing out as she screamed into the sodden fabric of her panties. "I assume you made your own excuses for your absence, Doctor. I suspect we have all the time in the world."

I pulled the handle out halfway, then slammed it back in with brutal force. Victoria's body jolted, her breasts bouncing with the impact. Speaking of those...

I reached up with my free hand and grabbed one of her breasts. I dug my fingers in until I was almost crushing the delicate mammary tissue beneath my fingers, watching her face contort. "Such a waste," I commented, pinching her nipple hard enough to make her whole body tremble. "All this beauty and brains, and now you’re just meat. And for… what? Some hopeless rebellion?" I twisted the nipple until she shrieked through the gag. "The Corporations always win, Doctor. Always. Ka was always going to have this world the moment they decided they wanted it."

I slapped her breast sharply, watching it bounce and redden under my palm. The sound of my hand impacting flesh echoed in the sterile lab. I hit her again, harder this time, alternating between breasts until both were covered in angry red handprints. All the while, I continued the rhythmic violation with the scalpel handle, establishing a tempo of pain and penetration that left her no respite.

"You know what's funny?" I asked conversationally as I worked. "You're fighting so hard, but your cunt’s getting wet, see?" I pulled the handle out slightly, showing her the slickness that now coated it—a mixture of blood and her body's reluctant response. Then I shoved the handle back in roughly, making her whole body jolt. "Your pussy isn't as loyal to the cause as the rest of you, it seems." Victoria's eyes closed tight, her head turning away. I could see the shame washing over her, adding another layer of humiliation to the physical pain. Good.

"I've been trained in all the best interrogation techniques," I told her, leaning closer so she could feel my breath on her tear-streaked face. "Did you know that? I got here by getting information from your youngest." I punctuated this with another vicious thrust of the handle. “Or did you already know that? Is that why you didn’t send out Archangel to capture me? Afraid I would get both of your daughters?”

Victoria was breathing heavily through her nose, her chest heaving with the effort. Sweat glistened on her skin, mingling with tears. Still, she wouldn't nod. Wouldn't give in. It was time to escalate.

I adjusted my position, sitting on the edge of the examination table between her spread legs. With my free hand, I began to explore her exposed flesh, running my fingers along her labia, circling but not touching her clit. Just the threat of more intimate contact made her whole body tense. I thrust the handle in deeper, angling it upward to hit the sensitive front wall of her pussy before pulling back and hammering it in again, varying the rhythm and depth to prevent her from adjusting to the pain.

This was fun… but it wasn't enough. She still wouldn't nod. Still wouldn't give me the codes.

I looked around the lab, eyes scanning for a particular tool. There—a set of medical forceps resting on a metal tray beside various other implements. Perfect. I grabbed them, feeling the cold weight of the stainless steel in my palm. I glanced down at Victoria, her naked body still pinned to the examination table, the scalpel jutting obscenely from her leaking pussy. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with frantic breaths, tears streaming down her face around the panty gag. I felt my lips curl into a smile. "Let's try a different approach, Doctor."

Victoria's eyes widened as she watched me approach with the forceps, the metal gleaming under the harsh laboratory lights. I deliberately left the laser scalpel’s handle embedded inside her, wanting her to feel the constant violation as I moved to the next phase.

"You're a scientist," I said, kneeling between her spread legs. "You understand neural pathways, sensory overload, the confusion of mixed signals, right? Let's experiment, shall we?"

Before she could react, I leaned forward and ran my tongue along her exposed slit, tasting her involuntary arousal. Her entire body jerked in shock, a muffled cry escaping around the gag, and she tried her hardest to get away from my tongue… so I licked her again. She really, really didn’t like that… she was disgusted, it seemed. I lapped at her flesh a third time, deliberately gentle this time, flicking my tongue against her clit in feather-light touches.

Victoria thrashed against her restraints, her head shaking frantically from side to side. I could read the horror in her eyes as I continued licking, circling her clit with my tongue while occasionally bumping against the scalpel handle still wedged inside her. "Your body doesn't care about your principles," I murmured against her flesh, my breath hot on her sensitive skin. "It wants what it wants, right?"

I worked methodically. I hadn’t had a lot of experience in this, but I knew what I liked, and I’d practiced cocksucking plenty… the same principles applied. I sucked gently on Victoria's clit, feeling it swell and harden against my tongue despite her desperate attempts to resist the sensation. Her breathing changed, becoming ragged and uneven. I glanced up over the mound of her pussy to see her eyes squeezed shut, tears leaking from beneath her lids. Her hips had begun to move involuntarily, tiny jerks that betrayed her body's response even as her mind fought against it.

That was my cue.

I clamped the forceps directly onto her swollen, sensitized clit.

Victoria's scream was loud enough to be clearly heard even through the sodden panties stuffing her mouth. Her entire body convulsed, back arching off the table, wrists and ankles straining against the restraints with such force I thought they might break. The forceps hung from her flesh, the metal clamp at the end almost flattening the delicate bundle of nerves that had just been responding to my tongue. The teeth on the lever clicked, locking it into place.

"Confusing, isn't it?" I said, watching her writhe in agony. "Pleasure to pain in an instant. The contrast makes it worse, doesn’t it?" I twisted the forceps slightly, watching as fresh tears streamed down her face. Her muffled screams had devolved into choked sobs, her body trembling uncontrollably. I didn’t even need to maintain steady pressure on her clit anymore… I could reach for the scalpel with my hand, instead.

"Now," I said, slowly withdrawing the blood-slick metal from her pussy, "let's try a new opening."

Victoria's eyes shot open, realization dawning through the haze of pain. She shook her head frantically, trying to scream words through the gag. I ignored her, positioning the slick tip of the scalpel handle against the tight pucker of her ass. "This is probably going to hurt.” I warned… though my smile gave away my true feelings. I could see her sphincter clench reflexively, a futile attempt to defend against the inevitable intrusion.

Then I pushed.

Her muscles contracted, fighting against the invasion. The tight pucker remained stubbornly closed, resisting the cold metal that sought entry. I increased the force, watching as the ring of muscle dimpled inward but refused to yield. Victoria's entire body had gone rigid, her thighs trembling with tension as she instinctively fought to protect this most private entrance.

"Playing hard to get?" I taunted, twisting the cylindrical tool slightly, working it against the resistant opening. "Your ass is just as stubborn as you are." I leaned in closer, applying more weight behind the metal cylinder. The tight ring stretched slightly, whitening around the pressure point, but still refused to open. Victoria's muffled whimpers grew more frantic, her chest heaving with panicked breaths. Sweat beaded across her skin, running in thin rivulets down her sides as her body fought a losing battle.

"Relax," I commanded mockingly, knowing full well she couldn't. Then I braced myself for better leverage, planting one hand firmly on her inner thigh to spread her wider. As I did, I bumped the forceps still clamped cruelly to her clit, making it swing and sending fresh waves of agony through her body. I used my thumb to spread her ass cheeks further apart, exposing the tight, puckered hole more completely. The metal cylinder pressed relentlessly against her as I continued my efforts, applying steady, inexorable pressure. The tight muscle began to yield, almost imperceptibly at first. The tip of the cylinder created a small depression, the resistant ring stretching painfully thin around it. Victoria's body quivered, her spine arching as her muscles fought against the intrusion.

"That's it," I encouraged, watching her body's unwilling submission. Her resistance was formidable, but she was losing… her sphincter yielding millimeter by millimeter. I could see the strain in the muscle as it stretched beyond comfort, the skin around it blanching from the pressure. Victoria's face had contorted into a mask of agony, tears streaming freely down her cheeks to soak into the panties gagging her.

I rotated the cylinder slowly, working it in a circular motion against the stubborn opening. The tight ring began to dilate slightly, the metal finally gaining purchase. The first breach was minimal, just the very tip penetrating the outer ring, but Victoria's reaction was immediate and violent. Her entire body bucked against the restraints, her head thrashing from side to side as muffled screams tore from her throat. I smiled, watching her most intimate muscle struggle against the intrusion. Then I learned my weight forward, enjoying the gradual surrender of her body. The tight ring stretched painfully around the metal cylinder, reluctantly accepting the first centimeter. The resistance remained fierce, her muscles spasming around the foreign object. I could feel the heat radiating from her body, see the rapid pulse throbbing in her neck as adrenaline and pain coursed through her system.

I increased the pressure again, driving the handle forward with more force. The resistant muscle stretched further, painfully accommodating another centimeter of the intrusion. Victoria's strangled noises intensified, her body trembling violently as her last defenses were breached. The tight ring gripped the metal cylinder like a vice, spasming around it as it forced its way deeper.

Then I shoved the tool forward with sudden, brutal force, driving through the last of her resistance. Victoria's body went rigid, a strangled noise escaping her that wasn't quite human—a primal sound of violation that even the soaked panties couldn't fully muffle. The tight ring of muscle surrendered with an almost audible pop, the sphincter suddenly yielding as the metal cylinder pushed past the initial barrier. Her scream was a keening wail.

After that, it was easy. I kept shoving, and her body yielded and yielded as the metal rod sank deeper into her ass. Each inch was still a battle, but no longer a meaningful one… now her tight passage was just gripping the metal in rhythmic spasms, her body's desperate attempt to expel the foreign object serving only to heighten the sensation of violation.

Once it was in, I started pulling it back, and slamming it back in, fucking her with it. Occasionally, when I saw her eyes starting to roll back in her head, I twisted the forceps, bringing her back to reality with a crashing scream. The dual assault left her no respite, no moment to gather herself or adapt to the pain. Her face had gone pale beneath the flush of exertion and humiliation, sweat soaking her hair and running down her temples.

I was being vicious with her.

Why was that? I had violated the other pilots, interrogated them, been just as mean… but it hadn’t felt so personal. I hadn’t been so angry. Why did lashing out at Dr. Rathe feel so… satisfying?

No… No, I knew why.

Despite my conditioning, despite knowing that I was Ka Corporation property through and through, some small, buried part of me had harbored a secret hope. A hope that Victoria Rathe, the brilliant scientist who had freed Lucia Santos from her role as a Hound of the Ka Corporation, might be able to do the same for me. That her bacteria, her treatments, her methods might somehow break through my conditioning and liberate me from Ka Corporation's control.

I had hoped, secretly and against all my programming, that she could save me. That I could be free again.

And she had failed.

I felt a flash of sullen rage, and I shoved the scalpel handle deeper into Victoria's ass, twisting it savagely while yanking on the forceps still clamped to her clit. Her body bucked wildly under the assault, frantic animal noises escaping around the gag. She was supposed to be better than this. She was supposed to be a genius. Why couldn’t she help me? Hadn’t she made this technology? Shouldn’t she have been able to figure it out before I had to obey my orders and do this to her? The disappointment was crushing, all the more painful because I hadn't even realized I'd been hoping for salvation until that hope was extinguished.

I rammed the scalpel handle in and out of Victoria's ass with increasing violence, watching her body jerk and spasm with each brutal invasion. She had been my last hope… and she failed.

The depth of my disappointment fueled my cruelty. I continued the dual assault, the scalpel handle driving into her ass with mechanistic precision while the forceps remained clamped on her swollen, abused clit. Each thrust grew more vicious, each twist more cruel. My rage peaked as I stared down at her—this woman who had pioneered the technology that had enslaved me, who had liberated others but couldn't save me. I wanted her to suffer as I had suffered, to know the helplessness and violation that defined my existence.

"You will give me those codes," I said, voice cold with determination. "But first, you're going to understand exactly what it feels like to be at someone else's mercy. To have your body used against you." Victoria's resistance was weakening, her body growing limp from the sustained assault, but her eyes still held that stubborn defiance.

I would break that defiance. I would shatter her completely.

Because if Victoria Rathe couldn't save me, then I would make damn sure she couldn't save anyone else either.

I stepped back from Victoria's bound and trembling body, leaving the scalpel handle still lodged in her ass as I surveyed the laboratory. If this had been her private research space, there might be more useful tools at my disposal. I began opening drawers methodically, searching through their contents until I found something potentially useful—a collection of glass vials containing various colored liquids. I examined drug label after drug label, but I didn’t recognize most of them. One of them I did… Racovalin. I'd used some of that during my interrogation of Wraith and Artemis. It was a stimulant, but its side effects had been more useful… It was a fairly potent aphrodisiac as well. I had no idea what the other drugs did, or what potentially lethal interactions they would have with one another.

Right then, I didn’t care.

I collected a dozen vials more or less at random and arranged them in a neat row on the metal tray beside Victoria's head. Her eyes darted frantically between the containers, recognition giving way to raw terror as she identified their contents. I picked up a syringe from a nearby drawer and held it up, letting the overhead lights glint off the needle. "I assume you know what these all do, Doctor?" I asked, deliberately selecting the vial of Racovalin loading the syringe with theatrical slowness. Victoria's eyes locked onto my movements, her breathing accelerating as I drew the amber liquid into the chamber. "I'm hoping so… because I sure don’t.”

I held up the now-full syringe, tapping it to remove any air bubbles. I smiled down at her, watching her pupils dilate with fear. "But should I find out firsthand?"

I capped the needle and tossed the empty vial over my shoulder, letting it shatter on the floor. With the syringe in hand, I moved toward the head of the examination table. Victoria's eyes tracked my every move, wide with anticipation of fresh torment as I climbed onto the table, swinging one leg over until I was straddling her chest, my weight pressing down on her sternum. Then I inched forward, positioning myself over her face, my knees on either side of her head. I settled my pussy directly against the panty gag stuffed in her mouth, the fabric now a barrier between her lips and my flesh.

"Here's what's going to happen," I said, looking down at her terrified eyes between my thighs. "You're going to lick me. Nice and wet and sloppy,” I reached down and pulled the soaked panties out of her mouth, letting them drop to the floor theatrically. “And if you do a good job, maybe I won't inject you with this." I held the syringe where she could see it, the needle glinting above her.

Victoria's eyes darted between my spread thighs and the syringe, panic evident in her expression. She made no move to comply, either from stubbornness or shock.

"No?" I sighed theatrically. "That's disappointing."

Without further drama, I plunged the needle directly into the soft flesh of her exposed breast, right beside the nipple. Victoria screamed into the gag, the sound vibrating against my pussy as I depressed the plunger, emptying the Racovalin into her system. I pulled the needle out slowly, watching a single drop of blood well up from the puncture site. "There we go," I murmured, setting the empty syringe aside. "Give it a minute to kick in."

Victoria's breathing became increasingly rapid, her chest heaving beneath me as the drug entered her bloodstream. I could see the effects beginning almost immediately—her skin flushing, pupils dilating, a fine sheen of sweat breaking out across her body. The Racovalin would heighten every sensation, make her nerve endings hypersensitive while simultaneously lowering inhibitions. It would also more or less ensure she would stay conscious. Perfect for what I had in mind.

I reached for another vial, this one containing a cloudy blue liquid I didn't recognize. Loading a fresh syringe, I held it up for her inspection.

"I don't know what this one does," I admitted, watching her eyes widen further. "Maybe it kills you. Maybe it just causes excruciating pain. Or maybe it's something wonderful." I smiled down at her. "Want to find out?"

Victoria's head shook frantically beneath me, panic overwhelming even her scientific curiosity. I considered my options carefully. These unknown substances might kill her before I got my codes, but if I didn't follow through on my threats, she'd never believe I was serious about the consequences of disobedience.

I pressed the syringe against her other breast, not piercing the skin yet, just letting her feel the sharp point against her soft flesh.

"Last chance," I said softly. "Lick."

Victoria looked utterly disgusted… but her tongue pushed against my pussy. I smiled in satisfaction.

"Good girl," I purred, lifting the syringe away but keeping it in her line of sight. I shifted slightly, grinding down against her face, enjoying the sensation of power as much as the physical stimulation. I could feel the warmth of her mouth, the desperate movement of her tongue as she tried to please me enough to avoid the needle. Unfortunately for her, she wasn’t doing it right. “But the wrong hole.”

I turned around, still straddling her upper body but now facing her torso. I set the syringe down on the table within her view, a constant reminder of what awaited her failure. Then I scooted backward until my ass covered her face. "Unless you’re ready to give me my codes, you can make yourself useful in another way." I reached behind me and spread my asscheeks, exposing my puckered hole to her view. "Lick… And make it good, or we'll see what this blue vial does."

Victoria made a choked sound of revulsion.

I picked up the syringe again, positioning the needle against her nipple. "It must not be that bad then, huh? No major side effects? Let’s find out…” I could feel Victoria’s tears against my ass cheeks. The Racovalin was fully taking effect now… I could see her bare body flushed and trembling in front of me. "Five seconds," I warned. "Four. Three. Tw—"

I felt the tentative touch of her tongue against my asshole, warm and wet and hesitant. I smiled in satisfaction, lowering myself slightly to increase the pressure. "There you go," I encouraged, setting the syringe down again. "Circle it. Push in. Show me how that brilliant tongue works."

Victoria sobbed as she obeyed, her tongue circling my rim before tentatively pushing against the tight pucker. The sensation sent a surge of pleasure through me, the satisfaction of my complete dominance. With my true body captive or not, I was still better than these other insects. "Deeper," I commanded, reaching back to grip her hair, forcing her face more firmly against my ass. "Get that tongue inside me." Her sobbing intensified, but so did her efforts, the warm, wet muscle pushing more insistently against my hole. I could feel her tears running down my ass crack, adding to the lubrication as her tongue struggled to penetrate me. "That's it," I breathed, grinding down against her face. "Clean my asshole with that educated tongue of yours, Doctor."

Victoria's tongue continued its reluctant exploration of my asshole, pushed deeper by necessity as I settled my weight more heavily onto her. I could feel her breath coming in panicked gasps through her nose, hot against my sensitive flesh. "Keep going," I commanded, reaching forward to grab her breast, squeezing the soft mound with casual cruelty. "I want to feel you eating my ass like it's your last meal."

I kneaded her breast roughly, feeling the soft tissue yield beneath my fingers. I pinched her nipple, twisting it sharply and watching her body jerk in response. Her tongue faltered in its rhythm for a moment before resuming its desperate service. "That right… don't you stop," I warned, slapping her breast hard enough to leave a red handprint on the pale flesh. "If I don't feel that tongue working, I can do much worse.”

I continued to torment her breasts, alternating between painful pinches and sharp slaps that made the soft mounds bounce and redden. All the while, I ground my ass against her face, feeling her tongue squirm inside me, her tears adding to the slickness between us. With my other hand, I reached between Victoria's spread legs, finding her pussy still wet and swollen from the earlier violation. The scalpel handle remained embedded in her ass, the metal cylinder protruding obscenely. I traced my fingers along her labia, feeling her involuntary shudder.

"Is somebody getting wet, Doctor?" I taunted, pushing two fingers roughly into her pussy. "Is this what you wanted all along? To be forced to submit to your rightful rulers?" I thrust my fingers deeper, feeling her inner walls clench around the intrusion. "Your body seems to like it." Victoria's muffled denials vibrated against my ass, but her hips betrayed her with a slight upward movement against my hand. The Racovalin was doing its work, turning her body into my unwilling ally in her torment.

I established a rhythm with my fingers, fucking her pussy while she continued to service my ass. My other hand abandoned her breasts, moving to my own clit as I began to pleasure myself. The power I held over her, the complete control and domination, was intoxicating. Every whimper, every reluctant thrust of her tongue against my asshole, fed my arousal.

"That's it," I breathed, working my fingers faster inside her while my other hand circled my clit. "Lick me, Doctor. You have a brilliant mind… Apply it to rimming Ka Corporation property." My hand tugged on the forceps on her clit, and she hadn’t even started to cry out before I twisted the scalpel handle still lodged in her ass, making her entire body jerk and shake. Her tongue pushed deeper into my asshole in response, either from pain or an instinctive attempt to placate me. I didn't care which—the sensation was exquisite. My fingers worked her pussy methodically, stretching and violating her with mechanical precision. I could feel her body responding despite her obvious distress, her inner walls growing slicker, her hips making small, involuntary movements against my hand.

"How does it feel?" I asked, my voice husky with mounting pleasure. "To be nothing but a hole for me to use? To have your body respond while your mind screams no?" I pressed down harder with my ass, smothering her face further. "This is just a taste of the life you subjected me to, Doctor. It’s the least you deserve for your role in creating me.”

My own pleasure was building rapidly now, the dual stimulation of her tongue in my ass and my fingers on my clit driving me toward release. I rode her face more aggressively, grinding my ass against her mouth and nose, barely giving her room to breathe. Her tongue worked frantically, desperation giving her movements an urgency that only heightened my enjoyment. As a reward, I fucked Victoria's pussy harder with my fingers, feeling her body respond with unwilling arousal. "This is all you're good for," I gasped, my orgasm approaching as I rubbed my clit faster. "Not saving anyone. Not freeing anyone. Just serving as a fucktoy for Ka Corporation. For me."

Victoria's tongue pushed deeper into my ass, her face completely smothered between my cheeks now. I could feel her desperate attempts to breathe, the frantic movements of her tongue driven more by panic than obedience. The thought of her struggling for air beneath me, completely at my mercy, pushed me closer to the edge. My fingers curled inside her pussy, finding the sensitive spot on her front wall and pressing ruthlessly against it. Her entire body bucked beneath me, a muffled scream vibrating through my flesh. I grinned savagely, fucking her harder with my fingers while my other hand worked my clit with increasing urgency. "I'm going to come on your face," I announced, my voice tight with approaching climax. "And you're going to make me."

The pleasure was building to an unbearable peak now, my body tensing as my orgasm approached. Victoria's tongue moved frantically inside my ass, driven by fear and the need for air. I ground down harder, riding her face with brutal intensity as my fingers continued to work both her pussy and my clit.

When my orgasm hit, it crashed through me with violent force, my augmented body amplifying the sensations to almost painful intensity. I cried out, my back arching as waves of pleasure tore through me. My pussy convulsed, releasing a flood of fluid that drenched Victoria's face and neck. I ground my cunt against her mouth and chin through my release, prolonging the pleasure while ensuring her complete humiliation.

"Fuck," I gasped, my body still shuddering with aftershocks. "Good little rebel whore."

I remained on her face for several more moments, enjoying the sensation of her desperate breathing against my sensitive flesh. Her tongue had stopped moving, but I didn't care now that my own pleasure had been satisfied. I shifted my weight, finally lifting myself off her face.

Victoria gasped for air the moment her mouth was free, her face a mess of tears, sweat, and my fluids. Her eyes were red-rimmed and vacant, the fight in them dimming but not yet extinguished. Her lips were swollen and wet, her chin and cheeks glistening with the evidence of my pleasure. I climbed off her body entirely, standing beside the examination table to survey my handiwork. Victoria lay trembling on the metal surface, her naked body marked with red handprints, bruises forming on her breasts and thighs. The scalpel handle still jutted from her ass, the metal stained with traces of blood and… worse.

"Look at you," I mocked. I reached down and gripped the scalpel handle, pulling it slowly from her ass. Victoria whimpered as the metal slid free, her abused muscle clenching around nothing. Blood and fecal matter stained the cylinder, a testament to the brutality of my violation.

Without warning, I forced the filthy metal between her lips, shoving it deep into her mouth before she could protest. Her eyes widened in horror as she tasted herself, the vile mixture of blood and waste from her own body.

"Clean it," I ordered, holding the handle in place. "You did such a good job licking my ass, you might as well lick your own, too."

Victoria gagged around the metal, fresh tears streaming down her face as she was forced to taste the evidence of her own violation. I held the handle firmly, watching her throat work as she reluctantly ran her tongue along the contaminated surface.

"That's it," I encouraged, my voice a mockery of gentleness. "Get it nice and clean. We have hours before anyone comes looking for you, so I suggest you get comfortable. Until you give me those codes, we’re not done yet."

Victoria closed her eyes, a broken sob escaping around the improvised gag as she realized her ordeal was far from over. I watched her with cold satisfaction, already planning my next method of persuasion. Everyone had a breaking point. Even the great Dr. Victoria Rathe.

And I had all the time in the world to find hers.

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Hours had passed. Without my visor and HUD to keep track of the time I’d lost track of how long, but it had been a while… and the poor doctor had felt every second of the intervening time. Victoria lay shivering on the examination table, her body a canvas of my methodical cruelty. Dozens of small, cauterized cuts from the laser scalpel traced patterns across her skin, interspersed with bruises in various shades of purple and blue. Blood had dried in rusty streaks along her inner thighs, and her wrists were raw and bleeding from struggling against the restraints. Her face was nearly unrecognizable as belonging to the same dignified doctor who had been commanding her staff earlier, with swollen eyes, cracked lips, and tear tracks cutting through the dried fluids that coated her cheeks. The proud scientist, the brilliant rebel leader, had been reduced to a quivering mass of pain and degradation.

I'd been relentless in my interrogation, cycling through different forms of torture with surgical precision. Pain, humiliation, psychological torment—I'd employed them all, pushing her further with each failure to provide the codes I needed. I'd used the laser scalpel to burn delicate patterns across her breasts and stomach, cutting the Ka Corporation’s emblem across her chest. I'd clamped various sensitive parts of her anatomy with medical instruments designed for tissue retraction. I'd violated every orifice with tools from her own laboratory, turning the implements of science into instruments of degradation.

Through it all, Victoria had remained stubbornly resistant, clinging to her determination to stay silent.

Until now.

For the first time in hours, I pulled out the wet panties I had stuffed into her mouth again. "Please," she whispered, her voice barely audible, a hoarse croak after hours of screaming. "Please, no more. I'll give you what you want. Anything. Just stop."

I paused in my latest torment and leaned closer to hear her broken plea. "What was that, Doctor?" I asked, forcing her to repeat her surrender.

"The codes," she sobbed, her entire body trembling. "I'll give you the codes. The security access. Everything. Please just stop…"

I smiled, satisfaction washing over me like a warm wave. Finally. "Good girl," I said. I unbuckled the restraints holding her ankles and wrists, but kept a firm grip on her arm as I freed her. I needn’t have bothered… she was too weak to do anything, and as I set her down her legs buckled immediately, muscles too exhausted from hours of tension and struggle to support her weight. She collapsed weakly against me, and I half-dragged, half-carried her across the laboratory to the computer terminal mounted on the far wall.

"Don't try anything stupid," I warned, propping her naked body against the console. "I’m watching. You're going to input your codes to log me in. I’m sure you could use the console to send a message or alert security… but ask yourself if you think you can do it before I break every bone in your hands, and we start all over again. Understand?"

Victoria nodded weakly, tears streaming down her swollen face. "I understand," she whispered, voice cracking.

I positioned her in front of the terminal, keeping one hand firmly on the back of her neck as she raised trembling fingers to the interface. The screen illuminated at her touch, recognizing her biometric signature. A series of security prompts appeared, requesting multiple layers of authentication. Victoria's hands shook violently as she began entering the codes, her fingers clicking on the pristine surface touch after touch. I watched carefully, memorizing each sequence she input in case I needed to enter them again. The system accepted each entry, green confirmation messages flashing across the screen as she logged in as an administrator of the Haven’s Deep power grid.

"Primary grid access... confirmed," the computer announced in a calm, feminine voice. "Defense system override protocols engaged. Security level Alpha accessed."

I felt a surge of satisfaction as the main security schematic appeared on screen, showing the entire layout of the base's defense grid. Everything I needed to complete my mission was now at my fingertips. Everything laid bare, ready for sabotage.

"Perfect," I murmured, memorizing the critical information displayed before me. Then I kicked Victoria's legs out from under her, sending her crashing to the floor away from the terminal. She lay in a crumpled heap. "Thank you for your cooperation, Doctor," I said, looking down at her naked, broken form. "You've been most helpful."

She flinched away from me, trying to crawl backward. "You have what you wanted," she whispered.

I laughed, a cold sound that echoed in the sterile laboratory. "I do… but we’re not finished yet."

Victoria's eyes widened with fresh terror as I knelt beside her. "But... the codes... I gave you everything..."

"You did," I agreed, running my hand up her trembling thigh. "And now I'm going to reward you for it."

She tried to push my hand away, a pitiful gesture that I easily brushed aside. I forced her legs apart, exposing her abused pussy still red and swollen from hours of violation. The Racovalin was still active in her system, her body responding to even this unwanted touch with a betraying glisten of moisture. "Please," she begged, fresh tears spilling down her face. "Haven't you done enough?"

I ignored her as I pushed two fingers inside her without warning, feeling her body clench around the invasion. Victoria cried out, the sound somewhere between pain and unwanted arousal as the drugs in her system confused her responses. "This is how they control me, you know," I continued, working my fingers in a steady rhythm while my thumb found her clit. "I get rewarded with pleasure when I do as I’m instructed. You get to have the same rewards now."

Despite her mental anguish, Victoria's physical responses were beyond her control. The Racovalin had sensitized every nerve ending and hours of torment had heightened every response further, making even the gentlest touch feel electric. Her hips began to move involuntarily against my hand, her body seeking pleasure even as her mind recoiled in horror. I lowered my head between her legs, replacing my thumb with my tongue. Victoria sobbed as I licked her clit, her back arching despite herself as sensation overwhelmed her resistance. She made a dry-retching noise, as disgusted as she had ever been. "No," she gasped, the word dissolving into a moan as I sucked the sensitive bud between my lips. "Please don't... don't make me..."

I worked her methodically, fingers thrusting inside her while my tongue circled and flicked her clit with practiced skill. Her protests gradually transformed into incoherent whimpers, her body responding to the stimulation despite her mental resistance. "That's it," I murmured against her flesh. "Let go, Doctor."

Victoria's breathing grew ragged, her hips moving more urgently against my mouth. I could feel her inner walls clenching around my fingers in approaching orgasm. She fought it, trying desperately to retain this last shred of dignity, but her drugged body was beyond her control.

When she came, it was with a broken wail that echoed off the laboratory walls. Her back arched, thighs clamping around my head as waves of unwanted pleasure tore through her. I continued my assault through her climax, prolonging her shame as her body convulsed in betrayal.

"Good girl," I said, finally lifting my head as her orgasm subsided. “You’re welcome. Whore.”

Victoria lay shattered on the floor, her body still twitching with aftershocks, her face a mask of complete devastation. The physical torture had been horrific, but this final humiliation—being forced to experience pleasure at her tormentor's hands—had broken something fundamental inside her. I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, looking down at her with cold satisfaction. Then I turned back to the computer terminal and began my work. Behind me, Victoria's quiet sobbing provided a satisfying soundtrack to my victory.

My fingers flew across the interface, shutting down the critical systems powering their defenses. One by one, I disabled the security that had protected this place from Ka Corporation's forces. Defense turrets powered down. Shield generators entered maintenance cycles. I stepped back from the computer terminal, a cold smile playing across my lips as I watched the security systems of Haven’s Deep fall one by one. The main screen displayed a schematic of the underground fortress, sections lighting up in red as their defenses went offline. Blast doors unlocked. Communications arrays switched to Ka Corporation frequencies. The rebels' most secure sanctuary was being systematically stripped of its protection, all because their revered leader had broken under my hands. Most important of all, I locked down the Fenrir hangers, preventing their boot procedures. Terraformer and Thunderstrike and the others wouldn’t have an opportunity to fight back… They would be captured in their beds, unable to power on.

The mission was complete. The rebels' most secure sanctuary had been compromised.

The rebellion was over.

Victoria lay in a fetal position, her naked body trembling with exhaustion and trauma. I pulled up the security radar systems and watched as the first wave of Ka Corporation assault forces began entering the tunnel networks leading to Haven’s Deep… swarming through passages that should have been locked down, the security gates closed and defended by turrets.

I turned away from the terminal, satisfied that my sabotage was complete and irreversible. The Ka Corporation's assault was underway, and nothing the rebels could do would stop it now. My mission was accomplished. But Cernunnos wouldn't arrive for extraction for at least a few more hours.

I had time to kill.

I approached Victoria's crumpled form, nudging her with my foot to roll her onto her back. She complied limply, too broken to resist anymore. Her vacant eyes stared up at me, all fight extinguished from their green depths.

"We have a few hours before my handler arrives," I told her, standing over her with hands on my hips. "I think you can spend that time rewarding my successful mission."

Victoria flinched at my words but didn't try to move away. She knew resistance was pointless. I'd thoroughly demonstrated that lesson over the past hours.

I lowered myself to the floor, straddling her face once more. This time, there was no need for threats or violence. Victoria knew what was expected of her. I positioned my pussy directly over her mouth, feeling her breath coming in shallow, defeated gasps against my flesh.

"Lick," I commanded simply.

Victoria closed her eyes, fresh tears leaking from the corners as she extended her tongue and began to service me. Her movements were mechanical, devoid of resistance or enthusiasm—just broken obedience. I ground down against her face, enjoying the sensation of power as much as the physical pleasure.

Victoria's tongue worked diligently against my folds, sliding over my clit in a steady rhythm. There was no passion in her movements, no defiance, no personality—just the automatic responses of a thoroughly broken tool. It was perfect.

"When Cernunnos arrives, I'll make sure he knows how helpful you've been," I continued, my voice deliberately casual. "He’ll probably want you for his collection, but who knows… Maybe he’ll let me keep you as a pet. Would you like that, Doctor?"

Another sob, another delicious vibration. I increased my pace, riding her face more aggressively now. On the monitors, I could see the first explosions erupting within Haven’s Deep as Ka Corporation forces engaged the few remaining active defenses.

We had hours to see how many orgasms I could wring out of the bitch before Cernunnos arrived, reestablished communication with me, and gave new orders for me to obey. Hours of relative freedom. Hours to enjoy myself.

And hours to try to figure out why it felt so awful.

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