Chapter 5
Deep, deep, deep inside the bowels of the Pollux Astoria was a tiny crawlspace leading to a no-longer connected sub-system of the life supports. Madison spent her days cowering there and in the limited number of similar claustrophobic passages that wove their way through the former interstellar liner. She knew something was terribly wrong with the ship. Too many passages were newly blocked off by walls of a different metal, seeming welded in place. She was virtually trapped, but perhaps also isolated and saved.
Isolated in the dark, with only flashes of red backup lighting every three seconds or so. Trapped with no food beyond the bag of life-ship rations she’d grabbed off the floor near an escaping pod. Alone but for the company of scraping metal, distant alarms, and groaning girders. Her clothes were torn, her shoes were gone. Her hair was a filthy mess, having been sprayed with various fluids from broken pipes during the initial attack. She didn’t know the time, nor the day, nor how long she’d been hiding there except that her bag of supplies was nearly at an end. She knew how many hyperspace jumps they’d taken, though. The mental elation and wisdom that came entering and the crashing return of temporary senility upon exit was impossible to miss, even asleep. But hyperspace elation didn’t feed her. She was a small girl, prone to the latest diet fads of girls her age, and hardly expended any energy crawling around from time to time. She had easily rationed the little food she had. It was kind of gross anyway. But it was still almost out now.
Sleep came only in nightmare form, and it could take minutes for her on awakening to recognize it. Over and over she saw her mother carried away, a trail of ripped clothing behind her. And her older sister Hannah, already nude as two of the mechanical men carried her off shrieking and flailing. Her father, dead in a pool of blood. Her brother missing entirely. And all those other women and girls like herself, stripped, beaten, carted off by the hundreds to wherever.
And almost the most haunting was her sole glance at the outside world since the attack. She’d found a hole in the tube, looking through some debris, and out another hole. She could see in her tiny field of view some men. Or males. They hardly seemed fully human. They wore devices on their bodies. They were mostly human at best. And one of them was Anthony Jarko, the boy she’d met in the game room. The boy she’d flirted with. The boy who was a passenger, not an attacking soldier, who was in his teens, and just a bit older than her. The boy who now wore cyborg pieces of metal on his body, and conversed with soldiers much older than he was. She’d fled from that spot and stayed hidden ever since.
With no options, no hope, no information, and nearly no remaining food, Madison lay sobbing on the floor wondering how hungry she would have to get to risk finding a way out, and probably getting herself grabbed and hauled off to some horrifying naked fate.
That was when she heard the sound of the cutter. They were breaking in, somewhere around her. The sounds all echoed in the tubes. She didn’t know which direction it came from. But she heard the loud clanking of a piece of wall falling onto the floor. And then she heard voices. Indistinct, but voices nonetheless. She froze, looking to her left, ahead, turning to look behind her. She saw only the three second flashing. She heard only the echoes and reverberations. They were in there, with her, but where? How? Were they looking for her? For someone? Did they know anyone was in there? Were they just doing maintenance?
She scrambled, finally, trying to get to a space she knew was smaller, and not so visible down long tubes. Clutching her remaining food, she crawled, slithered, and wiggled through tiny spaces seeking a new tiny space. But when she caught a glow of light ahead and the voices grew louder, she had to reverse herself, backing up blindly even through the roughest patches of torn crawlspaces that poked and further ripped her clothing. She finally got herself turned around and headed as far from the light and voices as she could, realizing only after several more minutes that there were more ahead. In desperation she tried to backtrack and try a different tunnel. Within ten minutes she saw lights ahead and heard the voices.
And then she was blinded. A bright light shined into her eyes from somewhere off the left. She put her hand up, crying out in pain. “Rogue female,” a male voice said. “She’s down here.”
Soon there were sounds all around her. Madison saw shadows of moving figures. She dropped her bag to crawl as fast as she could, trying to get somewhere safe. There were lots of tunnels, and she knew them reasonably well by then. But the men kept coming through the hatches until suddenly one opened directly over her head. She just looked up to see the blinding beam of the flashlight held right over her face. Then she breathed in something pungent and felt sleepy.
When Madison awoke she was lying on a table, held down by strong hands. They were putting a metal ring on her neck. She gasped as it grew tighter and tighter before finally relenting with a sharp burst of pain. They let go of her arms, and she clutched at her throat, feeling that the ring had fused itself under her skin. She could feel the bulge, and that it was still settling into her body. “Activate the unit,” someone said.
Suddenly Madison had the strong urge to put her hands down. She did so, while frantically looking around. Then she felt like she needed to start undressing. She almost began, but fought back the urge. These weren’t real impulses, she realized. These were just messages to her brain. She could ignore them.
“Failure to properly activate!” a mechanical voice blurted out. Madison sat up, seeing the three men in the room with her turn back to grab her again. She screamed and lurched backward, falling off the table as they came for her. A red flashing light began, and a siren went off in the room.
“No!” she screamed, kicking and pushing herself backwards, sliding on her butt, desperate to get to her feet as the three males came around the table for her. In the bright, strobing red light she could see they all wore implants of various sorts. One of them raised his arm, showing the palm of his hand to her from ten feet away. Suddenly a thin cable shot out of his hand, wrapping around her waist, and pulling her forwards. And then they had her. She screamed and tried to kick and hit and bite as they tore her clothes from her body. She was far too thin and small to fight them, but they all held her anyway as they carried her out the door, down a hallway, and into what could only be a holding cell. They threw her body to the floor and locked her in.
Madison stood and screamed, pounding on the door with her little fists. The room was all of six feet square, utterly bare metal, and lit only by a single light panel flush with the ceiling above her, probably twenty feet up. “No! Let me out! Please let me out! Please! Please!” she shrieked as hope drained away from her. After so much hiding, she was just as caught and just as doomed. Maybe even more. What would a failure to activate mean for her?
With her heart racing and her breathing heavy and desperate, Madison could only stand and eventually sit and wait for something to happen. The cell was utterly silent except for her own pleas and sobs. The naked girl had never been so scared in her life, even during the attack and the battle that followed. So when the door finally opened she was despondent and long past fighting. She rose to her knees in front of the first figure that entered.
“Please don’t hurt me!” she cried. “Please, please don’t hurt me! I’ll do anything!”
“Good attitude on this one,” he said to his companion. They yanked her up to her feet and forced her to walk between then down countless corridors. She passed by uniformed, augmented men and a few utterly naked and sometimes slightly augmented women. All of the women looked hopeless and miserable, even while they were doing whatever jobs they had. They brought her to another cell, but larger, and with a restraining chair in the middle of the room.
“Oh god, no!” she shrieked as they plopped her down on it and began restraining her limbs. Her arms at her side, her legs spread and ankles pulled up to the back, her neck and forehead both strapped to the chair back, she was soon rendered helpless. She sat there, whimpering loudly, quivering, as the men left her alone for a moment. Then another man, somewhat older, walked in and sat down on a normal chair right in front of her.
“You are quite rare,” he said. “Only one cunt in two million should be able to resist our mental control.”
“Please, please don’t call me that,” she sobbed.
“Oh, cunt? I shouldn’t call you a cunt?” he asked. “How old are you, you little bitch?”
“Twelve,” she said, lying, hoping that shaving a little off her age would make them leave her alone.
“Old enough to be a cunt, cunt,” he said, leaning forward and quickly slapping her face, hard. Restrained as she was, even turning her head was not possible.
“What do you want from me?” she sobbed.
“Since you’re our first captured cunt to show actual immunity, we want a lot. We want to know how your brain functions. Maybe we’ll cut your head open and watch as you think with your skull removed.”
“Oh god!” she wept, losing control. Her pee flowed from her pussy and down the chair to the floor.
“Girls, so easy to scare,” he said. “But seriously, cunt, we want to learn what makes you immune exactly so we can fix it and achieve one hundred percent compliance. It is not acceptable for any cunt to think for herself! Ever!” Madison wanted to recoil from this man. He sounded angry. Actually angry at her for thinking and for being immune to something. “What’s your name?”
“Madison Avery,” she said.
“What’s your real age?”
“Twelve,” she repeated. Was he buying it.
“You’ve got family here? Or did you?”
“Yes,” she said. He suddenly seemed to have a keyboard and screen in front of him, as if by holographic projection. He typed something and looked at the result.
“Yeah, daddy, mommy, big sister and brother. Mommy and sis are sucking cocks and cleaning latrines with their tongues. They weren’t immune. They’re screaming into an eternal void as their bodies act without them. But they can feel it all. And taste. Your brother proved amenable to our draft. He’s raping cunts just like you, and probably not giving a shit about whether you lived or died. He hasn’t inquired about your parents or sister at all yet.”
“It’s not true!” Madison wept. “Tyler wouldn’t do that!”
“He already has. We have a way to explain the universe to males with enough brains to understand. We don’t even bother with the cunts.”
“No! No, you’re lying!”
“You’ll see the truth of the situation soon enough. But you’re still not allowed to accuse any man of lying, you stupid little shit!” he snarled. Suddenly she felt a hundred burning stings in her back, her legs, and her ass. “If I tell you my shit is chocolate, you beg me for the chocolate! You don’t fucking contradict a male speaking to you!”
“I’m sorry!” she cried. The pains vanished.
“Do you have any known medical conditions?”
“No.”
“And you address me as sir, got it?”
“Yes.”
“Obviously not.” Suddenly she felt a burning heat on her chest, where her breasts were growing in. “Try again, cunt!”
“Yes, sir,” she wailed. The pain went away.
Now he leaned forward and put his hands on her body. She felt her skin crawl, with the sensation of his skin on hers. No one had touched her before. She knew about sex and marriage and the birds and the bees, but she hadn’t even considered trying it herself yet. Now he was touching her, one hand on her breast, swirling his fingers around and pinching at her nipple. The other hand was on her lower belly, sliding around, dipping lower and lower towards her cunt. “All this,” he said, “Belongs to me now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And when I pass you off, you’ll belong to another man.”
“Yes, sir,” she sobbed.
“But this girl meat, you, is all mine now,” he said with a big grin, digging his fingers harder into her flesh. Madison burst out in fresh tears. But the door opened and another man walked in. Her captor turned on him, eyes flashing.
“I’m busy with the cunt!” he roared.
“Sorry, sir. But she’s wanted.”
“I have the authority!”
“He wants her,” the man said, emphasizing the first word. Now her captor jumped to his feet, clearing his throat.
“Well, of course then. Take her away. I don’t want her.”
The restraints around Madison’s limbs retracted. She nervously stood up, still feeling tiny next to the two burly men. “Come with me,” the newcomer said. “You won’t try to run, right? It would be your worst possible mistake, ever. You believe my words, right cunt?”
“Yes,” she said. “Sir,” she quickly added. She did believe him. She knew she wouldn’t survive by trying to escape. All she could do was pray now. He took her on a very long, twisted route. The further along they went, the more alien and twisted her surroundings became. The color scheme turned to a light and then a dark purple. Naked women became more common. Terrified, obedient women. Some walked freely. Some were encased in displays along the wall, only their eyes moving as she and her guard walked past. She felt faint. She felt her heart racing far too hard in her chest.
It was such a long walk. The halls grew more and more alien. They seemed softer. Alive, maybe. As if they could reach out and grab her. Still there were fulfilled men and emotionally crippled women as she went along. And finally they reached a single, plain door. There were no markings. It was just there, in the wall. A buzzer button was set in the center panel, and the man pushed it. The door opened.
Madison took a single step inside. The door closed behind her. Then it vanished, leaving more space between her and the back wall some distance behind her. She touched for the door, but it wasn’t there. The room was larger inside than outside. How was that even real?
Her attention was drawn back forward, towards swirling mists and the figure stepping out of them. It was big. She saw arms and legs, presumably. A head, presumably. Human features, presumably. Her mind gazed on the almost not-quite-human behemoth, the angles and colors of his features drilling into her mind and triggering some kind of primordial terror in the back of her brain.
“Madison Avery, the first female creature to beat the mind control,” he said, his voice almost and not quite human, cutting into her soul with every sound out its mouth. “Few cunts intrigue me, but you do. So now you will entertain me sexually for a long spell and I will probe you for your secrets. I’ve decided in advance you will live and remain intact. You may find this intolerable when I’m done entertaining your body. Now we begin.”
He, or it, stepped menacingly towards her. Madison cried out unintelligibly and stepped back in terror at the beautiful hideous creation coming at her. “No! No! What are you?” she cried as it was nearly on her.
“That question will soon never need be asked in this universe. But I am the machinoid.”