Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

What was most unfair about all of this was that I hadn’t pushed for danger pay in my contract. Overtime pay, hazardous materials handling pay, life insurance, yes, I had gotten all of those written in when I was hired. But I was getting the same rate whether or not I saw a live alien with a plasma rifle or a dead one on the autopsy table.

I realized that I had more serious things to be concerned about besides not getting as much money as I could. For instance, there was the minor fact that I had been captured by the aliens, not captured, but abducted, hauled away from the wreckage of the convoy and bundled onto an UFO. And I knew XCOM didn’t have anything capable of intercepting anything over Europe.

Okay, Moria, you can handle this, I thought, leaning my head back against the metal coffin I had been stuffed in. If they wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. And you aren’t ending up like those poor people, covered in green. Of course, there was the minor problem that plenty of other people had been taken while alive, and had never been seen again. Was I going to end up like that? Probably, yes.

Then again, maybe not. After all the aliens had never caught the head researcher of XCOM before. I knew the aliens had psionic abilities, even if how they had psionic abilities was still an open question. Perhaps they were planning to drain my brain dry for everything we knew about them before sending me off to join all the other abductees.

Well, then, I’d just have to wait for a chance to do… something. Anything. Though I’d need to leave this metal coffin I had been stuffed in, first. Just because I had helped develop the treatments for MELD-infused musculature didn’t mean that I had undergone the surgeries. Except for my brain, I was no more than an ordinary human.

So it would have to be my brain that got me out of this. What was around me? Not much that I could feel at least. The coffin was pitch black, and with maybe an inch of space around me. As much as I could move my hands around to feel anything, it felt like the insides were perfectly smooth, without any handy escape hatches or plasma pistols waiting for me. How inconsiderate.

There were, presumably, speakers somewhere, possibly behind my head. Because I kept on hearing a kind of humming, so faint I could barely hear it. Possibly it was a rather loud sound coming from outside the coffin, but since I hadn’t heard the footsteps of the great green brute that had thrown me in here as it walked away, that seemed unlikely.

Even as I thought that, there was a clang on the outside of the coffin. I almost jumped out of my skin, and certainly jumped higher then was safe. I tried to cradle my aching head in my hands, cursing the hardness of the metal right above me.

Then I cursed again, drawing on all five languages I spoke, as the coffin hatch popped open. Blinding bright light stabbed directly into my eyes and I used my new-found freedom of movement to cover my eyes while they adjusted.

That was the plan, at least. In reality, my hands hadn’t gotten any higher than my chest before they were grabbed in a grip that might as well have been made of iron for all I could break it. Squinting my eyes, I saw either the same green-clad alien that had thrown me in here, or its twin, silhouetted against the light.

I was dragged out of the coffin and thrown onto the floor, hard enough to knock the breath out of me. At least the grey metal decking was dark enough it didn’t hurt so much to look at it. And now I had some options.

Sure, they were almost all certainly terrible options, since I was unarmed and in the middle of the alien ship or base or wherever I was. But they were options! That had to be worth something.

That thought buoyed me up as I felt a cool, gloved hand grab the back of my neck and haul me up. Part of me was wondering at the sheer amount of muscle being used. The aliens had psionics, tractor beams, and other things I was sure I didn’t know about. And yet, I was being manhandled by something whose thighs were thicker than its head. Something to consider.

I was set on my feet, and a large hand planted itself on my back and pushed me forward. They hadn’t even bothered to handcuff me. Did they have that low of an opinion of me? I’d have to come up with a way to make them regret that. Hopefully, a way that would see me safely back in the warm embrace of the XCOM project, instead of a mere bitter satisfaction as the aliens tossed me into a new, more secure cell.

“So where are you taking me?” I asked, in my native tongue. And didn’t get so much as a grunt of acknowledgment, as I expected.

At least they hadn’t bothered to blindfold me. Meaning they probably thought I’d never get the chance to tell anyone else what I saw. But I still took the chance to look around, picking up every detail I could as I craned my head this way and that.

It was clear I wasn’t on the scout craft that had abducted me. This place was clearly underground… Underground somewhere. On Earth, maybe? Or the moon, or another planet entirely. There was just no way of knowing. I wasn’t a geologist, so all I could gather from the brown stone that formed the roof overhead was that it was brown stone.

I looked over my shoulder, wincing at the state of my lab coat. That was never going to get clean again, I could tell. I also tried to look over the alien’s shoulder, but, even though I was tall for a woman, I wasn’t that tall. Instead, my gaze was drawn to the small, yellow, rage-filled eyes. I wondered how much of the thinking behind that was from the brain it was born with, or if it had implants to handle advanced thinking like the Floaters did.

Or, as I was prodded down a ramp, deeper into the bowels of the alien base, if the aliens used a third way entirely. The psionic power the sectoids exhibited, to a greater or lesser degree, might well be how such an obviously enraged specimen could be kept under control, and use high technology.

And they might be doing the same to me. The humming hadn’t stopped, even once I was out of the coffin. And it hadn’t seemed to vary one bit even after half a kilometer. I couldn’t recall anything in the AARs about psionic activity being associated with humming, but it seemed quite probable.

Which meant: what? That I was psionically sensitive myself? That there was some kind of aura throughout the base and active craft? That I was being especially targeted by a non-combat use of psionics? There were just so many possibilities, and no way for me to work on narrowing them down.

And the humming really was getting distracting. I did my best to shut it out, pushing it to one side. Instead, I looked around, searching for anything I could use.

The amount of aliens in the base, for one. That would be useful to know. So far, it seemed rather lightly populated. Back home, at XCOM’s base, there were always at least half a dozen people in any corridor you cared to name. Here, though, everything seemed quite understaffed, especially given how wide the hallways were. There were some sectoids and Thin Men (not in their blue suits, surprisingly enough), doing what looked like maintenance work on panels and such, but I hadn’t seen many soldiers yet.

Perhaps I was being kept away from the important parts of the base. Or perhaps they were understaffed, sending too many soldiers out to fight XCOM. And that was a cheering thought. Though, I reminded myself, I shouldn’t accept it just because it spelled good news for us.


“These shoes were not made for long walks,” I said, looking over my soldier once again. “I hope we get to our destination soon.”

No response, of course. But I felt better for having said it. Of course, I would feel even better if I got the chance to sit down soon. My feet were really starting to ache, and the chance to rest and take stock would be useful.

Finally, we arrived at a closed door. That wasn’t unusual, since all the other doors along the corridor had been closed as well. The faintest hint of security, perhaps. This one, though, was an actual, physical door, instead of the shimmering forcefields the rest of them had been. I wondered what was on the other side.

When the door opened, I didn’t get much of an answer. I blinked in surprise at how quickly the door shot up, and then again at how the interior was pitch-black. The lighting in the hallway was so bad I couldn’t see a thing inside.

“Wha-Hey!” I screamed, as a large, meaty hand planted itself on my back and shoved me forward.

I was forced into the room, tripping over my feet. I stopped as soon as I could, not wanting to hit my head against the unseen wall. I turned around, hearing my heels clacking on the floor. The alien was still in the doorway, blocking out most of the light.

“Well?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips. “Now what?”

I didn’t get an answer. Instead, the door shut with the same abruptness, leaving me alone in the room. Hopefully alone, at any rate. Man, if there was something else in here, I was toast.

“Hello?” I asked, wondering if I wanted to hear an answer or not. “Is anybody there?”

There was nothing. Nothing except for the humming. In fact, that was the only sound I could hear, besides my own breathing and the beating of my heart. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, willing myself to calm down. Panicking, here and now, would be pointless. In fact, it would be even worse to panic then it would have been in the coffin. Here, I had the chance to really hurt myself by running into a wall.

When I opened my eyes, I realized that it wasn’t completely black in here. There was some light. Not a lot of light, not very bright, but it was still something.

Tilting my head, I took a single small step towards it. It was kind of hard to describe. The shape of the light seemed to be constantly changing, twisting around on itself. It was more or less circular or ovoid, but there were always lumps to it, distorting the outline.

The color wasn’t any more constant, either. It seemed to shift through all of the colors of the rainbow, white to green to brown to red, in a constant state of flux, smoothly flowing from one shade to another.

And, finally, the brightness wasn’t the same either. It was never very bright, certainly never enough to read a book by. But it did, at times, grow light enough to let me see my hands, or, at other times, so dark that I could only see the silhouette of my hands when I held them in between my eyes and the light.

It was really quite fascinating. Almost hypnotic, really. I could feel my brows furrowing as I stared, trying to tease the pattern that I knew had to be there. And failed, quite badly. After five minutes of intent staring, only stopping to blink, I shook my head and forced myself to turn around and see what else was in here with me.

There wasn’t much. Feeling a bit more confident, with the lighting showing the extent of the room, I stepped forward, gingerly feeling out what the light showed me.

It wasn’t a big room. A little over three meters on a side, and up and down too. The light was in the center of the ceiling, seeming to be embedded in it. Along one wall was a small bathroom, with what had to be a toilet and a shower head, and a drain underneath it. No privacy or splash wall, though.

Along the other wall was what had to be the bed. It was a long but narrow bed, too, stretching from one end of the room to the other, but only two-thirds of a meter long. If I slept on that, I better not move around too much trying to get comfortable.

Frowning, I reached down to pat the bed. It was actually surprisingly soft, especially since it didn’t look any different from the rest of the room, a kind of shiny black that flickered with the light. And that was about it. The aliens obviously didn’t go in for creature comforts for prisoners. I sat down on the bed, and considered my next move.

First, the door. A few minutes with that convinced me that it was only going to be opened from the other side. And hopefully within a few hours or so, for food, if nothing else. The shower drain was obviously out of consideration. As for water…

“Gott ein Himmel!”

I followed that up with several more expressions as I stepped back, groping for the switch I had pressed. That was obviously a shower, certainly enough. A very, very cold shower. Turning it off, I wiped my sleeve across my face. Well, at least that was one basic need taken care of.

Still dripping down onto my clothing, I sat on back on the bed. I forced myself to think over the humming. So, no way out of here, at least on my own. On the other hand, I had water, and I had a lot more space to move around then in the coffin. That would give me three weeks, even if I wasn’t fed. That would certainly be plenty of time to plan… something. Who knew? Maybe I would even get very, very lucky and a squad of XCOM soldiers would be kicking the door down and rescuing me in the next minute.

And perhaps the door would open to take me to a magical realm full of talking animals and candy-themed flora. It was quite clear to me that the only person I could rely on to get me out of here right now was myself.

Standing up, I tugged my clothes back into their proper position. I started to pace up and down, as much as I could. I always thought best when I was moving. And I was going to need every bit of my brainpower to get myself out of here.

I had just about managed to form a very bad guess of how far away I was from the convoy ambush when something finally happened. My head snapped up as I heard a different kind of hum in addition to the omni-present hum I had been listening to ever since a Thin Man had stuffed me inside that coffin.

I squinted, looking up at the ceiling. Sure enough, there was a darker square of black then normal, right next to flickering light. I stepped underneath it, trying to look into the new exit. It was too small for me to fit even my head in, but it was something new.

The new hum was replaced by a whir. Down from the hatch, descended a… thing. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at, and the bad lighting didn’t help. There was a long, rounded cylinder at one end, with a small hole at the end of that, pointed down at an angle. On the other end, there was a large, upright cylinder, that the smaller one ran into. It was all supported by an arm that ran into the ceiling.

I stared at it, scratching my head. What on earth was this about? I circled the device, trying to figure out what it was supposed to do to me, or what I was supposed to do to it. Nothing came to mind just from observation.

And just as I was about to reach out and start physically examining it, the whirring started up again. Even as I lifted my arm, the device started to rise back into the ceiling.

“Wait!” I yelled, grabbing at it. But in the dim light, I misjudged, and caught nothing but air. “Shit!”

I watched as the device slid up above the ceiling, and as the hatch closed back in on itself. I tapped my foot against the metallic floor, staring upwards and trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. Was it some kind of cleaning apparatus for the cell? A gas dispenser? Something even more exotic? I simply had no idea.

The next time it came down, though (if it came down), I was going to have to be more proactive in studying it. Getting hands-on would be a necessity. And until then… I sniffed the air a bit, and blushed, realizing that was me I was smelling.

Well, if the aliens were thoughtful enough to provide a shower, then I might as well use it.

I quickly stripped out of my clothes, and neatly folded them on my bed, putting them as far away from the possible spray of the shower as I could. I was already going to have to be naked for a long while, airdrying myself. There was no need to wait even longer for my clothes to dry as well.

Standing underneath the showerhead, I started trying to figure out how, exactly, it worked. Yes, I knew how to get water out of it, but I’d rather have hot water washing over my body instead of the liquid ice I had first gotten.

“Gahhh!”

Okay, that obviously wasn’t it. Hopping from side to side around the spray of water, I batted at the showerhead again, trying to figure out if there were any other settings to it besides on and off. Preferably before I developed hyperthymia.

As it turned out, there were. Rather more settings then the showers at XCOM, in fact. There was the hot/cold settings, obviously. But there were also some settings to adjust the flow of the water, making it shoot out as soft and smooth as anything. It was surprisingly luxurious. I stayed underneath the water for a while, at first doing my best to get clean without soap or shampoo. And then, just enjoying the hot water running over my body.

I spent so long underneath it, in fact, that when I stepped back out, I had no idea how long it had been since my clothes disappeared. I blinked in shock, staring at the spot on the bed where I had left them. Even in the dim light, it was clear that there was nothing there.

I quickly walked over to the bed, my wet hair slapping against my back. I ran my hands over the entire length of the bed, desperately trying to figure out where I had put them. They weren’t on the bed. They weren’t under the bed. My clothes simply weren’t there.

I whirled around, looking over the dim, almost featureless room, as if I could have missed my white and green clothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

How on earth had this happened? The aliens, obviously. But why? Why take them? Why wait until I had removed my clothes? Why wait until I was distracted? Why do it in such a manner? Why, why, why?

I sat down heavily on the bed, my wet butt pressing into the soft material. I rubbed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, I’d see a stack of neatly folded, laundered clothes. That didn’t happen, obviously. There was just the dim lighting dancing over the black surface, gleaming in the water scattered over the floor and one wall.

Well, what was I supposed to do now? I couldn’t get dressed. I didn’t feel like another shower. All I could do was wait to dry off, listen to that humming, and be glad that the temperature in this cell was so warm. At least I didn’t have to be cold and naked. Just naked.

And now I was going to have to wait. Wait and think and hope that there weren’t cameras in this cell, manned by some kind of alien pervert.

As near as I could figure, twenty-four hours had passed. I was keeping track of time by measuring my pulse, and the needs of my body. But I already wasn’t that sure how quickly the hours were going, and I knew it was only going to get worse.

I was still naked, and the temperature of the room seemed to have risen during my fitful sleep. It was quite comfortable, so long as you looked past the face that I was naked, in a dark room, being held captive.

Also, I was hungry. I hadn’t gone this long without food since I was a student, and my body wasn’t used to it. It was starting to get distracting, and I was going to need something to eat soon. And, for that matter, I was going to need something to distract my mind with. Something besides the humming, which hadn’t stopped even for a minute. It was even in my dreams.

Therefore, when the apparatus came down from the ceiling again, I leapt at the chance for something to do. I didn’t waste a second, walking right over to it, ignoring the movement of the air on my body. Even if this couldn’t be a weapon or a way to escape, then at least it was still something to do.

The lower, narrower cylinder was in easy reach, so I grabbed that one first. My fingertips touched it hesitantly. Then, when nothing happened, I wrapped my hand around it. I could just about manage it.

The shaft was surprisingly warm, perhaps thirty five degrees or so. I ran my hand up and down it, looking for any soft spots and to see how much give it had. To my shock, as I completed a stroke, I could feel a vibration running through the device.

Out of the end, a small dollop of some creamy white fluid came out of the hole. It dropped down, right onto my shoulder. I jumped back almost before I knew what was happening, letting go of the device and trying to flick the material off of me. Who knew what it was, after all?

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” I murmured, all of the horrible things unknown substances could do to a human body running through my mind.

I scraped away at the material, only managing to transfer it from my shoulder to my hand. I glanced down at my skin, my mind finally starting to process what my body was telling me. No burning, no itching, nothing but a slimy feeling on my shoulder and fingers.

I sagged in relief. Then I lifted my hand up to my face, to better examine just what it was that had come out. It faintly glistened in the light, the dim, multi-colored lighting reflecting off the white material. It didn’t have a smell to it, and seemed quite sticky and vicious, clinging to itself quite well.

Was, was this food? It was possible that it was. The schedule and the interaction needed suggested that. Was it safe for humans to eat? That was something else entirely.

Well, there was only one way to find out. Opening my mouth, my tongue darted out to lick at my fingers. I ran it along the white goop glistening between my fingers.

It was… a taste. That was about the most I could describe it as. Not sweet, not salty, not hot, nothing more than a taste that lingered on my tongue. On the other hand, it wasn’t obviously inedible.

Squaring my shoulders, I licked the rest off of my hand. There wasn’t all that much, but what there was was enough to make my stomach start rumbling. That hadn’t been nearly enough, and had only woken my hunger.

Luckily, the device was still there, with the lower tube still pointed at me. The solution was obvious. I reached up and wrapped my hand around it again, holding my other hand just underneath it. A few quick strokes, and more and more of the white fluid came oozing out of the tube.

It was only when I had a handful of the stuff, dripping down the sides of my hand, that the obvious reference came to me. A naked woman, wrapping her hand around a warm shaft, stroking it until some white stuff came out? Good God, was I reading too much into this or not enough?

But I still needed to eat. Telling myself I was just imagining the whole thing, I let go of the shaft and, cupping my hands together, raised them to my mouth.

Somehow, I thought that I could notice more of a taste to the fluid now. A taste that had been foreign to me since college, and my last boyfriend. I told myself I was just imagining it, that I was projecting my hazy memories of what cum looked and tasted like onto my food.

Just as I was licking the last bits of cum- food! Just as I was licking the last bits of food off of my hands, the device started to rise into the ceiling. My eyes widened. I was still quite hungry.

“No!” I shouted, jumping up and grabbing at the device, trying to pull it down towards me.

But my hands were too slick from licking them, and I couldn’t get a grip. I fell to the floor, right on my ass, as my fingers slid over the smooth, rounded surface. I cursed and beat the floor with one fist, watching the hatch slide close.

That was it, then. No more meals for today, or however long the system was. And I was still hungry. Not as hungry, but I still wanted more food, even uncomfortably suggestive food.

Scowling, I got up and then sat right back down on the bed. I licked my hands completely clean, chasing every last scrap of white liquid. I was going to need all the nutrients I could get (and hopefully this was nutritious.)

That done, I forced myself to calm down and think. As best as I could tell, the same amount of time had elapsed for both sessions, some five minutes or so. It was obviously on a timer, one that didn’t care whether I got enough to eat, or even touched the thing at all

I stood up, starting to walk back and forth, considering what I knew and what I should do. From the still-closed door to the far wall, just a few paces before I had to turn and start over again. But it was still enough to let me think.

So, how, in five minutes, could I get the most food out of it possible? A faster stroke, for one. I had been going fairly slow, but I didn’t need to keep that pace. Or maybe…

Well, the lower end of the shaft was about at head height. I could put my mouth over it and start sucking. Hardly a move that would lower the sexual conations I was associating it with, but still one that could give me more food in the short amount of time I had.

It was a pity that I didn’t have any way to store the liquid food, even if I managed to eat (or drink) my fill before the five minutes were up. Unless…

I blushed quite hard at the image that flashed through my mind. Bukkakes and cum shots were not something I had much familiarity with, and, normally, the idea would never have come to me. But the suggestive nature of the feeding unit and food it dispensed made my mind form associations it normally never would have.

But wearing it on my face or skin was still the best option I had if I wanted to have food outside of cleaning times. I didn’t trust the cleanliness of the floor, and that was my only other option.

So, the next time the device came down, I was going to have to see which was faster. Wrapping my mouth around it and sucking for all I was worth, or jack- moving my hand up and down it in a quick manner. And make sure I got as much food out of it as I could, even if I couldn’t eat it at the moment. With how sticky it was, it should stay on my skin quite well, and not run off onto the floor or my bed.

And it still did nothing to clothe me. I wasn’t physically uncomfortable, being naked. But I still would have welcomed some kind of clothing, even if it was just my bra and panties. But a solution for that wasn’t forthcoming.

And there was one final thing. I had no idea when it had happened, since I was so concerned over the food. But there was something else new in the cell. I slowly look around, trying to place it. Not the lights. Not the bed. Not the shower. Not the toilet. What? Then it came to me.

It was funny, but I was ready to swear that the humming had changed. It was so subtle I could barely hear it, but I thought that there was a rhythm to it now.

I would have to listen to it closer to see if I could pick anything up out of it. What else was there for me to do?