Work Text:
Triple checking my balance on my holoband didn't change the number, and I couldn't help but grimace at what I saw.
I might have been a little overeager on just how much I decided to lay out on my most recent purchase. Impulsive, me? Nahhhh.
The dark, rain-slicked streets of New Babylon were mostly empty at this time of night. The part of town I was in didn't help either. Industrial buildings hunkered down amidst huge apartment blocks, the scent of smoke and industrial waste lingering in the air. We were a stone's throw from the spaceport where I'd berthed, just far enough away that all the reputable, corporate engineers and doctors who cost an arm and a leg (and had active licenses) were behind me.
In getting my new, top-of-the-line neural lattice and having it installed, I may have failed to consider that I'd need a skilled cyberneticist to tune it and make sure it actually would do what I needed it to. Sure, the off the shelf firmware and setup would be fine, but if I wanted to be able to up my license grade, and get some new frame certs under my belt, I needed better than fine.
Plus, going from a standard neural plug all the way to a fully integrated lattice was kind of a big change, and I honestly wasn't sure what sorts of differences I was going to find beyond faster response times and higher throughput. It wasn't the sort of thing you wanted to find out in a dogfight in deep space, a lightyear from the nearest doctor or technician.
I was pretty sure that what I had left would at least buy me a quick checkup with a somewhat reputable gray market aug-wrangler, and some searching had found me a name and an address. Turning a corner in the drizzling, chem-tainted rain, I tugged the hood of my jacket further over my head and glanced at the info on my holoband to make sure I was heading the right way.
Virtue's Reward
79996 Reform Plaza, Floor 12, Suite K
- Walk-ins welcome
- Flexible payment arrangements
- Questions optional
It was a weird name for a cybernetics tuning shop, but I figured I wasn't in a place to be worrying about a weird name when I was the one desperate enough to be heading there.
The ‘Reform Plaza’ address turned out to be a huge, partly-collapsed industrial scale warehouse. The right side of it had mostly been given up to the elements, broken flashcrete and rusting rebar bared to the sky while broken windows gave it an abandoned air.
The left side was in better repair. But not much better. A surprisingly heavy steel door, the kind you'd expect to see as a bulkhead on a voidship, blocked entry, with a row of perhaps twenty buttons set in the wall next to it, little spots next to them for business to identify themselves.
All but three were blank or blacked out, and the one I was looking for was admittedly the best looking of the lot, button clean and the fancy calligraphy font placard for ‘Virtue's Reward’ easily legible. Ducking my shoulders and leaning closer to the wall to try and shelter from the drizzling rain, I jammed a thumb against the button for a couple seconds and waited.
A little speaker above the rows of buttons crackled to life, a sleepy voice rising from its tinny speaker.
“Mmyeah, Virtue's Reward.”
“Hey, I wanted to see about a neural interface tune up?” I felt self-conscious, standing there in the dark and rain with my very expensive lattice newly installed in my skull, looking for the cheapest place I could find to work on it.
Silently cursing my lack of foresight and patience, I shuffled my feet.
“Mmokay. C'mon up. Lift's out, tho’.” The sleepy voice answered after a moment's pause. The speaker went dead.
A low buzz sounded from the door, and heavy-duty pneumatic locks disengaged with a hiss and clunk, before it popped open. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then grabbed the door, yanking it open with a grunt and slipping inside.
A little bit about me, while I laboriously climb bare flashcrete steps for ten minutes. Name's Pax Barik, mercenary, impulsive idiot and decent-to-good mech pilot, depending on your criteria and what frame I'm flying. I'm about 5’6, fairly cute and in decent shape. Part of the gig as a merc mech pilot means I have to hit certain physical fitness criteria to be able to keep my license, so I do just about enough to get there, and not much more.
Today, I'm clad pretty plainly, you don't want to go out in your best dress when you're walking around a deserted industrial district at night. Especially not with corrosive, chemical laden rain in the forecast.
A heavy jacket, waterproof vinyl in maroon, does a good job in keeping the water off, even if I've still got some of the nasty shit on my face anyway. Tastes foul.
A pair of leather pants, actually meant for motorcycle riding, are waterproof and not attention-grabbing, complete the look.
Well, my ass is attention grabbing in them, but hey, when isn't it? I don't own any pants that don't flatter my best feature.
Sensible boots, a compact pistol in the waist of pants and my holoband complete my outfit, since I knew I was going for a hike in a shitty neighborhood.
The stairs feel especially endless because every door I pass is closed and barred, warning signs or ‘out of business’ posters covering them, and there's not a single window the whole way.
Eventually, finally, I got to the right floor. This one, at least, is open. A short hallway leads off the landing, a few unmarked doors leading who-knows-where, and one that has that same fancy calligraphy ‘Virtue's Reward’ stenciled on it. Casting a suspicious look at the creepy surroundings, I make sure my pistol is where I can reach it and try the handle.
The door swings smoothly open, a gentle chiming announcing its opening.
I'm not sure what I expected inside, but a brightly lit, comfortable looking waiting room was not it. Least of all one that had people already in it when I got there.
Armchairs and low tables filled the room, a few holoscreens projecting whatever fresh crap the corps were airing on one wall, news on another.
Two of the armchairs were occupied, which, like I said, was a surprise. This place didn't scream ‘busy’, but then again if I was running a gray market aug adjustment business, I guess I'd rather not look busy either.
One had a lean woman in a grease-stained set of mechanic's coveralls, fiddling with an unlit cigarette in one hand, while the other, which was cybernetic rather than flesh and blood, hung limp in her lap, the metal scorched and blackened where some violent charge had grounded itself into her. She was absently glancing back and forth between the various screens more out of boredom than real interest while she waited.
The other was… weird. Like, really weird.
A very well-dressed businesswoman, I'm talking designer power suits and matching jewelry and shoes, sat perfectly upright, perched as lightly in the comfortable looking seat as it looked like she could manage. Tidy, expensive looking updo for her brown hair, elaborate makeup, the whole nine yards.
She looked like she'd gotten the full set of ‘tastefully understated’ augs that the really rich types went for, the kind of stuff that looked almost more like a fashion statement than a cybernetic.
Ports lined one side of her neck, literally gilded, the plate around them engraved with art deco embellishment bullshit. Her eyes glowed an alluring pink, and I could see her hands, resting flat in her lap, were cybernetic too, though they were fairly hard to distinguish unless you looked real close.
What someone like that was doing here was a real open question. She definitely had way more than enough money to go to someone on the up and up, unless A) she was up to her eyes in debt or 2) she had some really nasty black market stuff under the hood.
Which was all fine and dandy, but what was raising alarms was that she hadn't made any attempt at all to change her dress or how she held herself to blend in.
She was staring straight at a wall, unmoving.
Usually when people have something to hide, they, y'know, hide it.
Still, definitely not my business.
I proceeded to ignore her, moving through the room where I wouldn't enter her line of sight, and made my way to the counter that was built into the far wall, next to another heavy-duty airlock style steel door.
There, a girl who looked maybe seventeen, was sleeping on her folded arms.
The owner of the sleepy voice, I assumed.
When the slumbering redheaded teen failed to stir as I approached, I sighed and cleared my throat.
She'd really fallen back asleep in the five minutes it took me to climb the stairs? Really?
When politeness again failed to wake her, I rapped on the thick, plastic barrier.
Not so much as an inch, did she move.
So I pounded a fist on it, harder than before, annoyance beginning to creep up on me.
This was more along the lines of what I expected from a back alley cybernetics lab.
This, finally, stirred the girl, who slowly lifted her head and yawned, blinking and looking around until she caught sight of me, waiting there, probably looking exasperated and a little pissed.
“Oh hiiii.” She cooed, offering a dreamy smile. “Sorry, I'm just exhausted…” Another yawn forced its way out of her, and she seemed to forcibly rouse herself to some amount of professionalism.
“Welcome to Virtue's Reward, like, how can we help you?” A cute, dare I say, impish grin shone at me from her, and I blinked, momentarily befuddled.
“I heard you guys can do neural interface tweaks and calibration. I need some stuff cleaned up on my new augs, and I'm tight on cash.” Best to be upfront. They said they made payment arrangements, but being in debt made me really uncomfortable, especially to some people I didn't know
“Ohhh, yeah! We do that! Well, I don't, but the doc does!” The redhead chirped brightly, glancing at a monitor set up nearby.
“Mmh, looks like she's available! Ready?”
I started to nod, then froze, and glanced at the two people who'd already been here waiting, before looking at the teenager who I was pretty sure was too young to be working here doubtfully.
She giggled at me, and gave a dismissive wave.
“Oh, don't worry about them. Doc'll see them when she's good and ready. C'mon in!” The admittedly cute receptionist hit a button, and with another low buzz and heavy clunk, the steel door popped open to my right.
Feeling a certain amount of foreboding, I let out a soft sigh, and headed through the door.
A clean hallway greeted me on the other side, brightly lit, with paintings on the walls. It gave me a sense of dissonance, thinking about this professional, clean office tucked into one of the skeeviest industrial ruins I'd seen, which included places like actual war zones.
Little miss sleepy greeted me on the other side, emerging from her desk, and I got a better look at her. She was a little shorter than me, clad in ripped jeans and a t-shirt that hung off of one shoulder, with a big, smiling cartoon bird on it. Her red hair was pulled back loosely, and she grinned at me as she beckoned me to follow her.
“So, what d'you do? Wait, lemme guess! Uhmm, hitwoman!” She said, bouncing up and down lightly as she glanced back at me.
I couldn't help the look of incredulity I felt climbing my features. That was her guess? Wonder if she'd been shot or threatened before with a mouth like that.
“Hah. No, not quite. I'm a mercenary.” I answered, as we rounded a corner, coming to a set of double doors at the end of the hall. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, pouting at me and tilting her head.
“What's the difference?”
Before I could figure out how to explain to a teenager the difference between an assassin and a gun for hire, she pushed the door open and practically skipped inside.
“Dooooc, new customer!” The receptionist effervesced.
“I told you not to call me that, Nora.” A tired, husky female voice replied.
“Sorry, doc!” chirped Nora the receptionist, who sounded not sorry at all.
The room we walked into was as different from the office space as the office space had been from the building outside.
Sleek metal machinery, banks of softly humming computer stacks, glass cabinets filled with a mind-boggling variety of cybernetics, and what looked like a full robo-surgery suite hanging from the ceiling over an operating table.
The owner of the voice, and the person I assumed was ‘doc’, though I resolved not to call her that immediately, rolled into view on an office chair, fixing a blank, tired stare on Nora, which, again, seemed to elicit no reaction whatsoever from the redhead.
A heavy sigh escaped the doctor, who raised a hand to rub her eyes under round, wire-framed glasses. Her nails had chipped black polish.
The woman herself could have been anywhere between thirty and fifty, with short, tousled black hair and a face that was relatively attractive, even without makeup.
Not that I swung that way, but more on an aesthetic level, I could appreciate she was pretty.
Full lips, hooded eyes that looked even more tired than Nora had, in a heart-shaped face. The woman herself was what I would call ‘bottom-heavy’, with full hips that filled her rolling chair completely clad in black dress slacks that she looked poured into. A full bust and soft middle left her what I suppose you'd call ‘plush’ or ‘curvy’. She wore a maroon blouse, straining over plentiful cleavage, with the top four or so buttons having abandoned their duty. I was pretty sure it was a size or two too small. She was still kind of pulling it off through sheer confidence.
“Come back when I'm done for recalibration.” The tired looking woman said, exasperation plain in her tone and body language.
I had no clue what ‘recalibration’ meant or how it would help with her not being called ‘doc’, but I wasn't about to go poking my nose into her business.
“Okay! Byeee!” Nora said, waving to me, and then honest-to-god skipped out of the room, pulling the doors shut behind her.
Nonplussed, I just sort of stared after her for a long moment, wondering what kind of nuthouse I had walked into and if I should just leave now. Beg off with an urgent call, make do with the default lattice settings.
My musing was interrupted by the woman behind me clearing her throat.
“Take a seat wherever. Name's Providence, what can I do for you? Log says you need some tweaks done on the cheap?” As I turned back, she gestured to the room. There were a few stools, another rolling chair, and even the operating table included in her gesture. I chose one of the stools, dragging it under me and dropping onto it, flipping my hood back for the first time.
“Providence. I'm Pax, merc and pilot. I just got a neural lattice slotted, and I need it optimized and set up for frame interface.” I said, rubbing the back of my neck lightly. I'd been ignoring the tension there, muscles still adjusting to the new cybernetics I'd had implanted even if the nanoregeneratives had ensured it was healed. Cool metal flashed under my fingers as my hand brushed the quartet of universal ports now set at the base of my skull.
She tilted her head at me, the way you might look at a puzzle or a problem that needed fixing for a long moment, before dragging a keyboard and holodisplay on a rolling arm over to herself and accessing it.
“Let's see. Pilot… I'm betting you went with the Lushenko QRx7.” I knew she couldn't have seen my aug, considering it was on the back of my skull and neck and I hadn't turned around, so gaped slightly at her plucking the name of my very expensive neural lattice out of thin air.
“Uh, yeah.” I admitted, snapping my mouth shut so I didn't look like such a mark. “You work on those?”
“I work on everything.” Providence answered with a snort, never glancing up from the holodisplay she was typing on.
“Ten thousand for a quick and dirty tweak and some basic optimization. Fifty thousand for a full rebuild and customization, and I'll throw in purpose built firewalls. Hop on the table, I'll hand you the plug and we can get started.” She said, without any preamble or bargaining.
That I would say no didn't seem to enter into things, and to be honest… at those prices, if she was any good at all, I would be an idiot to turn her down.
“Let's do the quick and dirty, I'll come back for the other when I've got more cred, if I like your work.” I hedged. Even the ten thousand was going to mean I was surviving on surplus rations I had stashed away until I was able to get another job, but it'd be worth it almost immediately. I knew a couple favors I could call in, especially showing off my new augs.
I rose, pushing the stool aside and moved to the operating table like she'd instructed, climbing up onto it with the vaguest sense of apprehension. She had gotten up as I walked over, and handed a thick, metal conduit that ended in four smaller cables, each tipped with a plug that would mate with the ports in my skull and spine.
Providence was still looking at me with a faint sense of curiosity about her, but she just watched silently as I hopped up on the operating table and began to jack in the plugs one by one.
There's something totally unique about using neural interfaces. A bridge between flesh and machine, a wonder of modern technology. Up until I'd upgraded, I'd had a standard run of the mill neural plug. One port, allowing for limited data transfer and mental control of a few systems when you were hooked in. But the new aug I'd just gotten was a whole different beast. Circuitry and synapse had been deftly married in my skull, meaning that with the right rig, I could essentially meld with whatever frame I was piloting, letting me respond and control it at the speed of thought, with finesse that would make me the envy and bane of other mercs.
Suffice it to say, I was a little hot and bothered over the paychecks and bragging rights that were going to open up to me once I was ready to go, which was probably why I'd blown everything I had on getting it installed.
Slotting each of those plugs into my ports felt electric, the tingle of connections snapping into place and coming to life, a shiver passing through me at the ticklish sensation of not quite physical sensory response making my fingers and toes twitch slightly.
The fourth plug slid into place, a light twist securing it, and the weird twitches and sensory ghosts faded away, to my relief.
“We'll clean that up. Lie back.” Providence reassured me, glancing up from her console to check that I'd done my work correctly. “Alright. For a lattice-type aug, we need to get some baseline responses to figure out the calibration points. I'll ask you questions, you answer.”
“Uh, alright..” I replied, as I pivoted to lie back on the table, feeling the light tug of the cables seated in my body as I moved, aligning my head with the recess in the table that would cradle my head without pinching the plugs embedded in me.
The formerly exhausted-seeming woman had gradually come to strangely intense alertness as we moved from introductions to actual work, brown eyes flecked with gold almost luminous as she peered down at me.
“Let me be clear. The questions I ask are not random, and they are not jokes or pranks. Answer them truthfully. If you don't, you may find that your settings end up configured so that thinking of your ex makes your self-destruct system arm.” Her voice was a rich and husky contralto as she
The surgeon I got the lattice done through hadn't mentioned anything like this, and it certainly wasn't anything like what I'd gone through getting my plug set up when I'd gotten it, but if I was going to trust this lady to work on my cybernetics, I had better trust her. So I pushed away my paranoia and let a breath out slowly.
“Okay, I get it. I'll answer.”
She flicked a switch on a nearby bank of electronics, and in answer a cold tingle ran through my body, spreading from the ports in the base of my skull until it had crawled over my skin, down to my toes, prickling uncomfortably like goosebumps.
“Feel that?” She asked, her voice closer. Providence had moved so that she was standing next to the operating table. The holo display that she'd started on was now neatly set up on her left, and I could see other screens and readouts blinking to life around me.
“Yeah, feels… cold?” I answered, hesitantly.
Providence nodded, eyes flicking between three different screens and me.
“Yes, I suppose it would. Let's begin.” She licked her plump lips and met my uncertain gaze with her intense one.
“Your name is Pax Barik. You were born on a station orbiting Wolf-359. You are a mercenary and a mech pilot. Is this all correct?” Basic information, probably all things automatically gathered by looking me up with a cursory search.
“Yeah, that's right.”
“Good. Heterosexual, homosexual, or other?”
That seemed wildly inappropriate, but it wasn't like I was embarrassed about it.
“I'm straight.”
Providence sighed, shaking her head slightly.
“Pity.” I struggled to keep my temper in check. What, just because I didn't fuck girls she was judging me?
“Most recent combat deployment?” She continued, typing something in as she spoke.
“I was pulling guard duty on a helium-3 refinery station. Three months, we fought four times.” Keeping my voice level was hard, but I just wanted to get through this. Something about her really rubbed me the wrong way, I was coming to realize. Like an itch that you can't reach, prickling away in the back of your head.
“Interesting. Last time you had an orgasm?” She typed something else. I felt the faintest tingle in my neck.
“Around two days ago.” My mouth answered, without checking in with my brain to see if I wanted to say that out loud.
Wait, what the hell?
“Alone or with a partner?”
“I picked up a cute guy in a bar near the spaceport.”
Hold on, wait, STOP, I am not telling her all this.
“And he got you off? Either he's impressive or you're an incredibly easy fuck.” Providence said, tilting her head as she regarded me.
My cheeks reddened, and unbidden by my thoughts and impulses, I answered again, despite screaming internally for my own traitorous voice to shut up.
“I cum really easily. It's kind of a curse, honestly.” Horror twists in my gut like a knife.
In what universe would be saying shit like this to someone who I just met, who has done nothing but piss me off?!
But when I go to tell her off, I find my lips don't answer me. Nothing comes out.
There's the faintest twitch, like my body thinks about doing what I want and then decides not to.
I meet Providence's brown-and-gold gaze, eyes wide, and see a slow, satisfied grin spread over her full lips, the expression reminding me of a cat playing with its prey.
“Oh, you noticed.” She says, stepping closer to the table. Every instinct I have is screaming that I'm in danger, now, the faint tingles of paranoia having erupted into full-blown panic.
I have to get out of here. This isn't just inappropriate and weird, this woman is a hazard. And I have her playing around in my brain.
I sit up, forcefully swinging myself upright on the table, one hand shoving her back while the other grabs the pistol in the back of my pants, aiming it squarely at her chest, giving myself time to unhook the cables snaking into my nervous system.
But I'm not moving.
I know what I want to do, instinct, training and willingness to do violence giving me a map on how to handle the situation. But my body doesn't answer me either, just like my mouth.
I can't move.
Providence traces a finger gently along my lower lip, a delicate, tender touch. I can feel it in perfect detail, the press of skin to skin, the faint shiver it sends through me, the way it makes my heart beat slightly faster.
“I can tell you haven't done any research on the difference between a neural plug and a lattice. A bit foolish, but I'm happy to give you a crash course.” Her hand drifts lower, beginning to unzip my jacket.
I grab her wrist, twisting it back and to the side in a joint lock, slamming my other fist into her smug, sadistic face. Or, I want to. I intend to, my thoughts flowing to drive my body to instinctive action.
I think my left pinkie finger twitches slightly.
It's only then that I notice a second layer to this nightmare.
My heart should be racing. Adrenaline pumping, body and mind preparing for fight or flight.
Other than the fluttering increases caused by Providence's touches, my body is perfectly calm.
The zipper in my jacket hits the bottom, and the plushly curved monster looming over me slowly pulls it open. Underneath, I'm wearing a fitted tank top. Her deft fingers tug the bottom of it upward, revealing my relatively toned midriff. Then, fingers playing over my abs like an artist appreciating a sculpture, she continues speaking, glancing back at me with those intense, hooded eyes.
“Let me see, how can I explain it..” She ponders for a moment.
“Think of a standard neural plug like a… voice call. You can communicate with the person on the other side of the line, even give them orders or receive them, even hear something that makes you upset or angry, but it's still fundamentally removed from you, only a connection.” A warm, soft hand splays against my stomach, pushing up underneath the cloth forcing it to bunch as she moves it upward.
“Now, I'm guessing you assumed a lattice would be more like having someone else in the same room, helping you. Reading your body language and intention, acting in concert with you. Is that right?”
She asked me a question.
My lips answered.
“Something like that. I just wanted to be able to pilot better, make more money “ My voice felt alien, now that I realized that I wasn't consciously controlling those answers. They were me, but also fundamentally not in a way that should have made my skin crawl.
Providence nodded, like she'd expected that answer. My tank top was now bunched up under my chin, the clingy black fabric of my sports bra on full display.
Her hand lingered over it, before she shifted drifting lower instead, her eyes wandering down my body with intense, unhealthy interest.
“What you would have wanted was a neural harness, or a higher grade of plug. Something that could help amplify your capabilities, but fundamentally still separate from you.”
Oh.
Fuck.
She was absolutely right. That was what I'd wanted. I'd just assumed since a neural lattice was more advanced, more integrated, more expensive, it would do what she was describing, but better.
I felt her fingers toying with the button on my leather pants, but without being able to move my head, I could only look down so far.
“Do you have any weapons on you? We wouldn't want any accidents.”
I wanted to curse and snarl, for my voice to refuse to answer. Or just to pull my gun on her and drill one between her eyes.
“I have a gun in the waist of my pants and a knife in my boot.” I replied calmly, evenly.
Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.
“I do love a woman who's prepared. I'd ask you to hand them to me but we're not quite there yet.” Her hand, with its painted nails, soft and uncalloused, slid under the small of my back and peeled away one of my last hopes for turning this situation around.
The pistol was a compact semiautomatic with a nine round magazine, and she idly examined it, checking the safety and ejecting the magazine to see if it was loaded before slotting it back into place and setting it aside.
The knife, a fairly good-sized piece of steel that I kept sharp enough to shave, joined my pistol on the tray she left them on, just out of reach of me, even if I could have moved.
“Now then. Where were we?” Providence mused, and to my horror and embarrassment, I found myself answering the rhetorical question with ready obedience.
“You were explaining the differences between a plug and a lattice. And were asking me a series of questions.” my voice helpfully told her, without any involvement from me at all. I was finding it harder and harder to feel like anything but a passenger, watching through my own eyes. She laughed, a throaty chuckle, and patted my cheek in a way that made me boil with impotent rage, but didn't show on my placid face. Only my senses, still transmitting their messages freely, kept me grounded at all, even if the result was a horrifying feeling of paralysis, but via indecision.
“So I was. I'm so easily distracted! I'll finish my explanation in a moment. Would you say you are a masochist or a sadist, Pax?” Her fingers had returned to playing with the button of my leather pants, and my body shivered, an involuntary reaction to the strangely intimate touch, even if she didn't do anything for me sexually.
I really, really didn't want to answer this question. With all of my remaining focus and effort, I bore down on my jaw, willing it to remain closed and keep that information to myself.
To my surprise and intense relief, my jaw clenched shut. Less reassuring was the fact that I still answered, though the sound was muffled to unintelligibility by my jaw refusing to move.
And somewhat concerningly, this seemed to attract the doctor's interest and full attention, eyes immediately shifting to meet my stare, head tilted slightly as she looked me over with raised eyebrows.
“Well now.” Her eyes flicked to a holographic display just out of my line of sight. “Would you answer my last question please, Pax?” Her rich, husky voice had an edge of forceful authority in it, now, unlike the almost conversational or professorial tone she'd used until now.
Again, I kept my mind clear and attention focused. I could tell it was harder this time, resisting her and whatever she'd done to me. Muscles spasmed and twitched painfully as I fought to keep them clenched and my disobedient body struggled to do as she'd asked.
I whimpered, but again, managed to keep my jaw shut and avoid answering her. To be honest, I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep it up, but I wasn't going to just surrender now that I'd found a way to fight back.
“That is… genuinely impressive. I thought it was an issue of improper integration of the lattice with your brain tissue, but you're actually overloading the response loop by force of will.” I felt a flash of pride, more at my own success than her praise, but few people could avoid feeling anything if they got complimented on something they actually felt good about.
“How curious. I wonder what your answer could be to elicit such a strong reaction. I could keep asking, over and over, wear down your resistance and willpower until your mind buckles under the strain. Or maybe you snap a tendon, or break a tooth.” There is a certain longing in her voice that makes me desperately hope there is an ‘or’ or a ‘but’ coming. I have no interest in any of the things she just described happening to me.
“Maybe I can make an educated guess.”
Fear bloomed, strangely muted since it was all but restricted to my thoughts, my body still calm, not pumping out chemicals like adrenaline or cortisol as it should.
I hated it. I felt like I was watching a movie of myself, like I couldn’t even be fucked to care about my own helplessness. It is shockingly hard to stay mad, or scared or tense when your body doesn’t make the fucking chemicals it’s supposed to in order to support it!
Providence’s soft hand disappeared from my very limited field of view.
“I suppose I should dial this back if we’re going to measure your arousal response…” Murmured the psychopath controlling my body.
In a disturbing display of just how much control she had over me right now, Providence did something, and I began to feel my heart rate climb, body shaking faintly as all of those hormones and neurotransmitters that should have been pumping through me all along surge back to life, freed from whatever vault she’d locked them in.
It’s immediately both better and worse. I feel a step closer to being me again, but I am still helplessly unmoving, only now with a burgeoning panic attack and adrenaline making me shake and twitch.
Then her hand glided back over me, thought it was, concerningly, no longer empty.
An Agonizer-pattern Electrical Incapacitator now rested comfortably in her grip, and she looked down at me, eyes seemingly drinking in the rapidly-growing signs of fear and panic blooming across my face and body. My eyes, however, remained locked on the incap.
The Agonizer was a nasty piece of work. Stun guns hadn’t changed much since their inception, excepting perhaps delivery method or voltage. But the Agonizer was a different beast. Banned or restricted mostly everywhere, they were capable not only of causing painful muscle spasms, but of actually signaling pain receptors all over your body, making them great for ensuring someone stayed down, but also basically a handheld torture device.
People die, regularly, when targeted with them.
I’ve put someone down with one when I was cleaning out a nest of smugglers.
And if you’re a masochist like I am, on their lowest setting, they're like being lit up from inside with sheer, blissful agony.
My breath hitched, and I knew my eyes were probably dilated at the familiar, threatening sight.
Now, here’s the thing.
With her systems hooked into my head the way they had to be to be fucking with me like she was, the mad scientist HAD to be able to see my reaction and figure out the answer.
But she was as much a sadist as I was a helpless masochist, so she just twitched her lips into a grin and then pressed the Agonizer to my bared stomach, before squeezing the trigger.
Have you ever had a muscle cramp up in your foot? Not just a little one. One of those cramps where you can’t think, can barely remember to breathe. Where all you can do is try to make the pain stop, tears beading in your eyes.
The setting she put it on made my entire body feel like that.
If I’d had control of my body, I would have shrieked and screamed and thrashed and sobbed.
It felt incredible. It was hell.
Instead, all I got was wet as the sharp, sudden familiar agony shot through me, drowning out thought and self in a tide of obliterating sensation.
My body answered, just the way it always did, with a pulsing, greedy heat as pleasure rose up through me in an irresistible swarm and wracked my body, making a drenched, wet mess of my panties and I squealed. I shook, as it receded, breath coming in short, ragged gasps. But I was also more turned on than I think I’ve ever been, and helpless to hide it or do anything about it.
“Well well, Pax Barik, you weren’t lying. You do cum easily, don’t you?” Providence chuckled, tracing the metallic tips of the weapon’s business end over the crotch of my leather pants, which made my breathing hitch and my body shake.
The thick scent of sex and arousal hung embarrassingly in the air, and my voice obediently replied.
“Y-yes.” I pant, voice shaky.
“One more hit of this and you’d be a puddle on my exam table. Asked and answered, hm?” Providence leers, cheeks flushed, clearly enjoying herself.
“Yes, it’s really embarrassing, honestly.” I glibly reply, my voice breathy and rough. Whatever she had done to me was clearly still in full effect.
Her eyes sharpen, and she traces the contacts upward again, staring into my eyes.
“Is that what you want, straight girl Pax Barik? For a woman who’s rendered you helpless and compliant to make you cum in your pants from pain, like a good little masochist? I’m sure it’ll be fun to walk home with sopping panties, reeking of sex.” Her tone grew more and more derisive, clearly mocking me as I panted, struggling to control my lust after the first taste she’d given me.
She might not do anything for me specifically, but I couldn’t say the same for what she was doing to me. Fuck, it was hot. Being helpless inside my own body, while a merciless tormentor threatened me with more pain as a reward? I shivered, a faint whine building in the back of my throat.
“Yes.” My shaky, needy, traitorous voice answered her question just like any other. “Please!”
Providence laughed, her full lips parting in a broad, vicious grin at the barely audible noise, before pressing the Agonizer against my jaw, under my chin, leaning close until her face completely filled my vision, brown-and-gold eyes glittering with eager malice.
“Call it a reward for being such a good first time customer. Cum for me, Pax Barik.” Her voice was silk and velvet, throaty and sultry as she grinned down at me and squeezed the trigger a second time.
My body lit up. It was more than a moment, this time. At least, I think it was. As pain bloomed and spread, digging into my body like eager roots into rich, soft soil, time became a distant, theoretical thing. My body wasn’t my own, but as I’d proven before, clear enough singular focus could give me some measure of control.
Unfortunately, pain and arousal are not conducive to keeping your focus.
I screamed, pure, undiluted pain making my muscles twitch and spasm there on the table.
And I came, just as convulsively and uncontrollably as my helpless traitor of a body was answering the impulses from the Agonizer.
It came over me in crushing, drowning clenches of my body, worsening the agony, making it so all I could feel was the blaze of my nieces and my desperate, burning need for air as my overstimulated body refused to respond to any further impulses.
Everything went white, and my thoughts crawled to a halt, everything fading away in the blaze of it all. I lost my hold in the vice-like depths that grabbed and dragged me further away from myself, from even the lie I’d told myself about a modicum of control.
As things faded from white, to red, to black, and my lungs screamed for air in silent exhalation, I had one more thought.
I’m going to fucking die.
Then it all went away.
-
I scratched absently at the back of my neck as I settled myself into the pilot’s chair on the shiny new mecha that I’d been assigned on my new job.
My ports had been getting sort of itchy in the last month or so, and it was starting to get old.
I’d have to get Doctor Providence to check it out the next time I made it planetside.
She was a weirdo, but she did incredible work.
I was like a new woman in the cockpit, and it was all thanks to her.
Sliding into the pilot’s seat and slotting those connectors into my neural lattice was natural as breathing now, and better yet, all of the extra data and feedback slid smoothly into my thoughts, letting me sense the reactor’s temperature, hear the sensors ping off my hull, feel the radio waves of enemy transmissions on my metal skin.
Learning to pilot a forty foot tall machine of destruction by feel was a skill I’d had to practice, but the more practice I got, the scarier I was on the battlefield.
I’d been a fair to middling pilot before.
Now? Now I was a goddamn terror.
I absently slid my fingers in slow circles around my ports, as my mind wandered to Doctor Providence.
I really wasn’t much for girls, but something about her…
I couldn’t put a finger on it.
I’m sure I’ll get closer to figuring it out when I see her again. I squirmed in my seat, not sure why my stomach twisted pleasantly at the thought.
Probably I needed a good fuck. I’d have to pick up some pretty boy later.
I keyed in the contact number for Virtue’s Reward, and hit ‘call’.