2 comments/ 94633 views/ 33 favorites Enhanced Methods Day 01 By: EasyTarget [All characters in this work of fiction are 18 or older.] * She felt like a schoolgirl next to the tall, willowy Tomlin. He was blond, thin, pale and beautiful. A confidence man, con artist, seducer and all-around sexy bastard, and completely out of her league, he wore a red leather jacket, French cuffs and Italian boots. Edwina on the other hand was a short, bespectacled, bookish girl, nervously clutching her notebook bag to her chest, trying to hide how much she was blushing. Completely beneath his notice. He sweet, though, still smiling and showing her a good time up until then. They'd met the contact at the bar, and she'd done her job (look adorable, do the computer thing and show the money was real, say nothing) while he crooned and schmoozed the two men in suits. When the deal was made, he'd insisted she stay for a drink, and, her heart fluttering in her chest, she'd stayed for that and two more. Now they were walking down a street in Madrid after midnight, on their way back to the hotel. She knew better than to hope he'd take her to his room, but she could pretend. "So," he said, startling her, "why do they call you Dongle?" Oh, no, did he think her codename was stupid? "Well," she began, "a 'dongle' is a slang term for a hardware key...a small but critical piece that the program won't work without. I earned it when I stole one from a Franchise weapons lab and ruined their operation." "I see." "So why do they call you Heartbreak?" "Oh, I dunno," he crooned, tossing his hair comically. "Hey. Thanks for comin' out tonight." "I was so nervous," she said, "I mean, hey, free trip to Spain, but I'm not cut out for field work. I don't know how you guys do it." He laughed. "Oh, come on. You did great, didn't I say?" She reddened further. "God, I must have looked like a child." "Yeah, well...damn, I think it's going to rain." "Oh, no!" He took her hand (wow!) and they ran as fast as her business heels would allow. They arrived at the hotel before they were drenched too badly. She was both disappointed and relieved when he dropped her off at her room with a sheepish smile before retiring to the one next to it, and after she closed the door, she allowed herself to do that thing they do in the movies, where she slumped her back to the door, sighed and slid to the floor, and then melted into a puddle. Two hours later she was awakened by a knock at the door. She froze, and for just a moment, allowed herself to hope. Maybe he was back. She fished for her glasses, then slipped into a nightgown (just in case it wasn't) and, as she was trained to do, waved a hand in front of the peephole carefully before actually looking. It *was* him. She nervously fiddled with her hair, tugged her nightgown into a better position, then tried not to sound desperate as she fumbled to unlock the door. Tomlin almost knocked her over as he darted inside and slammed the door shut. In his hand he was holding a gun. And not the kind she'd been hoping for, either. It was chrome, and it had a silencer. "T-Tommy?" she managed. "Get dressed," he interrupted. "Someone tried to kill me in the lobby." She squeaked and rushed into the bathroom, catching the hangar with yesterday's suit on it as she disappeared. She came out again, composed as she could be, to see him with his back to the wall beside the door, waiting. "We have to get you out of here." "But--!" "Sweetheart--" he said, taking her arm, "it's me they want. I'll get you to the stairwell. Leave your phone on." He rushed her down the wall, half-hiding the gun, and shouldered open the door to the stairs, depositing her inside. She looked back at him, forlorn. "I'll be fine," he said. "You have to go. Now." The door closed. Carrying her shoes, she ran down the stairs, and out the door into the alley... They were everywhere. Yet she never saw more than two at a time. Men in long jackets. Sunglasses. Hats. She watched them permeate the hotel and the street from behind an alley gate. She tried to hide her frightened breathing. She didn't sign up for this. She wasn't a mercenary. She wasn't an assassin or a femme fatale. She was a hacker. She just hoped Tommy was okay. And just like that, they started disappearing. She heard a car speed off. Her phone vibrated. --- --DAY 1-- She was at the verge one finds themselves on just before consciousness, the part where the attempt is made to stay unconscious. This requires effort, and gives way to more and more unwelcome cognition. She felt like she weighed a ton and her head was packed with tissue paper. She couldn't bring herself to move. She was too comfortable anyway. It was warm, the mattress soft on her back where she was lavishly sprawled. Her skin was smooth and soft, freshly bathed and moisturized. She glowed. She was just having trouble yawning, and the blankets had fallen off or something. Her eyes drifted unwillingly open. She was naked. Her blinking eyes adjusted to an array of amber heat lamps above her, giving her skin a healthy glow, which by the feel of it had indeed been washed, perhaps even treated with moisturizers or oils. Her smooth, brown hair was splayed out around around her arms and shoulders on the padded surface upon which she found herself. The heavy feeling was genuine, but it was compounded by restraints holding her wrists together above her head. Her knees were held bent open, her ankles also securely held apart, all by a stretchy material that gave a little, but did not release her. Another strap secured her neck. It seemed designed not to interrupt her nudity, which would look and feel almost luxurious if not for the obscene positioning. The wisp of thin material being held over her mouth made an enticing whimper of it, but she did at least try to ask out loud; "how did I get here?" She remembered. They'd left. They were gone. Her phone. It made that "wzzzzz" noise when it vibrated. She'd reached for it. They weren't gone. Lifted roughly off her feet, she smelled chloroform on the square of fabric pressed over her mouth. Oh, god. She remembered. Being carried to the van. Her clothes being pulled off. Cut through. Taken. Sprayed all over her body with warm water like a cadaver on an examining table at a forensics office. Her hair being washed. Soap. Lotion. They'd shaved her. Completely. At some point, for whatever reason, they'd returned her glasses. Her toes twitched, and she noticed that for some reason she still had her shoes. The struggling was a formality. The elastic bands stretched but stayed secure. She'd never hurt herself, but she'd never escape. It was when she heard the door open that she froze and tears started to well up. The anomalous gentleness with which she was handled had thus far left her eventual fate rather uncertain, but who she saw entering the room erased all doubt. She was going to be tortured, interrogated, probably sexually, and in all likelihood liquidated after she talked. And talk, she surely would. Scratch. That was what they called him. That and his real name, Scott Broley, were synonymous with all the terrible things that could happen to anyone caught on the wrong end of espionage for so much as a minute. He was tall and slender like Tommy, but with more muscle. Shoulder holsters on either side of his torso, black gloves, black pants and dress shoes, he was the utilitarian kind in appearance. It was his personality that did the talking. "Wow," he said, as if observing on a mildly remarkable find on E-bay. "They really got her. Tommy thought it was him we were after, isn't that fucking hilarious?" He approached the table, gloved thumbs hooked in his belt. She started struggling again. "Aww. Geez, you poor thing. Dongle, right?" He tisked. "Shame. Step out of the lab for one second and you end up in this one. Oh well. That's the game, I guess. But," he said, his mockery of reassurance very chilling, "not to worry. It won't be me who does it to ya. See I find the guys get too zealous and don't focus on the job. Honestly I couldn't either. But the staff has it well in hand. I called them in specially from Hong Kong." He nodded with pride around the room and Dongle realized she hadn't been alone. There were people in lab coats. Four, five maybe. Women. "There was this documentary about bisexuality. It showed a study where women and men were shown video clips of men and women in various sexual and nonsexual situations while they measured their genital arousal," Scratch went on, naturally. Dongle started to notice the coats the 'staff' were wearing were a little tight. Almost provocative. "The straight guys responded to anything with tits. But the heterosexual women, see, didn't respond to nude men doing anything nonsexual any more than they did to panoramas of the Swiss Alps--the control, you know--but the clips of nude women dancing or doing calisthenics or planting azalea bushes caused a significant response." He watched them for a moment. They looked like they were preparing for...surgery. "Whaddya suppose it means? Hm?" Dongle knew of Scratch, for all his evils, to be an honest man and believed him when he implied that he wouldn't be touching her. She also knew him to be a complete fiend, and so shrank from his gaze when it fell on her again. "This isn't bad as far as violations of the Geneva Convention go. This isn't some makeshift interrogation room in a rusty shack in Tikrit, I mean, this is the professional shit. Clean. Clinical. Befitting a lady, you know? I mean, after the first hour, we even let you answer questions." She was shivering now. He stared down at her with those eyes, letting it sink in. Then he deftly whipped off a glove, produced a handkerchief, and rather courteously caught and wiped away a tear that had run its way down her temple toward her ear. "Save those," he said. He turned and left her there. Even strapped naked to a table in an unknown location, pending interrogation at the hands of professional...handlers, she actually felt safer with him having left the room. That is until her gag was removed and a breathing mask pressed to her face. She started screaming into it. An IV was inserted in her wrist, through the bondage cuff, apparently a feature of the design. A monitor on a gimbal arm eclipsed her vision. The screaming forced her to respirate whatever it was the mask was feeding into her system. Her eyes shot open when she registered: oxygen. She was going to be completely awake for this. As hope of fainting vanished, her wide eyes were just in time to see the monitor turned on. Among other things, mostly extraneous strings of "0000" and "10:00:00" and the chilling title "Case 771," the screen was dominated by images of her at different angles. In one window was a top-down view of her subdued, naked form, her face hidden by the monitor itself. She noticed her shoes then. They weren't the ones she'd been wearing. Another window was a closer angle of her torso and her heaving chest, the one next to that was her own masked, terrified face. The last, #4, was pointed squarely at her womanhood. They were going to make her watch. She hadn't been trained for any of this. She was a computer analyst. A hacker. A geek. Already she was a mixture of tearful whimpering and muffled promises to tell them whatever they wanted to know, and pleas not to inflict harm on her. But the black-haired specialists were preparing their tools. And they advanced one by one. Totally awake from the oxygen being pumped into her brain, she couldn't look away as the monitor showed her very acutely what she was feeling. Latex gloves smeared a substance onto her nipples. On the close-up between her legs, she saw and felt herself opened by hand, and her hood pulled back. She squeaked and thrashed at being "handled," but froze as she watched warm drops of clear liquid dolluped onto her most sensitive spot, and then very clinically "applied" inside her by a latex-covered finger. The affected areas immediately started to tingle, turning pink and then red as they filled with blood. What were they doing to her? It wasn't long before there followed EKG leads...except not quite, they had wires attached to them, but were contoured to fit perfectly over engorged female nipples≠. Others with the appropriate shape were attached around her modest breasts, which were still heaving with her fearful gasps of eye-popping oxygen mixture. She was watching Camera 4. She'd never seen it so clearly. And unable to look away at herself so obscenely displayed, her alarm grew as she was forced to watch herself getting wet. That is until her view was blocked. She heard the hissing noise first. Then she saw the hose being brought over. It had a glass tube at the end about as wide as a small grape. They touched it to her clitoris and the suction immediately stuck the aperture to her, drawing her clitoris into the transparent bulb. She felt the sensation of blood rushing into it and, to her horror, nearly had an orgasm. This couldn't be right. She was really lubricating now. It was starting to trickle down to other places. This was fortunate, as from nowhere a device, like a metal lollipop attached to a wire by the stick, was inserted into her other hole, eliciting a muffled protest. The last thing put inside her looked like a metal egg, also on a cord. It was shaped in such a way that she felt it press against the most intimate surfaces inside the warm, wet folds of her exposed genitalia. For what seemed like a day, she waited for something to happen. She was having trouble ignoring the nagging feeling of pleasure from her clitoris being firmly sucked on in the vacuum tube, probably because she was being forced to watch it, but other than that, she waited. Then she heard one of the technicians mention a "test sequence." As much as she could, she braced herself. She tried not to scream and failed when the lollipop gave her a sharp tingling sensation. A mild shock. They were going to use electricity on her. Simple and effective. What else would they need on someone like her? Every nerve tense, she felt the egg next, buzzing inside her, making her shake. Then the tube felt like it danced needles over the anatomy it was secured to. She felt like she knew what was next, but it was worse than that. Each of the contacts stuck to her breasts went off on sequence, until finally the shock hit her nipples, one at a time. She was crying by then. Then a moment later, she forgot to as she felt another sensation. A different tingling. The nipple cups vibrated. At first it was just disturbing, the nerves still smarting from the correctional impulse, but before long she started to squirm a little. Just as she was beginning to wonder what they were up to, the nipple cups stopped that the lollipop jumped to life. She gasped in a lungful of oxygen. When the egg took a turn stimulating her she began to frantically wonder what was going on here. Then she paralyzed. It was like her whole body lit up, frozen, eyes wide, mouth gaping and silent. The tube on her clitoris was humming uncut pleasure into her hips, thighs, belly, breasts, toes, fingertips, and her mind. She was stunned and exhausted when it stopped, just a heartbeat away from an orgasm. "What the fuck?" she breathed. She wasn't given long for her mind to clear. But she could tell they were just getting started. She was starting to just wonder where they were going with this. The vibrating had involuntarily aligned her whole body. As scared as she still was, physically she was now completely focused on one thing. "Start the clock," said a voice nearby. 01:00:00 became 00:59:59. Then they hit her with all of them. Her nipple cup, clitoral tube, G-spot egg and anal bead all suddenly force-fed her inorganic, unfaltering sex impulses at once. With no warning or preamble, she was taken from zero to orgasm in about a sixth of a second.. Her body arched as best it could, instinctively drawn toward the attachments, as she experienced the kind of climax that can only be produced in a laboratory. There were no fantasies, no intimacy, no fetishes or kinks; they'd hit a switch and literally turned her on. She was shocked and exhausted when they let her down again. She felt like she'd been defibrillated. The effect had nearly blinded her, and might have made her pass out but for the mask. As it was, she hazily noticed they'd held her under for a whole minute. And now 0000 read 0001. "Oh, god, no!" Her suspicions, though correct, were washed away immediately. She was having another uncut cocaine orgasm. It was the most pleasure they could induce without attaching electrodes to her brain. Her conscious thought was already breaking down, but she'd gotten the sinister joke: they were going to force-orgasm her for the next hour. And did they ever. When simply vibrating all her pleasure receptors at the highest possible frequency showed a hint of losing effectiveness, they started to incorporate some variety, which took a little longer, but was always different and therefore always worked. The instant vibrating changed, evolving into pulsing, oscillating, random interruptions, sometimes just a low, subtle intrusion on one particular area while the rest of the attachments raped her senses. It was the more complex stimulation that made her ejaculate, projecting drops of fluid across the table, or sometimes just gushing into a puddle around her, which mysteriously drained away directly through the material. And when that showed the most minute sign of faltering, the shocks started again. The leads to the flesh around her nipples all did one of two things, get warm or give an unpleasant-to-toe-curling tingle, which renewed the intensity of her climaxes in a way that surprised even her, and it spread eventually to include the other components. It dismayed her to see just how receptive she was to abuse as they incorporated electric shocks to her orgasm regimen. When she was awake, she was having, or on her way to having an orgasm. When she did manage to pass out, they shocked her awake. When she was having an orgasm, she wasn't thinking. When she had time to think, usually no more than three seconds at the very most, she heard her mouth begging, and tried not to watch the mounting digits on the monitor in front of her or the fluids she was losing, replaced by the IV in her wrist. It had stopped being curious or acceptable after 0003. She couldn't form words properly after 0009. Her vision actually started to suffer at 0021. When she came out of her stupor, the counter read 0042 and it was over. She felt like she'd been hit by a train. The nature of the equipment didn't cause any real wear and tear on her anatomy, but her whole body felt like she'd been thrown down a flight of stairs. Her eyes couldn't focus at first, and when they did everything looked like it was moving. The heat lamps had kept her warm without blankets thus far, but now they kept her in a sheen of sweat. And she was joined. Sitting on the edge of her table was a woman in a short lab coat. Her long legs were exposed except for her prim heels. She looked to be idly checking off things on a clipboard, probably just for show. She looked Chinese, but surprised Dongle with an American accent. "Okay, genius," she said, "this is the part where you start talking." Dongle whimpered. The woman popped the oxygen mask off and got her pen ready. Dongle tried. She was still having trouble articulating, or even staying focused, let alone recalling details. She stammered something about trading information with the Syndicate before the woman interjected. "That's great," she said, "now tell us about the Godspike." Dongle blinked. "...the...the what? I..." She arched her back and screamed. The components were just electrocuting her this time, the equipment emitting an rhythmic buzz. Enhanced Methods Day 01 The woman gestured for the malicious technician at the controls to let up. "Yes, you just orgasmed from that." "Please," Dongle pleaded tearfully, "I can't take another one--" "The Godspike," said the woman. "I d-don't know what--" "Put her to sleep," said her tormentor. The exhausted Dongle survived another half hour and fifteen more machine-induced orgasms before she finally passed out. --- "You...okay...you allowed what to happen exactly?" Tomlin cringed away from his cell phone, and stole a glance at the entrance to the alley he'd hidden himself in. "I...uh..." "Did you just fucking tell me," the voice on the other end went on, "that you let Bradshaw get nabbed by the Union? You did, didn't you? Son of a bitch." "Look, they were after me at the time, I was trying to draw them off while they--" "Oh my god. Just shut up, okay? I'm activating Balleraphon and Crucible, they're on vacation in El Sardinero, do what you can in Madrid until they get there. Don't let them get Dongle out of Spain, got it?" "Thanks, Rico," said Tommy. "One other thing...don't tell Heretic, okay bossman?" "We'll see," said Rico Belushi, the man on the other end. "I'll try my damndest to keep him in Catalonia." Click. Heartbreak Tomlin snapped his phone shut and sighed. "What aren't we telling me, exactly?" The cold voice nearly killed Tommy by itself. The sight of Agent Heretic just barely standing out from the shadows made his blood run cold and icy sweat form on his temples. Heretic was built like the Colossus at Rhodes. His hair shot directly up like the fires of his anger. His under-armored torso was wrapped in an assault vest, black gloves punctuating his long arms. Black BDU pants ended in hardcore service boots meant for stomping, yet they were alarmingly quiet as he uncrossed his arms and advanced menacingly on Tomlin, who shrank. "Uh..." he tried, "Jerry...hi..." NeoCapital's resident omni-killer rested a hand "gently" on Tommy's shoulder. "Hi, Tommy," he said. His ability to destroy whole environs by himself was intimidating. His intelligence was really scary. "If this has to do with Eddie, you're in deep guano. If she's been hurt, I'm going to throw you out of this alley like a caber. If she's dead, I'm gonna get really nasty. Clear?" "Oh boy," said Tommy. Enhanced Methods Day 02 [The characters in this work of fiction are (still) over the age of 18.] * Tommy drove. Jerry sat rigid beside him, icily regarding the rainy night outside. They'd been in total silence since the journey began. Edwina, or "Dongle," was a touchy subject with Jerry. Especially now that she was missing. Tommy was sure there was something there. He wasn't sure what exactly. The whole relationship dynamic was strange at the NCC. Of course, any relationship with the infamous Agent Heretic was bound to be complicated on its own. Crucible and Balleraphon chirped in Tommy's earpiece reporting that they were ten minutes away. They stopped on the street and watched. "That's them," said Tommy. Jerry said nothing. The men in black suits walked into the hotel. "When they come out, wait for me to light up, that's the signal to go in," said Tomlin. "Are you listening to me?" Heretic was fiddling with his phone. "Great," said Tommy. "Just great. If this fucks up, Rico's gonna...what the hell are you doing? ...Jerry?" Jerry was staring at his phone. "What is it?" The man ignored him. Then he shouldered the car door open. The lifting of the handle was a formality. Tomlin watched, stunned as Heretic marched, then stormed, then charged into the hotel. "Oh..." he said, "...christ..." --- --DAY 2-- The day before, Edwina Bradshaw, or Case 771, had been subjected to equipment designed not to cause undue wear or bruising. Though far from merciful, they functioned with no physical action, and served to overwhelm the senses, not damage the equipment. The experience could be generously described as "gentle." Today found her captors markedly less charitable. She didn't remember where she woke up. Just her bonds being removed and the feeling of being hauled upright. She was damp, like they'd washed her again, and still naked except for an unfamiliar pair of heels, which she would have toppled over on if she wasn't supported by about four pairs of hands leading her in her groggy stupor to parts unknown. She wasn't really cognizant of anything solid until she realized she was looking into the eyes of one of the black-haired, almond-eyed technicians from the previous night. She also realized the woman was supporting her dizzy head up by her chin in one hand and shining a light into her eyes with the other. She blinked, her mind clearing. Her heart picked up speed, and she started feeling jittery. "I th...thought," she said, her tongue sluggishly returning to its duty, "you said no dru...drugs..." "Oh," said the woman, calmly releasing her, "epinephrine is more of a medicine than a drug. You're lucky we can't hit you with the psychotropics." She gently withdrew the needle and stood up, revealing an array of nine large monitors behind her. They were all blue for the moment. It all appeared to be part of a larger machine, which she realized was sitting on. Or more precisely, straddling. She was on her knees over what gave a passing resemblance to that sybian thing she'd seen on the internet, where she lived. She could feel that she was, in fact, sitting on an "attachment." Two in fact, already comfortably slick. She tried not to squirm. This device was different from the ones she'd seen on the interwebz, however. Besides filling two openings instead of one, it was higher off the ground, and long like a bench, part of the assembly in front of her. Her knees and ankles were strapped to the pads, and her thighs were strapped to what could be called the "saddle," holding her firmly onto the protrusions under her, and a textured hump nestled against her clitoris. When her arms finally answered her mental roll-call, they reported that they were bound in thick cuffs behind her back, attached by a strap to a collar on her neck. Her hair had been tied back in a tight bun for the occasion. Her nipples tingled, and felt a little encumbered. A glance revealed that they were under opaque plastic suction bulbs connected to hoses, not at all like the things from yesterday. The cords led off somewhere and connected to the machine. These leads twisted together with some surgical tubing. It appeared to have a clear liquid in it. She shivered. They were IV tubes. They were using her nipples as an injection point. So that's where the adrenaline shot came from. This was just sick. She couldn't help herself frantically expressing as such. "Of course it is," said what's-her-name. The others always seemed to be working, but she seemed to be the only one doing any talking. "We're not here to converse. The others don't even speak English. In fact the moment this thing turns on you're Case 117 again, Ms. Bradshaw, so if I were you I'd be using this time to the fullest by seriously considering my loyalties and cut right to the lies we have to shake out of you before you tell us about the Godspike. This is costly, after all. In fact I think I want you to end this more than you do. So let's take this one step at a time. Godspike." "I don't know what that is!" "You know, hypnosis is a cute parlor trick," said the technician, as one of her colleagues handed her a remote, "When you add things like aversion therapy or food sleep and fluid depravation, you can erase memories or even alter components of the subject's identity, and you get what we call 'brainwashing.'" She leaned on the console, expectantly. "...I've never heard of God's Spike!" "We know you to be a heterosexual woman, Ms. Bradshaw, is it true?" "What? Y-yes...yes, of course, I--" "It won't be." Dongle squirmed. The attachments squished wetly inside her, but held her in place. "Wh...what do...you can't..." The woman clicked the remote. The monitors all came to life. Each had a different pornographic scene on it, all female. Lesbians, girls masturbating, more than a few instances of bondage, and one or two with helpless women strapped to ominously familiar-looking machines. As if the footage was taken from this very lab. "If you don't start singing, and I mean immediately, I'll leave you on this thing until you don't even remember how to give a blowjob," she said. Dongle wasn't sure she knew how to do that anyway. "Despite what your friends may have said in high school, your skill with a soldering iron and preference for suits doesn't make you gay. But this will. Now talk." "Uh..." Edwina stammered. The woman cocked her head expectantly. "It's a...it's a...it's a weapon?" "Uh-huh...?" "It uses zero-point energy field manipulation to...um..." "Launch energy balls at the Combine? That's really cute." The woman nodded. Eddie squealed as something was popped into her ears from behind. Earbuds. Suddenly she could hear all the moaning and cumming and wanton throes of orgasm from the scenes before her. The woman's voice clicked on in her ears. "Here are the rules. You will hear them once, and learn the hard way thereafter. If you close your eyes for more than two seconds, or try to look away from the provided media, or try to talk, you will receive a correction." "A correc--eek!" She jumped. "Like that." It had come through those nipple bulbs. Probably through the IV needles in her areolae. "You will watch all of it except one thing. You will receive a correction if you look at any monitor with a red light on in the corner. I'll be back to switch your attachments every two hours." She instinctively went to protest, but was stunned by the sudden waves of pleasure rolling against her from below, and an eerie but effective sucking sensation on her nipples. So she moaned instead. This didn't seem to count as talking. She didn't get a shock, but the clit hump started vibrating as did the dildos inside her. They resonated at a low intensity, as if just warming up. They also slid deeper inside, gliding into her on a layer of lubricant, which they seemed to be pumping into her, surely laced with some kind of sensitivity agent. She couldn't tell if this was better or worse than sudden, lightswitch-activated orgasms. She was being raped by a machine, but at least she had the familiarity of being penetrated. And the images... They were roiling around in front of her. Most of them didn't continue for more than a minute at a time. But they were wanton and explicit. A lot of it didn't look consensual. A girl strapped into a gyno chair being eaten out by her female doctor until she was too distracted to protest, a young woman masturbating slowly while staring at the camera, three girls holding down another one while a fifth showed her the vibrator they were going to penetrate her with... This wasn't what she liked or wanted to see. But the machine was merciless. She was moaning freely after five minutes. After ten, she was allowing herself to shop for vibrators on the screens, but no more. After 20, she envied the girls masturbating. After 30 minutes she began to think it wasn't envy. She'd heard from friends about their experiences with lesbian sex. According to them it was really amazing, owing to the fact that their partners were already familiar with their anatomy. And their skin was smooth, and their fingers were really gentle and their mouths so soft, and their wet, nectary--no! She cringed, shaking her head, squeezing her eyes shut. No, no, no. Yes? No! The vibrating and slow-fucking wasn't helping at all. She tried to imagine they weren't dildos, that she was being roughly double-penetrated by two long, hard, masculine-- She screamed. She'd forgotten the rules. Once again made to remember with electricity in her tits, her eyes were back on the monitors, and the thoughts were back in her head. Fantasizing about men while seeing hearing and effectively feeling sex with women was impossible. She tried looking at the margins between the monitors, but it only served to make her watch two different scenes at once. Stop it, she screamed inwardly, stop thinking about sex! Period! Don't let them do this to you, it's sick! ...which is a difficult thing to tell oneself on a weapons-grade sybian machine. Tears welled up in her eyes. Another fifteen minutes and she started struggling to get her hands free. She was aching. Sweat was running down her breasts, belly and thighs. She hadn't seen or heard anyone since she'd been switched on, but she was sure they were watching, even recording her and she didn't care. She couldn't stand it. She was ready to take matters into her own digits and bring herself off in the middle of the lab. If she could just get one hand free, if she could just reach her clit... It had become evident after 45 minutes that the machine wasn't volunteering enough juice to get her off by itself. Even when she ground herself against the vibrating nub under her clitoris. She tried rocking back and forth and fucking the dildos, but even in the rare instance when they were on the same frequency, she couldn't get enough slack to really work them. An hour in. She could tell by another digital readout on the console below the monitors. She was shaking. Tears, sweat and lubricant were freely rolling out of her, once again absorbed by some function of the machine. Whimpering noises. Every two hours, they'd said. Every two? How many times? It hurt. She didn't care anymore. The mental bargaining began. Bisexual. She could deal with bisexuality. She'd readjust to men later. She locked eyes with the woman on the top-left screen, staring intensely back, masturbating at her, her legs akimbo in front of her. Yes. Yes. Give it to me. Then the girl tied to the table being fingered by the hot nurse. She hated how good it felt. But it felt so, so good. She pretended it was her vagina the catholic schoolgirl's face was buried in. It must feel so amazing. It DID feel so amazing. She imagined and watched what it must be like to pleasure another woman. To lick her breasts, her thighs, to lap her up... She was moaning freely now. Loudly, in the way that wakes neighbors and disregards sleeping roommates, or recording devices in an interrogation room. Soon it would happen. A half hour later, it was still "soon." Come on, come on, come on, come on, why?! The machine. It "knew." They day before, they'd not only been manipulating her, they'd been mapping her out. The program regulating her vibrations and penetrations was fluid, almost organic in controlling her. No matter how hard she wanted it, how hard she ground against the equipment, or how much she cried, it would not let her finish. And she couldn't stop trying, fervently looking for release in the faces of scores of women and girls before her, all writhing and bucking against their partners and toys, completely ignorant of how lucky they were. She couldn't help but perpetually make it worse, deepen her hormonal saturation and desperately try to satisfy her own body. The machine unfeelingly teased away, holding the prize right out in front of her, never letting her get within an inch, but never letting her escape. Another hour later. She was catatonic. The technician entered her field of view. She smelled like flowers and shampoo and female hormones. She looked like a bottle of Evian lying on its side on a block of ice in the Mojave, and Dongle didn't even feel the first correction for looking away. She'd take anything right now. The woman looked her over. Then she activated Phase 2. Dongle felt the smooth vibrators slide out of her. She cringed as different ones slid in. Studded this time. And suddenly the reverie that had saved her from consciously having to deal with the circumstances was gone as the lube-slick nubs tickled her back to life. Her chest started heaving again. These ones even rotated. Then something else happened. On one of the monitors, was a huge, fat, throbbing, sweet, merciful cock. She gaped at it. Then she realized the pleasuring had stopped. Then it hurt her. A little at first. Then she saw it...a red light. Just in the corner of the screen. Then it hurt some more. Her heart raced. No. She saw what they were doing. She wouldn't let them. She wouldn't. It hurt. She stared at it. Penises. It hurt more. Men. It hurt a lot. She screamed and locked her gaze on it until the sharp tingling feeling felt like it was covering her whole chest and her vision was blurring. There was a moment of agonized panic. Then she was staring at her girlfriends again. The pleasure was back. Nipples throbbing, she forced herself not to look at the image of the naked man, doing something, she couldn't tell. Over time, it moved, a different monitor with a red light, showing something she only got a glimpse of before she was put back in line. So it went. It moved, she automatically looked at it and was driven away. By the end of the first hour, she was automatically retreating from it as it appeared. She had to force herself to try to look and endure the shock, and even then it was to prove to herself she still could. But it took great force of will to do so. The only thing worse than the machine's teasing was when it stopped stimulating her. Let alone the painful electric shocks. Soon she didn't even see the men. The avoidance of certain images kept her mind painfully engaged. It kept her in agonized suspense until Phase 3. The two studded attachments were replaced by wickedly ribbed ones. Then they changed the texture on her clit hump. This one involved a tiny suction cup right on her clitoris, and somehow felt like someone gently giving her oral sex. Now there were two images floating around for her not to watch. The lesbian scenes got more graphic, if that was possible. It didn't even need to shock her anymore, the vibrations and penetration stopping physically hurt enough to bring fresh tears to her eyes, and pleadingly find another bound woman to watch, another orgasm to enjoy vicariously. She felt the piston-motion inside her holes die off and withdraw. They were replaced by a bulb in back and a bent one in front. The one in front did nothing but press against her G-spot and vibrate. A new and different kind of pleasure that forced her to keep "playing" into Phase 4. It was harder now. Half the screens were men, flexing, masturbating, fucking women and other men. She feared them. The time stretched on, longer and longer. She'd given up trying to cum. She just wanted the pleasuring not to stop. It hurt too much. Then there were more. One by one. More red lights and videos of men. She retreated her eyes to the women's bodies, locked together. Soft and safe. Her body hummed with the soft, safe pleasure. Her mind was barely involved by now. Her legs ached from quivering, and her body from shivering and convulsing. Her lungs burned. And then... Red. Everything stopped. After a grand total of ten hours on the machine with no orgasms to speak of, she saw red.. She blinked. All the monitors showed red lights. Males. She couldn't close her eyes or look away. "No!" She shrieked. "NO!" The last thing she remembered was the beginning of a blind, agonized panic. Her eyes fluttered open. She immediately started struggling again. She was strapped to what felt like a hospital bed. Her body hurt. She needed it. They hadn't finished her. She needed it. If she could escape, she'd attack any of the technicians surrounding her and tear her lab coat off with her teeth. It was like withdrawal from painkillers. "End of Phase 5," said the familiar one. She was theirs. They had her. These were her last thoughts as the drugs hit her to put her under for the night... -- Agent Crucible kicked in the door to Suite 1006, his S&W Model 500 revolver out in front of him. It was easier than he expected. Someone far mightier than him had already kicked it in once. He stood there in stunned silence a long time. Crucible was young and handsome, but not like Tommy. Michael "The Crucible" Gray was more...realistic in appearance. His form was wrapped in a long, black trench coat, black gloves and black boots, which flowed gently with him as he cautiously glided into the room. It was a disaster. More than ten men. Fourteen, he counted. Strewn around. Guns. Flung and dropped, bullet holes, spent shells. Blood. Furniture upturned. Tables broken. Drapes torn, blowing in the breeze of a huge broken plate glass window, where an unfortunate fifteenth occupant had been violently punted into the infinite blackness of a stormy night. It would explain the car alarm he heard. The whole hotel room had been hit by Hurricane Hardesty. He'd arrived just after it ended. It had probably been in full swing when he ran into the building and hit its crescendo while he was dashing up the steps. And now Jerry was gone. Great. Now they'd be tracking him too. At least he wouldn't be hard to follow. Sensing he'd only arrived minutes before the authorities, he disappeared out the back stairs to await the next fiasco... Enhanced Methods Day 03 [All characters in this work of fiction are over 18] * Tomlin was doing his job. He moved through the local police, his fresh cover identity and disguise elements keeping him innocuous as he picked through the hotel room that had been annihilated by the maddened Agent Heretic the night before. The police were certain it was a gang issue, and they were half right. At any rate this level of certainty made sure they weren't looking quite as hard. So they didn't give him much notice when he found a cell phone under an upended couch and slipped it into an evidence bag. Excusing himself in perfect Spanish, he went to the bathroom, and emerged Agent Heartbreak again, walking out of the building as though heading out for a night on the town. When he got back in the car, he cut open the evidence bag. The phone was definitely Heretic's. He'd either discarded it or it had fallen out of his pocket during the initial massacre. Accessing the last message received by that phone before Heretic lost his mind, Tommy opened a folder and found a small video file. "Oh, jesus..." His own phone rang, and he dropped the one he was holding as he fumbled for it. "Heartbreak here," he answered. "I know where Heretic is going, we've got to get there before he does," came Crucible's voice. "Balleraphon is rounding up local assets." "Yeah?" said Tomlin, looking at the video again. "He's going to have to catch up. We have to go *now.*" --- --Day 3-- Edwina Bradshaw was starving. Warm rain fell on her desiccated skin. She stumbled through a forest, craving and mindless. She ran into trees, tripped in holes, and still the unholy hunger made her rise again to continue stalking the dusk landscape. Something to eat was nearby, warm and alive, but it was always just out of sight, faster than she was in her weakened state. She could barely move her arms. Her legs were stiff. Every move exhausted her further and blurred her vision, but still she had to obey the agonized craving deep in her belly. She felt weaker and weaker, until her legs seized up. She fell forward, her arms landing in front of her, no help in breaking her fall. With a dim desperation, she tried pushing dried leaves and dirt into her mouth... Then she crossed the border into being conscious. Still far from being "awake," she was aware of the familiar feeling of having been cleaned and put back together. It was a sterile sensation. She could barely force herself to remember the last two days. So she didn't try. But there was a burning sensation in her abdomen that hammered on the door to her attention in a way that was getting harder and harder to ignore. She twitched. The twitch told her a great deal. Still no clothing. Not even shoes this time. Her wrists and ankles were held immobile by something less soft and forgiving than the first day. She had straps over her upper thighs that didn't give at all. She was on her back again, but not flat. She was draped over something, either lengthwise over a cushy table, or an ottoman, or some other unholy piece of rape furniture they'd conjured from some dark place (probably the internet). She wasn't gagged or blindfolded, but she couldn't see anything either. It was just dark. No mask, nothing intruding her orifices, just restraints and a firm, curved surface. And the burning. Oh god, it was still there. Her subconscious had a strange way of twisting the sensation into a dream about being a zombie, but suffice it to say now that the nightmare was over, the truth of it was she had less of an interest in gorging her mouth right now. She squirmed, moaning in frustration, pulling on the thick cuffs containing her limbs and holding her unceremoniously open. No, no, no, she thought, make it stop. I'd straddle a cactus right now. In fact, with the spines picked off, those ridges might not feel too bad... Something touched her, and she squeaked. Something hot and gooey. It dripped, from a good height it seemed, onto her clitoris. Feeling every millimeter of its journey, her body tensed as the drop slithered off her hood, down her lips and over her hole, and carelessly oozed down her ass and onto whatever it was she was tied to. It felt like this wasn't the first, and her whole area was covered in some slick substance. While a great deal of what was running off of her was surely her own juices, it felt like the thick liquid had been leaking onto her for hours, maybe explaining the "warm rain" in the dream. This was confirmed when another drop fell on one nipple about a half minute later, then later on the other, creeping off her protruding breasts and down her sides, joining between them, or mostly just rolling down the slope of her inverted body to her shoulders and neck. It smelled nice. Like "there are chemicals and/or hormones in this" nice. She squirmed, and a pool of the stuff that had accumulated in her bellybutton, which was at the apex of her body's curve, spilled out onto her side and down to her hips. It was...tickly. It was slowly filled again by a steady march of drips that didn't cause too much suffering by themselves, but were a whole new assault when her bellybutton overflowed, or spilled when she struggled too much. She tried to moan in despair. Instead she giggled madly. Her body hungered for attention, preferably from a woman. She realized the latter part with chagrin. They'd tied her mind in a bowknot yesterday. And not in any amateur way, either, she had trouble even remembering what male anatomy looked like, let alone male attention. She had an easier time remembering sensations of lesbian sex, which she had to remind herself she'd never had before. The Chinese massage oil torture wasn't helping. Come to that, the stuff coating her body wasn't consumer-grade either. She'd seen (and experimented with on lonely weekends) clitoral sensitizer lubricant, which had made blood surge into her intimate tissue, and gave a delightful sensation when she accidentally smeared some on her nipples in her excitement. Now she was slathered in something industrial-grade, the kind that could end up on the black market for a good price. Every drip on her skin was a brand new one, and their trail down her body to all parts of her each drew absolute focus. It was warm, soft, slick, tingly, fragrant, and evil. She wasn't doing well. After what felt like about a day and a half (but was only a half an hour in reality), she was halfway between weeping and maniacally tittering to herself. So she screamed out loud when the lights came on. It wasn't even great lighting, it was dim, warm spot lamps only illuminating her body, and cat shadows on a small dark room. Over her own breathy whimpering, she heard heels approaching. Her eyes adjusted and first, she saw the apparatus above her. They looked like IV bags, only they had eyedropper nozzles on them, and the hoses came from the top, feeding more of the evil, rosy stuff into them, and onto her. Second, she saw the woman enter the room. It was the same one, the only one that ever spoke to her. Slender, Asian (Chinese, she gathered), lab coat tighter than it had to be, checking something off a tiny notepad and checking her watch. She took her time finishing as she came to a stop standing over Dongle, who as it turned out was fairly low to the ground, and only rose up to about the woman's waist at most. "Well?" she said. Edwina just laughed miserably. The woman raised an eyebrow. "Hmm." "Listen--gih!" Dongle was cut short by another drop caressing her love button. She'd been trying to avoid it, with the thigh straps mitigating her hopelessly. When she finished experiencing its journey down her anatomy, she tried again between breaths. "Listen, who...whoever you are--" "You can call me Marie." Hong-Kong if it's her actual name, thought Dongle, but probably not. "I c-can't imagine what this is costing you, to do this to me and--*gasp* oh god--aah!--ah...but...I'm real eager to see what more 'enhanced methods' you have of getting me to tell you that I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE GODSPIKE IS!!!" Simultaneous drops on both nipples, coupled with her bellybutton emptying warm oil onto her hips from the twitch it caused gave further voice to the scream at the end of her sudden surge of defiance. "So am I, actually," said 'Marie,' putting her things aside on some table or counter in the dark. "I can't imagine what else we could do *to* you, we've already turned you permanently into a dyke." "I'm n-not a dyke!" "No, huh?" She started unbuttoning her lab coat. "What are you--aaAaah!" Dongle tried to ask as another drop plipped onto her clitoris. Marie seemed to understand. "It's hot in here." The lab coat slipped off, revealing nothing underneath. At all. Edwina stared helplessly in a hormonal trance at the woman's crotch, on and around which she was surprised to see shiny streaks of lubricant, some of it creeping halfway down her thigh. "I have a stressful job," she supplied. She hung up the lab coat, now in nothing but her heels. "Wanna watch me masturbate?" "No. Stop." "No?" said Marie, ignoring her, putting one foot up on the red arch cushion Dongle was tied to, spreading herself in full view of her captive, "No as in 'no I don't want to watch you finger yourself' or 'no please don't I can't stand being any hornier'?" Dongle tried to struggle, squealing indistinctly, but was nailed back into place by the next drop to hit her clitoris. She watched Marie pull herself open with her hands. "Mm. This stuff is really great," she said, dipping her finger in the pool of intoxicating liquid in Dongle's bellybutton, somehow without touching her skin. "I shouldn't do this, it's got so many illegal and addictive substances, but...mmmm..." she sighed as she rubbed it onto her own clitoris, then slid it inside her on one finger. The way she fucked herself then was almost sinister. She made some noises but it was mostly her breathing that signified her progress, and even then it always seemed like she was in complete control of herself. Like every tingle and chill was expected, right up until she started climaxing. Then she twitched, a sound came her throat, and then, "aah...there we are." Fresh channels of lubricant wet her thighs again. Having had her moment, she sighed and stepped off the cushion, composing herself. "Did you feel that? That feeling you got from watching me? That means the treatment worked and you'd rather have my fingers in you." Dongle was nowhere near as satisfied. "So that's it?" she asked tearfully. "You're out of ideas, you're just going to rape me now? I'm supposed to like it?" "Rape?" said Marie. She held her finger out to Dongle's open lips. The bound girl thrust her hips out sharply at it, like a starving monster snapping at meat in a horror movie, at which Marie's hand darted away. "No, I don't think it would count as rape at this stage. In fact it's taking far more effort to *prevent* you from climaxing. As you can see from all this equipment. Fucking you might be gratifying to me, and traumatic to you at first, and maybe a little afterward, but no, I won't get anything useful by raping you now." She snapped her fingers. A moment later, a strange shuffling sound responded. "Now if I let you rape someone else," Marie went on, "I'm going to get results." Two other "technicians" were leading someone into the room, upside-down from Dongle's view. She was about 19 and wearing only a hospital gown, her hands cuffed, and her legs in a two-foot spreader bar. As a result, they were half carrying her. She looked too terrified to struggle. Her body was healthy and her breasts bounced freely under the fabric, and her blond hair was tied back just for the event. Dongle began to notice that the way she herself was positioned, her face was crotch-level to anyone walking in front of her. "Who is she?" Dongle asked, horrified. "Oh, I dunno," said Marie. "Random civilian we abducted. Hang her up," she added to the others. They dragged her, shaking her head and whimpering, right up to Dongle's face, and hung her cuffs from some clip on the ceiling of some sort, and from the sound of it, locked her spreader bar to the floor. Then they stripped off her gown with what looked like a seatbelt cutter. Edwina Bradshaw saw herself staring at a woman's pubis two inches from her nose. "I don't want to do this...!" she said weakly. "I know. *You* don't. But your body has a different agenda," said Marie, slapping the terrified civilian's ass, who was still squealing from being stripped naked. "Don't worry. It's your first time, so take as long as you need." The girl's anatomy was dry. She was straight. The two inches she had from touching another woman with her private area came only through a supreme effort on her part, pulling and trying to mumble out pleas for release through the ball gag. "I can't---" Dongle squeaked as the dripping mechanism reminded her where she was."Coupled with the Greaser, you might even experience an orgasm while you do it." Marie walked around to a chain hanging from the ceiling, which looked to be attached to the girl's wrist cuffs. "Unless you want to use that mouth for something more useful and less depraved. I won't ask again until we release this one. We won't release her until you cause her to have an orgasm against her will. Can you live with that happening?" Edwina couldn't even summon any more denials. Marie leaned in. "Look at her," she said. Dongle met the girl's pleading eyes. "Can you live with the consequences of keeping secrets from us? Or do you just want to lick a virgin's cunt that badly?" "Please," Dongle begged, "just let her go, do whatever you want to me, but let her go!" "I am doing what I want to you," said Marie. "Tell me what I want to hear and we'll keep it that way." "It's, it's, uh," said Dongle, her mind racing with missing gears, "a device for...monitoring...aaargh, I don't know, I don't know!!" Marie pulled the chain. This in turn pulled the victim's body straight up, and her hips directly onto Dongle's face. At first, Dongle sealed her lips and squeezed her eyes shut. No. Not gonna do it. Her concentration was immediately broken by what Marie had called "The Greaser," which seemed to be tormenting her with increasing frequency now, with the drops at a higher temperature. The gasp this elicited caused her to brush her face against the girl's outer labia. The girl, who had started whimpering just at the feeling of being breathed on, now thrashed, violated by this small contact. Dongle's whole body was hot and wet. And it just kept coming. Drip, drip, drip, trickle trickle trickle. The girl's pussy was all she could think of, and all she could see or smell. Her body heaved with her labored breathing. She wanted it. She wanted it. She was involuntarily assessing the consequences of just doing it. She couldn't remember them, they must be important though. The dripping broke her concentration on this too. Her mouth was hanging open for air, more and more until she accidentally touched the girl's dry, quivering lips. She corrected, but it felt so good...she had to do it again. It was okay, just a touch. She savored the contact, the brushing feeling on her lower lip was enough. She would be fine with just this. She involuntarily wet her lower lip with her tongue. The girl, meanwhile, looking down wide-eyed, gasping out shallow breaths, was beginning to realize what was happening, frantic whimpers coming out with each breath. The helpless woman below her was moistening her vagina with one lip. Then she was "accidentally" brushing against her with two, which she kept licking to keep them wet. Soon she was moist with another woman's saliva, being daubed at by her whole mouth. Then she felt the tip of a tongue. Her body being invaded, she steeled her mind to lock out the idea of taking pleasure from this. Dongle heard one whimper come out longer than the others as her tongue found the girl's clitoris by "mistake," an indication that the girl was not succeeding in her act of denial. Edwina's bent mind was convinced she was just squirming to escape her bonds, and that the brushing of her mouth on the girl's vagina couldn't be helped. It wasn't long before the girl above her knew that the truth of the matter was she was being eaten out, no holds barred, and was bracing herself against the pleasure she was being made to feel, her body giving in long before her mind, bringing her closer and closer to... Dongle gave up. She pushed her tongue inside and licked the breath from the girl above her until the technicians pulled her off. As she was being dragged away, Marie appeared again. "Well?" She asked. "It's a sno-cone maker!" Dongle shouted back. She *hadn't* received her own orgasm from the act, and with her sanity taxed as it was, she was not happy about it. "Movie reference. Cute. I'll have them bring in the next one." "Huh?!" And another one they brought. A brunette this time, with much more fight in her. They ripped her gown off and tied her into place. Dongle didn't even hesitate this time. It took her all of ten minutes and the girl above her was screaming out a frustrated climax until they carried her, too, gasping and spent from the room. --- Scott Broley sat with a bowl of salt and lime popcorn on his lap. He sat across the sofa with his eyes closed. He didn't open them as "Marie" came in, dressed in a silk robe, still wearing the same heels. "She doesn't know," said Marie. Broley said nothing. "She would have talked by now. Nobody's that strong, especially not someone like her. She's not even coherent anymore. Last time she said anything I heard her babble something about her 'triangles.'" Still getting no response, Marie started to get frustrated. "Look, I don't know who you think you have, but in my professional opinion, we're traumatizing the living hell out of a computer geek--" "--and as long as I'm paying for the privilege," Broley cut in acidly, "you will *carry on* traumatizing the living hell out of the computer geek until I'm satisfied." The almond-eyed Marie watched the man lift a small handful of popcorn to his mouth, preying on it. "...you don't care if she knows, do you?" she asked, almost disgusted. "Are you taking pleasure from this? You commandeered an entire hotel, what kind of monster the hell are you?" She cringed as the popcorn bowl exploded on the far wall, taking an expensive painting with it. When she looked back, the one known as Agent Scratch was on his feet. "Monster?!" He screamed. "You operate a traveling psychological torture kiosk for hire and *I'm* the fucking monster?!" He stomped across the room and stood over her. She stared back, refusing to retreat, but shrinking under his ice-furious gaze. "You wanna know what kind?! The kind that came into being when *that* little bitch's employers abandoned him and made him watch everything he cared about die in a fucking fire, *that's* what kind of goddamn motherfucking monster I am. The kind you never, EVER fuck with!*You're* the kind of monster who took it up to turn a goddamn buck; a brothel, a Rube Goldberg machine and the Spanish Inquisition slap-chopped into one! Now you get your demonic, perverted, hypocritical little self back in there, and ask about the FUCKING GODSPIKE UNTIL I TELL YOU YOU'RE DONE!!" Dongle went through three more innocent college girls. Where they kept coming up with them she couldn't tell. And when she got to the sixth one and finished her, and no satisfactory answer was forthcoming, they brought the first one back, who was no more eager than the first time. She lost count at about eleven. --- When Edwina Bradshaw woke up, she couldn't move. She was in a hard bed, but wasn't tied. She was still naked, but under a sheet now. And in the chair next to her bed, was the only sight in the world that could strike fear into her battered heart now. Enhanced Methods Day 03 "Please..." she begged weakly, tears reappearing in her stinging eyes, her tongue aching and sore... "Don't kill me...I swear...I swear I don't know what the Godspike is..." "Of course you don't," said Scratch. He spoke with a voice as cool as a morgue. He was slowly pressing hollow-point bullets into a pistol magazine. "I swear..." "So do I," he said. Another round clicked into place. "I could hardly care less about the Godspike. Or you." "...*why?*" she whispered finally. "Because what I do care about," he said, "is Jerry Hardesty. And when he picks up his phone, and gets the videos of what we've been doing to you, he'll kick through Barcelona Cathedral and destroy his way across Spain to get here." Dongle squeaked. Her heart iced over. She couldn't feel her fingers. It was good she was already lying down. "No sanction, no backup, no chance," said Broley, slapping the magazine into a Beretta 92 ending in a wicked silencer. "And then I'm going to kill him." She was startled by an explosion, and a shattering of glass. "That'll be him," said Broley, slowly standing up. "Sweet dreams." Broley checked his watch as he strode out into the lobby. "You're late," he said, not looking up, "to your own funeral. That's very upsetting, Agent--shit." He found himself face-to-face, not with the enraged, unthinking, maddened figure of Agent Heretic, but the black-coated, blue-eyed, silent-footed Agent Crucible. "Goddamn it..." said Scratch. "...goddamn it." "Don't cry," said Crucible. "You hate me too, right?" They drew. Outside, the van turned the corner containing the "anti-sonofabitch squad" Broley had kept waiting in a nearby warehouse. It rounded the corner and screeched to a halt behind a junker parked across the alley. In the rearview mirror, the driver saw a slender, beautiful man in a red leather jacket runway-stride out from behind a truck, with a smile and cell phone. He speed dialed 1. The C4 in the junker annihilated the van. All hell was breaking loose outside. An explosion, at least one firefight, she was sure she even heard a brawl involving blunt instruments and random furniture...Dongle curled up as much as she could. Bullets punctured the walls of the room she was in. She went to her happy place, which she tearfully realized was Darnassus. She cowered when she heard the door kicked in, but even as it fell off its hinges she opened one eye and watched. The end of a long sniper rifle protruded inward, followed by the barrel, stock and owner. He was young with short, military-cut blond hair in black military fatigues, and he stalked into the room with perfect precision, confidence, and discretion. She recognized him as Balleraphon, the NCC's resident Counterterrorist. He looked at her like she was exactly where he expected to find her. And carefully creeping to her bedside, he wordlessly checked her for injuries, wrapped her in her sheet, and carried her out again. --- --One week later-- Dongle adjusted herself and scurried out of the elevator. She patted down the business skirt nervously before clipping down the hall to a familiar room. G36. She pushed the blue button. The rooms at the Clocktower Hotel that housed NCC personnel were a little different. The ringers had "door-tones." She knew this one was a brief drum theme. "'sopen," muttered a voice from inside. She pushed the green button. The door slid open. Heretic sat on the edge of his bed. He was armorless and shirtless, and a chain hung around his neck. Next to him on the night table sat a Japanese marble soda. The place was in perfect order, decorated with tasteful Asian artifacts, and ornamental Far Eastern martial arts weapons. He was the picture of injured dignity. When he saw her, he sighed without sighing, and silenced the MP3 player with a nearby remote.Dongle stood before the monster that loved her. "You've been avoiding me," he murmured. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "You're sorry," he said. "*You're* sorry." She wanted to dart forward and touch his shoulder tenderly. Her hand refused to do so and she couldn't bring herself to approach him. She folded her hands nervously instead. "It's not your fault, I know you tried to..." she trailed off. Then, "listen...you heard the report..." "Saw the report," he said. "Yeah...well...um..." she stammered, "I just wasn't trained to resist...to...you know, stand up to...an interrogation like that..." "I know," said Heretic. "You were brainwashed. I get it." "Right, and it was a, you know, a trauma, and there are issues I have to deal with now," she explained, wandering herself away from him uncomfortably to innocently look at things. Jerry said nothing. His gaze didn't chase her. "They gave me an aversion, Jerry!" she said defensively. "An aversion to...um...men. So...I need you to understand." "You need me to stay away," he said. "No..." There was a ratchet-clicking noise behind him. He shot to his feet ready to leap over the bed and kill. Whatever threat he was expecting, what he saw turned out to be Dongle's big eyes looking back at him, and the pair of handcuffs she had used to secure herself to his metal bedrail. "...I need you to fix it." Some improvised or concealed weapon dropped from his hand. "Hmm..." he said.