Going into a stall a few doors down from Shurla’s, she closed the door firmly, waited until it became opaque, and then began trying to figure out how to use the alien toilet.
It had a square hole with no seat and there was no water or liquid of any kind inside it, Penny saw. There was just that weird spout sticking up out of it.
At first she thought the spout was a bidet of some kind. But instead of spraying water at her, the moment she got her bottom near the square-shaped hole in the toilet, the spout suddenly sprouted a round, hollow suction cup looking thing which inflated until it was about as big as her head.
“What in the world?” Penny backed away from the toilet and the suction cup—which had appeared to blow itself up like a balloon—suddenly deflated and was sucked back into the spout as though it had never been there in the first place.
Penny stared at the alien toilet in consternation. What was going on?
“Everything okay over there, honey?” Shurla called from the other stall. “You sound like you might be having problems.”
“Oh, uh…” Penny cleared her throat. “This is embarrassing, but I’ve never seen this kind of toilet before,” she admitted. “And I don’t exactly, er, know how to use it.”
“What? You’ve never used a suck-all before?” Shurla sounded amused. “Why, you just wait until the suction cup forms and stick your bottom right up against it. Whatever you have to do will be sucked clean away—no muss, no fuss.”
“Oh,” Penny said. “Um, thanks. But is it…I mean, is it sanitary? How many people use it every day—do you know?”
“Don’t worry about that, honey,” Shurla assured her. “Every time the cup goes back in, it gets bathed in sterilizer foam. So it’s clean and fresh for everybody, every time.”
“It is? That sounds great.”
Penny had to admit it was certainly better than public toilets back home. Although it was kind of awkward backing up and squatting down to get in contact with the suction cup. It took a little doing to get things lined up just right and when she finally did, she felt a sudden tightness in the area connected to the lip of the cup.
“Oh!” she gasped as what felt like a really strong suction began tugging at her. Penny’s inner muscles tightened up instinctively, but the suction was so strong, she couldn’t prevail—it felt like the pee was being pulled out of her. It was like relieving yourself into an industrial strength vacuum, she thought.
“You okay, honey?” Shurla asked again.
“I…I think so,” Penny gasped. “It’s just really strong. The suction, I mean.”
“Has to be,” Shurla sounded like she was shrugging. “Has to carry everything over to the waste field out on the underside of the station.”
“Waste field?” Penny asked. She was getting more used to having the pee pulled out of her now, but it was still an extremely strange experience.
“Sure. See, when Hell’s Gate was first designed, they meant for everybody’s leavings to get shot out into space. But then a giant slow-time suck formed around the exit waste port and it just stayed there. So now, instead of going every-which-way into space, it’s all collected in one area. None of it even freezes, either,” she went on. “Since the slow-time keeps it fresh, if you know what I mean.”
“So it’s just floating there, right outside the station? A big bubble of…of…”
“Of shit,” Shurla said matter-of-factly. “Yup, you bet. But it actually works really well. Hell’s Gate was originally built to be a temporary station so shooting the waste out into space was a temporary solution. But the station kept growing and folks kept adding and building onto it and look at us now! Just imagine the mess we’d all be in if there was a frozen shit cloud orbiting around and around us! It sure as hell would make docking a lot more difficult,” she added.
“I guess so,” Penny acknowledged. “Um, what do you do when you’re done? I mean, how do you get it to, uh, stop sucking?”
Her nether region was beginning to feel really tender by this point, due to the constant suction.
“Oh, just press the green button down on the floor.” Shurla had apparently finished her business because Penny heard her stall door open and shut and then the sound of rushing water as she washed her hands.
She was looking around for the green button—which, when she finally found it, appeared to be located inconveniently far away at the furthest corner of the stall—when she heard the bathroom door open again.
“Excuse me,” a high, androgynous voice said, apparently speaking to Shurla. “But am I correct in assuming that you are extremely fertile?”
“What?” Shurla demanded.
“I said, my instruments indicate that you would be extremely fertile. And the presence of three mammary glands rather than two, as most humanoid species exhibit, indicate that you would be able to bear and feed multiple young at once,” the high voice said.
“Look, honey, if this is a come-on, you need to wait until I’m at least out of the ladies room,” Shurla said firmly. “You can play with all three of my titties if you want, but there’s a price. And you can’t be coming on to me in the ladies! I mean—Ouch! What the hell, you little bastard? You stung me!” she exclaimed.
There was a scuffle outside the stall and Penny heard the door open and close again and more footsteps while Shurla continued to shout.
“That hurt!” she exclaimed. “What do you…do you think…” Her voice was slurring alarmingly. “Whadaya thinn yer doooooiiiinnng?”
The last word faded off into a slow-motion drone, as though Shurla was a toy with a run-down battery, Penny thought in alarm. Who was out there with her new friend and what had they done to her?
Struggling to reach it with her foot, she finally managed to press the green release button. The suction cup let her go and got sucked back into the spout but Penny hardly noticed. She was too busy pulling her warm-skin back on and barging out into the bathroom, intent on fighting for her new friend if she had to.
The sight she saw was surpassingly odd.
Shurla was down on the floor and she was surrounded by at least four little bald men, all of them wearing identical silver jumpsuits and white boots.
“Hey! What are you doing? Leave her alone!” she shouted, hoping to scare them away from Shurla. After all, even though there were four of them, they were all really short. With their bright orange skin and matching silver jumpsuits, they looked a little like demented Oompa-Loompas.
The little men turned as one and Penny was no longer sure they were men. Their features all had an androgynous cast and they didn’t appear to have any secondary sexual characteristics—there were no beards or breasts or any kind of facial hair to show which sex they were.
“Look, Joone,” one of the Oompa-Loompas said to another and pointed at Penny. “Another female who appears to be of prime breeding stock.”
“She has only two mammaries, Spoone,” the other replied, frowning at Penny.
“Yes, but observe the size of her hips and behind,” the first one protested. “Her pelvic opening is broad enough to bear many offspring with no complications at all, indicating extreme fertility.”
“Hey!” Penny said again, but rather uneasily this time. What were these weird little guys—if they were guys—talking about? She’d heard plenty of derogatory comments about her “childbearing” hips and big ass before, but she’d never been discussed like this. It sounded like they were evaluating her like she was some kind of broodmare.
After a moment, the Oompa-Loompa who was apparently called Joone nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s take her. Our Glorious Leader will be pleased when we bring home another of prime breeding stock.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Penny said as the four of them began to advance on her. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Do not fear, breeder,” one of them said. “We will take you away to a much better life. A life of luxury where you will want for nothing.”
“No than
k you,” Penny said, still backing away. “I’m not going anywhere with you, no matter how ‘luxurious’ you claim it is!”
She saw with dismay that she had backed herself into the stall she had just come out of. If only she’d thought to dodge around them and run for the door! They might be small but there were so many of them!
She tried to slam the stall door shut but many orange fingers wormed their way between the door and the latch and the strange bald Oompa-Loompas forced the door back open.
“Leave me alone!” Penny shouted at the top of her lungs. “Get out of here and leave me alone! Help!”
But this time no one came to her screams. The four little men crowded into the stall with her and Penny suddenly felt a sharp jab in her upper thigh.
“Ouch! What was that? What did you do?” she cried but almost at once her limbs began to feel heavy. “What did you doooo?” she repeated but this time her voice sounded like Shurla’s had—draggy and slow, like a toy whose batteries are running low.
“Don’t worry,” either Joone or Spoone said softly as they lowered her to the ground. “Your new life as a breeder for the Glorious Cause will be magnificent. You’ll see.”
Penny opened her mouth to ask what the hell they were talking about, but this time no words came out at all. She realized she was frozen—as completely frozen as Rive and Y’lla were back in the shuttle at the other end of the station.
But at least they got frozen doing what they loved, she thought irrelevantly. There’s nothing fun about being attacked by rogue Oompa-Loompas in a strange alien bathroom…
She had a moment to realize that her thoughts weren’t making much sense and then she lost the ability to think anything at all, as everything went dark.
Seventeen
V was in the box again. He spent most of his time there, since he refused to obey.
The box was a little shorter than he was tall—a rectangular prison so small he could neither stand up all the way, or sit down or even crouch—he was stuck in an almost-standing posture which made his muscles scream with fatigue after only a few minutes in the torturous position. When V was crammed into it, his broad shoulders touched the sides and his head touched the top, causing intense feelings of claustrophobia, which he fought off grimly.
It was completely dark inside, with just a few air holes near the top, by his face. V pressed his mouth and nose to the holes, trying to draw a few breaths of fresh air, though precious little filtered through. It seemed that all he could smell was his own scent, rank with a mixture of fear and fury, as he sweated out his time in the tiny, black prison.
He didn’t know how long he’d been here—wherever “here” was. He had woken up once in the middle of what looked like a Med Center unit. He’d been naked on a bed and surrounded by those fucking orange mutants. A bright light had been shining in his face and reflecting off their round, bald heads.
“Hey! What—” he’d started to say. But then someone had noticed he was awake and had stuck him with another needle, putting him out again.
The next time V had woken up, he’d been in a plain white room with no windows or doors—none that he could find, anyway. There had been a mattress on the floor and that was it for furnishings.
On the side of his neck was a flat square that felt like it was made of metal. V had explored it with his fingers—it seemed to be an implant of some kind, though what, if anything it was doing to him, he didn’t know. He wished he could get a look at the damn thing, but he couldn’t see his own neck and there were no mirrors or 3-D viewers in the blank white room to let him see himself.
But what the room had lacked in ambiance, it made up for in sound. There was a constant, steady, whispering going on which seemed to come from everywhere at once. V had tried to make out the words, but his brain didn’t want to decipher them, even though Kindred were normally excellent with languages. He only knew they annoyed the fuck out of him—made him feel like he was going crazy.
When the orange mutants came in, he attacked them. He took three of them down in one blow but they jabbed him with a needle and he was out again. The next time he woke up, was in the box. They kept him there for an hour and then let him out. He attacked them again. They jabbed him again. He woke up in the box again.
This cycle had been going on for what felt like days, though to be honest, V had lost all track of time. He was growing weary and he was damn near completely dehydrated from all the sweating in the box and the fact that he hadn’t had anything to drink in the Goddess alone knew how long, but he wasn’t one to give up a fight.
They’ll have to kill me, he thought to himself as he fought the wretched feeling that the walls of the box were closing in around him. I’ll never give up trying to escape! They’ll have to fucking kill me…
Suddenly the box opened, spilling him out onto the ground.
V blinked in the sudden, blinding light after the dank midnight of the box and then got gamely to his feet to fight. This time he would evade the needle and bash their little bald skulls together! They would all die! They—
“Well now, you’re a stubborn one my boy, so you are,” a hearty male voice spoke, surprising him.
V staggered to his feet, blinking as his eyes became accustomed to the light.
Standing in front of him was a figure dressed all in white. Even his facial hair was white, in fact. His suit seemed to be made of fine linen and he smelled of some expensive pomade, which kept his abundant white hair fixed in place. The only thing on him that was a color other than white, were the black oculars he wore. His pale blue eyes blinked behind their thick lenses as he studied V with obvious interest.
“Who the fuck’r you?” V growled hoarsely. His tongue was thick with thirst and dehydration, but he managed to get the words out.
“Well, some around here call me their Glorious Leader,” the male said. “And some even call me the Shining Star—for I am sent to lead them from the darkness.”
“The fuck are you talkin’ about?” V peered at him uncertainly.
The male frowned.
“I can see we have some work to do here. You, my boy, are quite a specimen. An exception to the rule, I would say.”
“I’m not your fucking boy,” V growled, glaring down at him. “Now let me the fuck out of here before I rip your fucking head off!”
“You do like to swear, don’t you?” the male remarked, but he didn’t seem at all afraid of V’s menacing growl. When V took a step towards him, he pulled a small device out of his pocket and pointed it at his chest.
“I don’t think so, my boy,” he remarked and pressed a button on it.
A bolt of pure agony shot through V’s entire body. It brought him to his knees, seizing his muscles and forcing the air from his lungs in a painful gasp.
After a moment, the agony ended as abruptly as it had begun.
V lunged to his feet and went after the bastard again. Again the horrible, all-encompassing pain took him down.
And again and again.
During the fourth bout of pain, the male spoke to him.
“We can do this all day, you know,” he said, in a pleasant tone of voice, as though discussing the weather. “You can’t win, my boy—not while I hold the Master Control to your Pain Square. So you might as well give up and listen to what I have to say.”
The pain stopped but this time V stayed down. He looked up at his tormentor with hate in his eyes.
“What,” he growled. “The fuck do you want with me?”
“Not much.” The white-haired male smiled pleasantly. “Maybe now we can finally talk like civilized males. Listen, my boy—I have a proposition for you.”
Eighteen
“As I said before, you’re a unique specimen.” The male who had called himself the “Glorious Leader” was pacing back and forth in the bare white room as V leaned against the wall and watched.
He had decided to suspend his attacks, at least for now. He was still enraged by his forced captivity but he wasn’t stupid.
The male held the remote to the strange metal square on his neck, which was capable of electrocuting him with agony. There was no point in fighting as long as he has his finger on the button, ready to press it and take V down at any minute.
“You’re unique,” the male said again, still pacing. “You’re not affected by the hypno-whispers for one, which at first I couldn’t understand.”
“Hypno-whispers? Is that the fucking whispering that’s going on all the damn time here?” V demanded, glaring at him.
“Yes.” The male nodded. “They’re meant to make you more docile—they help our new breeders feel comfortable and accept their new lot in life. But you…” He looked at V and shook his head. “Well, you’re anything but docile, my boy, though we’ve been amping up the whispers delivered to your room for days.”
V shook his head.
“Whatever you’re doing, it’s not working. I can’t even understand them and my kind are good with languages.”
“Yes, well, I’ve had Kindred here before,” the male who called himself the “Glorious Leader” said, frowning. “And none of them were immune to the whispers. But after I had my NeverBreeders run an analysis of your DNA, I understood. You, my boy, are not pure Kindred.”
“And?” V crossed his arms over his broad chest and raised an eyebrow.
“In fact,” the male continued. “Half of your DNA isn’t even from this universe, which I found positively fascinating.”
V just looked at him.
“I think that’s why you’re immune to the hypno-whispers,” the male continued after a pause. “But you have other special attributes as well. For instance, the substance secreted by your tongue…”
“You fucked around with my stinger?” V growled, his hands clenching into fists. Goddess damnit! His stinger and the mating fist at the base of his shaft were the two most private parts of his body—but he was betting those fucking orange mutants had seen and handled both while they had him drugged on their table. The thought made him feel helpless and vulnerable.
Stolen: Brides of the Kindred 25 Page 8