It’s just an exam, she told herself, and tried to choke back the sobs as the lighted wand probed inside her. Just an exam and it’ll be over soon…over soon…over soon…
A few moments and an eternity later, the NeverBreeder doctor withdrew the wand and studied the lighted tip, which was glowing the same warm pink it had been when he ran it over Penny’s breasts.
“Very good.” He nodded. “Your womb is healthy and ready for breeding. You are not currently at the correct stage of your cycle, but the Mother’s Milk will take care of that.”
“What…what are you talking about? What’s Mother’s Milk?” Penny whispered through her tears.
But the alien doctor didn’t answer. He simply made a few marks on the lighted clipboard thing he was carrying and moved on to the next prisoner—a woman with pale purple skin and what looked like gills at the sides of her throat.
The NeverBreeder doctor did the same exam he had on Penny—though he did, at least, change the tip of the wand, she saw. Her fellow prisoner’s breasts checked out fine and the wand glowed a pale, reassuring pink. But when the wand was inserted into her vagina, it came out glowing a dark purple.
“What’s this?” The NeverBreeder doctor seemed very upset. “Who brought this female into the Compound?” he demanded.
One of the guards came forward.
“I did, Dr. Loone. Is there a problem?”
“Of course there is a problem, Guard Spoone—look at this.” The alien doctor pointed to the dark purple tip of the wand. “This female is infertile! How could you bring her all this way to the Compound and waste our Glorious Leader’s valuable resources in this way?”
“My instruments in the field indicated that she was fertile,” the guard named Spoone protested. “I cannot be blamed if the instrument is at fault.”
“Most certainly you can be blamed for I am blaming you,” Dr. Loone raged. “Get rid of her at once! She cannot breed, so she must be recycled.”
Recycled? That didn’t sound good to Penny at all—or, apparently, to the woman they were talking about.
“Please!” she begged as two more guards came to drag her off the table. “Please, just take me home! I want to go back to the station—please!”
But the guards were already dragging her off the metal exam table and towards the exit door.
“If you can’t use her, you should take her home!” Penny heard herself shouting. She knew it was dangerous to speak out but she couldn’t help herself—she couldn’t stand to see the woman being dragged away to who-knew-what horrible fate like that!
“Silence, breeder!” One of the guards shook his pain prod at her menacingly. “And who said we can’t use her? There is a use for everyone here in the Compound,” he added ominously, as Penny shrank away from the crackling end of the prod.
She wished she was brave enough to protest, but what could she do? She was naked and unarmed and frightened to death with a pain prod right in her face. Feeling helpless, Penny subsided, not daring to protest again. The door closed, muffling the woman’s screams and then there was only silence.
It was quiet after that. Once everyone was examined, the seven remaining prisoners were herded off the exam tables and out of the room. They went down a long corridor and into another shower room.
Penny was braced for another stinging spray of astringent purple cleanser, but thankfully this shower was only warm water. She gratefully rinsed the purple stuff from earlier off her skin and out of her hair. This time they were given towels to dry off with and thick, warm robes to wrap up in afterwards. It was certainly an improvement, but they were still being held against their will, Penny thought grimly.
A new attendant came to take charge of them after the shower. This NeverBreeder was orange and bald and wearing a silver jumpsuit, just like all the rest of them, but he—or she, as Penny found herself thinking of the new NeverBreeder—had a distinctly maternal air.
“Now then, my sweeties,” their new attendant said, smiling at them, which made her look like a jack-o-lantern, due to her round orange face, Penny thought. “You can call me Mother Toone,” she told them. “I’m here to look after you while you’re in our dormitory wing. Come with me, now.”
Mother Toone led them down another long hallway and again Penny wondered if now was the time to try and escape. But there were still two guards with pain prods at the end of their ragged little line. Also, the Breeding and Conception Center was a maze—she was already lost and had no idea where she would go even if she did run. So she didn’t dare try an escape. Instead, she walked beside Shurla and shared a look with her friend that needed no words.
This place is a nightmare! We have to get out of here!
“Now then, here we are my sweeties,” their new attendant said, as she led them through another doorway and into a room with a long row of empty cots. “Here’s your dormitory. This will be your home for the next several days.”
“I thought the guy who called himself the Glorious Leader said we could leave after a single night if we didn’t like it here?” Shurla spoke up, glaring at Mother Toone defiantly.
“Well, of course you may, for our Glorious Leader never lies to us.” Mother Toone smiled gently, looking more like a Halloween decoration than ever, Penny thought. “It’s just that most breeders settle down and get more comfortable after their first night. But if you still want to go tomorrow morning, then you’re more than welcome. Of course,” she added. “Unless you have a spaceship waiting somewhere, you might have a bit of a problem surviving outside the Compound. But if you’re really determined, you can walk right out—that is our promise to you.”
Penny wanted to ask about the woman who had been deemed infertile—why hadn’t she been allowed to walk out? Instead she had been sent for “recycling” whatever that meant. But again, she had a very strong feeling that speaking up here would only make the situation worse. So she kept her mouth shut.
“Now, you must be tired after your big day,” Mother Toone remarked.
“You mean after a day of being abducted and drugged and brought here against our will?” Shurla demanded.
Mother Toone’s smile remained constant.
“You may dislike our methods, my dear, but I promise you that very soon you will thank us for rescuing you from your old life and bringing you to the Compound.”
“I didn’t need to be rescued!” Shurla snapped. “I was perfectly happy as a joy-girl back at Hell’s Gate! At least back there I got paid when somebody shoved something up my hoo-hah! Why do you even want us here, anyway? You keep calling us ‘breeders’ and you examined our wombs. But if you think I’m going to have a baby for you crazy assholes, you’ve got another think coming!”
“My, you’re a feisty one, aren’t you, my dear?” Mother Toone remarked, still smiling, though she appeared to be fingering something in her pocket. “That’s all right. You’ll see things differently in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. Once you’re well-rested, we’ll explain your true purpose in life and how you can serve the Glorious Cause.”
Shurla opened her mouth, doubtless to argue some more but Penny had caught a glimpse of what Mother Toone was holding in her pocket—it looked suspiciously like a miniature pain prod.
“What about something to eat?” she asked, quickly, hoping to keep her friend from getting shocked. Plus, she really was hungry. It had been a long, long time since the half protein bar Granny Two-two had given her back on the Hell’s Gate Station.
“You’ll get your nightly portion of Mother’s Milk very soon,” Mother Toole promised her. “That will fill you right up—I promise.”
“Mother’s Milk? What’s that?” Shurla demanded.
But their new attendant didn’t answer. She simply swept out the door and then the clicking sound of a lock being turned echoed in the long dormitory.
Shurla went to try the door anyway and Penny went with her.
“Hey! Hey, let us out of here!” Shurla yanked on the latch and pounded on the door us
elessly. “Hey, you can’t keep us here!”
“I think they can,” Penny murmured to her friend. She put a hand on Shurla’s shoulder. “I’m sorry—I’m scared too.”
“I’m not just scared—I’m angry!” Shurla stopped pounding at last and they both went to sit on two of the cots, which were side-by-side. “Who the hell do these freaks think they are, swooping us up and taking us to this crazy place?”
“Do you think they’ll really let us go if we want to tomorrow morning?” Penny asked hesitantly.
Shurla made an incredulous sound in the back of her throat.
“I don’t think so—these bastards are playing for keeps.” She sighed and put her head in her hands. “This is all so crazy—it just feels like a bad dream, you know?”
“I was thinking the exact same thing,” Penny said fervently.
She thought again of the Oompa-Loompa NeverBreeders and the public orgy they had witnessed out in the town and the way the “Glorious Leader” looked exactly like Colonel Sanders. Maybe she had fallen asleep somewhere and this was all just a really vivid dream.
In fact, maybe she had fallen asleep even before she was captured—possibly she was in her bed on the long-range shuttle with Rive and Y’lla and everything she’d gone through in the past two days was all just a nightmare…
It was such a seductive idea, Penny was really tempted to give in to it. Maybe once she went to sleep, she would wake up in the real world, back aboard the Kindred ship.
It was all she had to hope for, since at the moment, she saw no way to escape.
Twenty-Four
About an hour later, when Penny was so hungry it felt like her stomach was gnawing on her backbone—as her very Southern mom would have said—the door to the dormitory/prison opened and a normal looking humanoid woman came in. She looked to Penny to be in her early to mid forties and she had short black hair and guarded eyes.
There was something different about her, though, Penny thought. She was the first humanoid person, other than her fellow prisoners, who wasn’t smiling like a loon.
She doesn’t look like a Disney cast member, like all the rest of them, Penny thought, watching as the woman brought in a hover-cart loaded with large, frosty glasses filled with some kind of thick white liquid. In fact, she doesn’t look happy at all.
“What is this?” Shurla asked as the woman attempted to hand her a glass.
“Is it some kind of milk shake?” Penny asked. That was what it looked like, anyway.
“It’s a protein shake,” the woman answered evasively. “What flavor would you like?” she added, addressing Penny.
“Uh—they all look the same to me. Is this that Mother’s Milk stuff everyone kept talking about?” she added.
“It’s a protein shake,” the woman insisted. “And you pick the flavor this way.” She reached for a small metal canister on the end of the cart and opened it. Inside were lots of little flat sticks that looked a little like tongue depressors to Penny.
“What are those?” Shurla asked, suspiciously.
“They’re flavor-sticks,” the woman said patiently. “Just think of what flavor you want—I recommend something sweet—press the stick to your tongue and then stir the protein shake with the stick. The flavor you thought of will be instantly transferred to the shake.”
“Do we have to use the sticks?” one of the other prisoners asked, frowning.
“Well, no.” The woman shrugged. “But I’d recommend it. The shake doesn’t taste like anything at all unless you flavor it. It’s like drinking a big glass of cold glue—not very nice.”
“I’ll try it,” Penny said. She knew she ought to refuse the stuff they were offering her, but by that time she was so hungry, she would have eaten or drunk almost anything.
She took the flavor stick the woman was offering and pressed the end of it against her tongue. Wondering if this could possibly work, she thought as hard as she could about a peanut butter-banana malt shake from Bo’s, her favorite ice cream shop back home. Then she dipped the stick into the frosty glass of what appeared to be vanilla milkshake the woman had handed her and stirred it around thoroughly.
The liquid in the glass remained the same color, which gave Penny serious doubts.
There’s no way this is going to work, she thought, as she took an experimental sip. No way it can—
Suddenly the flavors of peanut butter and banana and malt powder swirled across her tongue. The shake didn’t just taste similar to the one from Bo’s—it tasted identical.
“Wow!” Penny looked up at the woman in surprise. “It really worked!” She took another, bigger sip. “It tastes exactly like what I imagined!”
The woman offered her a wan smile.
“Told you. The flavor sticks make all the difference.”
“Let me try one,” Shurla said grudgingly and the other women asked for their shakes as well.
Penny felt guilty—she hoped she hadn’t inadvertently convinced all the other prisoners to drink something that was somehow bad for them. But she’d been so hungry. She just couldn’t resist.
She took another sip of her shake and the familiar flavors conjured up pictures of childhood. Walking to Bo’s on a Summer evening with her mom and dad and her little sister, Jenny… The four of them ordering their favorites and then sitting at one of the picnic tables under the spreading oak trees… Her parents asking about how school was going or planning the next family vacation—the next adventure, as her dad used to say. They hadn’t been rich but they’d had an old RV and every summer her parents would take off work for at least two weeks so they could drive to one of the national parks or…
“Honey, you’re crying. Are you okay?” Shurla was looking at her with concern on her face.
“Oh, uh…” Penny sniffed and wiped at her tears. “Sorry. It’s just that the taste of this, uh, stuff, really brought back some memories. I guess I just miss my planet and my family, that’s all.”
“I miss Hell’s Gate and the Lucky Lounge,” Shurla said and sighed. She lifted her chin. “But don’t get down in the mouth, honey—we’re gonna get out of here—you’ll see.”
“How?” Penny looked around to make sure no one was listening, but the woman who had passed out the protein shakes was gone and the prisoners were alone in the dormitory.
“I don’t know.” Shurla got a stubborn look on her pretty face. “But I know we’ve got to do it. There’s something wrong with this place—something really wrong. I mean, the way all the people are so happy all the time? That’s not natural.”
“No, it’s not,” Penny agreed fervently. “And what do you think happened to the poor girl they dragged out of the exam room? What do you think ‘recycling’ means around here?”
“I don’t know and I don’t want to find out,” Shurla said grimly. “We have to get out as fast as we can, Penny—before the same thing—or something worse happens to us.”
“I’m with you,” Penny murmured. “If we could just get out of this building I think we could find the way to the exit pretty easily. But what about the jungle and all the poisonous plants?”
“If we stay on the road they used to bring us here, we shouldn’t have to touch any of them,” Shurla pointed out. “We just have to hide and wait until they open that energy gate again and then slip out when nobody is looking.”
“Then what?” Penny asked. “Just follow the road?”
“As far as it leads us,” Shurla said, nodding. “And then stow away in one of their ships.” She frowned. “These freaking NeverBreeder bastards must go to Hell’s Gate pretty often. In fact, I’d bet my third titty they’re the reason there’s been so many abductions lately.”
“You’re probably right.” Penny remembered how Kat and Commander Sylvan had suspected the abductions were due to the pirate they’d warned her about—V’rex, the half Kindred/ half Kru’ell One Hybrid. To think she’d been so frightened of him when she saw him in the Lucky Lounge! If only she’d known where the real danger lay…<
br />
In a bunch of Oompa-Loompas, she thought and sighed. They certainly didn’t look as menacing as the big Hybrid, but they were apparently much more dangerous. Why, Penny bet if she met V’rex again now, she wouldn’t even bat an eye!
Not that there’s any chance of that, she told herself. He’s probably off pirating somewhere while I’m trapped in this crazy cult Compound. How in the hell am I going to get out of here?
Well, hopefully by following Shurla’s plan. The two of them spoke quietly for about an hour longer, plotting their escape. By the time the lights went out and they all climbed into their narrow cots, she was feeling much more hopeful than she had earlier.
Twenty-Five
Penny had the oddest dreams, that night—she dreamed that her pillow was whispering to her. It whispered and whispered but she couldn’t understand half of what it said.
“Colonel Sanders,” whispered the pillow. “Colonel Sanders is the Shining Star—he brings us chicken from afar.”
Strange images began to grow in Penny’s dreams. She saw the man who had called himself the “Glorious Leader” standing in front of her. But he had a giant fried chicken drumstick for a torso. His head sat on top of the end of the drumstick and his arms and legs were growing out of it.
He began dancing and singing to Penny, telling her how wonderful he was as he bobbed his drumstick body all around. But all she could think about was how hungry she still was. The protein shake she’d had for supper hadn’t filled her up for very long.
Still he kept singing, but most of what the Glorious Leader said went in one ear and out the other. He seemed to be singing about how the Compound was a paradise and she was lucky to be living there. But Penny kept imagining what it would be like to go take a bite of his juicy fried chicken body. The giant drumstick appeared to be extra crispy—her favorite. If only she had some mashed potatoes and gravy and coleslaw to go with it, she would be perfectly happy.
The dream seemed to go on all night long and Penny got hungrier and hungrier. By the time she woke up, her mouth was watering and she was hoping that she and Shurla could get some breakfast before they made a break for it and tried to escape.
Stolen: Brides of the Kindred 25 Page 11