The Sopaths

by Piers Anthony

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  The kid consulted briefly on his cell phone. That sort of thing was of course part of what the sopaths needed money for. They might have preferred to be completely isolated from the rest of the world, but had discovered that this was not feasible.

  Then he evidently got his orders. “Get out of the car.”

  Rather than try to argue with possibly trigger-happy minions, Abner obliged. “Do it,” he murmured.

  The five of them got out. They were marched to an adjacent building and separated. None of them offered any resistance.

  Abner found himself in a chamber by himself. He sat and waited about half an hour. He knew they would get around to him soon enough. They had to bring in their authorities. Topsy herself, with luck.

  A gruff older man entered. “You’re no sopath,” Abner said.

  “I work for them,” the man said.

  “I’ll bet.” The fact that a person had a soul did not guarantee he would be ethical or independent. Sex and threats could be powerful persuaders.

  “Now here’s the situation,” the man said. “You came to spy on us and mess us up. What we want to know is why. Tell us, and maybe you’ll see your family again.”

  Abner remembered military interrogation procedures. This was not very sophisticated. “We came to find out why so many sopaths are born here.”

  “You lie.”

  Uh-huh. He was definitely dealing with amateurs. “What is the basis of this charge?”

  “We got it from your two younger children.”

  And doubtless lying similarly to the others about what Abner said. Standard operating procedure. “I doubt it. What of the older girl?”

  “She collapsed in tears before we even asked.”

  That just might be true. Nefer was playing a dangerous game with them. Evidently they hadn’t recognized her as a sopath herself. They surely would before long, however. “And what of my wife?”

  “She clammed up. But she’ll squeal soon enough when we torture the children.”

  There was the threat. They were clumsy, but had the essence. “You won’t be doing that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the moment you do, I’ll be annoyed.” Abner smiled. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m annoyed.”

  The man frowned. “You’re some joker, you know that?”

  “This has gone far enough. Bring us back together, unharmed. We’re here to meet with your superiors.”

  “Oh? And what if we don’t?”

  Abner moved too quickly for the man to react. In an instant he had him in a firm headlock. “That would annoy me.”

  The man tried to cry out, but Abner cut off his wind with a twist of his wrist against the windpipe. “I could kill you in a few seconds. But you’re not worth bothering with. You’re just a flunky. Now call your supervisor in here.” He eased up a little.

  “The hell!”

  Abner shifted his grip slightly. Now it was a pain hold. “I didn’t hear that. Will you cooperate?”

  “The—”

  This time the pain hold made the man groan in agony. “Do I have to reach him over your dead body? Now get in line and I’ll let you go.”

  The man took a moment to recover. Then he called “Autopsy! He’s got me in a hold.”

  Abner was about to make him hurt again. But then a young woman appeared. “I will take it from here, Jud,” she said.

  So the mistress of Kraut really had come. That was a break. Not the childish Topsy, but the brutally suggestive Autopsy. As Nefer had said: she must have her reason. Maybe it was to make her seem less threatening to outsiders, while insiders knew how vicious she was.

  Abner let the man go. He scrambled to his feet and out the door. Abner was left with the woman.

  And what a woman she was. Her face was lovely almost beyond description, perfectly made up. She wore a low cut gown that showed more than half of her rouged breasts. Her fair hair was bound with a sparkling jeweled comb. She took a seat on the chair and crossed her right leg over the left not at the knee but midway along the calf so that her shapely thigh was exposed all the way to the buttock. The effect was compelling. This was like Nefer on steroids. “I am Autopsy,” she said.

  “You’re a teen sopath!” Abner said, affecting surprise. She looked seventeen but was surely younger.

  She leaned forward, showing more of her breasts. “Don’t fool with me, Abner Slate. I saw you coming. Tell me what I want to know and I will let you touch me.”

  “We are here to try to discover why one town has no sopath births while the other has mostly sopath births. That could have global significance. Tell me that and I will leave you alone.”

  “You understand of course that we will not hesitate to torture your wife and children to death in front of you. Or to reward you with a fantastic experience if you cooperate.”

  She was speaking literally, but it was not his role to be cowed. “Cut out the threats and temptations, Autopsy. I will not be moved by either.”

  “Oh? I am curious to verify your constancy. Perhaps I will strip us both naked and sit on your lap and fondle your penis while we watch the smallest girl writhe and scream as we burn out her eyes with red-hot pokers. Which distraction will interest you more?”

  She wasn’t bluffing. She was a sopath with power. It was time to halt this. “Here is why you won’t do any of that. I have been in constant touch with the Pariah home office via a private signal you can’t intercept. The moment I give the word, or cease to communicate, they will alert the state authorities who will do what they have been eager to do: raid you and kill all of you as rogue sopaths. All they need is a pretext, and I am that pretext. I will see that they capture rather than kill you personally, and if any of my family have been harmed, I will hold you securely bound and naked on my lap as I rape you with the hot poker you have prepared for my daughter. I suspect your body will writhe and scream in a most interesting manner.”

  She gazed at him, unconcerned. “I wonder.”

  “It is simple enough to have the proof of my threat. Start your torture.”

  “I think you’re bluffing. You’re a man, so you desire me and want to have sex with me. You’re a souler, so you don’t like hurting people, while it doesn’t bother us at all.”

  “You are the one bluffing, bitch. You have no interest in torturing anyone unless you have something to gain by it. I, in contrast, care about my family, and will be motivated by vengeance. When the raid manifests you will flee to try to save your own hide, while I will make good on my threat. There’s nothing quite as vicious as a motivated souler with a hard military background.”

  “That is true. We have some here.” She studied him thoughtfully. “What do you want?”

  “I want the answer to my question. Give it to me and I will leave you alone and see that Pariah does too. That’s a bargain for you.”

  “We don’t have the answer!” she snapped, her poise beginning to fray.

  “I’ll be damned. You mean it.”

  “Yes I mean it! All we want is to be left alone. We can’t give you what you want.”

  Abner wasn’t sure whether she was lying, because to sopaths the truth was merely one option among many. This still needed to be played out. “Then I can’t give you what you want. We may simply have to clean you out and start over here with a study group.”

  She sighed. “Well, I tried to make nice. Now we’ll do it my way. Follow me.” She got up and walked out of the room.

  Abner followed, involuntarily admiring her flexing buttocks under the tight skirt. He could have caught her and subdued her with a pain hold, but was pretty sure that would not work a second time. Her guards would instantly appear with guns. Her very ability to turn her back on him showed her confidence in her own safety.

  They came to a larger room. There was Dreda, tied naked to a board. “Daddy!” she cried hopefully.

  Abner saw that Bunty, Clark, and Nefer were seated on chairs acros
s the room, facing the torture site. They were all naked, and all looked grim. They had evidently been told the same thing he had.

  There were four male guards armed with knives, standing to the sides of the room. The thing about knives was that they were better for stages of torture than guns were. A gun was either fired or not fired, while a knife could cut off small sections at a time.

  “We shall sit and watch the persuasion,” Autopsy said. “Strip and sit, Abner Slate.” She indicated a chair for him at the near end of the row.

  She was inadvertently playing into his hands.

  Abner removed his clothing and took the seat, retaining only the cell phone in his left hand. The fact that they had not taken it indicated either their confidence or their caution.

  Autopsy stripped also and stood before him for a moment gloriously nude. Then she sat on his lap, her plush buttocks pressing warmly against his thighs. She reached down between her spread thighs, and took hold of his penis, exactly as she had threatened. She massaged it, and it hardened in her hand. It was now erect between her thighs. She had ferocious sex appeal, an animal magnetism that her mere appearance could not entirely account for. He abhorred the necessity of being so close to this vicious creature, yet his body was reacting forcefully. No wonder she governed here!

  “So you’re doing exactly what you threatened to,” Abner said, keeping his voice calm.

  “Exactly,” she agreed sweetly, giving his penis a pull. “I am turned on by torture. How about you?”

  “I will not allow it.”

  Autopsy glanced at the guards. “Proceed,” she said.

  One of the guards left the room. He returned a moment later with a poker that glowed red at its business end. It had been in a fire, made ready for this ugly use. He advanced on Dreda.

  “All you need to do is promise to leave here and be silent about our control of this town,” Autopsy murmured in his ear. “I know that as a Pariah official you will keep your word in a way a sopath would not.”

  “I will keep my given word,” he agreed. “I have not given it except in this respect: Your doom is sealed the moment that poker touches my child.”

  “And when you do promise, not only will she go free unharmed, but I will give you the fuck of your life.” She reached down to catch his right hand and bring it to her bare right breast. She pressed it in, causing it to massage the flesh. His estimate had been correct: she was like Nefer on steroids. There was the same kind of animal magnetism about her that others had described about him, and he desired her fiercely.

  “It will not be my penis that enters you,” he said, though his member was now rigid and on the verge of jettisoning. She was a sopath, but she had one of the finest bodies he had ever encountered, and she knew it. She must have achieved her position among sopaths, including the girls, by being the most physically attractive.

  The man pointed the poker at Dreda’s face and pushed it slowly forward, centering on her left eye. Terrified, she urinated on the floor.

  Abner watched. He had to keep Autopsy close to him as long as possible, hoping that Pariah’s confidence in his secret weapon was not misplaced. That meant allowing this revolting challenge to proceed until his hand was forced. Dreda had depended on him to protect her, and he intended to do that, but she was in serious doubt now. How he wished he could reassure her!

  Autopsy put her thighs together, squeezing his turgid member between them. How well she knew her power! “Desire is beating horror,” she remarked. “So far.”

  “You can’t bluff him,” Nefer said. “Under that souler mask there’s one extremely tough man.”

  “We shall see,” Autopsy said, tightening her thighs to put additional pressure on his penis.

  There needed to be a more immediate show of force. “Deliver the warning shell,” Abner said into the phone.

  “How long before detonation?” Autopsy inquired as if it were routine. She must have let him keep the phone so she could call his bluff.

  “About thirty seconds.”

  “Wait thirty seconds,” she told the poker bearer.

  He held the poker in place, about two inches before Dreda’s eye. She was quietly sobbing, fearing the worst.

  Then the shell exploded in the intersection outside the house with an authoritative boom. The building rattled.

  “I’ll be damned,” Autopsy said, startled. He felt it in her momentary clench of thighs, and pause of breath beneath her breast. “You do have us covered.”

  “Did you think I walked into this nest of scorpions, with my family, unprepared?” Abner asked rhetorically. “We of Pariah do know something about handling sopaths.”

  She remained on his lap, reassessing the situation. “So it seems. We have guards to stop anyone from driving or walking in. How did you get the bomb there, and set it off?”

  “It’s a mortar,” Abner said. “That’s a mini-cannon that hurls shells in a high arc, to land and detonate like bombs. You can’t defend against it. We have it zeroed in on this site. The next round will be for effect.”

  “You’d bomb yourself and your family to get at us? I don’t think so.”

  “When the alternative is torture? We’ll soon know, won’t we?” Abner asked, squeezing her breast a bit too hard. He could merge sadism with sex when he chose to. He needed her to accept that he was indeed a tough man.

  “Then we’d better get on with it.” Autopsy glanced at the poker man and opened her mouth.

  Abner raised the phone to his face. Bluff and counter bluff, not about their abilities, but their nerve. If Autopsy thought she could still make Abner yield, she would. But she didn’t want to have that poker raping her, and he didn’t want to have to do it. But he could, and would. He was already furious about the way Dreda was being terrorized.

  Autopsy slapped the phone out of his hand. It dropped to the floor and skidded before the chairs. Bunty dived for it, but a guard intercepted her and held her tightly against him. He was evidently eager to rape her the moment he was given leave.

  Clark tried for the phone, but another guard kicked it back the way it had come. Autopsy slid off Abner’s lap, reached lithely down, and scooped it up.

  Only to discover herself caught from behind, with a knife at her throat. While the others had focused on the phone, Nefer had focused on Autopsy. “Try to bluff me, cow!” she hissed.

  The guards, seeing their mistress captive, froze in place. The poker retreated from Dreda’s face. Abner retrieved the phone from Autopsy’s hand. She had lost their contest of wills, by not letting him call in the strike.

  “You’re a sopath!” Autopsy said, amazed. “You serve a souler?”

  Nefer shrugged without letting the knife blade waver. “There’s just something about him. I love him.”

  “And he keeps you in his family? You must be one hell of a young fuck!”

  “I am, but he doesn’t know it yet.” She looked at Abner. “Do I kill her? You know we can’t trust her. Those goons won’t wait forever without orders.”

  Abner hesitated deliberately. “You kill her, you take her place,” he said. “It’s the way an anarchist society works. They’ll obey you. It could be a good deal for you. A sopath-controlled town. Power and an easy life.”

  “Yes, but I’ll still serve you, and you won’t want to stay here. There’s nothing I want here, when you go. I’d be in constant fear of getting knocked off by the next power-hungry sopath bitch.”

  Abner made his decision. “Then let her go. We already have the situation in hand, and she could be useful.”

  “She could also be one really hot fuck,” Nefer agreed, slowly releasing the woman. “She’s got the body I don’t have yet.”

  Right on target. Abner’s erection remained, in plain sight of everyone, desiring the sopath leader even now. He had underestimated her sheer sexual appeal.

  Autopsy got to her feet. “Loose the child,” she said to the guards. “Then get out of here. The issue has been settled; the operation is under new manageme
nt.” She turned to Abner, inhaling. “Tell your mortar crew to ease off. We don’t want some trigger-happy joker shelling this house while we’re in it. We haven’t fucked yet.” She glanced at his stiff penis, knowing that this aspect of her power remained. Like Nefer, she could bide her time when she needed to.

  Abner lifted his cell phone and did so. Meanwhile the guards freed Dreda, and she came running across to Abner. He swept her up and held her tightly, comforting her as she sobbed. She had known he would protect her if he could, but had not been sure he could. He had not been sure either, if his threat did not dissuade the sopath.

  “You’re right,” Autopsy said to Nefer. “There’s something about him. Just being close to him makes me want to fuck him.” Which was her way of saying that she was getting a crush on him, as Nefer had. It seemed that sopaths had no natural limitations apart from conscience; when they got turned on by someone, they plunged in all the way in mere minutes. That could be a worthwhile lever, and was in this case. Pariah had gambled on it and on him to implement it, and won. Autopsy wanted sex with him, yes, but this was beyond that, and would not end if she seduced him. Exactly as Nefer had discovered.

  “He has that effect,” Bunty said.

  “But there’s one thing I don’t get,” Autopsy said. “I know why you made her let me go, Abner, because I made your penis hot and you really want that fuck. All men do. You just want to fuck me on your own terms, not mine. It’s a power thing. But you, Nefer—you’re a sopath like me, and you want to fuck him too. You could have saved the competition by killing me. He gave you leave to do it. You know I can seduce him before you can, because I’ve got the hardware you lack, and once he fucks me, he’ll have no interest in you. Why did you throw away your chance like that?”

  “Because I love him,” Nefer said. “I’ll do anything he wants me to. So will you. He’s got the power.”

  Autopsy surveyed Abner again. “He does. I’ve never felt anything like this. Fucking’s always been a business for me, and I’m good at it. I’ve fucked every man in Kraut, most of them multiple times. They can never get enough of me. All I ever felt before for a man was contempt. A man will throw away everything just to get his penis into my slit before it bursts. Just to pump his gism into me. I enjoy sex but it doesn’t govern me like that. That’s weakness.”