Crimson Rain

by Tex Leiko

  “Then you do what I say. I am your master. I might call you names and get a little rough; no crying, got it?”

  He nodded and finished his scotch. “No problem, mistress.”

  He sounds so whipped like there isn’t even any fight in him! I hope this doesn’t hinder my plan. This guy makes me sick. He is such a typical man with an extra dose of wimpy on the side. What a joke.

  She stood up, reclaiming her legs from his light grasp, and pushed him back into the couch. She leaned forward, grabbed his jaw, and pulled it close to her face. She spit lightly in his face to mark him as hers.

  “Take off your clothes,” she demanded.

  Brian didn’t so much as wipe any of her saliva off or even give her any form of verbal answer. He obeyed like a true slave, one who feared his master’s scorn.

  “Don’t touch, just watch,” she commanded again.

  She pulled her dress up over her head, revealing herself to be wearing only a garter belt, some black stockings, and a black thong. She reached behind her left leg as if she was undoing the clasp on her stocking that affixed it to the garter belt.

  “Close your eyes, and don’t respond to my touches. You’re mine; you do what I say when I tell you to.”

  Brian’s cheeks were getting rosy. She could tell the alcohol was affecting him. He relaxed his arms and stayed in the leaned back position she had put him in. He closed his eyes like a perfect submissive. “It should be easy to do, master,” he said.

  She slapped him hard across the face and he winced without opening his eyes. “Don’t speak unless I tell you. I don’t want a sound from you. You make me sick; you are here to do as I say and nothing more!”

  He nodded his head and kept his eyes closed, breathing softly out of his mouth. It must have taken some self-control to not scream when she slapped him. Crimson could hit harder than a lot of non-spliced men.

  Crimson pulled a glass syringe from the stocking on her left leg where she had been fidgeting. Inside the syringe, she could see some clear fluid and a small microchip about the size of a grain of rice floating in it.

  She slipped an eight gauge needle out from her right stocking and screwed it to the syringe. It looked like a spear. If Brian were to open his eyes, he would run in terror. It didn’t matter how submissive he was. If he saw this, he would run.

  She hid the syringe behind her back with her left hand and leaned down, placing her right hand on his chest. She began kissing and licking his thighs sensually and worked her way up to his neck. She scratched him across the chest and bit his right ear at the same time.

  “This might hurt a little,” she whispered, now tilting his head back with her right hand.

  He tried to nod, but her grasp kept his head from moving. Before he even knew he was in danger, she had shoved the needle through his right nasal passage and past the sphenoid bone. The needle entered into the brain and in one flawless, liquid motion, she had injected the chip.

  He barely even flinched. In a matter of minutes, “Brian” wouldn’t exist. He would still call himself that, but he would be nothing more than a mere minion under Crimson’s electronic command.

  The chip upon contact with cerebral spinal fluid extended tendrils and entangled itself all throughout his brain into every lobe. The tendrils even wrapped around the brain stem. His every thought, every function, was now under her command, but he wouldn’t even know it when he came to. When he awoke, he would barely remember a thing.

  Crimson slipped back into her dress, disposed of the syringe by hurling it out a window onto the street, and poured another scotch. She sat on the couch, sipping it until the chip had completely done its job and he awoke to her scowling at him, tapping a foot impatiently. She was fully dressed when he came to. He was naked and apparently still ready for some much promised action.

  “What was that?” she asked, seeming to be annoyed.

  “What happened?”

  “That is exactly what I was asking you. I slap you once, start to mess around with a little foreplay, and you pass out on me? How much did you have to drink?”

  Brian smacked his lips, tasting his mouth. “Ugh, I don’t remember, but it tastes like a lot.”

  “Figures, you’re drunk,” she said, standing, still sipping scotch.

  “Why are you dressed?”

  “Because you can’t perform,” she said, finishing her scotch and leaving the empty glass on his kitchen counter.

  “Sure I can! I’m awake again. I’m sorry I passed out, but… Look! I’m still good to go,” he exclaimed, looking down at his swollen member.

  “I’ve seen bigger on schoolgirls, not impressed. Also, passing out while I’m kissing on you really doesn’t do it for me. I’m out of here. Think about me when you go into the office tomorrow. You’re useless, but I still need your company. I don’t see a point in trading you for some other rep. In the future, however, try to do your job better than your attempted trysts and we will have no issues.”

  “But—” he started to say, but she was already out the door.

  Crimson stood in the hallway waiting for the elevator, giggling like a little girl.

  * * * *

  The machines stopped whirring and humming. The conveyer belt had gone to standby. The job was finished. The last ten minutes of the process was extremely painful for Max because the anesthetic boost had completely worn off, but he kept himself from flinching throughout.

  He climbed out from under the robotic arms, careful not to smack into any of them and break any of the delicate working parts. He felt lighter. He looked over to the starting point of the belt where his arms lay on the floor, lifeless. There was barely any blood anywhere; the plasma scalpels were great at stopping blood loss as they cut.

  There was still a haze of smoke and a sickening smell of burned skin, blood, muscle, and bone in the air. As the device cut, it vaporized the tissues. No matter how precise and accurate it was, there would always be that to deal with. It would be centuries before every vaporized particle of Max was scrubbed out of the room.

  He was beginning to crash. All of the energy boosts were wearing off. Even though it had been a success, his body had suffered a large albeit controlled trauma. He staggered over to the mirror to investigate. He liked what he saw.

  It’s clear they’re fake; everyone will see that, but I was working on a tight time frame so I’ve got to cut myself a little bit of slack. They look good. I know they’re at least fifty times more powerful than they were before. Steadier than any flesh and bone. Perfect, lethal, stable, powerful. A nice fit indeed.

  Max’s legs began to buckle. He was tired and sick of fighting it. He flopped down onto the ground and curled up into a fetal position. He took two deep breaths and then was fast asleep. The other project he had in mind would have to wait.

  * * * *

  From the time Crimson had left her home to now had only been roughly four hours. She figured even though Max was roaring and ready to do something when he awoke, that he would surely have found something to keep himself entertained. She rode the private elevator to her home and stepped off.

  She smelled something bizarre in the air. She couldn’t quite put her finger on the scent, but it made her a bit nauseous. She felt something was amiss. She proceeded with caution in the direction of the smell. It led her toward the lab.

  This isn’t good. I hope he hasn’t made some chemical weapon that will kill us all. What is that smell anyways? Burned hamburger and women’s perfume? I hope it goes away or else Max is getting a serious lashing.

  The smell was strong outside the door of the lab. Crimson didn’t have a weak stomach by any means, but it was still making her sick. Partly because of the worry that something had gone terribly wrong and what she may be breathing was toxic fumes that would kill her. The other part was the awful smell.

  As she opened the door, she scanned the room cautiously with her eyes, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Quickly, she spotted something.

  Dismembered
arms. I knew I shouldn’t have left him alone.

  She recognized the arms; they belonged to Max. She still couldn’t see him and began to think the worst. Her pulse quickened and she took a stance ready to fight. She hadn’t taken any weapons with her tonight. She didn’t think she would need them, especially in her own fortress.

  Calm down, if they were assassins, how did they get in? What are they using? Plasma blades! I knew I recognized that awful smell. Okay, so where is Max? I need to go in and investigate.

  She slowly peeked her head around the other side of the door and scanned more of the vast room that she couldn’t see from the hallway. She saw a body on the floor lying in front of the mirror. She slowly crept inside the room, still vigilant.

  If those arms belong to Max, who is that body?

  As she approached the mysterious body, she began to relax. There were no clear signs of anyone else in this room. It was just her, the corpse at her feet, and the creepy severed arms. The body lay there, seemingly lifeless, with one of its arms draped over its head, obstructing her view from seeing who it was.

  She nudged it; no movement. Still cautious and not wanting to risk a sneak attack, she kicked the body as hard as she could in an attempt to roll it over. It worked; the body jumped to its feet screaming.

  Before she even heard the words, she reacted, jumping on the man, attempting to pin him to the ground. He was fast and strong and grabbed her midair, tossing her across the room. She landed hard on the ground and sprung up as quickly as possible, ready to charge, when it registered in her mind.

  That’s Max’s face…how the hell?

  “Damn it, you crazy ass woman. What the hell are you doing to me?” he blurted out, rubbing his side where she had kicked him.

  “Max! What did you do? I thought you had been murdered in here!”

  “What gave you that bloody idea, you lunatic?”

  “Oh, I don’t know? The fact your arms are lying on the ground over there perhaps!”

  She pointed. He remembered and realized that maybe he shouldn’t have left them lying around. “Well, my love, it’s fine!” he yelled sarcastically, wildly motioning his new prosthetics.

  “I can see that! I left you alone for four hours and you were exhausted. How was I suppose to know you were going to go wild, make yourself some kind of freakishly strong robotic prosthetics, and perform the operation on yourself? Did you somehow hint in your conversation before I left that you had this in mind? No! I thought an assassin came in, cut them off of your body, and you somehow…” Crimson started to trail off as she realized that what she thought may have happened was equally as preposterous as what had actually happened. “Look, Max, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I couldn’t see your face. Your arms…were lying on the frickin’ floor! I didn’t know who you were, so excuse me for kicking you! Maybe you should sleep with a combat suit on.”

  “Not a bad idea since rolling me over gently clearly isn’t an option! Damn!”

  The room was awkwardly quiet as their childish temper tantrum came to a halt. The air still smelled awful and Max’s face looked awful. She couldn’t help but notice he could only see out of one eye and that boosts used and unused were scattered all around the floor.

  “What made you do this to yourself?” she asked, sounding concerned.

  “Boredom and loathing to start… Then I thought to myself, why not be more than your mad scientist brooding away in the corner of this coming conflict? Even if I am stuck in a lab this whole war, I am going to need defense.”

  “I gave you a gun and a plasma sword.”

  “Yeah, you think I know how to swing a sword? You think I know how to shoot a gauss weapon? I’m a doctor. I fix people, I don’t break them. But if I’m going to help you, I need to be self-sufficient. So I made these; they were really easy. I went onto the net, got the blueprints for what the military uses on their soldiers, then made some modifications for the better.

  “I still need to replace my busted eye, however, with a robotic. That’s the next project. Complete with a targeting system. Both arms can shoot four miniature cold fission warheads each. They pack a punch, could destroy a building or a military armored vehicle of any kind, but like I said, I can’t even shoot a gauss pistol let alone have the accuracy to launch a warhead based off my sight alone.

  “The eye will be really cool. A self-guided targeting system for the warheads will make it so I don’t even have to aim so long as I can remember what I want it to find! Also, it will sync up with the arms, telling them how to aim at whoever I am shooting at with any form of weapon so I will be a crack shot with all firearms. When it gets down to the wire and you don’t need me in the lab, I want to provide cover fire for you on your assaults. I will be able to hit anything from a mile or more away provided the right sniper rifle. I’ll be good cover, I swear!

  “Also, as I am sure you noticed as I flung you across the room, these arms are much stronger than my old ones. Sure, they aren’t as pretty. The skin is more of a dust cover than anything, but I was working on a tight schedule, remember? Side note, doll face! This lab is amazing! Anyways, as I was saying, they are much stronger both in durability and in force. So even if I am dealing with someone at close range, I should be able to hold my own. That plasma katana you gave me won’t be useless to me anymore! So…you like?”

  Max was out of breath from speaking so fast. He was like an excited little child showing his mother what he made her in kindergarten. His face looked awful as he smiled. It was hard to imagine he had done it to himself.

  “Max… I knew you were smart. But this? This is amazing. You are more than what I was hoping for. A soldier, a doctor, and a scientist. I knew I needed you for a reason. Next time, try to clean up your excess body parts before I get home, however. I don’t want another one of these little tiffs.”

  Crimson had walked over to him by the time she was done speaking and had wrapped her arms around his body. His new arms were cold to the touch as they rested on hers made of flesh and blood. She looked into his one good eye with both of hers and as much as she saw excitement, she still saw sadness.

  It was more than some random spark of genius creativity that had caused him to disfigure his face like this and she knew it. It may have even been the same thing that drove him to severely modify his body to please her. She had to know what it was.

  “Max, why did you hurt yourself?”

  “The arms? They didn’t hurt much at all. I used anesthetic.”

  “Yeah, I saw you made a mess of the cabinet as well. You are like a destructive little puppy. I don’t mean the arms; I mean your face. Why did you do that?”

  Crimson was having a hard time seeing Max’s expression under the dried blood, bruises, and gashes on his face. He was contouring his mouth, though, to a frown and she could tell he was hesitating to tell her something. Finally, he spoke, looking unsure of himself.

  “When I got into college, I became an addict to serenity boosts. They ruled my life. I couldn’t get by without them. I needed them to sleep and I was severely addicted. Finally, I broke the habit…” He began to trail off as if he wasn’t going to finish, but her eyes pierced a void into his heart and he began to tear up. “I relapsed the other day. I was so nervous and worked up after I met you in the office, I couldn’t calm down and I used one again. It was the first time in three years and my cells have been screaming for more ever since. It’s going to take a while to break, but that isn’t the hard part. I felt like I had failed. I don’t like failure, never have. Failure makes me loathe myself and when I loathe myself, I punish myself. I always have, ever since I was young. I would smash my head into walls, punch myself, even cut myself on my legs or somewhere that wasn’t visible. It’s an addiction, too, but much harder to break than the boosts.”

  There was a long silence as they stood there holding each other. The tears that were in Max’s eyes had now turned into streams running down his face. The last little bit he had said sounded shaky, as if he were going to bu
rst into hysterical crying at any time.

  His body shook at the emotion of it all and Crimson held him tight. She could tell his mind was racing a mile a minute as she thought of how she wanted to put this. She wasn’t any good at being delicate, and in this moment, that was what he needed.

  “Max,” she said, sounding firm but soft.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t hate anyone from here on out except our enemies. I need that rage you feel for yourself, for your failures, redirected. Can you do that for me, please? I promise, we will succeed. You won’t face failure.”

  “I think I can do that.”

  “Good, then clean up, I’m starving. The date was a ploy of espionage. I completed my mission, had a few drinks free of charge, and now I am really hungry. I can’t remember if I even took a bite.”

  Max was shocked. She didn’t run screaming. But what had he expected? She was like nothing he’d ever known. He was happy to be her ally and to fight for her cause. “Okay, sounds good,” he said with a sigh, squeezing her tightly, careful not to hurt her with his newfound strength.

  Chapter Nine

  We Would Like You to Come With Us

  He had only walked about nine blocks from Max’s office when two hover cars came whizzing up alongside of him, pulling off of the street and hovering on the sidewalk. The cars were blue with black tint and identical other than their tags. When they came up on him, one had strategically pulled in front, the other behind.

  One of the cars had nearly struck a bystander that was walking closely behind Zarfa, but he had managed to move out of the way. Zarfa was standing there, still pondering the things he had heard in Max’s office. He had yet to decide what he was going to do. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted to get back home to Ilyeion, home to his legion.

  He had only come to Alexarien to get the Psyker Scream nanobots. He had them now. He had no other reason to be here anymore, but now this. Another annoyance; these cars weren’t coincidence and he knew it.