by Prax Venter
Roo crawled up to kiss his lips while Ahnix nuzzled her purring face into his neck, rubbing his stomach with her sleek, furry hand. Surround by his girls, he was wrapped in pure, warm ecstasy. He adored the feel of Roo's puffy lips nibbling on his and Ahnix's affection and kisses just under his ear- it was melting his mind.
Sensing his approaching orgasm, Vale pressed her lips firmly down to the base of his cock and used her tongue to reach down and encircle his testicles, gently pulling them away from his body.
With a grunt and an intense muscle spasm, Mark emptied the contents of his balls and the rest of his essence into Vale's mouth.
After he stopped spasming, she finally unwrapped her tongue from his nuts and his cock- but gave the tip one last, sloppy kiss before pulling away, sending a jolt of hyperstimulation through his body.
Mark looked up at Vale while the other two girls remained snuggled to his side. Her dark skin was such a beautiful contrast to her long white hair. The silver hoops through her massive black nipples accented her solid, round breasts perfectly.
Mark took a deep shuddering breath, pulling in the intermingled, heavenly smells from his cherished Enthralled. He was about to cancel his multi-target enhancement when he realized Vale hadn't been given the gift of orgasm yet.
Ahnix and Roo instantly sensed his intentions and pulled away, turning to Vale in unison.
“Vale, the service of your tongue is much appreciated,” Mark began in a serious voice. “But your master has some guests over for dinner tonight... and naga meat is on the menu.”
Ahnix leaned forward onto all fours. “Mmm,” she purred. “And I'm soo hungry.”
The giant naga's beautiful eyes opened wide as all three of them descended on her.
- 6 -
Mark and his Enthralled passed through Roo's door and ended up in the fully powered and brightly lit cargo bay.
Betty, Johnson, and Willard came up to greet them with mixed looks on their faces.
“You did it!” Betty cheered, with a smile on her lips.
Johnson crossed his arms. “And we still have major problems.”
“I told you.” The hairless Willard nodded his head as he spoke, causing his extra chins to jiggle. “The station bleeds now.”
“What does he mean?” Mark asked looking at Betty. The older woman's face fell, and she remained silent.
“Follow me,” Johnson said, turning and walking to a station along the wall. He plopped down in front of a computer terminal and brought up a long list of options.
“I rigged this to function as a mainframe access point. I can get into a lot of systems, but most of them are scrambled or just plain weird. Listen to the FTL communications array.”
He pressed a few buttons and the cavernous cargo bay echoed with a million voices. Mark felt as if he was in a crowded auditorium and everyone was talking over each other at once. The young computer technician pressed another button, and all was silent again. A flash of worry hit Mark, and he shot a glance to the right and confirmed that they had already sealed the door. All that noise would surely draw the attention of the blue-eyed sentry bots.
“That's not all,” Johnson said, getting up. “Come to the crafter.”
Everyone followed him over to a control panel above a hollow chamber, recessed in the wall. Mark watched as the lanky young man pressed a few buttons in quick succession, then spoke a command.
“A glass of water.”
There was a hum behind the wall as a pair of glowing orbs formed and swirled in a tight pattern. The points of light vanished, leaving a glass filled with red liquid in the chamber.
“It makes blood instead,” Mark stated.
Johnson gave him a serious look over his glasses.
“Oh, it makes other things...” He pressed another button and then said, “Reclaim contents. One cheeseburger, well-done.”
After the processing repeated, a raw and bloody heart was left sitting on a pristine, white plate.
“It's sad,” Willard said from over Mark's shoulder. “For many reasons.” His obscure statement was brought into focus when his large stomach growled.
“This cursed box looks a lot like magic to me, Mark,” Roo said. And for once, Mark agreed with her. Machines that could create whole cheeseburgers were still not a reality in his world.
“It's not magic,” Ahnix said. “It's tiny physics. Nanotechnology, correct?”
Johnson nodded, his dark eyebrows raising over his glasses.
“You unlocked Nanotechnology already?”
“No, but soon.”
“Good, it will make a huge difference.”
“How do we fix this?” Ahnix asked, her tail hopping once.
Betty jumped in. “Coms are still our main priority. Without them, we can't call for transport. And for the record, I still think all this is the work of the Lorma Ultimatum. I've seen bigger vessels than this station turn to goldmines of junk. Shit, scavenging off their handiwork is how I paid for my ticket on here.”
“Lorma Ultimatum?” Vale asked.
Johnson answered before she could. “They're an allied group of Hackers, Junkers, and Anarchists. And it's possible, but I seriously doubt it.” He shrugged and pushed up his glasses. “Their viruses are more... random. Usually, they just disable systems. Fountains of blood and murder bots aren’t their style. I've actually never seen a total systemic virus like this.”
“Is the space station sick?” Roo asked.
“Yes,” Willard said quickly. “It's alive, and to it, we're the disease that needs cleansing. Also, I ate all my beans.”
Mark blinked at the round man. “You ate three day's rations in one day?”
“He's an odd duck, our Willard,” Betty said, putting her gloved hands on her hips.
“Either way,” Johnson began. “I have no idea how we are going to fix communications. I could fix the crafters with my custom kit, but it's back in my quarters. With my hacking tool and a working crafter, I should be able to make the parts I need to get more systems online.”
Mark felt Ahnix's interest level spike. He sent her a vague question, and his cat-girl turned to look into his eyes and answered out loud.
“With a bit more essence I can unlock the Tool-Assisted perk. It allows me to equip a very useful device.” Ahnix turned back to face Johnson, the tip of her tail twitching excitedly. “The skill says I need to craft my own... or take someone else's.”
Johnson crossed his arms, his too small jumpsuit pulling up over his thin wrists. A look formed in the young man's eyes that Mark didn't like one bit.
“I can always use the crafter to copy mine... call it a gift. You'll need to get it first, though and according to the station damage report, the only way to my employee residence block is through Adventure Dome three. Noir City, to be exact.”
“A few things,” Vale said from behind everyone. “First, what is an Adventure Dome?”
“The domes are the station’s main attractions,” Betty said. “You folk really aren't from around here, are you?”
“No,” Mark said straight-faced. “Forgive my pessimism, but I assume these fun-sounding 'Adventure Domes' are now death traps?”
Johnson let out an annoyingly fake laugh. “You should be fine. Most of them still have power from the fusion core and have been running empty this whole time. All the characters should be in their idle positions, and the gangster Characters there don't shoot real bullets. The domes are a combination of nano and holographic technologies designed to let guests live out various fantasy experiences. Noir City is probably the safest of all the functioning domes. Dome One is-” Johnson broke off quickly, his eyes snapping to Willard.
“Where I lost my wife,” the sad-looking hairless man finished for him.
“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Roo said, wrapping her soft arms around his enormous orange shirt. Willard seemed to really appreciate the gesture and patted the velvet-girl on the back in return. Betty put one of her gloved hands on Willard's huge shoulders and turned toward Ma
rk.
“The shit hit the fan everywhere pretty quickly, but Gluttony Grove got it the worst,” she said.
Willard blinked some tears away and looked up with a strained smile on his round face, and Mark got the feeling that this harmless, sensitive man was much older than he first thought.
“You could eat anything- everything,” he said. “The nanites would just pass out through your pores. Then everything tried to eat us. Vacationing here had been my idea...” He trailed off.
Roo pulled away, her jet-black eyes shimmering while Betty led him away to a corner of the cargo bay.
Johnson cleared his throat. “Getting to Dome Three will be the hard part with the rogue bots roaming the halls. Ignore the Characters inside. Their interaction templates are programmed with limited options anyway. Find 1500 Main Street and go to the 13th floor. There is a Character template station there with an employee access door behind it.”
He sighed as he unclipped his ID badge from his jumpsuit and handed it to Ahnix.
“Keep this safe for me...” he cleared his throat and puffed out his scrawny chest a little. “It will be, um... a lot easier to get the door to my quarters open with this. Suite F78.”
Ahnix took it and attached to her tube top with a serious nod. Johnson's eyes tracked the movements of his ID and lingered a little too long for Mark's liking.
“Johnson,” Vale said, snapping his attention off Ahnix's chest. “Tell me how to get to Noir City.”
“Ah, yes. Come with me to the computer. I'll show you a station map.”
After Vale memorized the route, they were ready to move out. Mark, Vale, and Roo held onto Ahnix, and she teleported them outside the cargo bay.
The hallways and service shafts were quiet for most of the trip, and Mark thought the silence felt more oppressive somehow. They did run into a pair of bots outside the entrance to the Adventure Dome, but Vale charged in, blasting one to dust with her shotgun while Roo blinded the other.
The four of them stood over the security bot husks as they looked up at the flashing marquee over the set of red double doors. It read 'Mystery, deception, and action await. Noir Land! This month only!'
To the left and right of the doors were two images that looked like ancient movie posters depicting attractive lounge singers and men in trench coats.
Mark turned to face the others. “I would be shocked if we didn't run into trouble in there, so keep a sharp eye out.”
They all nodded, and Mark pulled open one of the doors. On the other side was a reception area with a long hallway offset to the right. Everything was covered by sleek black and white paneling like the rest of the station. They moved around a long counter that had black letters across the front that read 'Registration' and continued down a hall into a room that looked like a department store. There were rows of racks holding all kinds of period-appropriate clothing. A whole wall was dedicated just to hats.
Roo immediately veered off and stood in front of a pair of cloth mannequins wearing pastel pencil skirts, tilting her head as she inspected them.
Mark walked up behind her and gently encouraged her to keep up with the others as they moved through the extensive collection of wardrobe options.
“Windows,” Vale called out and moved faster to check out the situation. The whole front of the store was a line of windows that looked out into daylight. Just like a real store.
When Mark caught up with Vale, he saw a dirty street with featureless buildings on the other side. He noticed an ancient vehicle parked in against the curb, and a small smile grew on his face as he wondered what it would be like to teach Roo to drive. He had never operated a car in the real world, but there were plenty of racing games out there.
“Looks empty,” Ahnix said.
Vale's eyes tracked a tumbling newspaper page as it blew down the street, then pulled away from the windows, searching for a way out.
“We're looking for a building labeled fifteen-hundred.”
“Right this way, ladies,” Mark said, moving towards the glass doors and holding them open for his Enthralled.
Outside the building, they were surrounded by skyscrapers of various sizes all packed close together, but their straight lines were fuzzy. He rubbed his eyes and looked down at the sidewalk below him and noticed that the lines seemed to be drawn in chalk. Now that he had a better understanding of what he was seeing, he could tell the ground, and all of the buildings had been drawn by a fairly competent child.
His eyes moved to the name of the store they were just in and saw something that resembled a hastily erased black chalkboard. Whatever had been written there was now only smears. Mark walked out into the street and spun around, looking at all the signs and addresses. Anywhere there should have been letters or numbers was the same half-erased, illegible smears.
“This doesn't seem right,” Vale said, coming to the same conclusion.
“This can’t be what the real world is like,” Roo said almost as if it was a question.
“Um, well, it’s a recreation of my world- maybe two hundred years in the past, but distorted. Everything is like a child's drawing.”
“Now what?” Vale said, pulling her eyes from the tall, chalk-drawn buildings around them and focusing on Mark. “How are we going to find the correct building?”
Mark looked left and right, but neither seemed better than the other. He noticed the black, glossy car again, parked in the street with its curvy exterior. The ancient vehicle was not made out of chalk and looked real enough to drive. Mark thought about seeing if it worked but quickly realized Vale would never fit inside. Or maybe could she ride outside? The grin spreading across his face fell when he saw the door handle was only drawn onto the side.
He was rubbing his fingertips through the white dust of the chalk-drawn handle when distant gunfire echoing off the buildings caused them all to freeze and search for threats. Mark tried to pinpoint their direction, but the echoes made it difficult.
“This way,” Ahnix said before sprinting off away from the car. The four of them moved down the chalk-drawn street for a few blocks before she led them around a corner.
More gunshots reverberated off the tall skyscrapers, and Mark looked up into the gray, hazy patches of clouds hanging low above them. The buildings were so similar and monochrome; he was having a hard time remembering how to get back to where they started.
They rounded another corner and saw five blood-red humanoids advancing on a man with a brown trench coat and a matching fedora in the middle of the street. The man in the middle fired a shot from his pistol, and one of the creatures exploded into chunks of gore, then dissipated as if they were made of tiny, glowing insects.
Always one to shoot first, Roo launched a needle into the head of one of the creatures as Ahnix, Vale, and Mark continued to run forward.
The ranged attack caused the man to snap his attention to the newcomers, and Mark saw a stubbly chin under the shadow of his angular hat. He nodded at them, a quick show of thanks, and then turned his attention to the three remaining attackers.
The creatures looked like people made of organs- more like they were missing their skin and muscle layers. Blood oozed from them freely as they moved in, closing the distance to the mysterious man at a stumbling jog.
Both Vale and Ahnix kicked off special abilities when they drew close enough, their attacks perfectly coordinated. Vale zipped in with an improved Shield Bash, sending one of the monsters flying down the street, then leveled her massive shotgun on a second one, blasting a cluster of light through its body, destroying it. Just as Vale finished, Ahnix appeared behind the last one and tore it apart with a flurry of claws from her Assault Rush ability.
The man in the hat fired a single bullet into the head of the bloody creature that Vale had knocked backward, ending its existence and ending the fight.
Mark felt a small flutter of essence enter him as he approached the man they had just rescued and noticed the stranger still held his gun out and pointed at Vale.
> Mark didn't like that one bit. “Hey, we're no threat to you. Lower your weapon.”
“I ain't sure of anything these days, friend.” His voice was low and gruff, like a knife ripping through leather.
Vale attached her shotgun to her hip and held out her hands.
“Sir, we're just looking for directions.”
“Directions?” the stranger said, slipping his pistol into his coat then pulling out a cigarette and a book of matches with one smooth motion. He struck the match and held it to the tip of his cigarette, the flash allowing Mark to get a brief glimpse at his gaunt features. The man took a long pull and then puffed out a stream of smoke from the side of his mouth.
“Do I look like a map to you?”
Mark and his girls looked at each other, but Roo broke the silence.
“No, you look like a helpful man.”
“Look, you kids seem to know how to handle yourselves.” He nodded his head towards the empty ground. “Brass Tony's goons don't like me sniffing around in their business, and I need to ditch the heat for a while. Duck my head. Lay low. You help me solve my case, and I'll help you. Deal?”
Mark sighed internally but wondered if he would get essence from quests within the Adventure Dome.
“Of course,” Mark said. “What do you need?”
Thy mysterious man scanned the vacant buildings and streets around them.
“Too many ears around here. Meet me at the docks in one hour. If you're followed, you won't find me.”
“And where are the docks?” Vale asked, crossing her arms.
The man didn't take his shadowed eyes off Vale and pointed up the street behind him.
“Just head that way and stop before you drown.”
The stranger in the trench coat shoved both his hands into his pockets as he stalked away, the cigarette clamped between his dry lips glowing cherry red. He stopped when he came to a pile of newspapers stacked on the sidewalk near an intersection. He peeled off the top newspaper and tucked it under his arm.
“Keep the change, Billy,” he said, before taking out a coin and tossing it into the air with a flip of his thumb. It landed on the empty, chalk-drawn sidewalk with a clink before rolling to a stop.