by Prax Venter
When Mark could see clearly again, the room was now a large executive office with a destroyed machine embedded in one of the walls. Its futuristic components looked way out of place in this old-time office, but the sparks and smoke pouring from the device led him to believe that he had smashed it real good.
“Too bad Brass Tony wasn't home,” Adam said. “We could have put an end to that scumbag once and for all.” He nodded to a spot on the floor by the far wall. “But at least Mad Dog Wolfe was put down in the end.”
“Case closed?” Mark asked.
Adam Rockwell put his gun back into his side holster and pulled out his matches and cigarettes again, lighting it with a smooth, practiced motion.
He waved out the match and tossed it on the floor, before pulling his gun out.
“For now... There's plenty of dirt in this city to clean up. Be good kids. Until next time.”
He pinched the brim of his hat once in parting before he jogged back down the stairs.
- 9 -
As soon as the mysterious man left his sight, Mark felt a modest wave of essence wash over him for completing the main quest line for Noir City, his eyes fluttering as the rich, golden pleasure tickled his prostate.
Ahnix moved to the back wall and pressed a button Mark hadn’t seen, causing a whole section to slide up into the ceiling with a whoosh. Behind the door were the familiar metal tubes and wires of the space station.
“Is he going to be alright?” Roo asked, looking down the stairs after the private investigator.
“He'll be fine. He belongs here.” Ahnix said, her tail flipping behind her. “We don't.”
Roo nodded, and they all exited the Adventure Dome and passed back into the innards of the space station. There was only one way to go, and they all followed the cat-girl as she padded along the metal grating.
An automatic door slid up into the ceiling when they reached the end of the service corridor and came out into a basic-looking version of the smooth white halls, and Mark could tell this was more for employees than it was for guests.
Doors and hallways stretched out on either side with letters and numbers.
Vale wove her body down the hall, reading markings. “Everything is labeled so orderly in this place,” she said.
“There is a logic to it,” Ahnix said, walking alongside her friend. “It's similar with computer files. Everything is easy to find if it’s numbered like this.”
Vale said nothing, but Mark could tell that she preferred her sprawling castle home with its wide arches and fantastical architecture.
“Here,” she said finally, pointing to a door labeled 'F78'.
Ahnix stepped up, pulling the ID badge from her leather top and held it against the door. The white section of wall slid sideways with a pressurized hiss, and they entered Johnson's very messy private quarters.
“It stinks in here,” Roo said, her puffy lips turning into a frown.
“How is that possible in such a sterile place?” Vale asked from the doorway. She was too big to fit in the small room that was basically a bed, a computer terminal and a stack of storage drawers.
Mark frowned as his eyes passed over hundreds of half-consumed containers of green liquid.
“This is it,” Ahnix said as she pulled out a flimsy pile of circuit boards and wires from one of the drawers.
“Incoming,” said Vale calmly, before moving away from the door. Mark heard the concussion and sizzle of Vale's Judge 559 before the giant naga reappeared in the doorway.
“Bot,” was all she said. Mark smiled at her. They were getting used to the enemies in this place.
“We have what we came for. Let's go home Roo.”
The velvet girl went back out into the hallway to summon the door, and a moment later they were all back in Roo's home dimension.
As soon as Mark saw the giant bed, an uncontrollable yawn caused his jaw to almost unhinge. He realized he had no idea how long it had been since he last slept.
“Mmm yeah.” Roo agreed, holding her soft hand over her own dainty yawn. “All I want is a stiff cock in me and then some rest.”
Ahnix snorted behind them. Mark turned to look and saw that his exotic, dark-haired cat-girl was actually smiling again, her small mouth curved up a bit at the ends.
She held up the hacking kit and said, “Let's go deliver this, and get more essence before we get at that cock.”
“Yes,” Vale said, overly serious. “We've been gone longer than they expected. We check in, then get some of master's cock in us.”
Mark just shook his head, a cheesy grin plastered on his face. He couldn't argue with anything they said.
Roo shrugged and held out her hand to summon the door, then paused.
“Hey,” she said with mild shock in her voice. “I can target the entrance to Adventure Dome three now.”
“Looks like we'll be adding door nodes as we go,” Mark said. “Might be useful later.”
Roo nodded and summoned the door back to Cargo Bay Gamma 7. They were greeted with concern as soon they stepped through.
“Where have you been?” Johnson demanded a little too forcefully.
“Getting this,” Ahnix said, handing over the tangle of technology. As soon as the object was delivered, Mark gasped as the aforementioned rush of essence entered his body.
Vale crossed her arms under her huge armored breasts.
“Noir City was a lot more violent than you said it would be.”
Mark shook off the lingering pleasure of getting his tank filled and then agreed.
“Yeah, the dome was infested with inside-out monsters that shot bone shards at us. Not to mention the kid's chalk drawings for buildings making it impossible to read any street signs or addresses.”
Johnson's thick black eyebrows crashed down so far that they passed the rims of his glasses.
“What the hell are you talking about? Chalk drawings? Monsters?”
“Lots of blood, right?” Willard asked from behind Mark.
“Yup.”
“Told you,” Willard said, then turned to Johnson and pointing to the hacking kit. “Can we have meatloaf now?”
“Willard-” Johnson began, upset. Then took a breath. “Yes, Willard. I need some time with this. And if what you people told me is true, this crazy virus or whatever it is- it's somehow getting into the Character templates.”
“I thought those were hard-coded,” Betty said.
When Johnson didn't have an answer, Willard filled the silence for him.
“It's alive.”
After a short stretch of ominous silence, Ahnix unclipped Johnson's badge from her leather top and handed it back to him.
“You keep it,” he said, his neck turning red.
“Won't need it,” the cat-girl answered coyly. “Not when you copy your kit for me.”
He just nodded and took back his badge.
“Okay,” Vale began. “We haven't slept in what feels like days. We're headed to our home for a while, but we'll be back.” She turned to Johnson. “From what I understand, you have some work ahead of you anyway, yes?”
His eyes shifted to Ahnix for a moment, and Mark felt another twinge of jealousy from the lanky kid before he nodded to Vale.
“Get the crafter working, copy my legendary custom kit, work on the Coms. Yeah, I'm a busy man.”
“We appreciate your hard work, Mr. Johnson,” Roo said with a cheery smile, then held out her hand to the floor, summoning her door. She was ready to get home.
They all were.
When Mark closed the door behind him and looked around at his weary girls, he felt that something had been missing for a long time.
“Roo? Can you make a table and three chairs for us? Sorry to make you work, but I don't think magic beans are going to cut it tonight.”
A small smile appeared on her lips. “Sure.”
“Thanks,” Mark said. “Be right back.”
As he entered the dark pantry where they kept their meager surplus of food, he expec
ted a horse to come crashing at him and ruin another meal.
None did, though. Mark came back out with a pile of miniature smoked hams, three giant green olives, a huge loaf of bread, two bottles of wine, and an empty wooden bowl.
Some of it was from Sizor's Pit, some of it was from Vale's mother- all of it looked delicious. When he saw Ahnix, Vale, and Roo situated around the table he had to grin.
Mark put the food down right in the middle and the bowl in front of Roo with a satisfying wood-on-wood hollow clatter.
She looked up at him, her eyes blinking in confusion.
“Mark’s Air Mélange Soup, the finest soup in all the land,” Mark said, passing his hand over the bowl like he had just performed the most stupendous magic trick.
The velvet-girl looked up at him, her black eyes twinkling. “My favorite!”
It was quiet for a little while as they each munched and drank, lost in their own thoughts while their mouths were filled with food (or air). It seemed like a long time since Mark had real food.
The trundling wooden cart that was his thought process hit a rock when he realized that what he was eating wasn't real food. His actual body was just lying in a machine that seemed infinitely far away.
Mark looked down at his giant green olive the size of an apple and took another bite of the salty, fleshy delicacy. He had been in here so long his original reality had receded to a distant memory. He wondered what would be considered his true, subjective reality if he spent more time living in here, forming memories, than he had out in the real world. If over fifty percent of his total life was spent in a virtual world, wouldn't this be his primary state of existence?
Mark upended the bottle of red wine, his eyes flicking up, and seeing Ahnix seated across from him. She was staring into the table, slowly chewing a mouthful of ham. He could sense that she was deep in thought about her own place in the universe and realized that these beautiful ladies had been carried along with him- out of their previous reality and into a strange, new existence.
They were truly in this together.
Mark swallowed and put the bottle down.
“I am so very grateful to have you all with me,” he said, overcome with the closeness of their bond and friendship. Their eyes snapped up to his, and Mark continued. “I mean, the sex is really good, but... Vale, without your beautiful mind- we'd be lost. Ahnix, I feel truly fearless by your side. And Roo, you are my bright light in the darkness.”
As he said the words, he pulsed reflections of his pure, warm emotions along their interconnected bond.
“I am in awe of you girls every day.”
Mark could feel their emotions flare up and their affection for him intensify. They looked at each other, wordlessly communicating.
Vale spoke first. “We feel all those things from you, Mark.”
“You encourage us to show the world what we are capable of,” Ahnix said, repeating one of his first promises to her.
Roo stood up abruptly, pushing the chair away from the table.
“And the sex is really good,” she said as she slowly sunk to her knees.
Mark leaned sideways and caught a glimpse of her crawling under the table, and within seconds, he could feel her soft fingers work into the waistband of his pants.
He shifted in his chair as she pulled off his pants, looking at Vale and Ahnix with raised eyebrows. Warm, seductive smiles grew on their face while Roo rubbed her soft lips all over his inner thighs and currently limp penis.
The velvet-girl slurped his stiffening cock into her relatively hot mouth, and he was forced to take a sharp breath. While Roo bobbed her head slowly up and down on his dick, under the table, Ahnix and Vale got undressed. He watched as Ahnix turned away from him and slid her leather shorts down, bending over deeply and exposing her thickly muscled ass to Mark.
One of Vale's giant nipples pressed into the side of his head, and he turned to rub his face all over her sensitive black flesh. A moment later, Ahnix leaned her warm, tight, furry body across his other side, and began to work on Vale's other nipple.
Both Ahnix and Mark licked every inch of Vale's nipples, while Roo took in every inch of his dick into her soft, hot mouth. He could feel her straight, lilac hair and smooth mask graze against his legs as she buried her beautiful face into his crotch.
Surrounded in many ways by his amazing and talented girls, he was brought to the height of ecstasy and ejaculated sperm and essence deep into Roo, under the table, and she consumed it all.
After Roo crawled out, they all helped Mark undress and relocated onto the bed.
Mark and his Enthralled spent a long time rolling around on the bed, just pleasing each other and sleepily forcing orgasm after orgasm on each other.
Roo and Vale were currently passed out next to Mark as his thickly muscled cat-girl lazily rocked her hips back and forth while straddling his dick.
Mark looked up into her closed, black-furred eyelids as their hot and nigh-overstimulated sex organs slowly rubbed together. They had reached that point of sexual saturation where they probably weren't going to cum again, but they didn't want to stop either. Being inside her furry body felt so good, and his stiff, smooth cock felt so good filling her up. Their bond allowed them to experience both sides at once, and the endless, rolling pleasure was melting Mark's mind.
Exhaustion finally won out, and Ahnix lifted her hips up and pushed herself down between Mark's legs without opening her eyes. The triangle-eared cat-girl rested her head on one of his thighs and slowly lapped her pussy juice off his penis while purring softly.
He could tell she was half asleep already by the absentminded way her warm, soft tongue would sometimes pause, pressed flat against his dick, then start licking again.
Ahnix passed out right before Mark, her furry nose nuzzled into his crotch.
- 10 -
Fully rested and ready to face the haunted space station again, they exited the black, wooden door and stepped out into Cargo Bay Gamma 7.
“Welcome back,” Betty said greeting them with her warm, wrinkled face.
Johnson stood from his console, and Willard waved from a pile of white pillows stacked in one of the corners.
Mark pointed to the pillow nest. “Got the crafter working I see.”
“Yes, I did,” Johnson said, holding up a tangle of wires and circuit boards.
Mark saw Ahnix's black tail hop once as she stepped forward.
“Is that my hacker tool?” she asked.
“Sure is. You did unlock Tool Assisted, right?”
Ahnix walked up and took the confusing-looking device with a small smile.
“Tool Assisted Two, actually. And thank you, Johnson. I really appreciate this.”
“Two, already? Wow! I'm still trying to access the Coms. You should personalize that as soon as possible and then maybe you can help me.”
“I'll do what I can- but first…” She turned to face Mark. “I’ll need an ample enhancement, Lover.” She didn't wait for a response before she turned and padded towards the crafter on her tiny feet, her leather-clad furry ass sashaying as she moved.
He followed Ahnix to the wall with the empty space that constructed objects out of thin air where she flipped open a panel and started to furiously type commands into a keypad.
“I'm still amazed every time I see you interface with technology beyond my understanding.”
“Me too,” she said as she worked. “My mind is filled with such strange new concepts, but everything makes a logical sense.” She tapped a larger, green, flashing button and the machine began to glow.
When the process was over, a long leather glove with the fingers cut off was left in the chamber. Ahnix then lifted her new hacking kit, which to Mark looked like a pile of random computer guts. She was intently focused on a tiny keypad and screen among the clutter in her hands when her dark eyebrows crept downward on her furry forehead, and he could tell she was disappointed by what she saw. Ahnix looked over her shoulder at Johnson who was currently on h
is back, on the floor, working on the terminal in the cargo bay.
“Something wrong?” Mark asked.
Her large, exotic eyes turned to his, and she leaned closer.
“He said his kit was Legendary. It's not even Epic...” she whispered.
“Heh, I don't know if he was being literal when he said that.”
Her small mouth made a cute little grimace, then she leaned back and continued in her normal voice.
“I'm about to personalize my kit, Mark. I can only do this once per item, so I only get one shot. Ready to hit me?”
As his amazing cat-girl focused on the task ahead of her, he caught snatches from her mind and started to get an idea of how involved this process was.
“All at once, or long and slow?” he asked.
“Hmm, good question.” She seemed to lose focus for a moment as she read over her skills again.
Ahnix’s large, black pupils centered on Mark again as she reached out and placed her free hand on his chest. He was always surprised by how warm she was.
“Hit me long and slow, as hard as you can. I'll need about ten minutes with no interruptions.”
Mark placed his hand over hers, pressing it against his beating heart and nodded.
“You ready?”
She nodded, pulled her hand away and faced the crafting station.
Mark closed his eyes and searched the space in front of him for Ahnix's mind, finding it easily. Their bond was a powerful tether that shone like a river of molten sunlight. The current alternated its flow constantly as they shared their thoughts and emotions.
Mark followed the glowing river until he reached the collection of abilities that formed Ahnix's new path and found them solidly anchored into her sense of self.
He knew she was learning about computers to learn about herself already, but he saw how profoundly determined she was to follow this path until she mastered her own existence. Helping his girls fulfill their potential had become one of the most important aspects of his existence, and it gave Mark infinite pleasure to see them grow more powerful. Opening his now glowing eyes and focusing on his legendary cat-girl, Mark merged his being with hers, flooding her with power.