by S. T. Moon
She went to the computer, turned it to be sure he couldn’t see it. The message hadn’t changed.
I found a ski lodge rich people from the grid used. Never realized what they were using it for. All the security guards have been murdered. All the other people there, some of them very young, died in the fire. If you know who did this, you better get to them before I do. This is the type of thing that starts a revolution.
Monica hugged herself. There was more now. Her source was online, adding information, and clearly angry. She knew he rarely turned on a computer. He must be furious.
We thought it was just a ski lodge. A place for grid people to indulge in all the excesses they claim don’t exist. Didn’t realize they had slaves there. Didn’t suspect what they were doing to them. We’ve stayed away from the grid. But if these victims don’t get justice, there’s going to be a war.
Monica checked the message encryption.
“Untie me!” Oden thrashed against the bed.
She typed. I have him. He’ll be dead by morning.
Not good enough. This wasn’t the work of just one man.
Oden screamed at her.
I have witnesses to what he and the others like him did, her source typed.
Okay, she answered. I’ll be in touch.
She sent the message chain to her secure cloud storage, double encrypted everything, then wiped it from the computer she was using. The air conditioner kicked on. Her nipples perked up. Laughing a bit crazily, she went back to Oden.
“It’s a shame you have such a great body,” she said.
“Fuck that. Untie me! I’m done. I said the safe word.”
“I did that once. Said the safe word.”
Color drained from his face.
“You beat me. Told me never to use the safe word. Broke my collarbone. Gave me a scare it cost me a small fortune to have removed. I couldn’t enjoy sex for weeks afterward. I could barely sit down or bathe myself,” she said.
His erection lost size.
“Nothing to say?” She reached under the bed and pulled out a plastic box.
“No. Monica. Please,” he begged.
She removed the syringe, examining it theatrically for several long seconds. What bothered her was how betrayed she felt. A sick as that was, she felt betrayed. How could he want to get his kicks somewhere else? The rejection was overwhelming even though she hated him and was eager to kill him.
“Do you remember our pre-sex contract interview? The part where you took a polygraph to prove you’d never abused children?”
“I passed.”
“You cheated.”
“No! I told the truth. I’ve never done anything to a child. You think I went to the lodge,” he said, panic in his voice.
“I know you did.”
“Not since they started keeping the slaves. I never went after that. I never touched anyone who didn’t agree to a pre-sex contract, just like you taught me!”
She sighed. “You hurt my feelings, Oden.”
That statement scared him more than anything that she’d done to him yet.
His cock sagged limply to one side. She looked at it scornfully. “I guess you’re no good to me anymore.”
“It’ll come back. Look. See there. I’ll be ready for you again. Just touch it and I’ll be hard. We can take a break, have some straight vanilla sex. Calm down. No need to hurt each other right now. I’ll be your sub. I just got a little carried away. You know how I am.”
Monica sighed as she ran her hand from his pelvis to his lips. “I need to be retrained. Fixers aren’t supposed to actually be attracted to their victims.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She held up the needle in her right hand, studying it intently. “I wonder where I should stick this?”
PART FOUR
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dominance and Submission
Monica dimmed the lights and let her silk robe slide to the floor. It wasn’t the first hotel room she’d crossed to seduce a target.
Trepidation wormed in her gut. Frank Oden’s violence had excited her once but now that he’d be fighting for his life, the stakes had changed. She needed to take him by surprise.
A small light flashed on her computer at the corner desk.
“Are you going to tie me up?” Frank asked from the bed.
“Always,” she said. “I don’t want you escaping.” She swayed suggestively to her computer and opened it, careful to keep the screen away from him. The blue light from the screen cast a shadow between her breasts and silhouetted the space between her legs.
She woke the screen and saw the message was from her source off the grid. The word “horizon” was slipped somewhat clumsily into the subject line, indicating a warning about Frank Oden.
Rough hands grabbed her and yanked her away from the computer. She thought he was going to slam her on the bed, but she hit the floor, flat on her back. Air rushed from her lungs and she saw stars. He was on her, parting her legs and dropping his weight on her.
This was just like him. They agreed to take turns being the dominant sex partner. The man was animal and she hated him. This had quit being fun a long time ago. He needed to die.
“Not like this, Frank. This isn’t rough sex, this is you trying to rape me.”
He laughed. “Trying?”
She punched him in the balls and squirmed out from under him. Her heart raced. That had been lucky. Kicking a man where counted never worked as well as self-defense instructors promised. He was an expert martial artist and should’ve seen that coming. She sprinted across the room and went for her gun but he’d moved it.
Smart.
He climbed to his feet and spread his arms. Tears streamed from his eyes. A vein pumped in his neck. His red face suggested he hadn’t been able to breathe for some time. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good. You should punish me.”
“Try that again, and I’ll kill you,” she said, leaving out the small fact that she was going to kill him anyway. Those were her orders.
She glanced at the computer before giving her full attention to this son of a bitch. Breathing hard, keeping her body between Oden and the screen, she read the brief message. The source had been dark recently, refusing any type of contact.
“Pay attention,” Oden said. “Or did you like getting slammed? Cause I’ll do it again.”
Monica deactivated the screen. Faced him. More than prepared to do terrible things to the man. According to her source, Frank Oden had been spending a lot of time at a little pleasure retreat a few days hike from the Breaker Clan. She’d been there herself and found the marathon orgies a bit boring. But it didn’t surprise her that Oden patronized the place. What surprised her was the place had lasted as long as it had.
Now it was gone, burned to the ground, evidence destroyed.
She wondered what happened to all the sex slaves.
Frank Oden and his friends needed to pay. Fortunately, she had a green light to assassinate him with a clause to retain him in the event he could be controlled.
There was now evidence on her computer he’d murdered a lot of young men and women. She needed to send a team to process the scene—and hopefully recover evidence Oden had been there and lit it himself. Easy. She had him in a box. Very soon she’d be able to control SAC North America.
She strutted toward him, hands on her naked hips, breasts pushed forward, eyes on his, promising she was going to fuck his brains out.
“Finally. This is the Monica Triton I’ve been looking for,” he said.
She stopped short and turned around slowly, putting on a show and stalling for time while she thought through the scenario. It was too neat. A man like this monster wouldn’t be so easily snared.
“I’ve been bad,” he said.
Heart pounding, she slipped rope loops over his wrists and tied him to the bed. She pulled tight, stretching him out to the four corners of the bed. His erection looked bigger than she remembered. Tracing his muscular chest
with her fingertips, she avoided his eyes.
There was something primal in his need to survive this encounter. “You look ready for me,” she said, straddling his stomach.
“Slide down, you mean bitch. Get on my cock.”
Shifting backward, she touched her ass to the tip of his trembling dick. She knew he wanted to put it in her ass. That was the first thing he did when he had control. Predictable and boring. “Not yet, sub.”
In a single swift, graceful move she was kneeling on his chest. She moved her hips, pressed her weight down on him, hoping to restrict his breathing.
“Stop with the games. Stop teasing me. It’s boring. Untie me and get on your hands and knees. We’re going to play a new game,” he said.
She wrapped both hands around his throat and started to squeeze.
He grunted, his nostrils flaring like an animal. Disgust colored his words. “You’re not going to kill me. Does this game excite you? Because I find it boring.”
She reached back and grabbed his cock. “You don’t feel bored.”
“That’s because I’m going to give it to you hard when you untie me. Gonna work my way around you, putting it in everywhere I can,” he said.
She slapped his face.
He laughed. The mocking sound made her feel small and weak. Suddenly, the idea of untying him terrified her.
When they met, he’d been oversexed but naive. His idea of wild was a threesome. The first time she tied him up he’d ejaculated at the first touch of her pussy, squirting on her stomach like a teenager about to lose his virginity.
She’d taught him everything she knew about BDSM sex. Thought he liked it. Thought he understood the rules.
His eyes told her something different. What he really wanted was her pain. He didn’t like being the submissive when it was his turn. What he wanted was to kill her. And another, and another, and another until the blackness in his heart took over.
The man wasn’t here for sex. That was just the lie he told himself. Frank Oden was rotten all the way to his black heart.
Their eyes locked.
“Untie me,” he said.
Trembling from head to toe, she scrambled off him, backed away from the bed and tried to breathe.
“I’ll going to pump you in the ass and make you lick it off. You’ll beg me for more or I’ll hurt you. Untie me.”
She darted to the bed and tightened the ropes, pulling with both hands and pressing one foot against the bed for leverage.
“That fucking hurts, you bitch!”
“Shut up.” Her high-pitched words sounded fearful. She finished and stepped back, hands shaking.
“This game is over you, dirty little whore. The next time you use that tone with me, you’ll regret it. I’ll destroy you and your career. I’m going to…”
She grabbed his cock, squeezing it hard. “You’re going to what? Say it again. Tell me what you’re going to do to me. Piss me off and see what happens. You signed the contract. I’m the dom today. You’re the sub.”
“That fucking hurts. Fuck. Stop that! I said stop that! You fucking bitch. You’re going to wish you did what I said!”
She went to the computer, turned it to be sure he couldn’t see it. The message hadn’t changed.
I found a ski lodge rich people from the grid used. Never realized what they were using it for. All the security guards have been murdered. All the other people there, some of them very young, died in the fire. If you know who did this, you better get to them before I do. This is the type of thing that starts a revolution.
Monica hugged herself. The message was longer. Her source was online, adding information, and clearly angry. She knew he rarely turned on a computer. He must be furious.
We thought it was just a ski lodge. A place for grid people to indulge in all the excesses they claim don’t exist. Didn’t realize they had slaves there. Didn’t suspect what they were doing to them. We’ve stayed away from the grid. But if these victims don’t get justice, there’s going to be a war.
Monica checked the message encryption.
“Untie me!” Oden thrashed against the bed.
She typed. I have him. He’ll be dead by morning.
Not good enough. This wasn’t the work of just one man.
Oden screamed at her.
I have witnesses to what he and the others like him did, her source typed.
Okay, she answered. I’ll be in touch.
She sent the message chain to her secure cloud storage, double encrypted everything, then wiped it from the computer she was using. The air conditioner kicked on. Her nipples perked up. Laughing a bit crazily, she went back to Oden.
“It’s a shame you have such a great body,” she said.
“Fuck that. Untie me! I’m done. I said the safe word.”
“I did that once. Said the safe word.”
Color drained from his face.
“You beat me. Told me never to use the safe word. Broke my collarbone. Gave me a scare it cost me a small fortune to have removed. I couldn’t enjoy sex for weeks afterward. I could barely sit down or bathe myself,” she said.
His erection lost size.
“Nothing to say?” She reached under the bed and pulled out a plastic box.
“No. Monica. Please,” he begged.
She removed the syringe, examining it for several long seconds. What bothered her was how betrayed she felt. A sick as that was, she felt betrayed. How could he get his kicks somewhere else? The rejection was overwhelming even though she hated him and was eager to kill him.
“Do you remember our pre-sex contract interview? The part where you took a polygraph to prove you’d never abused children?”
“I passed.”
“You cheated.”
“No! I told the truth. I’ve never done anything to a child. You think I went to the lodge,” he said, panic in his voice.
“I know you did.”
“Not since they started keeping the slaves. I never went after that. I never touched anyone who didn’t agree to a pre-sex contract, just like you taught me!”
She sighed. “You hurt my feelings, Oden.”
That statement scared him more than anything yet.
His cock sagged limply to one side. She looked at it scornfully. “I guess you’re no good to me anymore.”
“It’ll come back. Look. See there. I’ll be ready for you again. Just touch it and I’ll be hard. We can take a break, have some straight vanilla sex. Calm down. No need to hurt each other right now. I’ll be your sub. I just got a little carried away. You know how I am.”
Monica sighed as she ran her hand from his pelvis to his lips. “I need to be retrained. Fixers aren’t supposed to actually be attracted to their victims.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
She held up the needle in her right hand, studying it intently. “I wonder where I should stick this?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Breaker Lost
Breaker crossed the mall on a path parallel to the reflecting pool stretching away from the Washington Monument. He desperately wanted to charge through the smoke and mist to rejoin Victoria and her team. The bite wounds on his leg and a twisted ankle slowed him down. His other injuries were covered with compression bandages and quick-clot.
Ammunition was a problem. He’d been conserving bullets and grenades for a while, but the Death Angels had a vendetta for him. Or so it seemed. They came in, wave after wave as though there was an endless population of the mechanical nightmares. Frank Oden was a lunatic, as were most of the other shadow executives behind recent events. The only thing they’d done right was mobilize paramilitary units.
They almost certainly started this entire chain of events. The government, for reasons unknown, was staying out of it. Perhaps they were the smart ones after all. When things got bad enough, they could sweep in and save the day, just like corporations did hundreds of years ago.
Where would Red-6 be then?
Two of the human-s
ized machines made a coordinated attack on him. He fired three rounds from his pistol into the chest of the first, sidestepped, and hit the second with a front thrust kick. The killer machine tipped over backwards. He reloaded, advanced, and fired down into the central processing unit between its shoulders.
It had taken him a few encounters to learn the weak points were on these machines. Trial and error with any mistake punishable by death. It was amazing how motivational combat was.
He scanned his environment. Victoria and her team were gone. He slipped into the cover of the neighborhood around the park.
Combat between corporate soldiers, the killing machines, and numerous guerrilla-types moved to other parts of the city. He heard heavy vehicles and the sounds of conflict in almost every direction. Explosions thumped in the distance. Columns of smoke added a dirty tinge to the cloud darkened sky.
There was a covered walkway between two buildings on his left. He got underneath it as fast as he could, not liking the broken windows in the surrounding structures. Just when he thought he was clear, dozens of the mechanical millipedes and other insectile bots rained down on him. They struck as one mass, driving him to the ground.
He twisted and flailed and kicked and punched and finally rolled to his feet. He screamed sounds he’d never imagined he could make, then fired his pistol over and over to drive the creatures away. When he finally pushed them back, he slammed himself against the wall to knock the last few off his left arm.
One had burrowed deep into his bicep. He put the barrel of his pistol against its midsection and fired, hoping he would destroy it without damaging his own arm. The explosive force of the round leaving the barrel ripped the millipede-like machine from his body and sent it across the street.
He dropped to his knees and screamed. This was Hell. He didn’t know if he could go on. His training took over and he dumped quick clot powder into the wound and covered it with a compression bandage.
Without wasting any more time, he got up and moved out. More of the humanoid killing machines would be behind the millipedes. He checked his magazines and holstered his weapon. Maybe he could find a place to replenish his ammunition.