“We’re running fertility tests,” Mira said. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a shortage of men. That isn’t because of a conflict with the humans. They weren’t killed off. They stopped being born.”
Jer’s eyes went wide. He took another look around. He’d noticed that everyone he’d seen so far was a woman or female fury, but he assumed the males were off on some kind of secret mission or something. In hindsight, he realized that the female furies he’d encountered were all fierce, strong, and well-armed. If anyone would be off on a mission, it would be them.
“I repeat my previous question,” Jer said. “Has something happened?”
“Yes. Something terrible has happened. The electromagnetic waves that come off of the devices humans use, mostly cells and their weaponry, are impacting us on a far greater level than it’s affecting them. The signals are killing the Y chromosome in our species. No males have been born for a generation.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I kid you not,” Mira said. “This is happening, and our species is in danger of annihilation.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?” Jer asked. “I don’t think that Jasper’s discovery will fix this.”
“We don’t need his formula. You do. We need your…sex.”
“Say what?”
“Your sex.”
“I heard you, I was just blurting out what you said. Are you proposing that you need me to find a way to repopulate the males in your species?”
“We don’t need you to find a way,” Mira replied. “We simply need you to do.”
Jer took a step back. “This isn’t happening,” he said. “No way this is happening.”
“Are you man enough or not?” Mira asked.
Jer chuckled. “Funny way to put it. Sure. But this is unbelievable. Why me?”
“You’re smart. You’re handsome. You’re capable and strong. And you have good intentions. We don’t want donors who have ill-intent and just wanted to get laid. We need you to want it, but you also need to be someone who wants more than to get laid. Besides, I wasn’t just collecting a sample from you. I was testing to make sure you can deliver in the sack. The last thing we need is weak sperm. We need you.”
Jer took a deep breath. If Mira was asking what he thought she was asking, he was in for one hell of a ride.
“I need to get the formula first, though,” Jer said.
“Understandable. But we need a commitment.”
“I’m in. Glad to be of service actually.” He furrowed his eyebrows. “But it can’t just be me.”
Mira scoffed and bellowed with laughter. “Oh, no. It won’t just be you. That would be detrimental. Plus, well, no diversity in the gene pool. We have the whole thing planned out. You’ll be responsible for a ten percent regeneration. Can you handle that?”
“Depends,” Jer replied. “How many of you are there?”
A smirk spread across Mira’s face. “Ten thousand.”
“Oh, is that all?”
“That. Is. All.”
Jer ran his left hand through his hair. Damiana, Evangeline, and Mira was one thing. Having a harem of a thousand furies was going to be either insanely hot or insane. It was going to be a wild ride either way if he managed to pull off the heist and save all of civilization. He’d still have his hands full afterward.
“So, we have a deal or not?” Mira asked.
“I can’t believe you actually need a ‘yes’ from me,” Jer replied. “Of course we have a deal. I’ll do it…if I must. A little sad to find out the intimacy between us was more of a test, but still. We do need all the help we can get in the meantime. I won’t be much good if I’m moping around depressed because all the monsters and humans are dead up above. Do we have a deal on that too?”
Mira nodded. “You should know it was more than a test. I did choose you, and only you. Other men have been chosen too, but not for your furies. They’ll be yours alone. It’s settled then. We help you with your heist. You have to impregnate ten percent of our women.”
“Y-Yes,” Jer said slowly, making certain in his head that he didn’t say the wrong thing. “I have to impregnate ten percent. I can handle it.”
Mira’s shoulders loosened as her face relaxes, and she appeared relieved. “Thank goodness, I was worried you were going to say no.”
Jer shrugged. “What’s to lose?”
“Oh, well, you know,” Mira said and flashed a half-smile.
“Wait. No, I don’t know,” Jer said. “What’s the cost?”
“Taking care of them.”
“That’s not really a cost.”
“You’re a giant by comparison, which means you can get medicine, food, and supplies in a large enough supply that will make a difference for us but will barely be noticed. Even if your revolution fails above, you have to promise to help us.”
“I think you’re underestimating the potential good in people and monsters,” Jer said.
“I don’t agree,” Mira said. “But if the offspring are your children, you’re likely to be invested. Besides, you’ve shown a proclivity to help monsters.”
Jer shrugged. “Trying my best. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m really helping, though.”
“Stop GenAdvance from weaponizing Jasper’s formula and help us repopulate,” Mira said. “No one can say you haven’t given your all if you pull these two things off.”
She then led him out of the makeshift hospital room and back out into the main pathway. They took a detour, though, instead of heading back the way they came.
Mira led Jer to a row of holes carved into the cavern walls. The holes were three inches high.
Jer peeked inside one of them, but it was too dark to see what was ahead.
“Go ahead,” Mira said. “It’s safe.”
“You first,” Jer said.
Mira rolled her eyes and hopped into one. She quickly disappeared into the darkness.
Jer followed her. Inside the tiny hole, his ass hit a smooth surface, and he slid at a breathtaking speed. At first, it was a straight shot down, then a curve left, and then right. He popped out the other end and flew across the room, smacking into a soft and cushioned wall.
When he slid down onto his back and looked up, he saw that the cushioning was from a large-sized sofa, not shrunk down, but repurposed for any passengers of the chutes who lacked wings to slow their descent and keep from smacking into the side of a cavern.
Off to the left, Mira waved for Jer to come over to where she stood in front of a bullet-shaped rigid airship. It was a replica of a zeppelin, down to the stabilizer fins, air scoop, and propellers. Mira helped several well-armed fury warriors, carrying button shields, needle swords, and needle crossbows, up into the gondola, the portion that held passengers, just below the envelope.
“Is this thing real?” Jer asked.
“It was originally meant as a toy for a rich human,” Mira answered. “But it’s fully functional, if that answers your question.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Hop in,” Mira said. “We need to get you back to your crew before you revert to your normal size.”
“Why not the way we came in?” Jer asked.
“It’s a one-way trip down that path,” Mira said. “Which creates an added layer of security and deterrence to intruders. To get back out, you need to know the intricacies of our entrances and exits. It’s no small thing that you’ve seen our inner workings.”
“I’m honored.”
“Save it and your loins for after. Right now, try and focus on the task at hand.”
“Got it,” Jer said and strapped in.
On the journey out of the hidden space and into a vent shaft, which felt more like a massive alien space docking station from his current smaller perspective, he saw that the furies had defense measures in place for this route as well. Partially camouflaged, ten-inch hammers lined the walls. They were held back by ropes connected to tripwires. Full-sized shotguns were hidden behind sandbag barri
ers, like a row of cannons, also connected to tripwires along the path. The furies were prepared.
After a relatively short trip, they emerged out into a maintenance room underneath the amusement park, in Ambrose’s domain where Jer spotted Evangeline, Max, and Damiana skittering around the underground hideout looking for him.
25
Extraction
Reunited with his crew and back to his normal size, Jer took Evangeline and Damiana back into Ambrose’s lab. He went straight for a syringe and handed it to Evangeline.
“Can you get this through a suction pipe but going in the opposite direction?” he asked.
“I guess so,” she answered.
“Okay, that’s good enough.” Jer turned to Damiana. “Can you help me break into Matthias’s cell without detection and with a two-way camera, so I can talk with him?”
“Sure,” Damiana said matter of fact.
“Awesome, let’s do this!” Jer said.
“Do what?” Evangeline asked.
“Yeah,” Ambrose added. “What are you thinking? Every scenario we ran failed.”
“I’ve got one that might work,” Jer replied. “It just requires a little faith.”
On that note, Mira flittered into the lab and landed on the metal table next to Jer. “I’m here to help, along with my furious furies,” she said.
“Sounds like a Fast and the Furious movie,” Evangeline said. “But with furies.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Jer said. “We need to heist the shit out of Matthias and rescue him, then escape as fast as humanly and monstrously possible.”
Damiana chuckled. “I’m in.”
“Can we hear the plan, though?” Evangeline asked. “We’re about to risk everything.”
“Exactly,” Ambrose said. “We need concrete details.”
“I just need to know that you can reverse engineer the other half of the formula,” Jer said to Ambrose before facing Evangeline and Damiana. “And that you two can get me a direct line to Matthias.”
All three nodded.
Max slipped into the lab. “What’s all the ruckus about?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” Jer continued. “With a little help, I’ve found a way to get Matthias out, along with his half of the formula, hopefully before GenAdvance knows we’ve even been to see him.”
Mira slapped Jer on the ass with her tiny fury hand like a football coach. “Let’s get it done!” she shouted.
Jer smirked. “Let’s!”
From the sewage waste disposal room inside the Pharma police station’s basement, Damiana slinked a cord into a drainage pipe with Mira hanging onto the tip of it. Coiling up through the pipe, Mira pulled the cord upward. At the end of the cord was a camera and audio head with a monster smiley face, fangs and horns included, drawn on the surface. Mira tugged hard at the sketched monster head camera as she pulled it through the water inside the pipe and came flying out the other side. The monster smiley face camera poked its head out of the toilet into Matthias’s cell.
Inside the drawn-on monster eyes, two tiny screens showed Jer’s face. The camera pointed left then right, and finally down, leveling on Matthias who was curled up in a fetal ball under his metal cot.
“Hey buddy,” Jer said through the smiley-face comms device that was sticking its head out of the toilet.
Matthias looked around but didn’t see who was talking to him right away. He slid out from under the metal bed and stood.
“Down here,” Jer said.
Matthias’s eyes shifted to the toilet. “You’re no monster I’ve ever seen,” Matthias replied. “What are you?”
“Of course not,” Jer replied. “I’m a camera. Well. I’m not a camera. You’re looking at a camera. It’s Jer. I’m here to rescue you.”
“Why would you, of all people, want to save me?” Matthias asked. “I threatened to kill your friends if you didn’t cooperate.”
“We don’t,” Jer said. “We only want what’s in your head. The rest of you is just lucky enough to be along for the ride. Sort of.”
“Even if you do get me out of here,” Matthias warned, “I have no intention of helping you. Our interests aren’t even slightly aligned. I want this war. I long for bloodshed. The. Humans. Must. Pay!”
“Yeah, great speech,” Jer sniffed. “Anyway. I figured you wouldn’t want to cooperate. So, we made plans for that eventuality.”
Matthias flinched. His eyes flickered with anger. “What have you done?”
“Put you in a pickle,” Jer said, smirking. “A really, really big fucking pickle.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Matthias asked.
“Hang on,” Jer said and slid an empty tube into the drainage pipe. He then lit a small wicker at the end of the tube. After a couple seconds of burning, the tube rocketed through the pipe and popped out the other end and into Matthias’s cell.
Mira rushed from behind Matthias’s left shoulder from where she’d been watching him and reached up and grabbed the tube out of the air with impressive dexterity. She pulled it close as if it was a treasure, their only way to get Matthias out of his cell. She then flittered down and in front of Matthias.
“How long have you been here?” he asked, accusatorially.
“Relax, biggie,” Mira replied. “Just as long as the camera. Here.” She handed him the tube.
After snatching it and popping the lid off, Matthias’s face screwed into an angry grimace at the sight of a syringe. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this!” he snapped. “I need explosives or a weapon. Not a fucking syringe.”
“I’m afraid an assault on a GenAdvance Pharma police station is exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to avoid,” Jer replied through the monster smiley face camera. “Use the syringe to pull your true form out of your human host, and everything will be fine.”
“This is the worst prison escape plan of all time.”
“Agreed, but you’re a symbiote, so fuck it. Hop in, would you?”
“I’m not doing it,” Matthias said and crossed his arms.
“For fuck’s sake,” Jer said. “Haven’t you ever seen Rick and Morty? Remember the episode where Rick turns himself into a small pickle to get out of a therapy session. As a psychiatrist, that one hurt. But it was still pretty cool. Think of it like that. You get to be your true tiny self for a bit and escape in the most unexpected way.”
“That’s not the problem,” Matthias replied. “The problem is that I’ll be at your mercy.”
“True, but do you really have a choice, bucko?”
“I do. I can stay here and pay for my failure.”
“That’s idiotic. Come on, get in the syringe, Matthias.”
“GenAdvance already has the full formula, doc. What’s the point?”
“Oh boy,” Jer said. “You’re feeling depressed and defeated, aren’t you?”
Matthias shrugged and looked away from the tiny camera.
“Look,” Jer began, “the best way out of a funk is to have hope and to look forward to something. I’m not going to use the formula to wage a war, but we can use it to foil GenAdvance’s plan. Isn’t that worth living for?”
“I guess so,” Matthias said, nonchalant and melancholy.
Jer decided to take a different tact. “Listen, my plan might not work, so there’s a strong chance that you’ll still get your all-out-war. Don’t you want to be around to watch it go down?”
Matthias pursed his lips, uncrossed his arms. “Would be nice to watch it all go up in flames.”
“Now you’re talking. I mean, hopefully, that’s not what happens, but it might. So it’s a win-win for you. Now come on, and make like a slug, or whatever you look like in your natural form, and get inside the tube before they discover us.”
Matthias knelt down and pulled the camera close. His eyes looked massive from Jer’s point-of-view through the lens.
“I need you to look away for this,” Matthias said.
“Why? Is your process of disconnecti
ng a secret?”
“It won’t be after this, obviously, but it’s kind of private and personal. I’m not comfortable with you watching.”
“Fair enough. I’ll turn the camera in the opposite direction.”
The camera swiveled and faced the back of the toilet.
“I’m leaving too,” Mira said with a grimace. “Do not want to witness this.” She soared back into the toilet and held her breath as she swam through the pipe, flying out the other end with grace.
A moment later, Jer heard the distinct sound of a pants zipper being pulled down, followed by the sound of skin flapping and a grunt. In a matter of seconds, Jer’s ears were hit by an onslaught of continuous grunts, slurping, and two hands rubbing furiously against skin.
“What are you doing in there?” Jer asked. “It sounds like you’re starting a fire with a stick and stones but your skin.”
“S-shut up,” Matthias grunted out. “You’re distracting me. Need to concentrate.”
Jer turned to Evangeline and squinted. “What’s he doing?”
“It sounds like he’s masturbating,” she replied.
A grimace spread across Jer’s face. “If that’s true, I’m not sure I want to see Matthias in his true form.”
“What were you expecting? A tiny monster like the furies?”
“Yes, actually,” Jer said. “Tell me, please, that he’s not going to be a humanoid splooge.”
Evangeline smirked. “There’s a strong possibility that’s what we’re about to get.”
Panting, rhythmic grunts, slurping, and heavy breathing came from the camera’s audio feed. Jer resisted turning the camera around to confirm his fears. Then, a massive grunt mixed with a high-pitched squeal as Matthias squawked out muffled words. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he squealed. Half-a-second later, a splattering sound filled the audio, followed by the sound of the syringe being popped open and a liquid slurping noise.
“I think that means he’s done,” Evangeline said.
Jer yanked on the cord without looking to see what was on the other end of the camera. The syringe came sliding down rapidly and popped out and into Jer’s grasp. He looked down and saw Matthias inside, in the form of a humanoid splurge, all white and gooey, similar looking to Gumby the stretchy toy.
Monster M.D.: A Monster Girl Harem Mystery Thriller (Monster M.D. ) Page 21