by Noah Rain
“What’s to stop them—the Guilders, I mean—from taking you girls out as it is?” I asked. “Ah. You’ve got dirt on them, too.”
“Plenty of it, and while more than she’d like to admit is in the form of run-ins with Darla, Nina’s little elixir has drawn plenty of info out of even the most stubborn targets. Everyone’s got secrets in Silk City. Our leader Sascha is something of a collector of them.”
Scarlett sounded like she was trying to convince herself. I had the impression that if it was up to her, the Vixens would be waging all-out war with the Suits, the Pearls and the Guilders in Silk City. Hell, maybe they’d even make a run at the Syndicates in Jaxton for good measure.
“We could fight the Guilders,” Scarlett said, tracing patterns through the dried salt on my chest. “But they’ve got the tech. They won’t slaughter us wholesale and risk the Syndicates joining together against them, but we can’t push too far, too fast. We could assassinate Suits, but—blackmail or not—the rest of them would go scorched earth on us. I think some of them like having us around, keeping some Suits from getting too much influence over the city. But if we brought any major Suit down completely, the game would be up.”
“Then what’s the endgame?” I asked. “You can’t fight them all, obviously. And you can’t Blackmail your way into a position that isn’t at least a bit vulnerable.”
“Nina thinks she can get the serum to a place where it makes that last bit a moot point,” Scarlett said and I frowned in confusion. Scarlett sighed. “Instead of collecting secrets,” she said, “what if we could collect minds?”
I laughed, but Scarlett didn’t seem to be joking.
“Right now,” she continued, “with one notable exception, we can make targets suggestible. Even very suggestible. But what if we could do more than that? What if we could do what governments used to do, and actually hack in there.” She propped herself up on her elbow and tapped the side of her head.
“Mind control,” I said. It sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth, but Scarlett only looked at me, expression unflinching.
“If we can’t beat them,” Scarlett said. “And if we’d rather die than join them. And if their soldiers—their Guilders—are too strong and well-equipped to fight, then what if we skip the middlemen and go right for the Suits. Right for their minds. Right for their wills. If we control the Suits. Really control them. Then we have Silk City. If we have Silk City, we have the credit system. And if we have that …”
“Then you can, what, save the world?” I asked. I didn’t mean to sound so cynical, but then again, that was how I felt, wasn’t it?
Scarlett didn’t answer.
“There are a ton of problems with Nina’s little plan,” I said.
“Sascha’s plan,” Scarlett corrected. “Nina’s just the brains.”
“And you’re the brawn?”
“Carmen knows her way around a fight even better than I do.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
Scarlett smirked.
“Anyway,” I said. “As I said, there are a ton of issues with the grand plan of the almighty, all-sexy—I’m assuming—Vixens. But there’s one that stands out above them all.”
“And what’s that, Konnor Kayde?” Scarlett asked. She didn’t come off sounding quite as sarcastic or disbelieving as I thought she intended. She actually wanted to hear what I had to say, which was a rarity for me.
“You don’t believe in it,” I said.
Scarlett looked genuinely confused. It was funny. We were pressed up against each other, fully nude, and Scarlett was just as gorgeous now as ever. But our talk had gone from flirtatious, to teasing to serious so that our proximity, and our nakedness seemed to be the last thing on our minds. Of course, my eyes started to wander just as I became aware of it.
“I don’t believe in what?” Scarlett asked, sounding offended and suspicious.
“The plan,” I said. “I’m not saying you don’t believe Nina can make some super potion that can turn every Suit in Silk City into a Vixen-controlled zombie. I mean, maybe it is possible, and maybe she’s the one to do it. What I’m saying is that it isn’t how you want to win. And if it is how you win, you’ll take no satisfaction from it.”
Scarlett opened her mouth to protest, but then stopped. She seemed caught in agreement with me.
Or maybe the thought that she didn’t even believe in the very plan she had been working toward for who knows how many years hadn’t even occurred to her.
“I …” Scarlett started and then stopped. “It’s just …”
“You’re a fighter, Scarlett,” I said. “I know one when I see one. And fighters fight.”
She was quiet for a long minute. I took that as affirmation.
“So, then,” I said. “If you don’t believe in Sascha’s serum, or Nina’s elixir, or whatever the hell it is. How would you fix it?”
“How would I fix the world?”
“Let’s start with Silk City.”
Scarlett searched my expression. I didn’t have to try to look sincere.
“Do you know how many Guilds there are in Silk City?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Twenty-two,” she said, holding up two fingers and flashing them.
She let out an exasperated sigh.
“You really focused in on the martial arts stuff, huh?”
“Completely,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “So, there’s twenty-two Guilds in Silk City. Take a guess as to how many Syndicates there are.”
“Twenty-three,” I said.
“Eighty,” she said. “That we know of.”
I nodded appreciatively, feeling a little slow since I wasn’t drawing a conclusion.
“Imagine if all those Syndicates joined together,” Scarlett said, her eyes lighting up at the prospect.
“If Vash and the boys are any indication,” I said. “I’ll bet on the Guilders.”
“Jaxton has more power than Silk City,” Scarlett said, ignoring the gibe. “Much more.”
“If only the damn cretins could set aside their petty differences and join together for the common good,” I lamented with mock sincerity.
Scarlett wasn’t impressed.
“What?” I said. “Don’t give me that look. You and your girls say you want to bring the system down, right?”
“Sascha wants to transition it,” Scarlett said. “Put it back in the hands of the people.”
“Right,” I said, noticing that, when it came to the Vixens’ plan, Scarlett seemed to hold herself apart. “Well, you do recognize that the Syndicates of Jaxton have a system all their own, right?”
“It’s not a system built on rigged credit and cold algorithms,” Scarlett said. “It’s a system built on respect and—“
“Threats,” I said, getting a little annoyed despite the fact that I really had no dog in the fight. “It’s all power, Scarlett. The Syndicates might be on one side of the bay and the Guilders on the other. But they’re all after power. They’re not looking out for the people … whatever that means, no matter what they tell themselves.”
I didn’t realize Scarlett had still been holding onto my cock until she released it and stood up. I was sorry to see her leave my side, but I couldn’t say I minded the full view of her body once again. It was the only thing you lost being so close … not that I was complaining on that account, either.
Scarlett looked at me as she bent down to begin pulling her black suit on, and I felt a fresh rush of blood pumping in the wrong direction, even though she was getting dressed and not prepping for round two.
It was her eyes. That was what made the difference. Her body was something to be admired. Something to be squeezed and felt. But her eyes. That was what had sent me over the edge.
“So, then,” I said, getting to my feet and looking around for my
own clothes. Not that I had been wearing much. “I had forgotten why you were here in the first place. You really were checking up on me, huh?”
Scarlett didn’t answer. Instead, she zipped her suit up, pulling her hair out of the way so it didn’t get caught. I was sorry to see the last of her sticky, salted skin disappear behind the shiny black material.
“Onto the next target, then?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
“Where’s this one?”
“Not far.”
I nodded.
“Who’s the unlucky—“
Scarlett raised a hand toward me. She was holding something. At first, it looked like that black cannister, but there were two silver hooks on the end. Scarlett pressed a button in with a click, and the silver teeth flashed toward me. I didn’t feel them break my skin, but when I looked down, I saw them embedded in my chest, two small trickles of blood dripping down toward my navel.
There was a sticky substance on the hooks. I smiled, thinking Scarlett was joking.
“Weird thing to … weird … thing …”
My head was swimming.
“Figured I had to bring something a little stronger to get you down,” Scarlett said as she walked up to me. She became a red and black blur as I started swaying.
Scarlett caught me as I started to fall.
“You wanted to meet the girls, right?” Scarlett said.
“Girls …”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, lowering me down onto the canvas with gentle dexterity. “As long as you don’t say anything particularly stupid, they won’t hurt you. Once we’ve got what we want, you’ll be free to make more enemies on whichever side of the bay you choose.”
I tried to say something, but the blackness was impossible to fight. I knew I should have been afraid. Even angry. But in that moment, I couldn’t help but replay my little ring row with Scarlett as I fell into a deep slumber.
Chapter 7
Bad in a Good Way
I woke up feeling like I’d just gone on the most epic bender of all time. My head pounded so furiously and my temples buzzed so steadily that it took me a few seconds to remember that I didn’t drink.
And then the rest came back in a rush.
I remembered sparring with Scarlett in the ring. I remembered that annoying little Shocker bitch jabbing me in the side with his cattle prod. I remembered Vash spitting on the floor of Jackie’s gym. And then I remembered my second spar of sorts with Scarlett. I had the bruises to remember the fights by, but that particular memory was so enticing and so dreamlike that I started to wonder if it had happened at all.
In fact, the memory was so pleasant that it distracted me from my unusual and objectively quite terrifying predicament for far longer than it should have, although that, too was likely the result of whatever the hell Scarlett had injected me …
Scarlett had injected me with something!
I went to reach for my chest and pull the contaminated razor out, and that’s how I realized I was tied up. My hands were pulled behind my back. Not tight enough to cause me much discomfort, but a few experimental jolts rattled the rafters overhead. I was cuffed to a pole. I was back in my training gear, which is to say, I was wearing boxers and nothing else. Either it was hot in here, or something in my bloodstream was making me sweat. I was soaked with it.
I surveyed my surroundings now that my head was beginning to clear enough to do so. Of course, focusing on anything other than last night … or last week—whenever the hell Jackie’s Gym had happened—brought a fresh wave of agony flashing in. My nerve condition might protect my skin from feeling the full effect of the fight and my ensuing bondage, but it did nothing for my head.
It looked like a garage of sorts. No. Not a garage. More of a basement. Or a mechanic’s workshop. I was undoubtedly inside of a building, but whether I was twenty stories up in Silk City or twenty stories down in the bowels of an abandoned parking garage out in the Wastelands, it was impossible to tell.
The place was all blues, grays and blacks, but for as much clutter as there was—an assortment of scary-looking tools, none of which I recognized, were hung from pegs and racks along the far wall—the place was still clean. The floors looked like they had been polished. And there were even a few plush carpets dotting the place. I wiggled my toes and found that I was standing on one of these. A red carpet, to be exact.
I looked to my left, and saw a comfortable-looking seating area behind another row of support beams. There was another carpet there, and a series of beanbag chairs set up in front of an assortment of flat screen TV’s and computers. Some of them were on. They looked to be showing security camera footage, but I couldn’t tell if it was live or recorded, and try as I might, I couldn’t make out whether or not I was on any of them.
When I looked to my right, I saw a rectangle of tinted glass panels. There was a steel door. I squinted, but couldn’t see any figures moving on the other side of the glass. It reminded me of an old cop show, and I swallowed, the effects of Scarlett’s serum wearing off enough for me to get my first inkling of fear.
And anger.
I couldn’t see anything in the room behind me, and even if I didn’t know what the various tools and pieces of technology arrayed on the work benches scattered throughout the chamber were for, I could guess that I wasn’t going to like the answer.
I jerked my arms forward again, flexing my core as I strained against the cuffs and the pillar I was chained to. I felt something wet on my wrist and knew I might cut myself deeply enough to put myself in danger before I broke the cuffs.
There was an echoing click, and the door to my right swung open, slamming against the wall. I stopped straining and looked inside, curious as to who Scarlett had sold me out to, and imagining Vash and the Shockers coming out with worse things than cattle prods this time.
Instead of seeing Vash or a bunch of bobbing white helmets with blue visors, I saw a petite middle eastern girl wearing tiny blue shorts and a green military-style shirt that was tied up to expose a tight stomach. She was small enough to look like a high schooler, but her chest was perky enough, and her eyes were bright green and mischievous. She was carrying an open laptop computer and gave me a wink as she waltzed past me and moved toward one of the work benches in front of me.
“Your boy’s awake, Scar,” she called back nonchalantly.
I looked back toward the interrogation room and saw another girl coming out. She was wearing a blue bath robe that matched the streaks in her wet blue-black hair, which hung down over one shoulder. I didn’t recognize her until she gave me a smile and a mock bow, and that gave me a glimpse of two moon-white pillows I could never forget.
“Darla,” I said.
“You remembered,” she said, fanning the blush on her face.
Behind Darla, a third woman emerged. She was taller than Darla and even taller than Scarlett. She had dark brown skin and dark eyes, and looked Latina. She had a muscular build, but plenty of shape, and wore tight black leather pants and a white tank top with no bra. It didn’t leave much to the imagination.
She didn’t give me a wink or say anything like the first two had. She only looked me up and down, her expression unreadable, and blew a bubble of pink gum before she walked right past me and plopped down on one of the beanbag chairs in the corner.
“Hey there, Konnor.”
Scarlett’s voice filled me with an odd mix of emotions. First, there was the thrill as an image of her bobbing up and down on my cock, sweat dripping down her chest and teeth biting at her bottom lip. Then there was my current predicament, and the very recent, coming clearer memory of her hitting me with a fucking horse tranquilizer to get me here.
“Sup,” I said, sounding like a petulant child. I looked straight ahead, watching the small middle eastern girl working on her laptop, making a point not to look at Scarlett. The girl in
front of me seemed to be looking from me back to her computer, taking notes on everything I did, which wasn’t all that much, given the circumstances.
“Hey,” Scarlett said, coming to stand in front of me. She blocked my view of the workshop-hangout-whatever the fuck this was, and even though I was royally pissed and feeling sorry for myself, she certainly improved the view.
Gone was the black tactical suit she had worn on the first two occasions we had met, and in its place was a loose-fitting purple night shirt and shorts too short to see beneath the hem. Her hair was tied back in a tail, and she looked tired. She looked like she was ready for a slumber party or a porn shoot, but she still looked beautiful, and I must admit, when our eyes met, she even managed to look truly sorry and sincere. But then, she was a great actress.
“I’m sorry about the … manner of your arrival,” Scarlett said, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder. “We just need help with something, and then—”
I barked out a bitter laugh.
“Help is something you ask for, Scarlett,” I said. “Besides, did I give you any indication that I wouldn’t have been willing to help you?”
“We had to be sure,” she said.
“Sure about what?”
“She couldn’t just let you walk in the front door of our secret lair because she fucked you, pal.”
The speaker was the petite girl working on her computer. Darla was leaning over her shoulder, seemingly delighting in their proximity as the bare skin of her chest rubbed against the smaller girl’s tanned arm.
“I didn’t tell you I fucked him, Nina,” Scarlett said with an eye roll.
Now it was Nina’s turn to laugh, and Darla and even the Latina over in the corner joined in.
“His eyes told us all that much, right when you walked in,” Nina said.
“So, then,” I said, feeling like I should change the subject, “these are the almighty Silk City Vixens, then? Four girls in a modified loft or basement with some TV’s, handcuffs, computers and apparently some horse tranquilizer for when shit gets really spicy?”