Author's Note to Reader:
Thank you kindly for being my audience!
Background information is available on the original concepts included herein at The Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe, also known as the VirtueVerse, at ( www(DOT)virtueverse(DOT)net/wiki/Infinity_Inc ). None of that information is necessary to understand this story, however, if I've done my job right.
This work is intended for mature audiences only. It contains references to sexual abuse and other kinds of physical abuse, deadly violence, involuntary medical experimentation, brainwashing, and the irredeemably villainous act of treating thinking beings as property. It also contains a few very crude words.
If you are not of legally independent age, or if you are distressed in any way by such concepts, I very much appreciate your interest, but I wish you to hit your "Back" button and go read something else. Real Life is far too short to include any unnecessary misery – something my villains utterly fail to grasp.
Oh, and: These idiots aren't practicing safe sex. In that regard, they are idiots. I recommend against idiocy in all circumstances!
On to the...
Author's Legalese Note:
The setting and many of the identifying features in this work (such as the Rogue Isles or Paragon City, and a business called Exarch in the latter location) are the property of NC Interactive, and are used without permission. No infringement of said property is intended or implied, and no profit may be made from this work by anybody except NC Interactive and/or Paragon Studios.
Original concepts Fehral, Viscere, the villainous corporation Infinity Incorporated, its owners, and their lease-a-minion program are the inventions of City of Heroes players ("at" symbol)Jarissa and ("at" symbol)Skyburner, who reserve use of said characters/organization to the players supporting that particular little fan community. Please do not use without first discussing it with one of us. Frankly, it's easier and more fun to join the City of... game and make a new character for oneself anyway.
And it's free! Please visit ( na(DOT)cityofheroes(DOT)com/en ) to get started, and feel free to drop us an in-game note.
Thanks for slogging through the legal bit with me. Enjoy!
- J
The Kill Trigger
The client ordered Viscere into their portable cage, where a double portion of food steamed gently on the attached shelf. Viscere obeyed congenially enough, but stopped to look back when the door shut between him and Fehral.
"Stay," the client told Fehral. She repressed a huff of strong annoyance, knowing damned well that Viscere would eat her share if she didn't defend it very soon. Hunkering down in place, she split her attention between the wandering client and Viscere's activities.
Viscere met her eyes for a moment. His fur had much more dark gold in it, which made his eyebrow ridge all but indiscernible to strangers. When he raised one eyebrow expressively, Fehral could translate a hidden query as to whether she knew what was up – she did not, obviously – but even if he paid attention the client would see no emotion at all. Fehral flipped the tip of her tail in a throw-away gesture: got nothing. Viscere made the same tail flip in commiseration before he turned his attention fully on the food.
Greedy jerk.
Fehral acknowledged even in her fuming that Viscere did a lot of bleeding when the target's defense system belatedly activated. Well, fine, and that was the client's fault, for insisting that they set it off as they departed. And hadn't Fehral bled just as much, scrambling to slice apart razor wire before the hallway floor could electrocute them all? She needed to replace wasted iron and protein too. Her body fat was too scarce, harvested by the accelerated healing most Hybrid Alphas carried, and the muscle still didn't feel quite right: thready, sparse, too weak when she tried to stand upright.
A real plate, little blue cornflower design and all, appeared on the ottoman before her. Fehral blinked down at a small pile of twisty dough pyramids.
"Eat," the client told her.
Fehral stared up at him, suspicious. This wasn't the issued food which Infinity Incorporated would have sent along. This was human food.
Meat pastries, the tiny voice of her past self supplied.
"Go ahead," the client cajoled her. "You got me the file I wanted. What's the thing I'm supposed to say? –Oh. 'Reward'," he added a little clumsily. His pronunciation was off but she could call it close enough for strict inquiry later. "It has to smell better than the canned stuff, anyway. Go ahead; take it."
She inspected the plate more closely, but found no signs of a trap. The dough smelled like that store-bought stuff in the little cans that you rolled out and stuck in the oven, God but she could almost remember the physical sensation of it. A little more incautiously than was probably wise, she picked one up and bit into it like an apple.
Viscere scowled at her briefly, disgruntled. She glared back until he made a show of returning to his suddenly unappealing meal.
Ground beef, celery, some kind of sharp cheese, was that fried egg? Fehral became so absorbed in figuring out the ingredients, nervous still that a drug or poison might be hidden in it, that she made the utterly unforgivable mistake of completely forgetting to track the client. She froze when she felt his bark-rough fingers trail up through the fur on her leg, from behind.
"Eat your pastries," he urged huskily. "Take it."
As the strangely-skinned man's fingers stroked her ragged skirt out of the way, Fehral's mind raced through all the available options. Viscere had stopped, too, in mid-gobble; he stared silently through the cage bars, well out of grabbing range. He might as well be back at the base, for all the help he could be with that latch closed. The metal panel shielding it curved around the edges so even long-fingered Delta Hybrids could not access it from the wrong side.
She could … "attack" would be the obvious response. All the brochures and the lease agreements advised the client to never touch a Hybrid Alpha Series subject. But there were strongly-enforced exceptions: touch to save a task from imminent failure. Touch to save a client, unless the Alpha had been specifically instructed otherwise. Touch for discipline...
She was already eating the forbidden meant-for-people food. The client could claim that she'd broken discipline, attacked him and stolen his meal, and who would they believe? Fehral would be doomed to something a hell of a lot worse than unwelcome touching.
She could run, but where? Fehral looked quickly around the room. The sunken floor in the center of this studio had entirely too few man-sized obstacles, especially with the cage set up against the back wall. The exit door had too many deadbolts fastened, the kitchenette lacked even a low-lying cabinet, and the flimsy bathroom door slid into a pocket carved into the wall.
No windows bigger than her hand, unless they were hidden behind the ugly wallpaper.
As physical pressure started to make itself known behind her, Fehral glanced up at Viscere. Again he met her resignedly unhappy gaze. This time his face, indeed his whole body, had no expression at all. Fehral looked away again, down at the traitorous plate of meat pastries. She could … pretend. Closing her eyes, she pretended it was Nightsear behind her, that afternoon they spent wallowing in cheap off-market deli meat and knockoff coffee, celebrating their first few hours as the owners of a licensed Rogue Isles mercenary base. Well, a shack, really, but it was a start. The lighting had been awful, the Internet access more infuriating than intermittent, and while it did not have any leaks, it was awfully cold.
Nightsear made her feel like she had value by existing, not just by how she could be used. He enjoyed her purely because he enjoyed everything in his life - if he didn't enjoy something, he got rid of it fast. He liked her fur, he liked her guttural voice, he liked the way she tracked motions clear out in the alley, he liked how she tangled herself up in a ball of twisting blankets but still could be out of them in less than two heartbeats.
He rubbed the cold out of her legs, and her back, and breathed gently on her ears to see them twitch, and somehow without either of them really stopping to think about it he was nestled warm against her back and his armor was scattered halfway across the room and she had this insistent warmth pressuring her forward until her weight balanced on her hands as much as her paws and every breath seemed to bring them a little closer together, no demands, just inevitable as gravity, and Fehral felt warm for the first time since–
"Take it. Take it. Take it," the client crooned as he pushed his way past her steady balance point, forcing her unpleasantly forward and down on her stiff arms. Fehral wished he had kept silent, the stupid jerk. She dug her claws into the floor, trying to get some purchase. She didn't even feel much, except his hands on her hip joints and the short jerks against her pinned tail as he tried to chant his way to some kind of release. He should have done his thing and left her alone in her mollifying fantasy.
Without any hitch of warning, there was pain.
Her whole world turned ugly red with violent black spots. She felt like she'd been stabbed over most of her body, inside and out, by an infinite variety of barbed needles from a porcupine or a cactus or a brand new kind of punishment that ripped its victim apart from the inside of the belly AND across her back, her legs, her shoulder blades. Viscere snarled and rattled the door of the portable cage: if she heard that, nothing had hit her ears, and the pain had to be coming from the client behind her. Fehral launched herself unsteadily forward while she twisted, raking her claws in a blind blow across anything she could reach. One arm did not let go of her fast enough. She heard the client yelp in surprise as she tore a chunk of soft something-or-other away.
Fehral's trajectory carried her to smash into the crate's bars. She clung to them, gasping in tiny breaths, while she tried to figure out what could have happened to her. The pain was still intense enough to make her scream, but the red faded just enough for her to see hazy shapes: Viscere's jaguar rosettes, like hers except his color inside his usually larger rosettes matched the space outside each ring, and sometimes he had a dot smeared across the middle. His paw reached out to snag a hollow spine from her side. Fehral screamed again, weaker this time, as it ripped its way back out of her bleeding pelt.
"Free Viscere," his voice rumbled in her pinned ear, concealed by the sound of her agony.
The client, audibly indignant, demanded something Fehral was too pain-fogged to understand. She blinked back tears and tried to look at him without loosening her death-grip on the cage. A few unfired barbs still rattled threateningly on the client's shoulders. He pointed at Fehral, at the ground in front of his feet, and made a sharp beckoning motion: come here now, told you to stay!
Oh, no. No way. Fehral fought to clear enough of the red from her vision that she could see details, but she had to work more than halfway from memory as she fumbled one hand in the latch panel. The client spoke anxiously, alarm clear in his voice, but Fehral got the bar pushed far enough aside before he could attack again.
Viscere came boiling out of the cage, two loping steps past her, salvaged barb still clutched in his right hand. While the noises of combat peaked, then reduced back to satisfied growling, Fehral carefully slid down the cage bars until she huddled on elbows and knees. She could not reach most of the barbs, could not figure out how to yank them out, in fact could not move terribly much as every nerve in the area continued to smolder.
Now I know where the poison was hidden. Stupid!
Viscere came back after a long while. He shoved her around until he had as much slack around each remaining barb as he could force her to provide, long enough to yank it out, so the sinew and muscle could mend themselves.
The ones inside were hard to access. Viscere had to go dig around for chopsticks and twine in the kitchenette to use as makeshift tweezers. Fehral wished she could pass out, but the best she managed was a burnt maroon fog.
Half an eternity later, or maybe just half an hour, Viscere pestered her back to awareness. He wanted to demand that she figure out the rangetop controls so he could reheat his food.
As her body erased the last twinges of the damage she had suffered, Fehral explored every nook and cranny in the tiny apartment. The luxury of an unmonitored shower, even a cold one, nearly spurred a fight between the two Alphas. Begrudgingly they compromised on a shared shower, scrubbing the blood and stink of fear out of each other's coats with all the contents of the melon-scented shampoo bottle, then squabbled again over the lone pathetic towel. Fehral's skirt and oversized lab shirt hung to dry inside the portable cage. Viscere shook most of the damp off his limbless one-piece armor, then turned it right side out so he could step into it. He left it partially unzipped, shoulder bands flapping to either side of his tail, as he stalked out of the little bathroom.
By the time Fehral was more dry than the awful terrycloth thing, Viscere finished almost all of the remaining food. Fehral stood glaring at the late client's bare refrigerator for several minutes. Finally she stomped over to the couch, half-starved, nerves still jangled, weary.
After a quiet twenty minutes, Viscere padded away from the tiny porthole-like window next to the exit. Fehral studied his body language as he passed: his tail curled and uncurled slowly, deliberately, a clear sign that Viscere was thinking very hard about something.
"Tech Support come for us, two hour," she estimated. "Maybe mercy if we in cage already. Want nap."
Fehral intended to claim one of the sheets off the murphy bed, but she abruptly decided she would never sleep with any scents that belonged to her assailant. Except the shampoo. Better than blood! Viscere still paced around the room; she did not waste energy tracking him too closely. If Viscere was inclined to hurt her, he would have done it while she was helpless. He dumped the kitchen rug over the worst mess of the client's remains, which improved neither mess nor rug. Fehral shoved one of the decorative cushions aside irritably, trying to find a position on the couch with no bent springs jabbing her tender backside.
When she looked up again, Viscere stood in front of her, his posture nervous. Slowly he proffered the little plate with its stack of meat pastries.
They stared at each other.
Viscere looked at the exit door, no longer fastened by anything save the highest deadbolt. He looked back at Fehral, and offered the plate again.
Moving very slowly, Fehral took one of the doughy pyramids. Her eyes never left Viscere's face. He set the plate down on the couch beside her, gazed at the door, gazed down at her.
"You go," Fehral warned softly, "they catch you, they not kill you. They kill whoever near you. Do it slow. Make you listen. Days. Then punish you."
Viscere blinked slowly in acknowledgement. "I plan for two years. Stupid client attacks you, in that moment I lose priority for assignment I need. Cannot wait. Go now, or go never."
Fehral dropped her gaze to the pastry in her hand. "Go now," she whispered. "Go Paragon first. Make Exarch check for locator chip between heart and spine. Change name. Never come Isles, never go Europe. Vanish."
At the uppermost edge of her vision, a faint sense of motion might have been Viscere brushing his whiskers forward in assent. "I go while you sleep. Lock you in crate. No way you stop me."
That made sense, and was even kind. Fehral twisted to get her feet under her; no sense making Viscere risk any of his head start.
He stopped her with a brush of his sheathed claws through the fur on her arm. "You stay?"
"Stay. Locator chip activate, make seizure 'til they find me again. No more run. Besides. Eventually they ask me what happen. Client attack me, I open crate, bad hurt, you fight, I bleed long time. No food. You eat food, I sleep, you gone. Truth. They check if I lie first."
"More truth," Viscere whispered in her ear, rubbing his hands down her back gently. "Make sure you sleep."
She expected him to hurt her, knock her unconscious. Fehral waited, trembling, so tired of the whole miserable reality. Viscere was being kind, giving her support for her innocence in the Corporation's view; he could hardly be blamed for having to choke the flow of blood to her brain until she passed out, not when it would be so much simpler and safer to just leave her another corpse muddying the trail.
Viscere's fingers circled up under where her skirt should normally be, caressing the knotted muscles above her knees, tracing the line of her tail. He pressed his chest against her back, growling softly.
No, purring.
Fehral sucked in a fast breath, eyes wide.
Viscere continued to run his fingers through her undercoat, detangling here and massaging a tense spot there, until he reached her collarbone. Immediately he reversed direction. Fehral waited another frozen two minutes before she accepted that the jaguar Alpha had no intention of touching her throat.
All at once she swayed in the wake of his ministrations, relaxing just a bit everywhere. The ridge of her spine fit so nicely against his breastbone. Viscere's warm touch dribbled along her inadequate curves like a cascade of affectionate water droplets, seeking the two sensitive places hidden under thick fur. Very lightly he scratched, just enough pressure for her to know that his claws were there; she felt herself tightening in response, a thrill drawn straight to the place between her chest and her neck where a growl instead became a purr pouring out of her with every exhaled breath. Fehral tilted her head back to lean on Viscere's shoulder so the sensation would pass through her throat, out her open mouth, unimpeded.
"He do it wrong," Viscere said. "This is how to seduce a woman. Make her warm. Make her feel good. Make her safe. No fear. No hurt. No shame. You good to touch, good to rub, soft, smell like free time in a cozy tree in early summer. Wrap arms around you, straddle legs either side of yours, surround you with safe warm purring affection, ghnnnnnuhhh-"
Fehral whimpered a little as Viscere pushed her slowly open, but it didn't hurt. She reached out with both hands to lean against the back of the couch, upper arms tight along her chest in his embrace. Her tail wrapped around his left leg, as much to keep out of the way as to encourage him.
Oh, and she wanted to encourage him! This was nice, this was good, not as consuming as it had been with Nightsear but that pleasant sensation of pressure made all the fresh memories of agony just melt away where it touched. This was something she was supposed to do, almost exactly right, where the client had been all wrong.
She would blame it on the drugs in the hollow spines, she decided. Client tricked her to need it. Client deserved to die.
Viscere stopped to catch his breath when they were halfway connected. "Viscere not the one made for you. Fehral not made for me. I still make you feel good, relax, rest. Yes?"
The Alpha that had been designed as the other half of her mating pair was long since gone, anyway. "Yes," she told Viscere, pressing herself back against him. "Cover. Rissa want."
Viscere chuckled a little, which did strange things to the undercurrent of his purr. "Mikael want."
"Hurry!" she urged, shoving herself back at him again. "No more discuss."
He never did reach everywhere the client had struck, but – true to his claim – he made everyplace he did touch feel tense in all the best ways. Rissa screamed into the destroyed couch as she pulsed against Mikael, struggling involuntarily under the waves of clenching pleasure, until every exhausted muscle seemed to sag into a puddle of purring contentment. Mikael moved in her for another several cycles before he, too, screamed and pulsed.
Sometime later, not too much later, he uncurled himself from their tangle. Viscere picked Fehral up carefully. He cradled her against his chest as he walked across the studio, set her gently on her side in a loose fetal ball, and padded away.
Seconds later, she heard the soft click of the cage latch. She didn't look up, or twitch, or react in any way; even so, she felt the change in air pressure without actually hearing the exit door open and close again.
The client's toxin also took full blame for her tears.
Fehral hoped that Viscere would never be found. If he was found, she earnestly hoped he died before they could stop him. She had an inquisition to suffer, after which she would take for granted that Viscere died during his escape, and not ever once even think to look for him.
–