Chapter 6

The good news was that I had my mouth closed when I got a face full of cock. The bad news was that cock’s owner didn’t even give me a chance to apologize for the fact that I had bumped into them before a kick caught me across the ribs and sent me tumbling across the deck. I can’t exactly say I blamed him for that. A guy headbutts you in the crotch completely out of nowhere and it really does become a sort of “ask questions later” kind of moment. You get shot at, you get stabbed, there’s some wiggle room there to try and talk things out. You take a skull to the dick and that’s it, ready, set, fight.

“Shit, Adam!” Eve crawled across the deck to me as Bethany stood up to confront the man who had kicked. I had rolled to a stop on my belly, so I coughed and pushed myself up to my knees. Eve lay her hand on my back as I sucked in a deep breath, laying a hand on my bruised ribs.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I assured her.

“Wait, aren’t you Bethany Lance?” the newcomer asked. I turned to look at him and openly gaped.

The dude was jacked. I don’t mean that in a Mr. Universe, superbody builder, muscle on muscle kind of way, but in an Arnold Schwarzenegger, chiseled kind of way. (And yes, I know Arnie won Mr. Universe as well.) He had military short blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and a tattoo of Hercules wrenching open the Nemean Lion’s jaws on his left shoulder, right below the logo for the US air force. His eyes tracked to each one of us, from Bethany standing right in front of him, to Eve crouched over me and Cindy sitting over by herself.

“I am,” Bethany snapped. “Who the hell are you?”
The stranger snapped upright. “My name is Lieutenant David Horn, ma’am. I’m a pilot in the US Air force.” He looked towards Cindy. “Would you mind telling me where I am, please?”

Cindy blushed and quickly stood up herself. “Ah, David, it’s nice to meet you! Unfortunately, it appears that we have been abducted by unknown forces to participate in what appears to be some sort of physical and psychological experiment.”

David gave her the barest of frowns. “Well, there’s nothing to worry about now that I’m here. As an officer in the United States military it is my sworn duty to serve and protect and defend the people of our great nation. I will make sure that we get out of here safe and sound, every last one of us.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Bethany said dismissively as she came over to help Eve get me back on my feet.

David frowned at the doubt in the pop star’s words. “Ma’am, I guarantee you that there is not a force on earth that can stand up to the might of the United States military. Once I am discovered to be missing I guarantee that my command will attempt to recover us, if I have not already found a way to break us out-”

“And how good are you at holding your breath?” Bethany asked with fake sweetness. She flashed him the sort of smile that sent magazines flying off the shelves, which only seemed to add to David’s confusion.

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t listen to her,” Cindy jumped in, glaring at Bethany. She forced her way between Bethany and David, offering David a much more sincere smile. “I know, it’s ridiculous. They have this theory about aliens-”

“Aren’t you a science teacher?” Bethany demanded as she grabbed Cindy by the shoulder and whirled her around. “How much more evidence do you need? Or do you actually want to die the next time?”

“Woah, woah, ladies, please!” David said as he worked his way into the middle of the argument. “I am sure that whatever is going on can be handled. We just need to understand what on Earth we’re dealing with and then I can come up with a plan to get us all out of here.”

“That might be easier said than done,” I said as I stepped into his line of view. My ribs ached where he had managed to kick me, but I managed not to wince as I waved to get his attention. “We’re not on Earth any longer.”

“What?”

“Follow me,” I said, crooking my finger as Eve and I started to walk towards the garden. Bethany hurried to join us, followed by David, and then finally Cindy. We took all of five steps into the room before I turned towards the giant window and pointed to the alien world we were orbiting. David stood there standing, staring at the planet with a blank face as I ran through everything we knew, everything we suspected, and what we had been through so far. When I was done, he turned to me and nodded once.

“You’ve done an excellent job of establishing the field,” he said. “Now I need a full list of our resources and skills. Once we have that, we can begin planning our next move. Once our abductors attempt to bring us into the next game, we can execute a counter strategy. Since we have an idea of their action plan it just becomes a matter of coming up with one of our own.”

I frowned in puzzlement. “And then what?”

“That I’m still working on,” he answered confidently. “But once I do, I’ll make sure to keep you informed.”

“Ahhh...”

“And what if we don’t want to work for you?” Eve asked as she crossed her arms under her breasts. I’ll give David credit, his eyes only barely flickered down to her erect nipples before returning to her eyes. He started to open his mouth to reply, but Eve cut him off with another question. “Do you really think you’re going to come up with a way for us to escape?”

David worked his jaws back and forth. He was visibly struggling to keep the frustration off his face as Eve challenged him. “As a highly trained military professional, I feel that I am the one best qualified-”

“To what? Get us all killed?” Eve through her hands up in exasperation. “For fuck’s sake! We’re on an alien space station in the middle of who knows where! Your training means almost nothing here!”

David finally lost his composure. “Look here, young lady. I understand that this has been a highly stressful situation, but the time for amatuer hour is over. If we’re going to succeed at getting out of here then it is important that we all work together under a clear and effective chain of command. Again, as a highly trained military professional that means that you are going to have to follow my orders and do as I say. No more of this reacting to some gizmo when you don’t even know what you’re doing! From your own admissions you nearly got this lovely lady killed-”

“Because she didn’t listen to us!” I snapped as I stepped up to Eve’s side. I took her hand in mind and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “We tried to explain to her what we need to do, just as we’re trying to tell you now! If you think this is some sort of military exercise or mission that you can find a way out of, then you’re just making the same mistake of not listening to us as she did!”

David’s face grew pinched as he turned to look at me. “Son, I understand that you’ve been doing your best, but you’ve been here a total of what, four, maybe five days? You don’t even know that! This is why you need to listen to me! We need to begin gathering intel and-”

“Okay, you know what? Enough is enough!” Bethany shook her head as she moved to stand next to me, opposite Eve and taking my other hand. “You don’t want to listen, fine. But we’re not joining your boot camp and preparing to be good little soldiers. You want to try and act like everything is normal, but it’s not. If you go on trying to do so, you’re just going to get someone killed.”

“No, you’re going to get someone killed!” Cindy snapped. She went to stand next to David and slipped her arm through his. If he was surprised by the sudden intimacy, he didn’t let it show on his face. Cindy glared at Bethany specifically as she continued her harangue. “Just like you almost got me killed! Anyone of you could have given me a weapon or taken it upon yourself to guard me, but all you focused on was yourselves and having fun with that sick ‘game’ that we were sent to!”

“But we told you about the pedestal!” I insisted. “We even tried to get you to use it! You were the one who insisted on not listening to us and then triggered the worst possible option when we didn’t even know what was going on!”

“That’s because you were too busy with these sluts!”

“Hey!” Bethany and Eve protested in unison.

David held up his hands, trying to bring everything back to calm. “Okay, let’s all bring it in a notch. I get that this isn’t something that civilians are prepared for, but now that I’m here-”

I felt something inside me snap. I could see this all going to Hell in a handbasket with no way out. The more David tried to take control, the more I saw him trying to look for a way out, for a way to escape. But there just wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t some sort of fatalistic realization where I just gave myself up to dying at the hands of mysterious alien overlords, because frankly I had zero intentions of dying. Even if the thought of not dying painfully wasn’t enough motivation, there was Eve and Bethany to think about as well. It was more the fact that Cindy and David were convinced that they could solve a problem well beyond their scope to understand it. The simple truth was that we were on a space station at some unknown point in time and space, held captive by a force that had access to teleportation technology who had already kidnapped us off Earth once already. Even if we could somehow find a ship and if we could figure out how to pilot and if we could figure out where we were well enough to plot a course and take us home - then there was still nothing to stop them from simply snatching us back off Earth if that was they wanted to do, assuming they didn’t just snatch us out of the ship itself!

It hit me in that moment, really hit me, that there was no way for us to go home.

Not unless it fit the plans of whomever had kidnapped us.

And the only way we had of interacting with our abductors was through the Pedestal. We had to answer their questions, face their challenges, and earn our prizes if we wanted to continue to survive. And sure, that sucked. Being a guinea pig was never high on my list of life ambitions. But if that was what it was going to take for us to go on living, then that’s exactly what I was going to do. But actually thriving was going to mean not just going along with the program, but actually embracing it. Anyone looking for a way out was going to be looking for loopholes or a way out, and that meant they were likely going to screw things up for the rest of us at the worst possible time.

“Shut up.” I looked David directly in the eye and squared off my shoulders. “I get that you’ve got training, I get that you were an officer, and I get that you’re used to expecting people to do what you tell them to do when you tell them to do it. But this is not the military, you are not in charge, and it’s very clear what you just said that you have absolutely no idea what you’re getting into. And if you keep carrying on like you do, then you’re just going to get someone killed. And while there’s a good chance that person will be you, I don’t want you to take anyone else down with you. So either shut up and listen, or get the fuck out.”

David looked at me, took a step sideways so he was between me and the door back to the apartment, and smirked. “And who is going to make me?”

I realized I had fucked up as he and Cindy waltzed back into the room and the door hissed shut behind them.

“Well,” Eve said as she squeezed my hand, “That could have gone better.”

“Shit, I’m an idiot!” I slapped a hand against my forehead before turning towards the girls. “I’m sorry, I should have waited till we were back in the room!”

“Well ... maybe not,” Eve said hesitantly. Her cheeks turned pink as she glanced between me and Bethany. “In all the excitement and yelling I never mentioned it, but I did find another door yesterday. It’s in the opposite corner of the garden. I didn’t go in it, though. I figured I would wait until the two of you were finished fooling around so that we could explore it together.”

I glanced back at the door to the apartment we had just been locked out of, then looked back at Eve and shrugged. “Well, may as well lead on then.”

Eve nodded and took us around to the far end of the garden, to a door identical to the one leading into our own apartment. She walked up to it and knocked on it once, before declaring, “Open says me!”

“Isn’t that supposed to be, ‘Open sesame’?” I asked

Eve glanced back at me and shrugged. “I’m not sure the folks running this place are bagel fans.”

Regardless of their breakfast preferences, Eve must have done something right. The door slid silently to the side, revealing another room on the opposite side. It was an exact duplicate of the first room as I had first woken up - bare of anything except for a Pedestal standing in the middle.

“So we get to start all over?” Bethany asked as we stepped inside. She sounded almost happy about the complete lack of furniture.

“Well, it seems that way...” I said hesitantly.

“Oh, thank God!” Bethany declared. She must have recognized my confusion because she turned and kissed me on the lips before explaining. “Adam, I don’t want you to take this personally, but that other apartment is a mess of messes. Not that it wasn’t clean, but it was very clear that things were just getting added as everything went along and that was driving me crazier than a cat in a rocking chair factory. Hopefully, this time we can do things a little more organized, okay?”

“Uh, sure,” I chuckled. “But don’t forget that I wasn’t exactly in control of my choices.”

“I’m not, I’m not!” Bethany said quickly. She looked up at the ceiling with a glare, wagging her finger as she declared, “I know exactly who is in control and I know you’re watching! And we just got kicked out of our apartment because of your choices, so I expect you to work with me on this! We’re going to play your game the way you want us to, but a woman has needs! And while this-” She reached down and patted my cock with her hand. “-is good for plenty, a sense of proper decorum is pretty high up there! So bring on your questions, but I expect a pen and paper soon because you’re going to put things where I want them this time!”

ZWHIM

There was a moment’s pause as we all stared at the legal pad and pen that materialized on the floor in front of us. The Pedestal had never just given something away for free like that before. It had always required some form of questions or test to be answered first. We looked back and forth, silently mouthing questions and shrugging as none of us really had any clue what was going on. Bethany finally rolled her eyes and jabbed a finger at the ceiling. “Now how about a table and chair?”

Her only answer was a constant silence. Apparently we had used up our one favor.

Eve’s face screwed up in confusion as she broke the silence. “So wait, does that mean that our little argument back there was some sort of trial or experiment?”

“I don’t know...” My words trailed off as I watched Bethany bend down and pick up the notepad and pen. Most people would have knelt down, but she just folded in half at the waist, her long blonde hair falling around her face and I got just a tiny bit distracted until Eve smacked me in the shoulder. Chagrined, I looked over at her and shrugged. “It could have been. If we’re right about the reason why it gave you the knife a couple of days ago, then it’s likely the hazards aren’t the only tests.”

“But why?” Bethany asked as she started to sketch out a rough floor plan. A quick peek at her work showed that she was designing either a small house or a large apartment. One feature in particular caught my eye.

“Ah, Beth, I don’t really think they’re going to give us a staircase.”

“Why not?” She tapped the paper with the pen. “I think it would be nice if we could have a little more separation in our living areas. A living room, dining room, and kitchen down below, with a bedroom upstairs. Or at least not near the dining room and kitchen!”

“Bedroom or bedrooms?” Eve asked.

“Well, one bedroom to start,” Bethany answered nervously. She frowned in concern. “Or did you want a place of your own? Or did you two-?”

“No, no!” Eve answered hastily. “I’m not trying to cut you out! But what happens when we get more people? Ms. Flint made it clear she didn’t want to be with us, and there’s no way I’d share a bed with Lieutenant Dickhead over there. Do we just make people who don’t fit in crash on the couch? What happens if they start to outnumber us?”

“I wonder how many of these Skinner Boxes there are?” I added. “That may be a deciding factor. Was this room always here or did the door only unlock because we got kicked out of the one we started in?”

“Well, if this is a breeding experiment...” Eve’s lips twisted. “It’s supposed to take what, a population of fifty to have a genetically stable line?”

“More than that,” Bethany answered with a frown. “My grandfather would usually buy bulls from the other side of the country every couple of years and then sell his on to the west coast to make sure the populations weren’t getting too closely related. I don’t know if all of the other ranchers went as far, but they also usually rotated bulls out just as often and tried to avoid swapping with each other too often.” She realized what she said and then blanched. “Wait, you think this is all some sort of breeding program? Because I’ll be fucked if I’m going to fuck Lieutenant Dickhead!”
“It’s something I’ve been starting to consider,” I admitted. Eve added her agreement with a nod. “And it sounds like Eve may have been thinking the same way. Hence why they turned up your libidos. But you can’t just take fifty random people and put them in a room and expect them to start a new society. You need to figure out what groups are going to tick together the best. So pick different personalities, see where the stressors lie...”

Eve nodded again. “Put them through different physical and mental tests as well, right? See who cooperates, who doesn’t, and add a twist of survival of the fittest. But what’s the point? If they can build a space station like this and just kidnap people off Earth, they clearly don’t need us as a labor force, let alone have any purpose to try and breed one. Using us as spare parts requires some absurd coincidences in genetics...”

“I don’t think it’s anything that complicated,” I answered with a shake of my head. “I’m going to take a leap off the deep end, but assuming this is a post-scarcity society, then the only thing they would need is sources of entertainment. They would breed us for the same reason we breed dogs and horses- to put us out for shows doing tricks.”

Bethany’s face turned ashen as she sank to the floor. “So that’s it? Even out here I’m nothing more than a show pony?”

“No!” Eve hissed as she dropped down next to her. “You are Bethany Lance, my friend, the woman who saved his life, and our lover!”

Bethany tried to smile weakly, but I could see how much our discussion had crushed her. I remember our conversation from the previous day, the venom that had laced her voice as she discussed the stress of her touring schedule, the way her family’s expectations had ruled and ruined her life. Coming here had freed her in almost the same way it had freed me, and now we had made it sound like it was all going to be torn away from her, so that she could be forced back into the spotlight, made to parade and perform for total strangers. I knelt down in front of her and put my hand on her shoulder.

“Beth, hey, look at me,” I ordered her. I waited till she lifted her gaze before I continued. “Yes, these aliens are going to make us jump through hoops, maybe even literally. But you know what? I don’t care. Because I got to meet the real you. We’ve fought together. We’ve slept together. And if it comes down to it, we’re going to show them what happens when a horse kicks you in the head - together. And the first thing we’re going to do is build you this apartment and give you a real home. Our home.”

Bethany didn’t look entirely convinced. “I thought I was done with all that. Being on stage. I was free. But even if we do build the apartment, then what? How do you know we can keep it?”