Chapter 4

“So, how are you not going to be fucking that shotgun in five seconds?”

If Tracy knew that I and Jules had fucked while I had been making my anti-telepath collar, she didn’t show it. Instead, all of her attention was on me, my shotgun, and my soon to be coming hideous death. I imagined what it’d be like to have the barrel of the gun entering me ... there ... and shuddered, making a face. My collar started to vibrate softly against me - a gathering buzz, as if a storm was coming.

“Don’t...” I glared at Tracy. “Don’t give it ideas!” I sighed, then tapped the collar - my finger touching a small green button next to my throat. “And this is going to keep me from being controlled. I hope.”

“What is it exactly?” Amanda sounded like she was starting to come out of her fuge.

“Quite clever, actually,” Jules said - trying to sound cheery and not guilty. In the end, he merely sounded guilty. I knew, faintly, that he was married. And I knew that it was a bad thing to fuck a married man. But at the moment, the only thing I could think of was the fact that if I was going to die, at the very least I wasn’t going to die a virgin. Yes, I know, I had probably had sex before i had been put into cryo. But that...

Did it count, if you didn’t remember it?

I shook my head as Jules walked around to the side, pointing at my collar. “The collar puts a burst of electrical energy through Beatrice if she doesn’t touch the button every, uh, sixty seconds.”

The collar started to vibrate again. I tapped the button again.

“So, if the telepath controls me,” I said. “I won’t touch the button, and then it shocks me. That seems to disrupt the telapath’s puppetry.”

Tracy didn’t look convinced.

“So, we’re going to stay here?” Amanda asked.

I nodded to her, then checked the shotgun. The glowing ammo cell within shimmered at me. I looked at Jules as he whistled softly. His eyes were locked on that glow.

“Well, son of a bitch,” he said. “Where the hell did you get that?”

“Found it,” I said, biting my lip. “Why? What is it?” My eyes flicked down to my shotgun, back to him.

“It’s a Tesc power core,” he said, then shook his head. “I’ll tell you more later. Once the telepath is dead.”

I nodded. “Right. It’s safe, right?” I asked - feeling goosebumps crawling along my skin at the thought of using a Tesc power core for anything. The fact it was going to be the primary way I was going to not get my skin peeled off my by own fingernails didn’t help either. Jules nodded and I turned to face the boarded up door leading out of the game shop. My finger tapped the collar - the motion already becoming second nature. Then, I started out into the mall once more. The thick stench of death still hung in the air ... but my nose, by this point, had started to filter it out, in the same way my mind filtered out the need to tap the button again. And again. And again. But it gave me a wonderful sense of time as I padded to the suicide pool.

It took me two minutes - two pushes.

And when I arrived, my eyes saw something, something that looked off. But what was it?

It clicked.

Five corpses were missing. They had been slotted there, there, there. The absences were as clear as a missing tooth in a smile. I started to wrack my brain, trying to remember which corpses they had been as I looked around - checking the entrances to the open part of the mall, checking the floor. The shoes were gone too. They had quietly gotten up and put their fucking shoes back on. Why did that make it ten thousand times worse?

“Lass?”

My heart exploded and I dropped dead of shock. Or, at least, that was how it felt. I almost fired my shotgun off into the ceiling and sagged against the wall, panting.

“L-Lucas!?” I asked. “What. The. Fuck. Where the fuck have you been?”

“Hacking into the computer systems of the most private part of the station, lassie,” he said, sounding annoyed. “You wanted the security footage, I’ve been getting at the security cameras. There’s some seriously mean stuff on the computers here. Things that would fry out my hardware. The last thing I want is to be trapped in a metal box without a computer...”

I frowned. “You could have warned...” I sighed. “Do you have it?”

“Aye, I have it. And it’s not nice shite to wat-”

“Who grabbed the corpses from here,” I said. “The suicide pool.” I added, in case he wasn’t watching me directly.

There was a longish pause.

“It was Maria, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Nay,” he said, quietly. “Though she has arrived. Bet you wish you had kakked her now. Now, something, it wasn’t in any of the cameras, it came by and the corpses just stood up and headed for the adult section.”

I frowned. Great.

The adult section of the mall was colored darker, richer hues than the rest of it. There was also a set of double doors that had been designed to keep children out via a combination of foreboding designs and a pair of gates that were swung shut against smaller individuals, but opened automatically when someone tall walked up to them. That automaticness of them was likely why they hadn’t been torn to pieces by monsters at any point - and as they swung open, I saw that I was actually following a trail, of sorts.

Because someone had left behind a shirt. The icon on the shirt danced and cavorted before me, and I could almost hear the jingle that was supposed to go with it. Fruity oaty bars my aching ass. I scowled down at it, then muttered under my breath. How was it that being in cryogenic storage had wiped out all knowledge of my name, my past, everything about me, but I could still remember a fucking jingle for snack food?

“Lucas, you ever think that we gave corporations too much autonomy?”

“No,” he said, his voice so dry that it was hard to tell if he had the worlds best poker face or was utterly oblivious. “Why do you ask?”

A skittering sound jerked my head up. I saw the shiny, smooth dome of a Brood, peeking around the corner at the far end of the alleyway leading towards the adult section of the mall. My heart stopped for a moment and I knew exactly which corpses had been taken, and why. Women. Women that could birth the Brood, dead or alive. The Brood jerked back just before I snapped my shotgun up. I tapped my collar by jerking my shoulder up against the button, hurrying forward.

The main lobby of the adult section made it quite clear why this was adult. I saw two TempleSoft robobrothels on the first level alone. I could hear the faint sound of whirring and gasps of pleasure coming from the one on the left, the male voice husky and deep and slightly artifical. The Brood, though? No sign. The upper levels sold what seemed to be porn, but there was also an upscale restaurant place called The Safari, which had a robotic fusion of a human and a lion, sculpted to look utterly gorgeous. The marquee proclaimed: DISNEY NIGHT.

My brow furrowed. “Disney ... where have I heard that?”

“Dead corp, their IP is up for grabs,” Lucas said. “Half the cameras here are smashed. The other half are linked right to the TempleSoft blackbox folder for future blackmail in case an employee selfterms.”

“Whazawhat?” I asked, stepping slowly forward towards the robobrothel that had noise coming from it, shotgun aimed right at the door.

“Quits,” Lucas clarified.

The door hissed open and I saw that the main lobby of the robobrothel was tastelessness personified. Breasts and cocks were on display in gaudy, flashy terminals that were designed to draw the eye with quiet, purring voices that spoke up the instant the computers detected anyone looking at them. My eyes settled on what looked like a near perfect replica of Jules’ cock and a voice purred in my ear via some trick of speakers and shaped rooms: “Take Lance for a ride you won’t forget - fully programmed for three eras. Indulge yourself on a slave’s member in the 18th century, or maybe swing with a brotha from the 1970s...”

I jerked my eyes away. “Gah!” I made a face.

“Hey!” Lucas sounded aggrieved.

I heard that male voice again. “Oh baby...”

Then, next to it, a hiss. I recognized that hiss. It was a member of the Brood. I stepped up to the corridor leading deeper into the roborbothel. A pair of men who looked like they had been pinned to the floor, their thighs spread, their anuses still dripping with pale white liquid, their dead eyes filled with bliss, spread out between me and the only door that was open and had light coming from it. A shadow cast by that light showed a woman’s form, her breasts bouncing, her moans soft and restrained and ... somehow desperate.

I hurried forward, stepping over the corpses, biting my lip hard enough that I almost bled.

The room inside was the end of something horrifying - and yet I couldn’t look away as I peeked around the corner. The woman was clearly held there by the telepath. I recognized the tightness of her muscles, the expression of confusion and eagerness alike on her face. She was poised over ‘Lance’, his massive black body writhing underneath her, his cock plunging into her again and again. His eyes were closed and ... I had to admit ... ah ... it was a very ... detailed and accurate robot. His cock plunged into the woman’s sex, spreading the pussy lips wide. Seed dripped around the member and from the way she trembled and whimpered, I knew she had to be there for a while...

But standing to either side of her were the Brood. One of them was the type I had seen before - sleek and segmented and hideously beautiful. The other was subtly different. Smoother. Longer head. And rather than a member like the first one, a tentacle emerged from between almost vaginal lips between its chitinous hips. That tentacle spread outwards at the tip, fanning out into an almost conical shape as it caressed the woman’s face. Her lips were skinned back in a rictus grin and her eyes were filled with terror and pleasure alike.

I gaped - unable to move, my body locked into place. The only movement I made was the automatic gesture - tapping my collar.

The tentacle pressed to her face. It sealed around her nose, her mouth, her jaw. Filaments spread outwards from the contact points, working into her skin, forming a growing spread of grey veins underneath her skin, growing towards her eyes, which rolled backwards into her head. Her back arched and I saw her muscles growing slack. The telepath had loosed its control over her. Her throat bulged and gulped, gulped, gulped. The ... the Brood was feeding her something.

As I watched, her skin tuned the same sleet gray as Maria had. Her breasts firmed and grew larger as her fingers pressed to ‘Lance’, then molded into him. The robot continued to fuck her, his hips moving less and less like a human’s would. Her skin and his robotic facsimile started to merge, flowing together and mixing like chocolate ice cream mixed with vanilla. Her fingers vanished into his pecks as if he was a puddle of mud, her arms rooting into place as she started to writhe happily, her eyes closing. Her mouth was covered by the tentacle, but...

But she sounded joyous.

Her hair grew longer and braided together, sliding along her back into dreadlocks made of metal and glowing blue lines. Her skin grew segments along the shoulders and elbows and she rolled her shoulders as ports on her back opened and Lance ... rattled. Pieces inside of him shifted, and then started to come out of her shoulders. A pair of mechanical manipulators, long and spindly and spider like stretched free, making her croon happily as Lance’s arms twisted, clicked and pushed against the ground. He thrust upwards and ... and...

There was no woman.

No robot.

There was just one thing. A centaur creature, with the black android forming the legs, his hands and feet pressing to the ground as if he was a contorted spider. His cock merged with her sex, and started to slide up and down like a piston, her thighs and his merging together so smoothly that I couldn’t tell one from the other, their skin tone matching - not quite as dark as Lance, not quite as pale as she had been. Her breasts were left exposed, hanging as she was hunched over him ever so slightly, her human arms merged with his chest. HIs head rolled backwards and a massive, black tentacle-tongue thrust from between his jaws.

From her posture ... and from the way that his arms and legs twitched, that tentacle was their new cock.

The Brood who had brought this transformation about slipped the tentacle away from the woman’s face, leaving her with a beautific smile, white dripping from her grey lips. From the shadows, Maria emerged. She caressed the new hybrid’s face, her voice a quiet croon.

“How do you like it?”

The hybrid flexed all four of her legs - what had once been elbow joints twisted with quiet creaks. She giggled, her voice high and cheery.

“I understand now,” she whispered. “I love it. Thank you. Why did I struggle, again?”

“We were all fools,” Maria said, caressing her chin. “Welcome to the rest of eternity, sister.”

Then, gingerly, like a woman kissing her lover for the first time in centuries, Maria leaned forward and locked lips with the new hybrid. I watched, my stomach roiling, my cunt soaked, my nipples hard enough to cut glass, and a sick, wanting need. I wanted to be that complete. But ... it was...

My collar went off. Electrical current surged through my body and the confused desire that I had been feeling buzzed away from my brain, clearing out the musk and leaving me with only fury. I slapped my palm against my collar and snarled as I stepped around the corner, leveling my shotgun at Maria and her new convert. The new convert hissed, drawing backwards - her tentacle-cock withdrawing into her second head, which glared at me. Upside down. From between her ... thighs ... what would be her thighs if they weren’t some robot’s arms.

“Hello again, Beatrice,” Maria said.

My brow furrowed. “How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot of things,” Maria said, grinning. “Hows David doing?”

“Who the fuck are you talking about?” I asked – the name crawling through the back of my mind. It meant something. I knew a David. The two Brood hissed. The ‘normal’ Brood had longer claws, so I decided to call him a Warrior Brood. The one who had transformed the woman from human being to fucking monstrosity ... well ... I figured if they could do that the only good name would be a Worker Brood. His claws did seem to be smaller.

“Lucas knows,” Maria purred. “Though, I have a question for you...”

I resisted the urge to cock the shotgun. I had already cocked it.

“How many bullets does your pistol have?” Maria asked, her tongue elongating as she licked her lips - sliding down to lick each of her hard nipples, leaving them glistening.

I smirked, slightly. “Enough.”

The Warrior Brood leaped at me. I shot it in the head. The head painted the wall with bits of brain and blood and the Worker Brood hopped onto his creation’s back, like she was a horse. The hybrid snarled at me, then drove forward. Her body smashed into the wall separating this brothel room from another and the wall exploded inwards, metal screeching, sparks spraying from the torn and ripped cabling that had once provided power between the rooms. The next room over had five corpses, each one of them laid in a circle.

Each one had fucked the other to death. Literally. Five men, each with their cock in another man’s eye, their bodies forming a perfect circle - disturbed only by the hybrid running away from me. The Worker on the back looked back at me. But before I could draw a bead, Maria leaped onto me. Her hand closed around my throat, touching my collar. Her finger pressed the button curiously. I had once spared her.

But that was while she had been asleep. Knocked out cold. Helpless.

There was trying to stay human.

Then there was being a fucking idiot.

The shotgun pressed to her belly and I growled. “Bye Maria,” I hissed.

THe shotgun blast took her and threw her against the wall, her hand releasing my neck. I hit the ground and gasped as Maria started to push herself to her feet, blood dribbling from a dozen puncture wounds in her belly. She shirked.

“Nooo!” She clutched at her belly. “My baby!”

“Eh,” I said, leveling the shotgun as I aimed it at her head. “Take it up with the telapth.”

I pulled the trigger and blew Maria’s head off.

I staggered back against the wall, panting heavily. Her corpse sprawled on the ground and I felt a curious mixture of detached relief and ... deep sorrow.

“Fuck,” I hissed. “I wanted to save her.”

My eyes blurred.

“There t’aint much left to save,” Lucas said.

Tick tick tick.

I frowned. Over the sparking, over the distant clatter of the hybrid. Over my own pounding heart and aching soul. I could hear that tick tick tick. That sound of the telepath drawing closer. I tapped my collar and started towards the hole. I paused, for a moment, Maria’s words buzzing in my brain. My hand went to my backpack ... and I shook my head. Not the time.

Then I felt it. The control slid into my body like a wave of ice. My muscles locked and my eyes went unfocused as the telepath made me drop the shotgun to the ground. It clattered and clunked and my legs moved mechanically. I started counting the seconds in my head as I walked out and into the opening. The Worker Breed and the hybrid it had created were standing in the open plaza. The ticking sound that I heard came from above me. I didn’t try to fight - and so felt light as a breeze as I was puppeteered towards the two.