Chapter 7: Setting the Board

John Collins, a popular, young (compared to his predecessors), and robust president, had lost much of his vitality after six years of service. The reconstruction movement was fifty years old, yet the country was still so fragile. The public had no clue how easy it would be for things to fall apart and return to the chaos following the war. But it was this situation in Maine, specifically, Augusta, that truly haunted him, graying his hair day by day. He and several members of his cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were gathered in the Situation Room of the White House. They were sitting at a long table, exchanging files and information. On the wall facing the president were several monitors, each linked to a helmet-mounted camera. They showed military vehicles, the faces of worried soldiers, and passing scenery

“This is our most recent satellite images taken from the site,” the Secretary of Defense said, sliding a file across the table to President Collins.

Collins opened the file and examined the pictures, but immediately shut them. The satellite had taken pictures of the city during perfect weather, yet all the images came back as a giant blur, and in that blur was a huge face, demonic and staring back at the satellite like it was sending a message. The president turned away, afraid to look into its eyes. Photos from high-altitude aircraft had been equally useless.

“What could cause something like this? Some kind of hologram?”

“As far as we know, no such technology exists to produce something like that,” said the Director of the CIA, sweating through his suit.

It had all started several days ago, all contact from Augusta was simply cut off. As a state capital, that was a serious problem. No matter what phone was called, no one would answer, most were even disconnected. Then there were reports of missing people from the surrounding towns, families reporting that members had left to travel to or through Augusta and never returned. It was like a black hole had swallowed up the city. Teams from the NPEB, FBI, and CDC hadn’t been able to identify the cause of the mass disappearances in the northern towns, but when they passed through Augusta on their way back, nothing was amiss.

With the arrival of this news, military drones were dispatched to scout the area, but they were all taken out before they could get any decent pictures of the city. There were a few images that were transferred, taken right as the drones were attacked. All they saw were shadows and wings. This was different from the northern towns. Now a small National Guard contingent was being sent to get a closer look. The convoy consisted of three Humvees with machinegun turrets, and two Stryker combat vehicles, each with roof-mounted grenade launchers. They were copies of the original vehicles from before the war.

“Mr. President, we’re nearing the endpoint.” The voice belonged to Sergeant Barns, leading the convoy. The endpoint he referred to was the distance from Augusta where every drone had been demolished.

“Slow down and give us a full view,” said Collins.

The trucks slowed and all the soldiers manning the turrets panned around with their cameras, showing the scenery. They were on a highway leading into Augusta, but it was completely empty. For the sergeant, it was an eerily familiar sight. Having led the protective details of the investigations of the northern towns, every road they seemed to drive on was silent. He hoped this would end the exact same way as those investigations, without answers but all his men getting home alive.

“Pull to a stop and launch a drone. Let’s see if anything will take the bait,” said General Mathis, the Chief of the National Guard.

The convoy came to a halt with everyone on edge. A hatch opened up on one of the Strykers and a soldier stood up with a FULMAR drone in his hands. To a layman, it might just look like an expensive toy plane. With the propeller spinning, he gave it a toss and it took the air. Inside the Stryker, another soldier was controlling it with the feed going to monitors both in the vehicle and the Situation Room. Everyone watched with their stomachs in knots, wondering what was going to happen.

Erupting from the forest of trees alongside the highway, one of Dominion’s hulks leaped into the air and snatched the drone.

“Holy shit!”

“What the fuck is that?!”

Those who weren’t shocked into silence were screaming those questions, no matter where they sat. Landing on the ground, the beast turned to the convoy and released a furious roar.

“Sergeant Barns, open fire! I want that thing dead!” Collins yelled.

The soldiers manning the machinegun turrets, as well as the two men controlling the grenade launchers on the Strykers, unleashed everything they had. The .50 caliber bullets pocked the monster’s hide, managing to crack the bone but unable to pierce it. As for the grenades, they simply splashed against it like water balloons, and in terms of damage, they might as well have been.

The beast gave a roar of annoyance and charged, completely ignoring the attacks and shattering the pavement with its dismount. It attacked the first Stryker and sent its first drilling through the engine, then grabbed the grenade launcher on the roof and crushed it, leaving the soldier manning it screaming like a little girl. It then shot behind the Stryker and attacked the Humvee behind it, destroying both the engine and the machine gun on top.

“Fall back! Stay out of its range and keep firing!” Mathis yelled.

Yet before the drivers could even shift gears, their vehicles were crippled. Dominion’s hounds had snuck up from behind and punched through the tires with their giant pincers. They were too close to be taken out by the turrets, but those manning them were drawn to different targets. More of the hulks were approaching, but these ones were flying, with wings several times their own size. They each landed with enough force to open up craters in the pavement and surrounded the convoy. The soldiers had considered getting out and engaging the enemy, but there was no way their M16s would do any damage.

The hulks gathered, one for each vehicle. With loud grunts, they dug their clawed hands into the steel and took flight, using a combination of wing strength and telekinesis to carry the Humvees and Strykers. Everyone in the Situation Room felt their stomachs drop as they watched the soldiers screaming in terror as they were lifted into the air. They had sent the men to their doom, and all they could do was watch. Wait, they could watch! This might be their one and only chance to gather information as to what was happening in the city, maybe identify what these monsters were!

The soldiers were completely hysterical, being tossed around the cabins of their vehicles with every movement. If they had been captured by humans, they could maintain their composure. If it were helicopters carrying their vehicles, they could have handled that, but through the windows, they could see the goliaths, violence incarnate. They had witnessed it, the bullets barely breaking the first one’s skin, the grenades being shrugged off. Nothing they had in their artillery could defeat these things, nothing in the world could protect them. It was terrifying, because they hadn’t just been knocked a couple places down the food chain, the difference between them was so great that their enemy didn’t seem bound by human rules, by human reasoning.

The president and his subordinates tried to calm the soldiers, managing to at least keep their cameras panned outside the windows. They flew over Augusta, letting everyone get a glimpse as to what was happening. They saw the buildings being emptied and remodeled, fused together with skybridges connecting them. There were people, they could tell that much, meaning that these monsters hadn’t wiped out the population. Then, the hulks began to descend, and the soldiers looked to the river, seeing the concentration camp in all of its horror.

The beasts dropped the vehicles into the main entryway where new prisoners were brought in, facing the processing building. The height of the fall wasn’t enough to break bone, but the soldiers groaned in pain, several suffering sprains and minor concussions. The doors were then ripped off their hinges and the hulks stepped back.

“Get out,” one of them growled. It shocked them to learn that it could speak, and its voice was inhumanly deep.

The soldiers slowly climbed out of their vehicles while clutching their rifles, though they looked more like children holding onto stuffed animals. There were people in the yard, human collaborators directing the workers, and the workers directing the laborers. Their uniforms and the fact that the Laborers were in chain gangs told everyone that the people had been enslaved. Most of the soldiers kept their gaze focused on the man staring him down, dressed in a black SS officer uniform, but without any swastikas. He appeared to be wearing some kind of horrific mask, making it look like his face had been sliced off, and he was flanked on either side by sentinels.

“Who among you is in charge?” Blight asked.

The men looked like they were going to throw up. They saw it, the quivering remains of his facial muscles when he spoke. That wasn’t a mask, he really was missing the entire front of his skull. The fact that he was still alive meant he wasn’t a normal human.

The leader of the group stepped forward. “I-I am Sergeant Lewis Barns of the National Guard of the United States of America. Are you—”

A crack of gunfire cut him off, Blight drawing his luger and shooting the camera off Barn’s helmet. Instinct took over, all the soldiers raised their weapons to counter, but the beasts around them were faster, snatching the rifles out of their hands and then knocking the men to their knees.

“I asked for your name. I didn’t give you permission to ask a question in turn, but to indulge your curiosity, I am Blight, loyal servant of Lord Dominion. I have already alerted him as to the situation and he has decided he will deal with you later. Until such a time, you are to go through processing. Strip off your clothes and remove all weapons and items on your person. You have five seconds to comply. Five...”

All the hulks took a step towards them, a threat that they’d either have their clothes forcefully removed, or that they’d simply be killed.

“Sir,” one of the soldiers murmured, hoping Barns would tell them not to obey, a sign that he had a trick up his sleeve.

“Do it,” the sergeant hissed.

The men reluctantly took off their clothes and piled them up, then stood naked before both the enemy and their enslaved countrymen. The fact that they had been stripped of all weapons, and even the protection of some fabric was hard enough on their self-esteem, but the effect of the frigid January air on their privates was humiliating in a league all of its own.

“You will now be processed. Any resistance will be severely punished.” Blight then turned around and walked off to return to his other duties, while the sentinels advanced on the soldiers and herded them inside. There, they were shaved, deloused, hosed down, branded, and put in solitary confinement until their fates were decided. For those in the Situation Room, the last thing they saw after the soldier’s disappearance was one of the sentinels gathering their possessions and putting it into storage.

The room was silent, no one knowing what to say. Not only had a whole city been taken hostage by inhuman beasts, but now a National Guard contingent had been captured. What were those monsters? Where did they come from? What was happening to the people of Augusta? And most important, who was this Dominion that that faceless ghoul mentioned?

‘Don’t look at me, fucking chink skanks!’

Mary wanted to scream it, but couldn’t, due to the ball gag in her mouth. It was natural to lash out, considering her situation, natural to want to put herself above someone else to alleviate some of her despair, and with Cho and Hijiri staring at her, her prejudices made it easy. The three women were in the basement, the twins tied to chairs and facing Mary, who was hanging by her shackled wrists from the ceiling. Her legs were forcibly spread by a steel bar with ankle restraints. They were all gagged, and while Hijiri was already crying in anticipation of the horror to come, Cho tried to put on a brave face, to appear sympathetic. They’d most likely all suffer Dominion’s abuse, but the fact that Mary had been separated and put on display like this meant she would receive the worst of it. They had been left like this for several minutes, nothing they could do but stare at each other.

“Cho, you naughty girl!” Dominion said with a laugh as he kicked open the basement door.

The three women started to whimper and tremble in fear. Mary doubled her attempts to free herself, while Hijiri pulled against her binds. Dominion came down the stairs with a plastic bin in his hand.

“I found these in your room. Good thing too, because otherwise, I’d have to make them with my powers, and unfortunately, I’m still not great at conjuring mechanical devices.” In the bin were a number of sex toys, most of them for her own personal use, others being props for her to humiliate her boy toys. He picked one up, a large black butt plug. “Something tells me this wasn’t used on you or any other women.” He tossed it aside in disgust and then incinerated it for good measure. “It occurred to me last night that I might have gone a little too fast with the three of you. I was so focused on breaking your spirits, on enslaving you, on getting my own physical enjoyment out of the game, that I skipped right past the fundamentals. It is to my great shame that I realize I spend all my energy on the main event, that I fail in my manly duties of providing you pleasure with the small tricks.

And you know me, I’m happy when you’re happy.” He put the bin down in between the three women and then began massaging one of Mary’s melon breasts. “Look at these juicy treats. All I do is whip and strangle them. I need to learn to go easy, to take things slow. After all, I have all of eternity to know your flesh. So, why don’t I put on a little demonstration? I’ll perform my magic with you as my lovely assistant, while your fellow slaves can bask in their envy as their inner thighs glisten with womanly honey.”

He then moved behind Mary, his steps so light that it was like he was floating. She screamed through her gag as he slipped into her blind spot, and swung her legs to try and strike him with the bar spreading her legs, but there was nothing she could do to stop him. She blew on the back of her ear, sending shivers up her spine. He saw them, the muscles in her back contracting and expanding, the goosebumps appearing on her skin. His breath shifted her hair, every follicle feeling like spiders crawling up her neck. Then he touched her. It was light, him resting his fingertips on the front of her thighs so that Cho and Hijiri could see.

He then moved his hands up, dragging his fingers across her smooth skin so lightly, it felt no different than his breath on her ear. He moved them up her sides, the only pressure coming when he found her kidneys. It was just a slight pressure, a tickle, but that was the point. Ticklish spots were evolution’s way of teaching life forms to guard vital areas, like the neck and the stomach, soft areas with major arteries and organs that lacked solid protection like the ribcage. When he pressed on her kidneys, it sent alarms through her body, she was vulnerable. Her instincts were telling her that she was in danger, that if he wanted to, Dominion could rip her open. That feeling of helplessness rushed through her like a flood, a feeling she was used to.

She experienced it every time he raped her, every time he took her and used her. There was nothing she could do, her body had become his property, that lesson was burned into her soul every time, but never before had it felt like this. That tickle, it chilled her like peppermint, making his hands feel so warm in comparison. The desire to laugh when touched in such a way, it was stirred in with her despair, becoming something that she couldn’t describe, couldn’t. Even when he made her orgasm, she didn’t feel like this.

His hands moved beyond, counting each rib, completely bypassing her breasts to reach her neck. He caressed her soft throat, his fingertips running along her veins to feel her pulse. It disgusted her, to feel him touch her there. As he touched her veins, she almost expected him to inject something into her, some kind of venom or drug that would enhance her suffering or poison her soul, something that would find whatever she might still hold dear or take for granted and tarnish it. It never came, and she wallowed in fear and anticipation as his fingertips tickled her under her chin.

Then, they receded like the tide. They moved down, this time between her breasts, purposefully avoiding them. He used his nails to trace her sternum, then they reached her belly, flat from her former lifestyle at Reich. His fingers continued, briefly moving down her thighs, then returned to her belly. He moved back and forth, as if raking a zen garden, but gentle, each time sending that cold charge through her nerves.

Then he cupped her stomach, pressing down like he was searching for something, something specific, a special mass. It twisted her insides into knots, the realization of what he was aiming for. She and her husband use to rub her stomach like that when she was pregnant. It all came flashing back, the memories she tried to keep locked up, her children’s smiling faces. Oh, how badly she wanted to see them again, but they were gone, HE had taken them from her. Tears slid down her cheeks, tears of despair and hatred. She hated him so much, hated him for what he did to her, and what he was doing to her now. This was just another one of his games, another way to torment her. He was drawing out those memories and emotions so that she could suffer.

Then, those memories were swept aside, her attention focused on Dominion’s wandering touch. His hands were moving north again, finding her firm breasts. At first, he simply skated across them with his fingertips, teasing and tickling the sensitive nerves. To Mary, that light touch was enough to remove all other thoughts and replace them with a cruel reminder of her situation.

That’s right, she was his sex toy, that’s what she had been reduced to. The fact that he could touch her like this without any consequences, without any consent, it was like branding her all over again. Her breasts, these strange quasi-genitalia that dominated human sexuality, it was like they had become her identity, for her existence now was nothing more than sex. She was no longer a wife or mother. Her beliefs were meaningless. Money, desire, feelings, they had all been taken away. She wasn’t even being used as breeding stock like the women at the prison, she lived simply to be Dominion’s plaything. She wanted to die, but he wouldn’t let her. He cursed her with existence because he needed a masturbatory aid.

Then, his touching became a little rougher, his light caresses replaced with a thorough massage. He gripped her breasts, rubbing deep into the tissue, moving in circles as if trying to wiggle them free of her chest. Her body convulsed from the sensation, the sensation she hated more than anything: pleasure. No matter how cruel Dominion was, how much he tortured her, he never failed to bring her to climax. She’d resist him with all of her might, but her body would always betray her, always give in to his strength. To orgasm from his abuse, to be delivered to ecstasy by the man who had ruined her life, it was agony. Her mind flushed with pain while her body flushed with euphoria, a contradicting double helix that she felt shake her to her very core. Each climax threatened to erase a little more of her sense of self, her lewd nectar washing away her identity like crashing waves wearing down stone.

His skill was impeccable, the way he massaged her mammary glands, the way he teased her nipples, the way he rubbed deep into the tissue, it was like nothing she had ever felt before, not with her husband, and especially not since being enslaved. From the day Dominion had taken her, the absolute fact of life was that no pleasure came without pain. Every time he made her cum, the bliss would be countered with the bruising and tearing of her flesh, the pulling of her hair, bite marks made in her skin. Her arms hurt from being suspended, and her ankles weren’t very comfortable shackled to the bar, but it was like she was only aware of those issues. The euphoria in her breasts kept her from actually feeling them, leaving nothing but bliss.

She came, just as she had time and time again, she came in response to her master’s touch, as if his fingers were the keys to her body. It slipped free without her realizing, a moan, escaping the gag in her mouth and heard by Cho and Hijiri. She was stunned, feeling something completely foreign to her. As her nectar flowed, so too did her vitality. In the throes of ecstasy, she felt youth was returning to her, like her body was being rejuvenated. Years of her life were rewound, her skin tightening, her body forgetting the trials and strains of motherhood. For those brief few moments, she felt like she was nineteen again. Then, it faded, the euphoria that had blinded her like a light to her mind’s eye dimming. She returned to her old self, remembering where she was.

Then it struck her, the humiliation she felt from being brought to climax by this man, the anger she felt from the memories of what he had done to her, and now, fear. She had feared him from the day she met him, but that was always his bloodlust and powers of destruction. Now it was his ability to invoke pleasure, not pain, that she feared. She had never had an orgasm like that, not by her own or her husband’s hand, and certainly not with just a message of her breasts. For a handful of seconds, she forgot everything, forgot her hatred, her despair, who she even was. No matter how much she despised him, how much her soul ached for the deaths of her children, her body didn’t seem to care, it only wanted him to keep touching her.

If this continued, her body might become addicted to this pleasure. No matter how intense her feelings, she’d crave his brutality like a drug. Her desires might wear away her emotions, erase the past, and fully enslave her to him, for her existence to be that of a filthy whore in both body and soul. She feared this possibility, feared it so much that it made her sick, feared the cruelty of fate, that this monster, along with having the power to ruin her life and torture her, could so easily poison her soul with such evil pleasure. Ecstasy and agony, was there even a difference between them anymore?

Dominion then reached into the bin from Cho’s room and took out two small peanut vibrators. He taped them to Mary’s nipples and turned them to their highest setting. Her breasts, so sensitive after climax, made her moan in euphoria as they were further stimulated.

As the toys drove her wild, he moved his hands south. No! Not there! Time and time again, he had violated her pink lotus, defiling it with his seed and his stench, and made her orgasm, but now, more than anything, she wanted him to stop, to not discover how wet he had made her, how her body awaited her caresses. His fingers found her labia, shaved smooth, and stirred circles in her honey like a brush mixing paint. He was so gentle, it put her on edge. Where was the pain? The brutal violation that would continue until she bled and even after? She couldn’t let him continue, she couldn’t trust her body around him, now so entranced that it almost desired the pain if it meant the continuation of the pleasure.

His fingers entered her, like an octopus slipping into its den. She began to pant, nauseous from the sensation of being penetrated, of feeling his flesh inside her body. He probed her interior, massaging her insides just as he had done to her breasts. The gentleness made her nerves crackle, like cold water poured on a burn. He explored every spot, searching for areas he had missed so that he might colonize them with his touch. His fingerprints on her insides were like flags planted atop mountains.

She whimpered as he managed to fit his whole hand inside her, now so loose from arousal that it accepted him greedily. She could feel it, the manipulation of his body, she had seen him do it before. His fingers were transforming, becoming longer and more flexible, so that they might go further beyond. He deep inside her did he plan on going? He had already turned her body into a toy, would he now turn it into a garment for him to wear like a fancy ring? Would his hand come out of her mouth, turning her, a human being, into a sleeve of meat on his arm? Maybe that would be his new power trip, to wear a suit made of living women.

His other hand drifted down her back, and despite knowing his plan, she still shuddered as she felt him slip it, one finger at a time, into her anus. She had lost track of how many times he had sodomized her, but she still felt so tight, wincing as he worked more fingers in, and soon, his whole fist. He stirred his fingers around inside her, and she could feel them, Dominion pressing his hands together inside her, divided by her flesh like the wall between two prisoners. That alien sensation, not just of being double-fisted, but of his hands squeezing her inside, it made her sick. To think that he had warped and abused her body to such an extent that he could do this to her.

He kept going until she finally climaxed, drenching his right hand in her juices. He pulled them both free and stepped around in front of her. Mary was exhausted, mentally and physically. “I think we’ll call it a day. I’ve taught you pleasure, so later, I’ll teach you pain.” Dominion turned to Cho and Hijiri and removed their gags with a twitch of his eye. He held his hands up to their mouths and they obediently licked them clean, every last droplet of Mary’s lewd flavor. He then started sliding his fingers between their legs, gauging the level of their arousal, making them both look away in shame.

“My, my, look at how wet you both are. It seems you enjoyed this little show. Did your bodies desire your master’s touch that badly? After all that, I’ve come to a decision. Since you pets have been so well-behaved, I’m going to grant you free use the house. You can leave your rooms whenever you want and go anywhere inside, as long as you follow all the rules. I’ll even lift the ban on talking.” A flick of his wrist removed all their binds, dropping Mary to the floor. “Be good,” he said before walking into a nearby shadow and disappearing into thin air.

Cho, her inner thighs wet with arousal, got off her chair and crouched down to help Mary. “Are you ok?” she asked, something she never would have asked anyone before all this happened.

Mary smacked her hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.” Clutching herself, she got to her feet and rushed out of the basement.

Cho then turned to Hijiri and embraced her. She had spent so long wishing to talk to her, to comfort her, but now, neither twin knew what to say to the other.

Snow was falling at a persistent rate, comparable to a blizzard, but without the harsh wind. Rather, it was more like a downpour, hindering all vision. It was perfect conditions for a sneak attack. The target was the powerlines leading from Harris Dam, north of Augusta. It was almost a hundred miles of line between them, but they were not unguarded. Perched atop the massive steel towers alongside eagle nests, Dominion’s hounds scanned the landscape 24/7.

Between the four pincers on their head, their melon-sized eyes could see in most light spectrums, while along their necks, gills swept the air in search for any scents that didn’t belong, and eardrums on their shoulders, resembling giant cysts, analyzed every sound. Their pale, hairless bodies didn’t shiver in the cold, they didn’t even register it. They were built to thrive in the harshest environments, even the vacuum of space.

The dam itself was guarded by spawn of all varieties, so going for the power lines was the only reasonable bet. Two F-15s shot across the sky, cutting through the storm effortlessly. These jets were built with air superiority in mind, so a little snow couldn’t stop them, and this was the best cover they would ever have. They closed in on the powerlines, and with confirmation granted, both pilots launched their missiles at one of the towers.

The hound manning it heard them immediately and swiveled its head in the direction of the incoming projectiles. Its four pincers stretched out like an opening hand and the air around the tower shimmered. A telekinetic wave, it intercepted the missiles and took control of their trajectory and their targeting computers. Their fins bent and shifted and they flew past the powerlines without hitting anything, then turned around and rocketed back on new paths. Baffled by what they had seen, one of the pilots, still approaching the powerlines, didn’t react in time and he was knocked out of the air by his own missile, sending his jet falling into the river as a ball of fire and twisted steel.

The second pilot managed to swerve out of the way and dodge the other flying bombs, but drifted too close to the powerlines. Using a mix of telekinesis and muscle strength, the hound lunged into the air at the jet and buried its pincers into one of its wings. Thrown off balance and with smoke billowing from the damaged area, the jet spun out of control, with the pilot having just enough time to eject. Cast out into the storm with nothing but his seat and a parachute, he was utterly helpless. His descent was stopped, and he looked up in horror to see one of the flying hulks had caught him. Dominion had another prisoner.