(Note: I had to change the mechanics of Matt and Max’s deal at the end of chapter 6, so I included the revised section here.)
Max came back in, carrying a tray laden with a collection of metal rings and studs. He started with Matt’s face, giving him small gauges in his ears, a bar in one of his eyebrows and a thick horseshoe through his septum, and then worked his way down, putting two rings in his thick nipples, and then found himself up against the jock. “Do me a favor,” Max said, “think about your cub for me, think about how much you want to fuck him.”
“”Ha, that’s a easy one,” Matt said, “Terry’s got such a fine fuckin’ ass, I could just plow that thing all day long, I tell ya what, fuck–gettin’ me horny just thinkin’ ‘bout it…” he said, and felt his cock start to swell against the chainmail pouch of the jock, the metal links pulling apart and stretching as his cock hardened, until it actually popped out between the links, the thick meat rigid and leaking a little precum, and with one smooth motion, Max slid a massive PA though the head of his cock, before it slipped back into the pouch. “Alright man, we finished here yet?”
“Almost,” Max said, “Just one last thing. Do you still remember? Do you still know who you were?”
Matt was a bit taken aback by the question. He’d been hoping he could just pretend it wasn’t real, but if this guy was actually asking about it…then how could it not be real? “Yeah…it’s…it’s kind of fuzzy, but I remember most of it.”
“Good, because I want to make you a deal,” Max said, “I need to find someone, and I have a feeling you might be just the man for the job.”
Matt just stared him down. “Why in the world would I do anything for you?”
“Well, I was hoping you would do it because you’re a nice guy. How about you at least hear me out? After all, giving you this sexy new look was a pretty big favor–I think you might owe me back at least a little.”
There was probably a catch. Everything in Matt was telling him to turn and run, but what harm was there in hearing him out? “I suppose so. What do you need?”
“I need you to help me find someone. A professor at the college, a man named Erikson. I think…I just need to find him. I don’t want to say why.”
“Why can’t you find him yourself?”
“I..well, there are, shall we say, some obstacles for me that I can’t surmount, eh? Still, it shouldn’t be too hard for you to find him, and bring him here.”
Erikson. There was no way Matt was ever going to put himself in the same room as him, no fucking way at all. “Look, I can’t do that–no way, no how. He’s the guy in charge of hunting me down, and you want me to find him? Besides, he’s gone missing–no one knows where he is. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go,” Matt said, and left the changing room, but as soon as he tried to pass the threshold and into the mall, Max called out to him. “You know, you can’t leave yet. You haven’t paid for your purchase yet, and trust me, you don’t want to know what this store does to thieves.”
Matt looked over his shoulder at him, scowling a bit. “Great, and what do I owe you, exactly?”
Max grinned, “How about those pretty little memories of yours? In fact, how about all that bright, young intellect? I think that ought to settle us up nicely. After all, a bouncer like you, used to fighting in the streets–hell, he wouldn’t be very smart, now would he?” Matt said, and held up a crystal necklace. Before Matt could react, a beam of light shot out of the prism and struck Matt in the forehead, and he could feel the beam sucking his mind to pieces, pulling out all of his memories of his prior lives, leaving him with the life, and knowledge, of an old, battlewise bouncer named Matt. A bouncer who could barely write his name, let alone much else. A bouncer far more accustomed to solving his problems with his fists, than his head.
“What..No, I need those…” he said, his words coming to his tongue so slowly, wading through the muck of his head, “Don’t…don’t make me’s fight ya for ‘em,” Matt said, and put up his fists.
“Trust me daddy–you try and fight me? You’ll lose against an alpha every time. No, I have a better idea. I’ll give this to you on a short term loan. One week. You have that week to find Erikson for me. When that week’s up, then if you’ve fulfilled the bargain, the memories are yours to keep. If you fail…well, then they return to me, and the deals off. How does that sound?”
Matt didn’t really know what Max was talking about, but he knew he needed that crystal–even if he was having a hard time remembering why exactly–so he nodded and Max handed him the necklace, and when Matt put it back on, everything was back, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Remember though, the memories aren’t yours–they’re still in that necklace. Don’t take it off, or you might not even remember to put it back on again.”
“You’re an asshole,” Matt said, “Don’t think this is fucking over.”
“I wouldn’t dare. Now get going daddy–you have a cub to tend to, and a man to find for me.”
Matt scowled, and then tromped out onto the mall, just daring any man he passed by to give him a wrong look. He was aching for a fight now, after that little bit of humiliation. He pulled out another cigar and lit up, the nicotine rush calming his wrath a bit and letting him get out without incident, and he walked back to campus and his room with Terry. Terry would make him feel better, and then he’d work on finding Erikson–even though he had no idea where to start his search. However, when he got to the dorm, and down into the basement, he saw that something was definitely wrong. The door to his room was open, and two campus security guards were standing outside the door. Like all the other guards, they were nearly identical in physique, with high ‘n tight haircuts, mustaches and the same muscle hugging leather uniforms. “What’s going on here?” Matt asked as he came close, “Where’s Terry?”
The two men turned towards him, “Sir, is your name Matt?”
“What if it is?”
“Sir, a warrant has been issued for your detainment. Come with us peacefully, or we’re going to have to use force.”
“Ha, you and what army?” Matt asked.
The two officers pulled their batons, but Matt was quicker, slamming one’s head into the wall, knocking him out with a single blow, grabbing his baton as he fell and slamming it into the other’s kneecap so hard that he heard the snap of bone, the guard screaming as he crumped to the ground.
“Shut the fuck up,” Matt screamed in his face, silencing him, and then he dragged both of the officers into his room and shut the door, throwing the conscious one up onto the bed and hauling down his pants. “Now, I can’t fuck ya, but trust me, if I could, I would. So this baton is gonna have to be my dick for the moment. Now, you’re gonna tell me where my Terry is, or this thing is going so far up your ass it ain’t gonna see the light of day for a year,” Matt said, slamming the first few inches of the baton up the man’s hole for emphasis, “Now start talking, and this fuck won’t get too rough.”
In between begging for mercy and cries of pain, Matt was able to work out the details of what had happened. Someone had put in a tip that Terry was a member of the resistance, and they’d issued a warrant for Matt as well, given their romantic connection. He left both of the security guards tied up there when he was through with them, his cock achingly hard against the chainmail which refused to budge and open for his lust at the moment, and that just made him long for Terry more. Those fuckers at security had made a big mistake, Matt thought as he crossed campus. He’d been too late to save someone he cared about once before–too late to save James, but never again. He was never again going to lose someone he loved, and if that meant wading into the hornet’s nest, then so be it.
Chapter 7
Marcus sat in the control room of the security building, trying to understand the hidden threads running across campus. Could all of this be connected? The work of Jack? The work of the resistance? Something else? His security forces had uncovered something strange sweeping across campus over the past couple of days–there were a disturbing number of students walking around campus with a decided lack of hygiene than there had been before. This slob wave, as he had started calling it in his head, didn’t seem to have a particular cause–he’d searched for one–and considering his computer’s access to the network of cameras across campus, and it’s heavy processing power, he was having a hard time understanding why he didn’t know what was going on. He hated not knowing. Still, he’d figure it out soon enough–he’d finally gotten his hands on one of the members of the damn resistance, waiting for him in interrogation room two, and he’d issued an arrest warrant for Jack–meaning he’d be in soon enough with some answers of his own. Still, Marcus couldn’t wait–he needed to act now, before this whole slob wave grew into something he couldn’t contain.
“Computer, initiate program quarantine, direct security forces to detain and hold for examination and compliance training any individuals who appear to be affected with this slob wave.”
“Confirmed, analyzing and initializing program. Program execution beginning in approximately three hours.”
His computer was as meticulous a planner as Marcus was–taking time to analyze and determine the best way to execute Marcus orders before carrying them out. On the few occasions Marcus was in a light enough mood to joke, which wasn’t often, he often remarked that the computer could probably run the entire campus without him needing to lift a finger, but Marcus was nothing if not a micromanager. He could let the computer be for a little while though–he had a captive waiting for interrogation, and he’d see if he could tell him anything about what was going on here.
He made his way through the maze of hallways to the interrogation center, passing his security personnel as he went, all of them near identical clones of one another. Culled from the students who had found it difficult adjusting to the rules on campus, Marcus had employed a variety of mental and physical conditioning equipment developed under the direction of Professor Erikson to train them into exactly what they ought to be–good, law abiding campus citizens, and who better to enforce the rules than those he’d trained to follow them to the letter? As he passed, they all gave a curt salute, acknowledging his authority before continuing about their assigned tasks, given to them directly from the central computer through the microchip implanted in each of them. They would all respond to his orders as well, as well as anyone the computer recognized as holding sufficient authority–though no one held more than Marcus. Deep in the complex, which he called campus jail, there were countless pods holding various prisoners, all being conditioned in various ways. Some would emerge as new security personnel, some simply as newly compliant members of the campus community, and still others were being given experimental programs designed for any number of purposes. His personal slave from the master’s program was the warden–in charge of overseeing the prisoners and their conditioning.
Still, that was all in his captive’s future. First, he would need to give Marcus all of the information he had about what the resistance was plotting on campus, and then he would find himself in one of the cells, though Marcus wasn’t sure what he would do with him. Well, probably condition him to be a spy–reporting on the resistance from the inside, provided they weren’t an immediate threat that needed to be neutralized immediately. He found his way to interrogation room number two, where Terry sat at a table, battered and bruised from his encounter with Ken, the trustee who had been Marcus’ ‘anonymous’ informant. Apparently the young cub had started digging for information during their session, and Ken had caught on pretty quick that he was likely a member of the resistance, and Marcus was inclined to agree with that possibility. He entered the room and took a seat at the table across from Terry without saying a word.
“Alright Terry,” Marcus said, “I assume you know why you’re here?”
“Not really,” Terry said.
“Don’t play me for an idiot, you’ve been fingered as a member of the resistance. Do you deny that?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
Marcus smiled a bit, figuring that the cub would deny involvement. “Look, Terry, I want to be honest with you. I don’t mean you any harm–I’m just here to make sure that business on campus is conducted smoothly. I don’t want anyone to suffer, I just want everyone to be happy and safe, does that make sense? But the resistance group, well, if I don’t know what you are doing, then how can I be sure you’re happy and safe?”
“Oh go to hell.”
“Look, Matt already told us some things, I just need you to fill in some of the gaps.” From the look on the cub’s face, Marcus’ slight gambit had struck a cord. He hadn’t expected him to drop Matt’s name. True, Marcus didn’t have Terry’s boyfriend in the complex yet, but like Jack, it was only a matter of time before he was.
“No, that’s a lie, Matt wouldn’t tell you anything.”
“Are you sure about that? I can be very persuasive, if need be, and just because I want everyone to be happy and safe doesn’t mean I’m not willing to cause a little suffering to bring about that end. Now you…you’ve obviously been through a lot lately, and I don’t see any reason to cause you any further pain, provided you simply cooperate with me, and answer my questions truthfully. Now, what is the resistance planning? What are your goals, and who are your members?”
“I’m not going to tell you any of that.”
“But you admit that you know it all.”
Terry was silent then, knowing he’d given up the game.
“Look, I know you’re plotting something just tell me what it is, and Matt doesn’t have to suffer anymore.”
“What are you doing to him,” Terry said, distressed, “Where is he?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to find out what we’re doing to him, but you’ll find out soon enough if you don’t start talking.”
Terry was obviously torn, and Marcus could see that he wanted to talk, for Matt’s supposed sake, the only question now was how long it would take him to break. Not long apparently. “Look, you don’t understand, we aren’t planning anything,” Terry said, “We just meet, and talk. We just…we just want to remember who we were, you know, before all the changes. That’s all, we just meet up and talk about what we remember and help each other remember what they might have forgotten, that’s all. We aren’t doing anything, I swear.”
It wasn’t the answer Marcus had been expecting–at all. An admission of guilt, maybe. A complete reveal of their plans, possibly, but this? What was the cub even talking about? Remembering who they were? What kind of nonsense…but now that it had been brought up, Marcus felt like he could remember something, something which had been buried well, but something large enough that it affected the topography of everything above it. It was unsettling, to say the least. Still, that couldn’t be what they were doing. They were the resistance, so they had to be resisting him. “You don’t actually expect me to believe that, do you? Are you honestly telling me you have nothing to do with the changes on campus?”
“Changes? What changes?”
“Don’t fucking play dumb with me.”
“I’m not–I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. We haven’t done anything, except meet, and talk–that’s it.”
Marcus sat for a moment, thinking through the possibilities. It could be that Terry was telling the truth, and the resistance really wasn’t doing anything. On the other hand, it could be that he was a member of the group kept outside of the decision making process, in which case, even if the resistance did have something to do with the slob wave, Terry wouldn’t know anything about it. Then again, the cub might simply be lying through his teeth, trying to give Marcus enough information to get him to leave Matt alone.
The speaker in the room suddenly crackled to life with the computer’s voice, “Sir, you’re attention is requested in communal cell four.”
Marcus didn’t have anyone housed in cell four–what was going on now? “Alright,” he said to Terry, “I’m going to go talk to Matt a bit more, and see what he has to say. Until then, why don’t we put you on ice for a bit? Computer, run isolation program on interrogation subject.”
A panel on the wall slid open behind Terry, and before he could turn around to see what was going on, long, mechanical tendrils shot out and wrapped their way around his limbs, pulling him back into a glass pod, the cub struggling as best he could as one wormed its way down his throat, the other into his ass, both injecting him with a powerful sedative, sending him into a deep sleep, a helmet dropping down onto his head, covering his eyes and ears. “In isolation, run compliance program one.” It wouldn’t do much, just make him more prone to trust Marcus and make him feel good when he told him the truth. Generally, it was enough to make sure his subjects were honest, but there were always more advanced programs. Still, Marcus didn’t want to destroy the cub’s mind just yet. He might prove useful as a double agent, provided he could be flipped easily, and quickly enough.
Bracken's Corner 