3
I woke up to the sound of the door opening.
Turning to look, I saw another one of those armored suits and twisted to sit on the edge of my bed, putting bare feet on the floor as I looked it over curiously. It was big and looked tough, but didn't have any visible weapons, or maybe it did and I just couldn't recognize them. No guns at any rate. No combat knife, no baton, nothing that looked like a weapon of any kind.
Not that I was interested in testing it. The fact that it was here meant they didn't intend to kill me. If they wanted to, they'd have just hit me with a lightning bolt and come in later to clean up the mess.
As the armored suit moved to stand opposite me two images appeared on the wall behind it, one to either side. One was the word for yes, the other for no.
"I'm aware that you have the ability to speak, but seem to have chosen not to. I will ask you a series of yes or no questions. I do not expect verbal replies, but in order to move forward we do need the answers to those questions, so if you refuse to speak it would be polite of you to at least look toward the relevant answer. Do you understand?"
Polite? They were expecting me to be polite? Someone must have promoted me from lab rat to, well, human probably isn't the word I'm looking for, and several of the holes in my linguistic education had been made clear the previous day. I hadn't been shown the alien I'd killed, or these suits of armor, or what might be in the suit. I didn't know what these things called themselves.
I raised an eyebrow, then glanced toward the 'Yes' on the wall.
"Excellent!" the voice said with more enthusiasm than I thought was warranted, and I was left to wonder if the armored suit in front of me was the speaker, or if it was just here for show, to focus my attention on the veiled threat. The actual sound was coming through the room's audio system.
Either way, the first question asked was, "Do you know who you are?"
I glanced at the floor, thinking hard about the implications. Why would they ask me that question? Was it a baseline question so they could do whatever amounted to a polygraph, or was there a real, non-zero chance I wasn't supposed to know who I was?
After due consideration, I looked toward yes again more because my alternatives were not answer or lie, and lying was a complete coin toss. I didn't know what motivated these people or why I was here, so lying to them had no reliable benefit.
"If I offer you a trade deal, are you willing to consider it?"
Blinking, I shifted my eyes from yes to the armored suit. A trade deal? That implied I had something they wanted, something they couldn't just take from me. Granted, I was naked in a prison, so if they wanted something from me it had to be something I could do, rather than something I owned or something that could simply be harvested.
I looked toward the yes again, now genuinely curious.
"We want to take measurements of your physical capabilities. If you are willing to do your best in the tests, we are willing to upgrade your living arrangements. We have one test prepared, so we are willing to offer one upgrade in exchange for your cooperation. Either look at the no, or hold your eyes on the upgrade you want most. Provided both you and we are satisfied with the outcome, we will conduct further tests, for which you will be further compensated."
The options they were offering appeared on the 'yes' side of the wall and I took a moment to look them over.
Higher quality food.
Clothing.
A bathing facility.
Audio/visual entertainment.
A larger bed.
A female.
I stopped, blinking when I saw the last option. I was stunned, and it cost me.
"Very well. I will escort you to the testing area," the voice said as all the options disappeared, and I came as close as I ever had to breaking my silence as I lowered my head into my hand, eyes shut tight.
Should I speak? Should I tell her that I hadn't wanted that choice, I'd just been shocked it was offered? What the hell was I supposed to do with a female? The last one they'd sent in hadn't done so well, did they think I was some sort of ...
The thought trailed off into nothing because I had no idea what they thought of me. I'd killed one of their people and they were offering me another one. What did they think I'd do?
It was then I realized that all of the options had been a test of sorts, and they'd be getting results for free when they 'gave' me a female. All this was obvious, but my own surprise had fucked me.
I started considering how I'd handle things as I followed the armored suit out the door and into a hallway that was pretty much exactly what I'd thought it would be. White, sterile, lined with doors, and long.
The door to my cell shut behind me. I looked at it before we left, curious if they had a designation for me.
Turns out they did.
A sounds-like of the characters on the plaque affixed to my door made me AAA0.
Triple A Zero?
It's like I was a company scrambling to be at the front of a phone book. The thought made me smile and I shook my head wryly as I followed the suit in front of me, the back of which was a bit more visually interesting than the front.
It had a backpack-looking thing on it that didn't seem like a jetpack and didn't really look like a weapon system either. It was also a bit oddly shaped, with two rounded protrusions at the shoulders and tails that ended past the butt. The rest of the suit looked so plain and functional it made me wonder what purpose the pack served. A heat sink maybe?
Not like it mattered. It was all fucking magic to me.
We walked almost a thousand steps to get to a bulkhead door that slid aside as the suit got close to it, and closed once I was through.
It was an elevator, though I barely felt the acceleration as we went down. Down ... meaning we were likely already underground, or maybe we were in a space station? Halls as long as the one I'd just gone through weren't typical in skyscrapers. A building like that would have to be ... well, massive doesn't cover it.
Then again, I knew fuck all about what was really going on. Catching the details like distance and such was just my monkey brain turning tricks. The fact that it was futile conjecture didn't play.
I wasn't on Earth anymore. I knew that for sure. Even if it was Earth somehow, it wasn't my Earth. There was nowhere for me to run. Not like any of it really mattered. I'd run out of chances and if this was my afterlife then fucked as it was, it was more than I probably deserved.
The doors in front of me opened. The guard I was with hadn't moved after stepping in so I was in front of him/her/it. I stepped out and to one side, waiting for the whatever was in the suit to pass me as I looked at where I'd been brought.
The room wasn't too big — maybe a hundred feet square — but it was a lot higher than a normal space and the vast bulk of it was filled with something that looked vaguely like one of those novelty jungle gyms I'd seen in some high-dollar tourist traps. I remembered something like it in Vegas in one of the malls on the strip. All kinds of platforms, ropes, and gimmicky traversal methods leading up to a platform that was about fifty, maybe sixty feet over my head.
There was even a big red fucking button on a platform up there, like it was a discount American Ninja set, though none of the obstacles looked anywhere near as difficult as those I remembered from that show. There was just one catch: a complete lack of belaying equipment or deep water ... or even mats.
The floor I was standing on was featureless, white, and may as well have been solid stone.
As I considered that the female voice, now actually coming from the suit of armor, said, "You've seen the red button at the top. The test is simple: Achieve the platform and press the button at your best speed. The test will begin when you touch the course. Begin whenever you're ready."
Best speed. Simple test, and one I was quite certain I could pass, but the question I was asking myself was whether or not I should deliberately skew the result.
I had not intended to select 'a female' reward, so if I did poorly on this test and didn't receive one that would work out for me. I would avoid their hidden second test.
The problem was that, again, I had no idea what they were ultimately after. Did they want to measure the limits of human ability because they were preparing to invade my home planet or something? That seemed silly, and if true didn't explain my presence in particular.
Since it was me, I had to assume that whatever was going on really was about testing me specifically. They wanted to know what my limits were because they had something in mind, something they wanted me to do.
While that snake chick had approached me the wrong way and I wasn't about to apologize for snatching the light from her eyes, I could see how that act might cost me something. It did seem, however, that her bosses were brushing off the killing. That being the case I really had no reason to be a dick about any of this and at least one very good reason not to be. At the moment I was obviously high value for ... whatever reason. If I flunked their test, my value would go down. While I really didn't mind the idea of dying, I wasn't so sure that would be my fate if my value dropped too much. Since these aliens wanted to know my limits the idea that I might be taken to a lab and dissected alive if I didn't show them what they wanted the easy way wasn't really that farfetched. The flip side was that if I raised my value, I'd learn more about what was going on. Just like they'd learn more about me by giving me 'a female,' I'd learn more about them, about what they wanted, based on what that female did once I got her.
So ... I'd give them what they wanted. The chick in the suit — I had to assume based on her voice that it was a she — had told me to get to the top platform in best time.
The obvious route was to navigate all the obstacles, which ascended in courses counter-clockwise around four pilons that anchored all the various cables, platforms, what have you. But the actual angle of ascent for each course varied wildly.
Since the test wouldn't start until I touched the damn thing I took my time and walked a circuit all the way around, examining the course in detail. There were sixteen total courses, but eight of them were skippable if I was willing to jump at certain key locations. I'd been instructed to get to the top at best speed. I hadn't been told I had to run the course as intended.
I gave it a little more thought, then examined the pilon supporting the win platform. It had a total circumference about the same as a telephone pole and looked to be made of painted metal which meant I could get a decent grip with hands and feet, considering I was naked. There were also plenty of attachment points at intervals all the way up where I could rest if I needed to.
The fastest way for me to get to that button would be to skip all the carnival bullshit and go straight up, so that's what I did.
Wrapping hands around the far side of the pole and leaning out as I set my feet against the near side, I climbed the pole like an island Carib scaling a coconut tree. The metal did in fact give me decent grip and I had no real trouble. The climb was about ten body lengths and I made it to a spot under the platform in about a minute.
Of course, the button was on top of the platform, not under it, but the platform wasn't wide enough to keep me from getting a grip on the edge, which I used to swing out and grab one of the cables attaching the highest course. From there it was an easy clamber up and over the edge to tap the button, which actually lit up when I hit the damn thing as a buzzer sounded.
It was honestly kinda tacky.
With no instructions forthcoming in the seconds after the buzzer, I began a lazy descent using the actual courses I'd been meant to ascend. It really was weekend warrior type stuff, but I had fun with it and took my time getting back down. It was the most activity I'd had in three months, and as I moved it occurred to me that, for a man getting a single meal a day and no meaningful exercise, I was in better shape than I had any right to be. Most of my life I'd been in good to superlative physical shape, but sustained exercise had been necessary to keep me there.
I hadn't had any of that lately. A man on death row doesn't do pushups.
Yet, while I'd gotten a good workout climbing the pilon it hadn't winded me, and the descent was trivial despite the fact that most of the courses were obviously designed to test my balance, grip strength, or both.
Maybe my body, no matter how it looked or felt, wasn't really my own. That left me with even more questions. If these high-tech aliens had built me a body, why the hell would they need physical tests? Wouldn't they know what I was capable of already? Or was this not a physical test at all, but a problem-solving one, and they were just testing how the clever monkey would get his banana?
The more I thought about it, the more it irritated me. There was something fucky going on and while I'd resigned myself to not knowing what the hell was up with the aliens, I was not so comfortable with the thought that I might not be normal either.
When I got back to the ground, the armored guard was waiting for me and said, "You have completed the test. Your upgrade is waiting for you in your room."
* * *
She was there when the door slid aside, just as I'd been promised.
Not a snake woman either.
I stepped through and the door slid shut behind me as I looked at my new bunkmate.
Her skin was so dark red that it was almost black, with lighter red markings on her wrists and ankles that might have been tattoos. She was tall too, at least eight feet using my own height as a guide, not counting a pair of ivory kudu-like horns that gave her another easy ten inches.
Her face was familiar and exotic at once. Her eyes were large and had that distinctive Romanian tilt to them, with black sclera and luminous golden irises surrounding slitted pupils. Her lips were full and pert, nose slightly upturned and straight, with smooth cheeks and a soft jawline.
She had two ivory horns spiraling up above her temples that guided wavy black hair away from her face and down over her shoulders in a rich fall.
She was also naked, and ... well put-together. Her breasts were full and rode high on her chest, not quite big enough to hang together, but close. Her nipples were the same brighter red as the markings on her limbs, and she had a barely discernible four-pack over a sculpted patch of truly black hair that matched what was on her head, highlighting a neat, otherwise clean slit visible more by the lighter shade at the center than cleavage.
Her legs were long and shapely, hips definite but slim, and she had wings. Honest to God wings. They were bat-like and pretty big, though I doubted they'd actually let her fly even if she'd had room unless her bones were hollow, and even that was a stretch. The wing membrane was thin enough to highlight the reddish skin pigment and they were spread as though ready to launch her into the ceiling.
She was in a slight crouch, hands forward, and I saw that she had talons rather than fingernails, though they looked to have been sanded down to nubs. Given the use of tablet computers it made sense. Typing with claws was probably a non-starter.
"Stay away from me," she said in a warble that she probably wanted to sound like a warning but came out more than a little terrified. She was speaking the language I'd been taught, which didn't surprise me, and her voice was lower than a typical human woman's, which I figured was normal given her size.
There was sweat glistening on her brow and it caught my notice considering it was somewhere in the high sixties to low seventies in the room with no appreciable humidity.
Leaning against the wall next to the door, I supported one arm with the other across my chest, tugging my lip thoughtfully as I considered what to do.
Honestly, I'd thought they meant to give me a concubine or something similar. That's the expectation when you're offered 'a female.'
As I inspected her I caught a hint of movement and noticed she had a black-skinned, lashing tail with a spade tip.
That was it then. I didn't know what she called herself, but I knew a human word that fit her appearance pretty well.
Succubus.
She had that stereotypical succubus look, but that was where the tropes seemed to fall apart. She wasn't trying to sexually dominate me, looked not at all threatening despite her almost two foot height advantage, and was clearly terrified.
Given how scared she was, she knew I'd killed that other thing they'd sent in trying to order me around and wasn't too confident about her own chances if I decided to make a play.
A big demon scared of a human? That was a new one on me. Not that I blamed her. I'm a scary motherfucker when I want to be.
Everything I'd been able to piece together told me this creature was absolutely no threat. Allowing her to kill me in my sleep had no logical upside for whoever was pulling strings. They hadn't spent three months training me to speak their language and let me get away with murder just to have my 'upgrade' do me in.
Points in her favor: she was smokin' hot. The horns, wings, and tail just added spice to an already very attractive body.
Aaand ... that was it.
Rape isn't my kink. Murder isn't either, all evidence to the contrary, and since I knew they weren't about to let her kill me ... the only thing left to do was either experiment on her to learn more about what she was and how much people like her could take, or ignore her.
I wasn't about to break my silence. Doing so had no upside for me.
The way she was reacting to me made it obvious she knew I was a killer, which meant she was involved in whatever was going on. They wouldn't send a comfort girl to me thinking she had good odds of winding up with a broken neck. So either she was a plant and faking her fear — something I very much doubted given shivers and flop sweat are hard to fake — or ... she'd crossed someone higher up on her chain and been thrown to the proverbial lion as a sacrifice.
That meant even if I didn't talk to her, she'd eventually talk to me, and I had absolutely nothing but time.
Maybe if I just ignored her, they'd take her away again.
That would probably be for the best. While she had a distractingly sexy body and I do like to fuck, I also require consent and clearly didn't have it.
Decision made, I leaned away from the wall and walked toward the bed, quietly amused as she warily turned, keeping herself squared up, eyes glued to me as though she were a cornered cat.
I guess she was, come to think of it. She had the look of someone who'd lost everything and was now dangling at the very end of her rope.
Whatever power structure existed on the other side of that door seemed like it must be pretty brutal, and while that was interesting, I was in no rush to learn more.
As a wise man once said: Everything comes to him who waits.