4
Director Lane blinked slowly at Duo as the two sat together in her office. She knew she'd heard the other woman, but the idea that she wasn't telling a poorly timed joke was hard to swallow.
Unable to simply accept it, she said, "So he just ... looked her over, then went to sleep?"
Nodding with wide eyes, Duo said, "Got in bed, rolled over, and dozed off. Didn't say a word, didn't even attempt to touch her."
Lane glanced down at her desk, unlocked her terminal, and pulled up the relevant file before turning around to watch it on the video wall behind her.
Duo leaned back in her seat and watched as well, a bemused expression on her face despite the fact she'd clearly already seen the footage. She said, "See that look? He's obviously sizing her up, then gives her a hard pass riiight ... here."
Lane pulled the footage back and froze it, looking at the specimen as it leaned against the wall, tugging at its lip with an expression that was deeply thoughtful.
"Well, if we had any doubts about his episodic memory, they're gone now," she murmured.
"Definitely," Duo agreed. "Though it leaves us with a problem."
Nodding, Lane said, "We expected Mauren to put up a fight and get herself killed."
"She would have if he'd gone for her," Duo pointed out. "She's one of those purity nuts."
"I had all the reports ready to file!" Lane said, sighing in annoyance. "Wrangler decides to take matters into her own hands and gets in the cell with a dangerous experimental creature. Neck snapped, next case. Now what do I do?"
Duo shrugged and said, "Pull her out. He's obviously rejected her. Leaving her in there has no upside. She might even get back on board now that she knows how serious you are."
"Not true. If she starts to annoy him — and given her personality that's practically guaranteed — he might still finish her for us. We leave her in. It doesn't make any sense though. Why would he actively select a female as a reward, then do nothing with her!?"
"I won't lie, it's giving our psychoanalysts fits," Duo said with a wry look. "Maybe Mauren was right and he is some kind of monster. We had all the sensors running and picked up a lot of brain activity but practically no visceral reaction. He might be attracted to his own type."
"Oh fuuuck no. Don't say that. Don't even think it. That would be a complete disaster," Lane groaned, rubbing her brows, eyes shut as she thought hard about how to handle this most recent twist.
Duo nodded ruefully and said, "If he's same type or asexual we'll have to scrap the project."
"He can't be asexual and have wet dreams, Duo. There's something else going on here."
"Well, he's seen two females of two different species and reacted either violently or not at all."
"We need a bigger sample size."
"What do you want to do then? He agreed to testing, we could modify his rewards, keep throwing females at him and see if one of them trips his trigger."
"We'd have to move him to larger quarters unearned. Mixed messaging isn't good with this one."
"Torture?"
"Pre-existing memories in an unknown species? We have no idea how he'd respond. Even if we could reliably break him he'd wind up unsuitable for primetime. He needs to be fit and strong to play well for an audience."
"At this point he's a little too strong if you ask me," Duo said mildly.
Lane nodded, scowling as she said, "None of this would be necessary if the thing would just speak. We can't start building a reliable profile until we get him to open his mouth for more than food."
"Presuming he's sexually mature, attracted to females, and of above-average intelligence, his not speaking might be a deliberate response to the specific scenario he's found himself in."
"What kind of person wakes up in a cell and doesn't at least say 'What the fuck?'" Lane asked, somewhat rhetorically.
"Good question. I'll pass it on to the psych specialists and see what they can come up with," Duo wryly said. "The answer might give us some better ideas on how to handle him. Are you sure you don't want to pull Mauren out before she gets herself killed?"
Lane shook her head and said, "If she lasts long enough she'll realize the only way to survive this is molding that thing into what we need him to be. If she can do that he'll be her meal ticket out."
"Fat chance if she isn't willing ... and able, to at least feed off him," Duo said dismissively.
"Win win," Lane said absently, but her mind wasn't on Mauren. Despite the setback, that problem would solve itself. There was virtually no way the arrogant bitch didn't get herself killed before the next season started.
Still, it was a possibility she had to be ready for. Lane said, "Make her the offer. Contact her through her implant. If she makes him into a suitable competitor and survives the game on good behavior, she gets double the wrangler bonus for raising a champion. The catch is she'll have to join his team in the games as an ally."
"That'll piss off the sponsors, especially if one of them takes a liking to him. How are you going to reserve him?"
"We won't. If one of the sponsors bids to put a vacay in with him, he'll just wind up with two succubi. Remember, I don't care if Mauren ultimately lives or dies."
"Assuming they go all the way, how are you going to keep her mouth shut once she's out?" Duo asked.
Shaking her head, Lane said, "By then she'll be in too deep. She'll have been in the public spotlight for a year passing up plenty of chances to call for help. No one would believe her after chasing the victory and accepting the prizes."
"Well, there is one other thing."
Lane raised an eyebrow, and Duo flipped her fingers over to examine her claws idly as she said, "She's going to starve to death if she can't at least get him to feed her, which I can't see her doing given her ... proclivities. If he kills her in the first few days that's one thing. If you leave her to starve ... that might come back to haunt you. We can't delete these recordings because the company reserves the right to put together behind-the-scenes documentaries. This is still a very dangerous play for you."
"Mauren doesn't know we can't delete the footage. Outside the directors and their aides, no one does. If we win big and they decide to do a creature feature on him they'll bend over backwards to cover up any impropriety without me having to lift a finger. As for food, I doubt Mauren's willing to starve to death for revenge," Lane said, smirking as she thought about it. "She might be self-righteous but she's not spiteful. She'll take life over her sensibilities or my disgrace. Purists know full well their position is privileged. Most of us don't have the option of feeding entirely from other succubi even if we wanted to. It does raise the question of her support structure though. I can assume you've already looked into that for me?"
Duo nodded but didn't say anything, and Lane didn't press. Both of them knew that unless the director asked, dirty details were to be kept buried.
"You certainly are in a risk-taking mood, but I can't say I hate it," Duo said as she glanced up with a smile.
"You're as confident in this one as I am. He's just strange enough to be interesting, just strong enough to survive. The only question is whether or not he's smart enough to capitalize on his position."
"You obviously think he is."
Lane shrugged artfully and turned back to look at the image on her screen as she said, "I think we've got something very special here, and if we play our cards right it will make us all very rich. Have the psychoanalysts come up with some more tests so that we can justify expanding his privileges a bit before the sponsors get their review. We still have a few hard sales ahead of us."
"No kidding. Like, how are we going to get him approved when he doesn't speak?"
"I've got some ideas. Keep testing him. Press him harder. If he won't tell us just how tough he is, we'll just have him show us. I might think he's good enough, but if I'm going to put my career on the line to push him into the spotlight, I want to know."
"I'll arrange it."
"I trust you will."