5
"Prisoner, in accordance with your sentence you will now be shot, and may God have mercy on you soul. Ready line! Take aim! FIRE!"
I woke up, sucking in a deep lungful of air.
I couldn't call it a dream because it wasn't.
The light in the room brightened automatically. They knew when I woke up, just like they always knew what I was looking at.
Leaning up, I half-twisted and set my feet down on the slightly spongy floor. The surface reminded me of the heavy mat under a squat rack, save that it was white and flawless.
She was still there, apparently asleep in the corner next to the toilet, huddled as though the john would give her some sort of protection from me. That was unfortunate because it meant I'd have to wake her up with my morning business. Well, I didn't have to wake her up, but the alternative was crude and I've never considered myself that kind of man.
Stepping over to her, I reached out with one foot and prodded her lower leg, which was pulled up under her arms. She was cradling her knees with her head down, but it snapped up when I made contact and she let out a short, sharp scream as her wings instinctively flared out, one flapping along the wall, the other jamming against the toilet.
She winced as her horns rapped the wall behind her, then glared hatefully at me.
I pointed at her and jerked my thumb behind me with one hand as I waved at the toilet with the other.
She got the message and shot out of the corner and past me as though a firecracker'd gone off under her butt.
Grinning bemusedly, I got my business done and turned to find — to my surprise — that there was food waiting for me.
As I blinked at the tray, the female demon said, "You didn't eat last night before you went to sleep. The wranglers want you healthy."
She was standing somewhat awkwardly in the corner to the left of the door and obviously had no idea what to do with herself. Her wings were pulled in behind her but didn't seem too tense, and her tail hung low with its tip curled up. It seemed her nerve had steadied somewhat, so I wandered over to look at the food.
It was the same nutrient brick I'd come to know and feel meh about. It had roughly the consistency of a rice crispy treat, but less flavor.
I picked it up and broke it, but when I looked her way to toss her half she held up both hands and waved them at me as she said, "No. That won't do me any good. You eat it all."
Shrugging, I settled against the wall on my butt and did just that, interspersed with swigs of water from a jug they left with the food bar.
As I ate, the demon woman watched.
When I finished, she said, "My name is Mauren."
I nodded. It sounded too ordinary to be a demon name, but whatever.
She seemed a bit nonplussed when she saw my nod, and said, "You seem much calmer with me than with the syban we sent in. You don't look like you intend to kill or fuck me."
I silently chuckled at that, grinning as I kept watching her. Truth was, I wouldn't mind taking a tumble with this huge woman, but she didn't look into it and while her body was mouth-wateringly hot, it was pretty easy to keep my mind off what I'd like to do with it given how scared shitless she'd been of me yesterday.
It still threw me for a bit of a loop that a creature two feet taller and probably eighty to a hundred pounds heavier would be scared of me, but I wasn't about to question it. I was bigger and heavier than a jaguar, didn't mean I wasn't scared of the damn things. I figured she thought of me in roughly the same way, and that suited me fine.
Mauren's frown deepened as she said, "Do you really intend to keep up the silent treatment indefinitely? I know you can speak. I was your wrangler until just recently."
I blinked. That was interesting. The word wrangler was a new one, but placed in context it seemed to mean she had been my handler, or the person responsible for my care. It was more evidence that she'd had a falling out with someone higher up the food chain and they'd thrown her in here with me hoping I'd deal with the problem.
That I hadn't was probably giving someone fits.
When I still didn't say anything, she said, "If you're not going to kill me then we're going to have to work out some kind of arrangement. They aren't going to feed me. You'll have to do that."
I blinked at her, glanced from her to the toilet and back, then gave her a queasy look that couldn't possibly need an explanation.
She obviously got it too because she full-body shuddered and said, "Oh my fuck, you are disgusting."
I just spread a hand in her direction and raised an eyebrow.
"I'm obviously not talking about ..."
She trailed off and put her head in her hand as she slammed her back against the wall behind her and sagged off her feet, mumbling, "Fuck's sake, what am I even doing? I'm going to starve to death while a mute monster sits there watching me like a moron."
I grinned and leaned back against the wall, pointedly watching her as though I thought she would keel over dead any second. If she was going to treat me like an idiot, I had no problem acting the part. Her despair was entertaining, and besides, I pretty much figured I knew what she actually needed. I just wanted to see how desperate she'd get before she spelled it out.
There were only two real possibilities on the table given her appearance and refusal to accept the partial nutrient brick I'd offered her. She either needed blood or spooge. I was pretty sure it was door number two given the tone of her foul language and ... other clues, but either way I had no reason to make it easy for her. If she'd been in charge of me for the past three months then her training methods ... while admittedly effective, lacked a certain human touch.
I guess now I knew why, and no one ever went to hell for a bit of schadenfreude.
Presuming, of course, that I wasn't already in hell.
I mean, Mauren's tits were nice, but they were attached to a literal demon. If someone made me guess at my location, given my circumstances and death ... I honestly think I probably would have to say it was hell.
I had no freedom, no idea what was going on, no way forward, and I certainly didn't deserve to live happily ever after.
"You're not a moron. You're just spiteful, is that it?"
I raised an eyebrow at Mauren, who was giving me a challenging stare as she said, "You woke up here with no idea what's going on and got nothing from us except language lessons. You've got no reason to talk to any of us, that it?"
Well, since she'd phrased it as a yes or no ...
I nodded and showed her an idle palm. She had just about summed it up.
"No gratitude?" she asked. "You are alive because of us, you know."
Since I had no idea if my living was a good or a bad thing, I just waggled my hand at her.
"Okay, that's pretty clearly ambivalence. You don't know if being alive is a good thing."
She actually paused, looking thoughtful as she bit the nub of her thumb claw, and it was an adorable expression that just did not fit on a naked eight foot tall bombshell demon woman.
Still. I was curious just how much of an effort she'd make, and even if she was abrasive, I had two reasons to think she might not be complete garbage. The first was that she didn't know how to sell things from my perspective ... and the second was that she was putting herself in my place to think about it. That implied she was capable of empathy.
That, or she really was complete garbage and the thoughtful expression was just while she tried to think up a good lie. I thought that unlikely because the facility I was in had to be expensive. Given I was being kept in isolation and had seen a total of ... four people in the last three months, I was probably a secret project, which meant if she'd been in charge of my care she had to have worked her way up to the position.
I felt comfortable taking her thoughtfulness as genuine.
I hadn't expected that much consideration, but then again, the woman across from me was scared and desperate. There's a reason people call it 'honest' fear.
"Look, since it's obvious you have memories of your last life, I'll tell you what's going to happen. In exchange ... I'd like you to keep me alive. I need your help to get out of here."
I raised an eyebrow at her, and her almost black cheeks darkened even further as she said, "Ye-ah ... I don't know what your future looks like. It all depends on your performance."
So there was something they expected me to do. I rolled my fingers at her in an invitation to continue, but she shook her head and said, "Not until I have some assurance that when I've told you what I know, you'll feed me. Nothing is free in this world."
I gave her a wry half-smile, then glanced up and away as I gave it a think. The only thing she had to offer me was satisfying my curiosity early. I'd find out everything she could tell me anyway if I was patient. So the real question was, did I think she was worth keeping around.
No ... that wasn't quite right.
Presuming I didn't agree to feed her, she'd starve to death. At some point, her hunger would overcome her fear and she'd attack me. At that point either a bolt from the cell walls would kill her or I'd have to do the job myself.
If I knew what was expected of me, then I'd be able to figure out if she had any further worth to me.
I was about to agree when a voice sounded over the speakers.
"Another test has been prepared. Do you wish to participate?"
The 'yes' and 'no' images lit up on the wall opposite the bed, and I looked steadily at the yes.
After a solid second, the images vanished and a list appeared as the voice said, "Should you pass, you may choose from one of the following benefits."
Being very careful not to stare at any entry too long, I had a look at my choices.
Higher quality food.
Clothing.
A bathing facility.
Audio/visual entertainment.
A larger bed.
Everything from the previous list was still available, except the option for 'a female.' It was reasonable to assume that these were all the benefits they were prepared to offer, which meant there were only going to be five more tests including this one.
It didn't really matter what I selected. Presuming I passed their tests I'd wind up with all of them.
I glanced at Mauren and raised an eyebrow as I gestured toward the list.
She blinked at me in shock, looked at the list, then back to me.
After a long few seconds she held up all five fingers, but wouldn't look me in the eye as she did so.
I would not have thought a naked, eight foot tall demon girl could be cute, but she managed it.
I focused on the fifth option. After a long second it cleared and the door slid open, revealing armored goon number one again.
Standing, I glanced at Mauren, but as I looked the voice over the speaker said, "She will not accompany you."
"It'll probably be a test of endurance," Mauren said. "Swimming or climbing."
Nodding, I offered her a thumbs-up and followed the guard out. Of the two options, it would almost certainly be swimming as I'd already demonstrated I could climb.
The walk was the same, as was the descent, which left me to wonder if we were going down as far as we had last time. I hadn't counted the seconds my first ride and didn't consciously do it this time either. The information wouldn't do me any good ... but I was fairly certain we went further down this time.
The doors opened, but I didn't step out, and neither did the guard.
Easy reason for that: no floor.
No light either.
What little light there was in the elevator car spilled out on dead calm water ahead of me that flooded a passage the height of a normal hallway. Narrowing my eyes, I noticed that the ceiling began to slope toward the surface of the water out toward the edge of where the light could reach.
As I contemplated my apparent fate, the voice came again, sounding from the guard this time.
"Again, the test is simple. Swim until you find the red button. The test will continue until you complete it or lose consciousness, and will begin when you touch the water."
I hesitated, looking at the guard. It may as well have been a statue.
It seemed likely this test was two-fold. I wasn't being told all the parameters deliberately. I could either ask and improve my chances with the information, or remain silent. Was it a straight shot? How long were the airless sections? Was the red button lit, or would I just be fumbling around in the dark until I passed out from hypothermia?
Even if I did ask it might not get me anything. They were under no obligation to answer me, and they obviously didn't think I was on their level.
Should I give up my silence ... with no real expectation of gain?
Fuck it. I had no one to trust, no one to rely on but myself. Asking for help here would be a show of weakness. If I wanted to sell myself to these people, I had to demonstrate strength.
As I set myself at the edge of the open elevator doors, then launched, it occurred to me that there might be another word for what I was doing.
Stupidity.
The water was cold, but not freezing. Unfortunately, swimming wasn't the problem.
It was the dark.
I coasted through the water and angled left, hit the wall almost immediately, and kept going forward. Distance was meaningless and I didn't rush. Instead, I kept a hand on the wall, and soon realized my worst fear.
The canal I was in branched.
Backing up, I pressed off the left wall toward the right and found the same thing. Using the rough distance from the left wall to the right as a guide, I sussed out I was at a four-way junction.
With my hand at the corner between the way I'd come and the left turn, I thought through my options. The least likely to be the correct path would be going forward. If I'd swum straight ahead racing for a finish, I'd have passed these side corridors without ever knowing they were there. Since the test was obviously about more than just how fast and far I could swim, straight ahead was just as obviously not the right direction.
So either the left or right passage was the correct one, but which?
Thinking back, I tried to figure out if I'd done anything that would give away my handedness. I knew that absent any other guide, people usually chose whichever path matched their dominant hand. If I had given away that I was right-handed, I could choose the left path with fair confidence, but what could I have done that would give it away?
It was the first time in my life I could remember wishing I'd given something away. My routine over the last few months had been spartan, to put it mildly, and there wasn't much of anything that I only did with ... one, hand.
My chest started shivering as I tried to keep from laughing. I took the left-hand channel. While I hadn't jacked in the last three months, I'd shaken the last drops off multiple times a day since first waking up. I just had to hope these people were as observant ... and as treacherous, as I thought they were.