Alienation

  Charlotte’s head hurt. She was dizzy, drugged-that was normal when you came out of a stasis pod after a three month trip. Her mind was slow and her body was sluggish.   Looking up, the room was very dark. She could hardly see a thing;
    “Hello, Ted darling, is there anyone there? I seem to be suffering some hibernation sickness.”
  It was just on emergency lights-a very dim red glow. Her vision was getting used to the light levels but it would take her time-she felt so weak, all she could do was lie there and look at the room. It looked like a medical bay on some sort of base. 
    “Is there anyone there? Is anyone monitoring this room?” They usually woke people up on the ship and dropped them down by shuttle along with the supplies for the colony but this didn’t look like a colony building with the prefab design or the ship with its limited claustrophobic space. 
  Charlotte felt something in her lungs. Neither, she coughed was this a medical quarantine. She tried to cover her mouth but her body was numb and her arms didn’t respond;
    “Is there a doctor? Is Ted there?” Her mind was so foggy-they must have had some sort of problem with the ship, with the stasis pods and needed to stop at a station. There were probably a lot of people sick. She needed to see Ted to see if he was okay. “Hello! What the hell is going on, am I talking to myself?” She had left everything behind for him. She tried to get off the bed or table or whatever it was. She rose an inch, her vision blurred and she sunk back down to the table. She felt the ache in her lungs again, a twinge but less. She looked around. Her vision was slowly clearing. There were banks of machines, pipe work and other things on the ceiling the reflection of a camera lens-she was being monitored. “Come on, pick up the intercom- I am right here!” 
  The ceiling held pools of inky blackness beyond the red lights there was something up there, a motor, a pump? She swore she could hear something.

  Charlotte had changed her name to Simons after marrying Ted Simons. Her last name used to be Howell but she was glad to see the back of both her old name and her old life. She looked around the room. There were windows, very small and made of what must have been a foot’s thickness of clear resin. They were in blocks like four. This seemed odd, strange for a medical facility. She looked at the walls-they were bare. No intercom, no terminals-nothing to reach the outside of the room;     
    “Where the hell am I?” She focused on the walls they seemed to be reinforced, built like outside bulkheads not internal walls. It was strange, what could be inside a station that needed to be thick enough to survive an asteroid impact? “What the hell is going on. Ted?”
  She was an engineer, a general structural engineer. She had studied in practical engineering, useful for building and maintaining colony structures and machines. She couldn’t think of a reason, unless she was next to a high yield reactor but that would only account for one wall not all four and there would be no windows. She coughed again she tried to move her arms they seemed to dead, whatever it was in her lungs seemed to be going down;
    “Ok I’m feeling better, I can do this!” She had a wave of dread wash over her. She looked at the door to the room-it had no release mechanism on the inside no button or handle. There was no intercom and nothing else to indicate any way to communicate with the outside world or let the person inside out. The door was thick and heavy with a tiny window it looked as thick as the door on a space dock. Mrs. Simons was an engineering graduate 2nd class and she was now sure that she was inside a prison. “What the hell is going on?”

  Slowly Engineer Simons’ body was waking up. She was able to move her head a little more. There was more than one of the beds in the room-one to her left and two to her right. They seemed to be occupied by other people that were not moving they must be unconscious;
    “Hey, are you awake?” Whoever had put them in there was probably waiting for the rest of them to wake up. Charlotte’s mind spun. Their colony ship must have been hijacked! Were they going to be ransomed-did they know about her past? Were they going to be slave labor or worse, were they going to be used in medical experiments? Charlotte whimpered. She dreaded the possibilities. “Oh God, where the hell am I Ted?”

  The sensation in her body slowly started to return. Engineer Simons could feel she was wearing some sort of garment that covered her torso but seemed to leave her legs bare. She had no shoes on and her legs were a little cold. She tried to move her arms only to find that there was no way to move them, her body was trapped in some sort of restraint. She coughed again and swore she could taste just a hint of blood-that was worrying;
    “Let me out of this thing you bastards!” She had decided to leave Earth. She had met a graduate in terra-forming, Ted and they had married. There was a colony world and they would leave their pasts behind. It would be hard for a decade, but worth it.
    “Oh shit.” She muttered as she tried to pull against the garment, she tried to focus. It was green she could tell, a light green. The garment had a rubbery quality thought it smelled like a plastic. It was probably some sort of dense polymer. It must have been a good half inch thick and she could feel bumps on the inside; it probably had some sort of monitoring device inside it. Charlotte could see the jacket was tightly applied around her torso, a collar dug in half way up her neck and the jacket cut in under her armpits. She could feel it pushing against the bend of her elbow and there were parts digging into her back like a row of buckles or catches just above her spine. Her shoulders were wrenched back and it tightly clamped down on her waist. 
  She bent her head and could see at the shoulder, elbow and wrist on the jacket were areas like concertinaed pipes. The rest of the garment was very ridged;
    “Ugh, too damn tight!” She grunted, pulling at the garment. It was ridiculous over-kill! If it was half a millimeter thick made from modern materials would be enough to restrain a person, let alone the thickness of this thing there must have been a hell of a lot of machinery inside the fabric!

  Engineer Simons’ upper arms seemed to be tightly trapped-locked to the side of the jacket. Her forearms went through a large loop of material below her breasts. The sleeves ended in mittens that were padded to the point she couldn’t even twitch her fingers. The mitten ends of the sleeves went through side loops and seemed to be locked together behind her back tightly. She rose and looked down. She had a pair of crotch straps made from the same damn material, tightly clamping the area between her legs. She also had a pair of white panties;
    “Let me out of this fucking thing! Ted, please help!” A note of nervous dread filled Charlotte’s voice. She thought about it, they were probably hostages to be ransomed, restrained like this where they didn’t need to be let out of their restraints to be attended to. She shifted forward and slid her legs over so that she was perched on the edge of the steel table. She coughed again this was irritating what was wrong with her. “Fuck! I bet they took us out of hibernation too quick!”
  Looking down on the floor she saw one of the same sort of jacket that she was wearing, it was open, casually dropped on the floor. She took a small shuffle and landed on her unsteady feet. The world spun for a second as Charlotte slowly got her balance resting against the table. 
    “Oh fuck I need a rest…” She took a step forwards then looked at the discarded jacket. It was odd that there was a restraint abandoned like this. The garment was pale gray on the inside the sleeves ended in a strap on the right hand side and a boxy silver buckle on the left. There were two crotch straps which had buckles above the waist of the jacket and at the back of the garment there were eight straps and buckles. The straps were on the right hand side, the buckles on the left. She poked the jacket with her toe. There seemed to be no release mechanism that could be externally activated however, the jacket was secured and released the buckles as they were, the box that the strap was fed into was it secured by some sort of internal mechanism that could not be seen. Simons could see some writing on the jacket it said bio stasis jacket, dam thing was probably remotely controlled no need to go into the cell to release the prisoners;
    “SHOW YOUR FACES, YOU DAMN JERKS!”
  Charlotte ignored the jacket. She was going to see the person on the table to the left to see if they had woken up yet. Her vision was still blurred but Charlotte got a good look at the table and its occupant in the dim light. She remembered that he was one of the crew members of the colony ship, she wasn’t sure who-an engineer maybe or a driver? Her mind refused to see what she was seeing she let a whimper escape her lips;
    “Oh God, no.” Then she sobbed. She sank to her knees, felt her vision blurred black red white whatever, “Hell no, I didn’t see that. Please God no!”
  She felt herself coughing, there was the taste of bile on the back of her throat then what was left of her last meal hit the floor as she threw up. Then there was the taste of blood and more bile as she coughed some more. “It can’t be!” she whimpered as she spat out the last of the contents of her stomach. 
  Charlotte wiped her lips against the side of the table to try and remove what was there. She slowly stood up careful to avoid standing in where she had been sick. Her stomach felt light, odd and she was very hungry all of a sudden;
    “It can’t be real.” She calmed herself and dared to look at what was left of the engineer. He was wearing a pair of boxer shorts. Funny she thought, someone can be treated in this way yet theyr’e still given underwear-a pretense of dignity. The man was dead his chest was ripped open as if something had eaten its way through him from the inside. His body was in a fairly natural position except his mouth was wide open in a wordless scream his eyes rolled back. She was almost certain what had killed him and where she was. She turned away and stood on something. “Please no don’t be” Charlotte slowly looked down. There was the remains of a creature it looked like two base ball gloves joined together with eight spiders legs, a tail and a tubular mouth it was dried out dead and rigid. She whimpered closed her eyes and kicked it away. “Fuck! I am screwed!”

  Simons turned to the other two tables across the room. She had to see if Ted was there. Stumbling, slowly Charlotte crossed the room. She noticed another jacket and two more of the dead parasites on the floor. There was the pain in her chest again; terror surged through her body she didn’t want to know what that was. She pushed the terrible possibility to the back of her mind;
    “No, no, no.” Charlotte took a few deep breaths and approached the next table there was a woman as dead as the engineer a short brunette that Charlotte didn’t recognize. There were 182 colonists on the ship. This was probably someone else heading for the colony-she looked a little younger than her. A single tear rolled down Charlotte Simons’s face she looked away. Charlotte looked over at the last table. Ted’s lifeless eyes looked back at her. 
  Charlotte started walking forwards. She vaguely noticed the other dead parasite and the discarded jacket. Her eyes were full of tears and she could hear herself talking;   
    “Dear God no, Ted please no, dear God!” She was standing over him crying, one of his lifeless hands rested on the side of the bed. The engineer slowly dropped to the ground her head resting on Ted’s hand. It was cold, she cried more, “Ted what am I going to do? Why did you have to leave me, why?”
  She could feel the callus on his hand. When he was nervous or bored he would scratch the top finger with his thumb, a ‘tell’ an involuntary action the callus was one of the ways Charlotte could tell his touch. Now he would never touch her again;   
    “Why, why? Please why?”
  Charlotte wept more. She was sure that she was not going to be around much longer. There were four dead parasites and four people. The pains in her chest! She had seen enough news stories and documentary’s she knew what was going to happen next. Her vision was clearing;
    “Fuck, I am screwed!” She heard a noise. Charlotte looked around the room. There were three clear wrinkled bags on the floor they looked like discarded skin or a cocoon or something and had a slick slime over them. Charlotte saw the dripping coming from the ceiling-she was sure she was not alone! There was the faintest creak of movement and slowly, Charlotte started walking backwards towards the corner of the room. “Stay calm just…”

  Charlotte looked transfixed as what she thought was a bundle of pipes slowly unwound itself;
    “No, hell no! You stay there…” she spoke in a soft voice. There was the spiny tale first, slowly uncurling. It got longer and longer. After ten seconds a leg appeared, ridged and plated with armor on the outside bones, on the inside, spikes and spines growing through the armor and out a second leg appeared then a part of the torso like ribs with spines or tubes behind. The creature’s head slowly emerged. Black, grossly long teeth and wide obscenely grinning lips! It slowly lowered itself to the ground. There was a faint creak as its claws touched the floor of the cell. Charlotte took a slow step back, “Nooo, noooo-God help me, please!”
  Charlotte knew why the cell was so strong. The creature moved its head slowly and another creature untangled itself from the ceiling and dropped down. The first creature slowly stepped forwards. Charlotte watched it and slowly took a step back;     
    “Stay back, please stay back…” She tried to control her breath but she was practically hyperventilating! Her heart was beating in her chest as if it wanted to explode! The creature took another slow step forwards and a third creature slowly dropped down from the ceiling. 
  It was looking at Charlotte and she stepped back to find the corner of the wall-she had nowhere to go. She sank to her knees;
    “Nooo… ” The first creature stepped forwards. It was six feet away. Charlotte whimpered then she started to cry. In the end it was probably quickest to have her head ripped of by this beast than to wait for the one inside her to chew its way out.  The beast was three feet away then it stopped, it looked puzzled. It turned its head from side to side regarding her. What the hell? Charlotte was sure death at this monstrosity’s hands would be better than letting the one inside her chew its way out. “Well what are you waiting for, you bastard? Kill me!”
  The creature hissed at her in response then it did something that chilled Charlotte to the bones, it scratched its fingers with its thumbs in exactly the same gesture that Ted used when he was nervous. This thing was what had killed Ted now it was waiting for her to join it. It was waiting for the embryo to hatch. The creatures were not stupid enough to kill their own young. Charlotte had heard that they picked up memories, information from there hosts. How much could it understand her? It drew closer, gently nudging her shoulder with its grotesque head as if expecting the embryo to start to hatch there and then. 
    “Please just kill me.” Charlotte broke down with the creature overshadowing her she closed her eyes and started to weep. The creature knelt down and waited, it was patient.

  Other eyes monitored the scene, Dr Ramous was the head research scientist of the facility he had little choice in his position, before he knew what the job fully entailed the company had head-hunted him and brought him here. When he knew what restrictions he was placed under he had been forced to comply. The company man had politely advised him when he had come out of cryo sleep that an alien embryo was inside his chest. If he ever did anything the company did not like then a signal would be activated a micro chip inside the alien’s head would activate and it would wake up killing him. If he did some how manage to survive that then there was a canister buried inside his body that would release a toxin that would be a far more painful death. They also advised him that they knew where his wife and daughter were and what experiments they would perform on them before they died if he was not completely compliant.
  Dr Ramous was not a monster but he was doing monstrous things, because the company was making him. He rationalized it that way. It was one thing looking at a lab rat or a baboon in a cage, another doing the same thing to a person or even something else that could reason. Where another person would see a woman in a room with three aliens he saw an error with the control mechanism that would have to be adjusted. He had few pleasures in life, there was money going home to his wife and daughter and he enjoying his weekly game of chess. He enjoyed the challenge of his opponent she was skillful, intelligent and almost a match for him. He still held a narrow margin 54% of victories against 46% to her and she knew it. She was just as much an unwilling participant in this enterprise as he was and she was as important if not more so than he was. Her life was under threat if she ever resisted the company in any way. Her family that was large and very dear to her, they were equally at risk. They were at the final stages of their match, he had taught her chess and she had picked it up quickly, she had a tactical mind by necessity.

  He still had a few moves he had not taught her though. This one would win him this match but she would be better next time. She would anticipate and learn this strategy- she might even try it against him. His opponent was the other side of a thick cell wall he had a physical chess set made by a fabricator she had a holographically projected chess set in her cell. She moved the pieces by pointing with her fingers from her restrained arms. The cell was just large enough to hold her bound body. Large heavy robotic arms held a permanent grip on her legs at ankle and knee they were powerful enough to literally tear a limb off at the slightest attempt of resistance. Around her waist was a heavy clamp, also attached to a robotic arm that could pull her in two.   
  Around her neck was a heavy collar-the slightest attempt at tampering would cause it to explode. Her jaw was filled with a massive bit that stretched her jaw to its limit. Her teeth dug into the bit. Her long arms were held at wrist and elbow by more of the dam mechanical arms all four of them. Her tail was held by four robotic limbs from the base of the tail to the spike at the end she had no movement. The egg sack behind her was anchored to the ceiling the eggs automatically collected and processed as they were delivered.
  With a final move the alien Queen lost her queen on the board and was put into check mate. She hissed her displeasure for a second. Dr Ramous looked at her;
    “Now old girl that’s not good form!” 
  The Queen made a crude gesture with one finger that she had seen a security officer give to Dr Ramous then she gestured a few times with her limited movement. A sign language program took a couple of seconds then an artificial voice with a static quality to it spoke, not vocalizing the expletive. 
YOUR VICTORY TODAY. EVENTUALLY STRATERGIES YOU WILL HAVE NO MORE. 
  Dr Ramous chuckled; 
    “Yes, I will eventually run out of strategies you’re not familiar with but it’s not going to be for a while.”
  The alien Queen gestured more.
VICTORY WILL MINE EVEN IF WAIT pause TACTICAL THINKING PROBLEM SOLVING-GOOD TO LEARN. 
  Ramous smiled;
  “The company wants all its weapons and assets as sharp as possible, you and me included.” The Queen gestured some more.
COMPANY TAKE ME FROM HOME, FROM HIVE TO PLACE OF METAL. FORCE MY BROOD TO SERVE THEM. CANNOT SLEEP CANNOT FEED MUST SERVE. 
  Dr Ramous held the bridge of his nose;
    “I know the feeling but we must continue get test squad 5B up into the training room another test against the synthetics.”
  The queen concentrated. Four aliens moved from there pens into an arena. A similar number of armed synthetics walked into the arena carrying large stun weapons. The queen gestured,
WE BREAK HOLLOW MEN. THIS TIME YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO FIX. 
  Dr Ramous smiled;
    “We shall see about that”. Dr Ramous looked at the screen. The company had the aliens on a leash, they had the humans on leashes too, the synthetics might even have some sort of loyalty back up they were that paranoid. Slowly the company was forging the aliens into a weapon for a war that the other companies and governments were going to be completely oblivious to until it was too late and there was one company, one government but that war was a decade away. God he thought, he hoped he was still not here in a decade!
  On the screen the synthetics engaged one alien as two more dropped on them from behind shredding them, the aliens were learning.      

  Charlotte was half asleep. She wished she could be totally asleep and never wake up again. The alien had pushed her into the corner and had then set about gluing her in place with its slimy secretions. A web of the glue held her head to the wall, a strand plastered over her right eye and one over her mouth. 
  Her torso was affixed to the wall as was her left leg, folded up tight. Her right leg was fully extended and glued down. She was roused by a noise and heard the door to the room open with a grinding click. Opening her eyes, she saw there was nothing then a man in a grey suit and red tie was standing there he was about six foot two, his suit looked really expensive. His hair was done up he looked in his forties like someone who had surgery to keep him looking in his twenties. She wondered what the hell he was doing there. 
  The aliens hissed and turned. He had a confident, arrogant grin and moved in a blur. If he was a man, it was unlikely! His right fist cannoned through the front of the first alien’s face. He had literally knocked the front of its head off! Green slime hit the deck and burnt it for a few seconds. The second alien dived for him. He kicked it in the middle, folding the creature in half and sending its bulk spinning across the room.   
  The third alien managed to grapple him. Casually he pulled its left arm off and twisted its neck. The second alien started crawling towards him its back legs and tail limp. The man brought the severed alien arm down on the last alien killing it, splashing green slime over his suit which must have been as tough as it hardly seemed to react to the acid-his skin was much the same un-affected.

  Charlotte looked at him, aghast! He pulled the slime holding her head away and she gasped and spat the remnant of the foul tasting semi solid slime out of her mouth and worked her jaw she was free to speak again;
    “Who are you? What’s going on?” She managed. The man smiled;
    “My name is George-I work for your father. You may have turned your back on your family and run off with an ecologist but your father still cares. Who do you think put up half the money for the farming colony?”
  Charlotte’s mind reeled; she was sill coping with Ted’s death;
    “He promised he would never leave me alone.” She spoke quietly and bitterly, “Are you some sort of android, what is this place?” 
  The man did not look happy;
    “I am a Cyborg not a synthetic. Experimental cybernetic systems are far more powerful than any android. This is Station 542 the corporation that owns this station is building an army to remove rivals. Your ship was stolen for raw materials. They didn’t know who your father was. There was a beacon hidden on the ship and I was sent to follow you when the beckon showed the ship went off course.” George pulled the rest of the slime from Charlotte’s body and hoisted her onto shaking feet.
  Charlotte looked at him;
    “At least get me out of this damn jacket!”
  George shook his head;
    “I can’t do that love. The bio stasis jacket is all that’s keeping the nasty inside you from hatching. If I hadn’t already sabotaged the remote release on that one you would already be dead, I need to get you to a stash of tools. I have something that can keep the little bugger down until we get you to somewhere we can operate.” 
  Charlotte eyed him up;
    “If you could save me why not Ted? Why did you let him die you bastard! How the hell did you get on this station anyway?” George smiled cruelly,
    “I only had time to sabotage one jacket for their experiment. I have a stolen security pass and it let them think I was a corporate big-wig now come on, we have to move!”
  Charlotte considered herself selfish. Her husband was dead but all she wanted to do was live, she would blame and mourn later. All that mattered for the moment was getting away alive-her most basic survival instincts kicked in. Her fear was turning to anger at the faceless cooperate monsters that had killed Ted. She would get even. They dashed out of the open door and down a corridor. George gestured one way or another. Charlotte was having trouble keeping up. She looked at George;
    “Slow down okay? What do you mean keep the little bugger down?” George grinned;
    “You don’t want to know what it is but there is a way to stop the bugs from hatching.”
  Charlotte let a bit of the anger she was feeling slip into her voice;
    “Tell me what it is.” The man smirked for a fraction of a second then his face assumed a pleasant, placid look;
    “A long time ago-about a hundred years ago, I understand a woman caught a disease on earth that they thought they had wiped out. It was treated and remained dormant in her respiratory system. It was good news for her as it turned out. Her ship investigated a distress call and found a ship overrun with the bugs, she was infected but it did not hatch. The disease had transferred to the bug and retarded its ability to hatch. It ended up acting more like a symbiotic relationship over time. She survived and was studied by a corporation your father acquired. The bug was surgically removed together with the old records from that dead company. I did warn how a touch of leprosy can retard there growth cycle it stops them from hatching and growing.”
  Charlotte gulped;
    “You’re going to inject me with fucking leprosy?”
  George grinned;
    “Hell yes! It’s better than it hatching, believe me. I was going to inject it with the leprosy but I can’t get to it through the jacket.” The man looked back, “They know I disrupted their experiment, someone or something is following us.” 
  Charlotte suddenly found she could move faster. The man pulled a data pad out of his pocket he held it like a handle. He jammed a thick pen into it then he removed a cigarette case and clicked it to the assemblage to form some sort of small hand gun. He guided Charlotte with his left hand while holding the gun in his right hand. 

  The station security squad moved out towards the disturbance. They had three specimens dead and one taken by an unauthorized individual. The pursuers consisted of a mixed bunch. There was a colonial marine brainwashed in heavy armor well now, an ex-colonial marine carrying a pulse rifle with incendiary grenades. Behind him was a smart gunner wearing less armor but carrying more fire power. There was a Marine designated as a tracker he had two aliens bred from dogs at his command they were trained to track somewhat better than their hosts but them actually returning their captured prey with all the limbs attached was a bit more unlikely. The final member of the squad was a heavy weapons android a standard industrial android frame with military grade armor plating-the right hand removed and replaced by a flame thrower and a heavy duty machine gun. He had an integrated backpack with a lot of fuel and ammo. They started to track their target. The target had a head start but it would not mean much.

  Elsewhere on the station Eve sat in her padded cell waiting quietly. She had learnt patience. She could remember her name it was more of a designation, a role. She was a prototype, not sure exactly what her role was in the company plans but they had one for her. 
  She could remember that she was once someone else with a different name. She could remember what it was like to be human to not be as she was. She dreamed of the time that she was the other side of the wall the other side of the padding and the restraints. They had taken her citing a clause in her contract where those who betrayed the company could be subjected to experimentation. That would be a clause where the company could modify the employee’s contract at will under exceptional circumstances.
  She remembered the injections then her body had started to grow, to change. She had started to hear the whispers of her mother the queen. While she was receiving the injections from her father Dr Ramous, he was not her first father but for her new life he was her father now. The man had caused the change in her body. Her stature had grown and grown until she was nearly seven feet tall. Her limbs had changed she had slowly painfully felt her body warp and reshape itself any unwanted or useless changes swiftly corrected by the doctor.
  Her legs had changed first. They had grown and warped, giving another joint from the knee to the leg they had become stronger for two days they had been useless as they changed-the pain had been immense. Her feet had become harder, claws instead of toes with a grip that allowed her to climb. Her eyes had changed she was blind for a few days then her new senses had come into focus and she could see the world differently with greater clarity. 
  Her arms had been the most painful-nearly a week they had been useless until they separated into an upper set and a lower set her hands were stronger her nails were claws, there were plates on the back of her hands spines on her elbows and defensive plates above her shoulders. Her skin had become oily black her waist had tucked in she had armored plates over her torso below her breasts. 
  The tail had been painful to grow and had taken weeks. It took longer to learn how to use it, how to balance with it. Eve remembered the changes to her face she still looked human she still had hair but it was thicker longer. Her temples were reinforced with the hint of plating almost like a crest, her neck was reinforced with plating over her wind pipe her tongue had changed and now she had great difficulty forming human speech with her secondary jaws, though it was not impossible. 

  The modifications that they had tried to do to her mind were even worse. The humans had set her up to the mind re-programmer-a device she had ironically built most of the technology for. 
  She had started out with good intensions-an educational tool to help underperforming pupils learn but then it had been adapted for other purposes to help re-educate people who suffered memory loss through trauma, accidents or disease to help speed-learn jobs when there was a shortage of qualified personnel. The project goals had been stretched from just imparting useful information to re-educating a person first to cure antisocial disorders then as a way to rehabilitate criminals then for the simple purpose of ensuring complete compliance to the company. 
  They had hooked her up to it before the biological changes for days solid, indoctrinating her into the device they wanted her to be and it was painful like shards of glass being hammered into her skull but it never did any damage so they never needed to turn it off. The room was soundproof and the process automated so no one had to listen to her gagged screams…

  Eve had four marks on her back where spines might grow but they were not necessary so they had not grown. She still had a woman’s shape-a long neck, sensual lips, a generous bust a small waist and a generous bottom and hips. One of the technicians had touched her inappropriately and she had batted him across the room hopefully breaking something. She had been punished for this lack of control. She was now inside a rather tight custom made straitjacket. A muzzle held a large metal bar between her lips stretching them. The jacket had four sleeves and was made of a black material used to anchor docking star ships in place. She would not be free of it unless she behaved. There were two central loops and side loops her left upper arm was connected to her right lower arm and her right upper arm connected to her left lower one. Three straps went tightly between her legs her tail was wrapped around her waist three times then strapped into a sheath where it was useless. Her legs were inside tight sheaths folded back on themselves still she could see and she could think that was about it.
  She waited in the dark biding her time. Father thought his conditioning controlled her mother thought that her minds commands controlled her. The truth was that Eve was her own being and at the first opportunity she would escape and try to find a way off this station and a way back to her distantly remembered humanity. She had to be careful there was an error in the conditioning program that they had not spotted if she continued to play along she would have her opportunity.

  Dr Ramous reviewed the data again. Basically the Aliens were controllable with the techniques they had developed but there was a downside. What made them controllable also made them generally quite dumb. The queen was far from dumb and any alien in close proximity to her was also boosted by being able to tap into her tactical mind but that had hard limits on its distance. There had been many tests. Father (as Dr Ramous liked to think of himself) the father of this station looked at the data. All the tests were conclusive about how the drones were only good in the proximity of a queen they became far less useful as a weapon when they were just unthinking animals. The aliens had in their hive structure, a few equivalents to officers one or two with a bit of intelligence-praetorians but they stayed close to the queen and were relatively few in number and had no way to share there intelligence and adequately direct a battle. 
  Dr Ramous knew that the company needed something better, hence project Eve. They were creating a link, a way to control the creatures and direct them intelligently. They were inserting a layer of middle management into the hive structure an interface between the aliens and 

  George looked around him;
    “We have company in a few seconds.” He pushed Charlotte down into a crouching position behind some crates. An alien on all fours ran towards them it appeared for a fraction of a second then disappeared around a corner. George looked left then right. He swiveled around in a split second and fired. The alien seemed to appear from the darkness a hole appeared in its head and it fell to the ground limp. Before George could turn back, a man armed like a colonial marine stepped out of a side corridor and fired;
    “Watch the man not the bug!” He shouted, two rounds hit George in the back he grunted more in annoyance than in pain. He swiveled around and put a bullet into the gap between the chest armor and the bottom of the helmets visor. The man fell back dead. The smart gunner popped his head out and opened fire. The rounds were of a far higher caliber and George grunted in pain as his right shoulder was hit. He jumped and dived; picking up the pulse rifle dropped by the first soldier and used the body of the first soldier as a shield. The smart gunner had to tear through the other soldier to get to him. 
  George fired the pulse rifle one-handed. The smart gunner went down, struck by a hail of bullets. George turned in time to see the alien handler throw a grenade. George was lifted of his feat smashed into the ceiling fell and rolled. He grunted and got back up his clothes were shredded or at least the outer layer was his hands and his face were torn up revealing metal underneath. A set of light but very strong armor could be seen under his clothing. He paused for a split second and something passed across his face as if he was sending a thought out it was like he was in communicating with something. He picked up the smart gun and waited for the soldier to stick his head out again. The combat synthetic came around the corner. George was engulfed in flame as it fired at him. George turned to Charlotte;
    “Run!” 
  He fell down rolled and got back up. His suit was gone but his armor was not. His skin was burnt but the metal underneath was intact he fired on the combat synthetic it fired back. A slugging match was going on and Charlotte did not know who would win. 
  She didn’t need to be told twice-she had no intention of accidentally being shot while George fought against the combat synthetic. Charlotte looked for an appropriate place to hide. She heard something behind her, where was a hiding space? She panicked then she saw a maintenance hatch it was an old style one. A single kick in the right place and it opened. The fight with the squad was still going on. A grenade bounced down the corridor and exploded. Charlotte dived into the hatch. She was separated from George as she crawling through the station’s maintenance vents in the jacket. 
  She was sure something was following her. She saw it through a grill-an alien, a quadruped. The one remaining tracking alien was going after her. The engineer knew she had to get into a space too small for it. She knew that the standard maintenance crawl space was large enough for the alien tracker to follow her but she was betting that the company had run cables and services through the duct work against engineering regulations greatly diminishing the space that was available. She turned a few corners and she was right. She crawled into the confined space. She looked at the creature it would have to rip its way through a main power conduit to get to her. The creature advanced, gripping the power cable ready to pull it apart. The creature hesitated, its skull spasmed and twitched. The creature had been taught not to chew on the cables, that it would probably be lethal the creature let go of the cable and backed away it was looking for another way to get to Charlotte. She breathed a sigh of frustration that the creature was not dead and relief that it could not get to her slowly in her restrained condition she crawled along the vent.

  Eve had rolled onto her side. She sensed the movement-the lock to her door was cycling open. She recognized the heart beat of the woman outside. The door to Eve’s padded room was opened and her usual handler Dr Miranda Right stood there;
    “You have been a naughty girl!” Eve looked down at the floor towards Dr Right’s shoes. The doctor continued, “Now I can have two industrial androids take you out of your restraints and put you in the frame for an examination or you can comply by yourself.” Eve looked up. The doctor looked questioningly, “Do I need the synths?” Eve shook her head. The doctor walked over to her good girl. She took a key and unlocked the strap at the back of the huge muzzle gag it took a lot of pulling but the gag slowly popped out from between Eve’s stretched lips with a pop. She worked her jaw;
    “Thank you, doctor.” She managed to say in a rasping voice.
  The doctor worked on the leg sheaths that held Eve’s legs uselessly folded up. After six tight straps were loosened, Eve could stretch her left leg. She rolled onto her other side to allow the doctor to release her right leg. With her legs free Eve rolled over and adopted a crouching position to allow the doctor to work on the straps at the back of the jacket. First the crotch straps were released one by one until their maddening frustrating pressure was gone. Then the pressure on her upper and lower arms was gone then her tail was free. A few seconds and the straps on the back of her jacket were being released. Dr Right stepped back as Eve squirmed out of her tight straitjacket. Eve was wearing nothing under her jacket, she was now totally naked. Dr Right looked at her;
    “What do you say, Eve?”
    “Thank you, doctor.” Dr Right patted her on the shoulder;
    “That’s better, Eve.”
  Eve had to lean slightly forwards to counterbalance her tail as she walked. Doctor Right was five foot five wearing two inch heels stockings and a lab coat at least that was all that could be seen she had long black hair and was about thirty and quite pretty. Her patient/specimen was just over seven feet tall, four arms ending in claw-like nails feet that ended in claws, a huge tail and powerful jaws. If Eve wanted to, she could literally tear her apart in seconds. The doctor looked Eve up and down;    
    “You seem to be no worse for your confinement.” Eve looked down;
    “Yes doctor. I feel fine.”
  Dr Right looked at Eve, a stern look in her eyes;
    “You hurt one of the technicians quite badly. He will spend quite a long time-a month or more in the hospital.” Eve looked down her shoulders sagged;
    “He shouldn’t have touched me.” Dr Right looked at her;
    “So you still have a degree of sexuality don’t you, Eve.”
  Eve looked embarrassed;
    “Yes doctor.” 
  The doctor’s hand reached between Eve’s legs and stroked her there. Eve’s tail started to twitch backwards and forwards. The doctor looked at her. Eve could feel her cheeks blush her eyes dilated. The doctor continued;
    “So you like women?” 
  Eve blushed. The doctor looked at her, slowly running one hand up her shoulder;
    “So if I changed the duty rotors so only female staff were attending to you would that make it okay?”
  Eve nodded;
    “Thank you doctor.” 
  The doctor stroked Eve along her waist. She noticed the tip of Eve’s tail start to twitch again. The doctor looked at her;
    “I think I am starting to form a pattern. Now get on the examination frame”. Eve pouted for a second the doctor looked at her sternly, “Go.”
  Eve walked over to the frame in the middle of the room. She bent forwards over the waist section and allowed the two halves of the clamp to lock around her waist. She put her neck into a second clamp which automatically activated, locking her bent-over at 90 degrees. She put her right foot into a restraint which trapped her toes onto a plate on the floor. She put her left foot in place it too was trapped. She reached her tail up into the air until a similar clamp engaged around the base of her tail spike. She reached above her with first her upper then her lower arms into a set of four way cuffs leaving her arms behind her eve was locked into a tight strapedo. 
  The doctor had put on a pair of elbow length rubber gloves she looked at Eve. She spoke to the computer;
    “Override Lamda echo on CCTV recording off.” A shiver went along Eve’s spine. Dr Right looked at her, “Now girl do you want the restraints a little tighter”? Eve blushed and nodded. The doctor smiled and flicked a switch. Her tail was pulled back higher, her arms wrenched higher and her legs pulled further apart until she was on tip toe. Her head was pulled back so she was bent back in a most strict and appealing strapedo. The tip of Eve’s tail began to twitch more as her body was stretched and what little movement she had was eliminated. The doctor looked at her “Now four days ago we gave you an injection that should make it easier for you to speak. I want you to focus on that like we talked about before.” 
  Eve nodded as best she could. Her jaws opened and her secondary jaws came free they opened and a long tongue slid out from the secondary jaws. The secondary jaws slowly slid back into Eve’s mouth. Eve worked her jaw for a few seconds;
    “That makes it so much easier to speak.”
  Dr Right held up a contraption of metal and rubber;
    “I have something else in mind rather than speaking.” 
  Eve looked at the device. Dr Right explained;
    “This gag will hold your jaw open with this ring and also keep your secondary jaw in place with these hooks so that you can only use your tongue. I had it made so I could examine your jaws but I can think of other uses for it…” 
  The tip of Eve’s tail twitched in anticipation. Eve opened her jaws to receive the gag. Dr Right patted her on the head;
    “Good girl! I think I need to give you a very though examination.”  
  Eve felt the doctor’s lips press against hers. She felt the doctor’s tongue dance over hers, the doctor’s hands running over her body.
  Dr Right picked up some sort of metallic probe. Eve felt the cool metallic ball of the tip between her dangling breasts. The Doctor put her other hand on the inside of Eve’s thighs and caressed upwards. In her heavily restrained state she was becoming aroused, Eve’s tail tip began to move twitching backwards and forwards, faster and faster. Deprived of sight, her mind went into sensory overload responding to the touch of the cold metal on her skin.
  Slowly the cold metal traced its way down until it was resting on the hood of her clit. The metal rod pressed straight up. Eve moaned as the doctor used more pressure, the doctor with drew the probe Then pushed again, gently this time then removing the sensation. Eve squirmed desperate for the return of the sensation of the metal back on her flesh.
  Again, the metal lightly brushed Eve’s left inner thigh and the tip traced a straight line from her knee all the way to the edge of her labia. The doctor paused there for a moment then pulled up, following her flesh. It travelled its way across the curve of Eve’s bottom before stopping at Eve’s rose bud. Eve knew what was coming as there was more pressure applied she tried to clench but the doctor smacked her on the bottom. Eve relaxed as the cold metal probe was pushed in between her buttocks, deep into her body.

  Gently, the doctor pulled Eve’s labia apart with her fingers. The doctor had another metal probe and Eve felt the hard familiar ball of the probe knob pressed against her opening. The polished metal entered her easily and plunged in deep. The doctor gripped the handle then started to work the probe in circles, so that Eve could feel the end of the probe inside her. Eve’s tail tip started to blur as it moved backwards and forwards. She lifted her hips and tried despite her restraint to match the movements the doctor made with the instrument deep inside Eve. The handle was thrust in and out, in and out, in and out... HARDER, DEEP INSIDE...
  The doctor was now moving faster, she was rubbing Eve’s clit with her thumb. Eve’s body felt as if it was beating faster and faster. Eve was moaning loudly, her body felt like it was swelling, like a balloon and was about to explode. She could take no more. Her back tensed to arch and Eve was on the verge of release but then the doctor pulled out the probe and pushed up as hard as she could on Eve’s belly with the palm of her hand.
  Eve’s body suddenly deflated and I came down to the reality of her restrained position she grunted into her gag and pulled against her restraints. The Doctor kissed her on the forehead;
    "This will be slow my favourite game, orgasm denial," she laughed, "...it's going to be a long examination for you Eve-six hours I think!"
  Eve considered it a cruel torment. Surely the doctor wouldn't put her through that for six hours? Did the doctor intend to keep her like this for that many hours? How much of this could eve take before she went mad?

  Deep inside the station, inside one of the half forgotten areas there was a place where equipment only to be used in the most unlikely of circumstances were stored. Things that were out of date or could be salvaged for parts had sat there for months, years even decades. Still in space no one could just pop back to earth for more spare parts.
  Inside this area was a secure locker, inside it was a defective droid. The droid was labeled as defective. She had been turning up in area’s that were sensitive within the station. It was unusual and the android had presented herself as simply malfunctioning. 
  Her Designation was Anna-an acronym of an Astrometry Navigation Negotiation and Administration droid. Her model had been designed to work on small ships with complex mission parameters and small crew compliments. Why pay for room for four personnel when one android could do each job. She was unusual as she had been brought from outside the company. They had many androids of many makes to run parts of the station and the alien training areas. It was easier to put arms back on androids if the drones got frisky.
  For some reason that they could not figure out Anna the android had resisted the corporate re-programming. Every time they had tried to wipe her personality, her memory it had not lasted more than ten minutes. They had tried to change her from her factory defaults using programs and devices that had worked on every other type of commercially available android but nothing had worked. She could not be reprogrammed to be loyal to their corporation over her manufacturer.
 They had wasted time trying many things but she was an anomaly that needed, no, begged to be answered. After months they decided to put her on hold. They put her in a kinetic restraint harness, an item designed to render a malfunctioning android harmless. It was generally more effective than detaching both her arms. A single ridged synthetic case that pinned her arms tightly to her torso inside internal sleeves. A broad firm crotch strap and a high, rigid collar completed the restraint. It would require forces equivalent to remove a moored capital ship from a station to disengage the green material. She was then placed in a secured pod with a complex lock.
  In truth, she was no simple android that had been accidentally picked up by the cooperation. She had been specially rebuilt from a standard model and her superstructure had been greatly strengthened. A secondary miniaturized computer core was imbedded in her left leg inside a structural support that took the place of where her hip bone would be if she was human. Her creators had found an agent of the company that was purchasing large numbers of old androids and conveniently left her in a sales lot, Lying in her tight restrain and pod She started to Activate and boot back up. She had actually been sent by the same corporation as George an advanced fact finding agent that had never had an opportunity to complete her mission by returning the evidence transmitting it back to her previous masters.

  Eve could compartmentalize her mind, a gift from the alien DNA-the Queen’s DNA. 
  While her body was quietly engaged in something rather distracting she blocked it off letting a more basic part of her brain run the show. She concentrated another part of her intelligence on a far more important task. She could see into the alien’s minds, that is to say the drones, the face huggers, the chest bursters and the lower order units, there were stronger creatures she had no hope of control. After all it was what she was designed to do. 
  She had little control against the Queen but if she wanted to sew chaos the Queen would likely sit back and wait for an opportunity as long as it didn’t endanger her eggs but Eve could direct a single drone quite well even at a distance. 
  Looking through the eyes of several, she found something new-an opportunity, allies that she could use to get off station. She just needed to help them a little. 
  Eve directed the fight around George, she could turn the tables and get a chance for freedom the first she had seen. It was now or never. 
  Eve was able to influence the fight secured even as she was by getting one alien tracker-a variety that seemed to have been bred from a guard dog to turn on part of its own squad. 
  The combat synthetic had a vulnerable spot. Where a panel had been torn away in the fight against George, the alien jumped up behind the android and landed a blow with its tail through the slot into the unit’s power source, killing or certainly disabling the synthetic. There was a brief panic with the tracker’s handler. He realized that the alien was being controlled by another-it was no longer obeying his limited commands.  
  Before Eve could drop the alien on its own handler he automatically activated its kill switch when he determined something had taken it over. The alien dropped to the floor like its strings were cut, a small explosive charge surgically implanted in its skull, when it was a chest burster turning its brain to soup. George took the opportunity to shoot the handler in the neck while he was distracted.
  Eve had another drone already under her control. It was a warrior type, an older, smarter creature a little harder to control but far more capable being grown from a human template. It was in an adjacent lab and it could reach out of its cage through the feeding slot with the very tip of its tail and hit a control console. 
  Eve remembered seeing Dr Right use the code and it had not been changed. She carefully had the warrior escape and move into the lab with her. Eve was very careful to make sure that the drone was very quiet so that Dr Right had no opportunity to trigger an alarm and noted the location of the emergency alarm button. She also noted the securing pins on her restraints. The alien drone jumped, landing next to her. It bit through the pins, releasing her arms. 
  The drone landed between a terrified Dr Right and the alarm. Eve quickly freed herself from her humiliating position as the drone slowly advanced on Dr Right snarled at her then when it was inches away it paused.
  Dr Right looked nervously at Eve;
    “It was all an act! You were never under our control!” 
  Eve nodded with an evil grin. The drone stood back and obediently awaited instruction. Eve’s tail came forwards it made a line up Dr Right’s body cutting into her clothing with a deft pull removing most of her clothes. She pulled the rest of Dr Right’s clothes away from her body. Eve kissed her and the doctor was petrified!  She didn’t even try to cover herself up. 
  The hybrid woman went to a supply cupboard. She removed resin gel putty and began to work it into a ball
  The nervous doctor didn’t resist as her jaw was forced open wider and wider. She cried as the vile tasting putty was forced deeply into every corner and crevice of her mouth. With a great deal of glee Eve pulled out rolls of 3inch wide self adhesive tape from the cupboard. The tape would tightly stick to itself once pulled from the backing and exposed to air. 
  Roll after roll of tape was wound around Dr Right’s head leaving only her nose showing. The doctor’s arms were pulled behind her body and bound tightly together from finger tip to shoulder her elbows meeting without any hint of a gap. Eve removed a large vibrating probe and forced it with a little lubricant between Doctor Right’s buttocks very deeply. Doctor right sobbed into her gag as Eve forced her legs higher and higher one by one behind her neck and wrapped them together around the ankles crossed behind her neck, encasing the doctor in more tape;
    “What a baby! You made me take a probe twice that size!”
  Eve wrapped more tape around her waist, around her torso, covering her breasts until the doctor was one tightly compressed pear shaped package. The tape would continue to tighten from her body heat. Eve turned on the plug and stuffed Doctor Right in a supply cupboard, sure that it would take them several hours to find her. Dr Right moaned into her gag inside her cramped confined bondage it was agonizing and humiliating but far better than being eaten…

  Eve recovered a piece of grey fabric that had been a cover for a delicate piece of equipment. She quickly ripped a few holes in it and draped it over herself like a poncho. Eve grabbed some cord and tied it around the middle of the garment giving herself a makeshift dress. 
  She looked around. There were security cameras everywhere-she had to quickly get to the man. He seemed to have an escape route planned and if Eve could convince him, maybe she had a way out of hell. The moment she got out of the lab an alarm activated and a hidden turret popped out of the floor killing the drone she was controlling, emptying four or five rounds into its head. 
  It pointed at Eve then stopped. Eve guessed she was too valuable to kill. They would want to capture her and fix her so she ran as fast as she could. The main computer core sent a special reinforced robotic drone to recapture Eve.
  The drone resembled a small tank with the torso of a robot but no head, more a flat dome with two sensors. The right arm was a large cluster of tubes-weapons of every description whilst the left arm was a heavy, powerful grip like a crane’s arm, or the arm of a power loader. 
  The device was specially constructed for wrangling aliens, it was programmed for Eve, specifically if she decided to be a naughty girl and now she was going to get spanked if it caught up with her.

  George looked around for Charlotte, he had no idea where she was and a small tremor of hesitation appeared on his face. He didn’t have time for doubt and pushed the emotion back down. He might not know where she was now but he knew someone that could probably find her using the stations systems, he just had to liberate them first. He moved quickly, he had to be here anyway. 
  George shot the lock off the outer door of the storage room. He carefully checked using his enhanced senses and entered the room. There was a bigger, heavier-looking lock on a door where the more expensive stuff was kept there was no point in having some idiot pull something expensive apart for spare parts if you could lock them out.   
  George shot the lock out then reached inside and pulled the cover plate off there was a secondary mechanism. He fiddled about and pulled the cables. The lock disengaged and the door opened.
  He looked to the back of the room and saw a capsule, a coffin-shaped container reinforced from the outside. Running over to it he started to pull it apart with his bare hands. After a few seconds the first lock broke, there were three more designed to resist internal force but not external pressure. He soon went through those as well and pulling the capsule open he found Anna inside. She was strapped down at chest, ankle, knee and waist with a bung shoved into her mouth. If she had needed to breathe she would have choked to death, it simply made her unable to communicate a sound. George pulled the restraints off then whirled her around and started to cut the jacket open. Anna rebooted fully;
    “Thank you for releasing me, agent. I have detailed copies of their files. If we get out of this station we can bring down their whole operation. If the government is willing to risk a fight, we may need to enlist some of the other corporations to fight this battle considering the size of the army under construction. This is just one research base. There are many other production bases. To achieve our objectives alliances will be required. With this evidence most would agree it as a necessity.”
  As soon as Anna was free, George handed her a gun he had grabbed from a downed opponent;
    “The boss‘s daughter got her ass captured. She is somewhere on the station, can you remotely access the sensor grid and find her? We need to get out with her.”
  Anna nodded. Her body went slack, her eyes unfocused for a few seconds as if all her processing capability was involved in another task. Her body shuddered, she was back. She pointed in one direction and they headed off. 

  The computer made the appropriate decision. One security squad had not been sufficient-three squads would be sent to get the intruders. The computer calculated two to be sufficient based on their current capabilities but knew that there were so many factors unknown that a margin of error was needed. Recovery of anything suitable to interrogate was a secondary priority against stopping any information getting off the station. 
  George headed down a corridor. He stopped for a second, there was an alien in a cage on some sort of cargo truck watching him, it was a smaller creature almost ape-like as if it had been bread from a monkey or a baboon. It made no hostile action simply sitting there staring at him. Far away, Eve knew where he was now and what direction he was heading. She hastened her attempts to catch up with him and the android.

  Charlotte had been crawling around inside the twists and turns of the station’s maintenance ducts for half an hour-she was sure that she was lost! She had initially been panicking then when she calmed down she had thought. She was now trying to make it to the station’s launch bay, a way out hoping George was going to be heading in the same direction and she would catch up with him. 
  She looked for cabling that would be connected to the pilot guidance beacon and then followed that. She had gotten only a little lost but she was sure that she had the right area. There was a scraping sound and a panel behind her was removed a hand grabbed her around the ankle and she was pulled with inhuman strength out of the duct.

  Eve mulled it over in her head. Looking the way she did how was she going to convince them to take her with them, to trust her? Heck to avoid them just shooting her on site? 
  She knew the layout of the station and she could control the aliens to a degree. She still had detailed knowledge of the company from the time she was the one conducting the experiments-she could be useful. She just had to convince them of that...

  Charlotte screamed only to realize that her ankle was being held by a synthetic-the strength was a dead giveaway though the synthetics looked human shaped! As an engineer she could spot the ‘off’ telltale signs-a lot to do with the posture and movement of a synthetic gave them away. 
  A good look at the one holding her ankle and she was sure the signs indicated a mid-range synthetic. There were lots of small clues that an engineer could pick up on to say not top of the line but not bottom, either. 
  Charlotte looked on questioningly. Was this a company synthetic, was she going to be dragged back and fed to the aliens? Then there was another shape and George was there, a bit ‘worse for wear’ but still in one piece. She breathed a sigh of relief as George introduced them;
    “Charlotte this is Anna-a synthetic here under deep cover. She has their files downloaded.” He turned to his ‘artificial friend’, “Anna this is Charlotte, the daughter of the CEO. Now we have had our introductions I suggest we find the main launch bay, grab a ship and get to a friendly station as soon as possible!”
  George groaned. As soon as he’d said that, he could hear the sound of feet and claws coming towards them, boots and tracks rattling across the floor full of ill purpose-people turned into little more than mindless puppets of a corporation! He pushed Simons into a storage cupboard. A combat synthetic came around the corner and he barrelled into it, grabbing its weapon arm and turning it onto its allies. There were three squads of assailants. George was heavily armored and Anna was tougher than a regular synthetic but they were no match for the numbers Charlotte felt a hopeless dread beginning to grow in her heart.
  She watched the fight from an air vent hope came back as quickly as it went. Anna seemed to step out of nowhere. She grabbed one of the former colonial marines and snapped his neck, picking up his gun and in one effortless move shot down two more of the attackers. She looked at Charlotte through the grating;
    “There is no known way to reverse the brain washing, no file I have found.” The android acted strangely looking curiously, the aliens suddenly attacked their handlers, killing them then they dropped dead, a light shudder in there skulls as the charges detonated. Killed by the computer rather than allowing Eve to control them but it had turned the tide. 

  Eve barreled out of an airshaft. She tail-harpooned one of the combat synthetics then vomited acid over the face of a smart gunner. Snatching-up the dead marine’s weapon, she sprayed the last remaining attackers. George and Anna had pulse rifles trained on her but they were not firing. Eve pointed the smart gun down but did not release it. She made a brief introduction, trying to appear as unthreatening as possible which for her was hard;
    “Help me out of here and I can be a witness against The Company! I was,” she paused, “...I am a scientist of some skill. I could work for your organization-don’t leave me here!”
  George looked at her, his voice questioning but impatient;
    “When the aliens turned on them-that was you?” 
  Eve smiled;
    “I can control aliens that are local and weak, not a queen or her praetorian guard but I can be useful. That chest burster in your friend-I can keep it in hibernation until you can remove it.” 
  George nodded;
    “Okay but you take point we’re getting a ship and getting out of here!”
  Eve nodded curtly.

  They moved forwards nervously expecting anything to try and halt their escape. Far away the station computer recalculated the best way to handle the group and minimize the loss of key assets. They didn’t expect it as the security door dropped, cutting Eve from the rest of the group. Charlotte looked at her and wondered, was it a worse fate to die or be transformed into something like that?
  Whatever had happened to Eve she still had a burning desire for freedom and life. A side door from a large storage room opened and the containment drone rounded the corner heading straight for Eve. She fired a large number of rounds from the smart gun at the robot but it was as thickly armored as an APC. If Eve knew its weak spots she might have stood a chance but she had no familiarity with this kind of device and started to panic her human side taking over.
  Eve tried to claw the door open as the drone extended its arms towards her. Its powerful mechanical arms grabbed her around the neck and waist then pulled her in she left claw marks in the walls and floor holding onto anything to try and struggle free from its merciless grip!
  Despite her fighting, the machine subdued her. It was designed with her every limit in mind. Eve screamed as she was overpowered by the drone and it tore away the makeshift garment. Acidic tears rolled down Eve’s cheeks. 
  A Y-shaped frame was laid against her back a metal circle clicked shut tight around her waist crushingly tight, another around her neck, locking it in place. Her lower arms were pulled into the small of her back and locked in place followed by her upper arms a giant steel plug on a mask like harness was pulled over her face stretching her jaw and silencing her indignant screams. Her ankles were bent back until they touched her thighs and then they were locked in place. Her tail was lifted up and a large intrusive metal plug invaded her bottom between her round buttocks deeper and deeper until its base locked in place. Any further thrashing got her a swift jolt of electric discipline. Her tail was wrapped in place her restraints were ratcheted tighter and tighter her body arched further back. 
  They would watch her more closely now. She would never know further freedom just this crushing violation. They might decide to just keep her in this frame! She wept as the machine systematically ratcheted the restraints tighter contorting her body further into submission-a bundle, a package to be processed.

  George and Anna fought a battle in their minds-risk there freedom or even their lives attempting to save there new ally or retreat? They were wracked with indecision- how would they get to a ship now?
  Charlotte was an engineer, she could just see a practical problem in front of her, one that could be solved. She looked at the control panel and gently elbowed Anna to get her attention she gestured towards the door;
    “First you need to disable its connection to the computer without causing a security lock-down that will completely lock us out. Anna broadcast a standard access protocol signal 411 range. George, pull that red chip out. Now its set back to a factory basic the code is 123456 and the door will open.” 
  Now that they were in a position to open the door George hesitated. Charlotte looked at the robot directing George;
    “The droid there, its power system is located low in the body, attack it on the left hand side right at the base. There is a heat exchange system. See that plate? It should overheat and shut down. It’s the only real weakness of the design.”
  George helped the door open with a quick pull while Anna lay down a suppressing fire distracting the drone as George combat-rolled past it. In one fluid movement he picked up the smart gun and started firing at the weak spot that Charlotte had pointed out. The drone was seemingly unaffected until a panel in that area detached, broken apart by the gunfire. The internal mechanisms were destroyed with another shot or two. The huge armored drone slowed down then finally stopped. 
  George put down the gun and walked over to the bound Eve. He used his immense strength to pull the restraint apart.  
  Anna busied herself by removing a sheet from a storage locker to make a makeshift garment for Eve while George broke apart the device that held her. As the last few bands of metal were removed, Eve flopped to the floor. She recovered in seconds though and George almost flinched as a crying Eve hugged him. She worked her jaw that had been inhumanly stretched around the gag while putting on the improvised garment;
    “Thank you! I thought I was worse than dead, I used to work for them so I know this place-the main landing bay is too heavily guarded. I know a way off out of here. The executive hanger has the best ships and fewer guards!” 
  The four of them escaped in the direction Eve indicated through a side corridor, bypassing the main defenses.

  They were nearly at the bay, arriving at a fancy security door with a basic lock that Anna was able to bypass. The area looked expensive-every surface had been constructed to a high finish but security seemed to be about the only thing that they had not really considered. In the launch bay there were three expensive ships. Two were in side hangers and one was prepped ready for launch, waiting to be cycled through the large air lock mechanism. 
  The ship was long sleek and black, top of the line in every field quite able to fly to any part of the galaxy by itself and back. As they got near to their escape the ramp to the ship lowered and there was movement. Eve held the smart gun while Anna and George held pulse rifles at the ready. Out from the ship something moved. There was a tall man in a thick black coat. The coat was probably some expensive type of armor it had a solid quality that normal fabric just didn’t have. It reached to just above his ankles. He stood in there way blocking access to a craft that was repaired to go and ready to launch. He wore mirrored sunglasses his hair was black greasy, slicked back with just the hint of a receding hair line. Wearing a sneer on his face, he looked like a clichéd villain from some holo vid exuding an air of arrogance. 
  He cleared his throat;
    “How amusing that you have gotten this far.” The tone in his voice dismissed them with contempt, “I am the local Corporate Director. My inferiors call me Mister Black, this is my installation I will enjoy breaking you.”
  He pulled a hand gun from his jacket, obviously prepared in a blur and fired. Eve was hit by some sort of tranquilizer dart and fell to the ground, her world going black and her body slowly going into hibernation. Anna was hit by some sort of magnetic projectile that discharged an electrical shock that overrode her systems and dropped her to the floor, switched-off. 
  Mister Black smiled as George returned fire, the bullets doing nothing to his armored coat. He looked at George like a bug;
    “The ladies are far too valuable to damage. Eve must be educated and that Anna droid will be quite entertaining to learn how to override-whatever blocks her re-programming.” He paused looking at George slightly more seriously, “We will learn more of use dissecting you than questioning you but Charlotte,” he paused, “…we now know you’re daddies little girl-how bad for you...”

  George emptied the last of the ammunition in the pulse rifle then discarded it. He closed the gap to Mister Black in an instant his cybernetics working in overdrive and tried to punch him. The man blocked the blow and kicked back .Charlotte ran over to a control panel that was situated at the back of the area, she picked up a pen in her teeth and slowly started typing commands into the console. There was a whirring overhead wile the two combatants fought in a blur. Under Charlotte’s control a crane moved a large cargo module. Charlotte knew that this Mister Black was the man most responsible for her Ted’s death-she would have her revenge! She had no fear, she just focused on the task ahead. 
  Eve might have lost the muscle control of her body but her mind was still working. Without the distraction of physical sensation it was working faster. Four alien warriors in a nearby chamber woke up and pulled the door to their cage open in a concerted effort, attacking its weak points. They charged across the station into the duct-work heading towards the fight and this corporate monster, this Mister Black.

  Anna was built with heavily insulated parts. That attack might have completely deactivated a regular android but she was not a regular android. Her eyes fluttered open and she started to slowly crawl across the floor towards the smart gun. She had a few minutes of reserve power left and she could do something useful even at this low level of mobility. Her programming compelled her on, inch by inch. 
  George and the Station Commander seemed to be an even match in terms of speed and power, even-matched in style and technique. George was sure that this Mister Black had the same combat cybernetics as George which as far as he was concerned were the best in existence, the best programmed fighting techniques as well-everything that could increase a man’s deadliness. 
  Mister Black smiled;
    “You worm! How dare you defy a god in human form! I am just playing with you. My synthetics can be clocked well past 100%.” Suddenly, he moved faster than George thought possible delivering a series of blows to George’s chest that seemed to snap some of his armored ribs. George could easily switch off the pain but the damage was done. 
  Mister Black kicked George in the leg sending him to the floor. Standing there gloating gave Anna an opportunity, a clear shot. Anna fired the smart gun hitting Mister Black in the face. He staggered back, clutching his cheek. George rolled out of the way of the overpowered madman. Four alien warriors controlled by Eve shredded a vent cover and dropped out from the hole they started trying to tear into Mister Black. 
  Anna slumped forwards, the last of her power reserves gone. The aliens were all Warriors fighting as one, far heavier and tougher than regular drones but it was not much. One alien had its face ripped off by Mister Black, a second fell to a blow that folded it in half. 
  Mister Black faced off against the last two aliens. There was a creak and the aliens and Black looked up. Charlotte had the cargo module above them. Mister Black made to move out of the way but the aliens tackled him to the floor. Charlotte calmly depressed the release pedal with her foot, a vicious smile spreading over her face. The cargo module fell in an instant. Twenty tons of something very expensive landed on Mister Black and the two aliens, squashing them all flat with a deafening cacophonous crash. 
  George stood up. He was limping quite badly he slowly bent down and picked up Anna, hoisting her over his shoulder and turned around walking over to Eve. He hesitated for a second & Charlotte looked at him with a hint of scorn. Then he sighed and picked her up like a bundle of laundry. He started to head towards the ship. Charlotte stepped next to the crate. She spat on it then turned to follow George. There was a creak and a lurch the cargo module was pushed to one side. Mister Black stood up. The damage to his face looked like a tearing of the skin exposing black bones and silver plating. A few drops of grey-black blood hit the floor burning it. His mirrored glasses were smashed his eyes were black pools of madness-all humanity gone. His clothes were tattered but every wound looked little more than superficial. The megalomania in his voice was a terrible thing;
    “You came here prepared to fight a man,” he paused for effect, “...what you supposed was a mad man but instead you found a god! Kneel before me and pray accept my godhood!” He wildly gestured around, “This is a good time to pray before you die.”
  George dropped his charges, a knife appeared in his hand and he charged towards him. Mister Black moved in a blur, a streak of black lightning unfurled from within his jacket. An object drove through George’s skull killing him instantly. Mister Black had an alien’s tail similar to Eve. He grinned and clicked his fingers. Doors opened, soldiers and aliens synthetics and robots piled in filling the room.
  Horror filled Charlotte’s face and tears rolled down her cheeks spilling onto the floor. She didn’t think she had any more tears to cry but there they were spilling down her cheeks again. She looked around her there were the feet of alien’s humans and synthetics. Her vision was a blur she didn’t remember even dropping to her knees. A syringe was pushed into her thigh and she felt darkness beginning to overwhelm her then light and floating, a restless sleep, an endless nightmare.

  She woke up she had some sort of mask locked over her face. Tubes deep in her nose down her throat, her arms were crossed over her chest she could feel a scar between her breasts the weight of the alien lava was gone. But her arms were held in place by some sort of jacket. All four of them, folded and pinned she panicked four of them! She tried to struggle the layers of fabric stretched a little then her limbs became tired and the jacket pulled back into shape. Straps were wrapped around her wrists they tightened further. She tried to unfurl her claws but there were thick mittens around them and she could not get free. Straps were everywhere-immobilizing her, holding her legs tightly folded up and useless. She could feel other minds, cold alien ones-some bound, some free within cages some running training exercises. 
  She could just make out a name tag it said Lilith. She growled into her muzzle and flicked her tail? When did she have a tail, they were turning her into a monster like Eve!
  She didn’t think like a monster. She panicked and thrashed about, anything to get out of this vision of Hell! Her clawed feet tried to kick-out at the sides of the clear tank but it was made of something supremely strong, no amount of struggling was doing anything. She felt her air supply reducing-the cruel bastards!
  She felt her body respond, going into a hibernation state. How would she be changed when she woke up?

  Dr Right finished a call;
    “Yes sir. Charlotte’s transformation is going well. Soon the project will be ready and we can begin testing Lilith’s abilities. A Mark 2 on the Eve project. In terms of power we have high hopes, carrying a chest burster seems to help alter the subject into being more receptive. We will have to work on her loyalties though.”
  Charlotte lay there, floating in a tank, slowly changing inside the stretchy, torso-encompassing straight jacket and straps that were even now more tightly conforming to her new body. Her body and her mind were changing. The process was smoother this time around. She was closer to a production model than the prototype Eve. 
  Many of the complications and pain both physical and emotional that had been borne by Eve would not be repeated. Charlotte dreamed of the hive, of revenge and freedom! She would be used as a piece on the board against her own father’s company, against her family. 
  Slowly she forgot her name. Aliens and humans shared the same nightmares in this place, bent and broken to the company’s will until even the distinctions between them blurred-all were tools to an end. 

  Dr Right turned to Eve, casually stroking a tightly compressed bundle of flesh held in polished metal restraints. Her hands disappeared deep between Eve’s folded legs and gagged, panting murmurs soon filled the room. Dr Right continued to play with her helpless victim;
    “Eve my dear, I know you don’t like being tied up in that cramped little ball but that is going to change, I am going to reprogram your mind to love your current confinement! When I am finished you will beg me on bended knee to bind you tightly and keep you restrained in the cruelest and most degrading way possible. Won’t that be lovely! You will be the amenable play thing you previously pretended to be.” 
  There was a muffled response. Eve could feel the effects of her mind control device, perfected under Dr Right’s and Dr Ramous’ endeavors. Even after one treatment she was feeling warm and comfortable even excited at the thought of being a restrained captive especially with Dr Right holding her leash.
  Dr Right winched a few of Eves restraints tighter against muffled sobs she turned to her secondary project Anna, Anna was in some sort of cross, it held her naked spread eagled. Her hands were inside some sort of pods and her sensors had been overridden. Her body had been made much more sensitive and her emotions reprogrammed into far more intense version of there former selves. Able to interfere and conflict with her core programming manipulated correctly and she might even break. 
  Her artificial body was stretched out in all its perfection. Dr Right slowly selected from a rack of stimulations, if you make a machine to like a person it has the same weaknesses. In the dark depths of space monsters were victims and victims were made into monsters. Even if they could hear you scream would the company care?