Carole at Work and Play

'I had sex with him,' was the way I heard that, but regretted even the thought. Whatever this WAS it fit with what she'd told me in code at dinner, had she lied, or had they?

"Their languages," said the man in his affectless way, "are so interesting with their levels of deception. We did not, lie, maybe, we prevaricated. Is that the right word?"

His question was apparently posed to his companion.

"Yes," was her answer, "you're learning well."

"Oh, fuck," I said and I felt her grip on my hand firm and pull downward, I took that as an urgent request to not move so I kept my body still, "I'm obviously part of this. Someone tell me something, um, useful?"

"They sent me for you," Carole said and turned to me, I turned a bit to mostly look her in the eye, "last year, like I told you. But I told them I wouldn't do it. They... made a deal. If I helped them they'd let us go."

"Help them what?"

"Plant their nano-whatsits in your building," Carole said softly, "and your house. Identify your key colleagues. So they could see and hear."

"Nano? Nanobots? Molecular scale machines? Are you serious? They're theory. Not real. Yet."

I looked at Carole's sad expression then at the couple who it seemed might actually be smiling although that was more their vibe than something visual.

"I told you," the woman said, "we were right to target this one."

"Would, um, these nanobots occasionally be detected by, oh, a buzzy buzzy sound like tinnitus? If someone is sensitive in the right range?"

"Yes," the man this time, "he is good. A technical flaw we've not yet been able to address."

"Colleagues? The doughnuts? The seminar?"

I looked at Carole and she nodded, a sad expression replacing her moments ago anger.

"Fuck. Well, in a way, I'm happy," I said as I looked at Carole then the couple, "I thought I was going crazy. Becoming one of those paranoid tinfoil hat wearers. But you ARE out to get me."

That got my hand another squeeze, then a head leaned against my shoulder. It was that relief that saved me from panic. Well, that and the view of Carole's peerless breasts, shiny now with sweat and the remnants of cum, nipples jutting and prominent, her deep breaths highlighting them. They were my touchstones to reality. I took a deep, slow, breath.

"We're a university CS lab. Not a military base. Yeah, there's a tiny reactor in the basement but my group has nothing to do with that."

"Oh, Peter," hearing my name in that woman's flat voice silenced me with a chill, "it's not weapons we care about for you. It's AI. We like to watch. While you play and while you and your colleagues work."

That seemed to jolt Carole out of her funk.

"Then you know damned well I never gave you the signal to take him," she said with some heat, "I never let him cum in me, we never consummated. We were careful. Even yesterday."

"Ah, Carole, you are right," the woman smiled and the slightest inflection crept into her voice with the last two words of her statement, " that is what we told you."

Carole's surprised expression, her mouth open like she'd been silenced mid-word, told me that whoever here was lying it wasn't her.

"But even if that is so," the woman continued, "you think yourself unique?"

The anger was back in Carole when she and I looked at each other and both realized what this woman was implying.

"That fucking bitch!" Carole said with venom. She started to step forward and I grabbed her around the shoulder and held her as the gun momentarily waved her way, then it was back on me.

"We'll deal with Jayne later, you're not their only succubus," I said in a low voice to Carole, not knowing what the couple who were apparently our captors could hear or whether they'd care, "we need to deal with this. But you were right, I wouldn't like the results of blowing my load up someone's ass. But this, I'm open to suggestions. They're your, um, bosses."

Carole slid her body in front of me, I still had a good view of them over her head but that meant their only shot at me became a head shot, if it was a projectile weapon the woman held. My lover and now-confirmed succubus held my arms with hers around her stomach. Her exposed breasts seemed to have no impact on her or her acquaintances.

"You're not taking him without me," Carole said to them, "but why? You told me you'd let us go."

"He," the man pointed at us but clearly meant me, "is figuring out too much, that something is going on. Having him go insane like others would be preferable but we've found that is not a path of certainty. You will certainly come too, your conditioning is no longer operable for our needs."

"Your succubi are still human, they have technical flaws," the merest facial tics on the couple confirmed my supposition and I managed a weak smile, "like your nanos."

"So my option," I continued, "is what? Getting shot by your super-duper ray gun? And then you'll drag my soul to hell?"

Carole's wince came through to me as a body shake and a tightened grip on my arms. On second thought I was certain it was a laugh.

"Yes, to the first," said the woman, "but did you want to be an astronaut when you were a child?"

"Okay," I stammered, "that was not what I expected. Yeah, almost every nerd my age. The moon landings."

"So heroic," she responded, "yes. We watched them from afar. You'll get to go to space. Our little home away from home, even if it may be getting ragged. But it is not hell. We do not know where is this hell so many of you humans talk about."

Some sort of spasm passed over the man. Then he spoke.

"We need to go. Others are approaching this facility. Gather your things. We must go."

"Um, I say this with love," I said as pleasantly as I could, "but go fuck yourselves sideways."

I felt some sort of sting then went into a full body spasm, like I used to feel just before I'd fall asleep, then my body uncoiled. Fortunately the bench was just behind me and I sat down in a controlled flop, to have Carole collapse onto my lap. I rewrapped my arms around her upper body to hold her sidewise on my lap, her head lolling against my chest, she had obviously taken the brunt of whatever that was but she was still breathing.

"That's a phaser," I said in a slur as my tongue wasn't completely under my control.

"On stun," the woman added, "if we're to use your Star Trek as our guide. Now gather your belongings."

She jabbed the phaser at us and I shook Carole a bit, she blinked her eyes and shook her head, took a deep breath and held it.

"I'm ok, lover," she said softly as she shifted off of my lap and onto the bench, "I'm so sorry. Get our stuff. I won't leave you."

I stuffed the blanket into the pack, poured out the dregs of the open coke can and it followed the blanket. The full one was still on the table.

"Do we need to put our shirts on," I asked as I handed her crop top to Carole, the view of her breasts had aided me to avoid panic but we needed to push this to the next phase, "where we're going?"

We slipped them on and as I stood half-turned I grabbed the full coke can with my right, frisbee throwing, hand and whipped it backhand at the muzzle of the phaser and took a fast step toward the man when somehow he loomed in front of me. I assumed I'd hit or forced the phaser to miss as I felt no sting but hitting him was like hitting a brick wall.

"No!" Carole screamed, "Don't hurt him!"

I was solidly enough built but the first contact had slightly winded me and trying to grapple him was like trying to move iron.

"Peter," it was Carole, "stop. You can't. Please. They don't like to kill but they will."

I felt his grip loosen as I let my muscles go limp, the woman moved so I was again in the firing line. Carole had the pack in her hand, tears on her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around me, the pack hitting me in the back as the man stepped away.

I heard something new, not the buzzing of what I had been told were nanomachines but a soft whine. Over the rock wall the tree branches were being pushed aside, the mist bouncing off of the air, I could see a shape, the view through it to the distance as if looking through a heat haze. I could see the boundaries of it.

A ship, a transport. Not invisible, but cloaked. Shit. Star Trek indeed. A ramp opened showing us a tight space with four high-backed seats in a circular setup, a grey wall with a door-shaped line indicating a further passage. Around our cul-de-sac the only exit was blocked by ironman and his girlfriend with her phaser, possibly now on kill, the ship blocked a likely-fatal dive to the stream, and heavy branches of large trees meant no egress the other directions. Shit.

"Go," said the woman as she gestured with the phaser, "buckle yourselves in, or we'll stun you and toss you on the floor. You won't like that. It'll be a fast ride up. Your bag will stay under your seat."

I took my pack from Carole and I climbed onto the wall, stepped in then reached and helped her on and over the wall. Standing on it I couldn't see the stream through it, the cloaking was on the exterior somehow. I shoved the bag under the seat and it was like pushing it through a thin wall of water. It stayed.

"Fast," I mused as Carole and I buckled ourselves in using a five-point buckle at phaser point, then the woman followed us in and kept it aimed at me as she sat, the man buckled her in to allow her to continue to point her cute weapon. Overkill, much?

"How fast? How many Gs? These seats are good, but not for major Gs. For us. We're meat. I don't know what the fuck ya'll are."

"You really are too smart for your own good," the woman said as the man buckled himself in and the ramp was already almost completely closed, my last sight tree branches, leaves and broken bits of blue, cloudless sky. Carole reached towards me and I took her hand. I was in this because of her but I also fully believed she'd not meant for it to happen, had even forced me away those months ago, in a way. I was pretty sure she'd just simply fallen in love with me, just as I had with her those months ago.

There were no visual clues but the growing G forces pushing us into our seats attested to movement. I hoped it wouldn't dislocate our elbows.

*****