Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 26

Why did that make her feel secure, now?

Ah, up to the dais, in front of the staring man. Up close, Amy could see that, whoever he was, this one was a breed apart from the rest of the patrons here. Well dressed and clean shaven, he was seated in a large, padded chair, flanked by a pair of bulky, undeniably alien beings in suits like folded sails. As he looked Amy up and down, the man who had brought her here nodded curtly to him, and then receded back into the sea of flesh behind her.

'What's your name, girl?' The bald man said, voice rising easily over the din of the club.

'Amelia!' Amy exclaimed back, feeling fairytale enough to employ her full first name here.

'Amelia,' He mulled the name over. 'I liked the way you moved out there, Amelia.'

Amy giggled. Champagne bubbles were rising through her brain, everything was funny and sexy and this man was paying attention to her and there was always the music, singing through her blood... She swayed with it almost automatically now. The man didn't seem to mind, and his gaze only intensified, stuck to her body as she moved with all the sinuousness she could manage. The music seemed to like it when she moved with fluidity.

'And I saw your little show...' He leaned in, Amy felt his hand on her ass, didn't mind it. His fingers clenched inward, taking the fabric of her skirt with them, ending in a tight handful of her clothes. He pulled. Amy fell, slipping on unsteady feet, backwards...

Right into his lap.

'Now, who do you belong to?' His fingers ran the length of Amy's new collar plate, over the color coding, apparently deriving some form of meaning from it. For her part, Amy just giggled again; this wasn't how clubs were!

'She's not for sale, Fiori!' Sander's voice cracked like a whip, easily audible over every other noise in the room. He had climbed onto the dais too, staring down the Olivan King without apparent fear of his entourage.

'Ah, so it's you, is it?' Fiori's eyebrow cocked, the two aliens moved forward threateningly, but did nothing more. It was simply to establish a power dynamic, 'Her little partner from before? Figures.'

'You notice the collar? It's a Three Red,' Sander growled, drawing close enough to obviate the need to shout. 'You can touch, but that's the end of things. I put her on the dance floor for a reason, Fiori.'

Fiori stared, something that Sander found intensely uncomfortable. He hadn't exactly been around Fiori a lot, but once upon a time the name Sander Hackett had been relatively well known. Now, of course, he was a wanted criminal; it would only take a single moment of recognition to cause Sander and his crew a whole world of trouble.

'I want her,' The bald man said eventually, his entire demeanor hinting at how unused to being denied he was. Very comfortably, he had laid his free hand on Amy's bare thigh, 'And I get what I want. I could just buy her from you, you know, easy way and all that.'

'She's not for sale,' Sander repeated. 'I know you could buy her, but I'm well off too, Fiori Kamui. You're tempted to just take her, I can tell. You've got a reputation, I know what you do with your girls. But I'm not going to let you, not with my girls. I could buy you a whole lot of trouble.'

'Not for sale,' The words seemed genuinely alien to Fiori, and Sander knew why; wealth tended to enforce agreement. And Fiori had far more than wealth, he also had amorality; if Sander hadn't been watching, Amy would have just been devoured by the Olivan, disappeared into Fiori's service in an instant, 'I can't convince you?'

'No, you can't,' Sander shook his head, gently extracting Amy from Fiori's lap. 'This is Amelia Pond, and I went to a lot of effort to procure her. The same with my other girls. They aren't for sale. Come along, Pond.'

He didn't wait for an answer, instead leading Amy off of the dais and back down into the crowd. Fiori watched them disappear into the morass of activity that his customers represented, sitting silently for a moment before gaining the attention of the closer of his bodyguards.

'Put out a trace on Amelia Pond,' He said. 'Start with the Selestene slave networks, see what you can find. I want to know who she is. Oh, and have her followed. People don't say no to me.'

************

'I feel a little uncomfortable with having been here for that,' Em leaned back in her seat, tucked away in the quietest corner of the Olivan.

'It feels like the kind of thing we should have put a stop to, Sera...' Nat pouted, eyeing her companion's dispassionate gaze as she prodded her drink.

'We can't interfere with events,' Sera answered. 'At all. That means when we see Sander doing... that, with Amy Pond, we let it happen. If it's observed it's established, and if it's established we can't touch it.'

'But we have to watch it?' Nat asked.

'We have to follow them afterward,' Em said. 'Since there's no positional data in the playbook, it's the only way to know where they're staying. After that... well, that's where things get a bit interesting...'

************

Sander uttered a series of curses under his breath, as he threaded his way through the crowd, putting as much distance between himself and Fiori as possible. The situation had suddenly become infinitely more uncomfortable.

The Olivan had a series of backrooms, and each of those backrooms was occupied by a rotating series of slaves of all shapes and sizes that one might engage for various prurient acts, for a fee. That much was confirmed; what was unknown was just how Fiori had come to procure these slaves. Oh, but there were rumors, swarming like locusts around the Olivan, adding to the air of danger that suffused the four walls of the underground club.

Some were purchased legitimately; Fiori was well known among the auction houses and fleshworks of Selestene, after all. But the rumors persisted, of slaves stolen from their owners, people kidnapped, disappearing after entering the Olivan... it was hard to divine the truth, but nothing seemed entirely beyond Fiori's reach. Certainly not the prodigal son of Hackett House, returned home as a visitor.

He was tall enough to see over the majority of the writhing, constantly moving mass of people, and in doing so to spot the rest of his crew with a measure of ease. Actually getting to them, or even into a position to accurately communicate with them was another matter; even if the sound and motion that surrounded him hadn't been enough to occlude him, Amy kept wanting to wander off. Doped up as she was on nanomachines, her need to dance the pleasure back into her limber frame must have been overwhelming.

This whole night was beginning to seem like a really bad idea.

'Mara!' He called out as he shouldered his way past the last few obstacles in his path. 'We need to move, here. Get everyone geared up, it's time to go!'

'Oh, come on, we're only just getting comfortable!' Mara never took her eyes off of Sally, her chosen plaything of the night, hands roaming the body in front of her. 'Wasn't this what we came here for?'

'Yeah, well, Fiori took an interest!' Sander hissed, finally getting into physical contact with her. 'We have to go, especially if you want to keep your toys, Mara!'

This caused her to finally look at him, examining her boyfriend's expression for a moment or two, before speaking, 'You're serious, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'That's rare,' Even so, Mara stood, running a finger along Sally's chin before leading her away. 'Alright then. I'll be expecting an explanation later.'

'Actually, I can do that now,' Sander's hands gesticulated restlessly. 'The owner's taken a liking to Amy since I fucked her standing up in that corner,' He pointed. 'And he's rich, and he's powerful... I'm only one of those things, and I can't exactly throw my money at him. So we need to get some distance on the guy now so we don't "accidentally" get caught up with his bouncers on some technicality and end up never seeing Amy again, alright?'

'Works for me,' Mara nodded, before cupping her hands to her mouth. 'Team, we are moving!'

After a few minutes of work rounding up the stragglers, Sander and his crew spilled out into the night, the open air cool and refreshing after the warm press of the club. Not that they had any time to enjoy it; Sander ushered them down the street and away from the Olivan as fast as he could. He cast his gaze backward, over his shoulder at the mouth of the club, waiting for the bulky men in dark suits to come spilling out; Selestene at night was almost a different world. Far more dangerous.

'Ren, keep your eyes open,' Sander said. 'We might be hitting up some trouble. Dulsie, Lysithea, warn me if anyone gets too close. We're going back to the hotel.'

**************

'Well, that was... short lived,' Ren collapsed onto the couch in Sander's suite, dragging Lorna down onto her lap in the process. 'Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I got to do it, but I sort of envisioned my first trip to Selestene as being... prolonged. And risqué.'

At that, she fondled her captive's generous bust shamelessly, as if demonstrating the point. Lorna giggled vaguely, grinning; away from the reactive environment of the Olivan, the interfacers weren't quite as effective, but the process of coming down from them was a gradual one. The girls were still loopy, receptive in ways they had never been before. They would have been fools not to take advantage...

'Error in calculation, I'm afraid,' Sander shrugged. There was no point in feeling bad about the turn the night had taken; Selestene was full of piranhas like Fiori, after all. It had happened, and the important part now was dealing with it; how very fortunate he had retrieved what he needed before all this had gone down, 'Not that this is necessarily the end, Ren. Why not just have some stuff sent up to the room? I'm still paying, go nuts.'

At least they were safe here; the threat was outside, but its reach was limited. Even so, Sander had been able to tell immediately that it was genuine; he recognized that look in Fiori's eyes. He had worn that look himself. It was the desire of a man used to possessing the things he wanted with relative ease. One that didn't take refusals lightly.

Sander had built a planet sized machine to unstitch the fabric of time to get Amy back. All Fiori had to do was wait for the right moment. At least he knew how the man operated.

'Well, I do like going nuts,' Mara said lightly, flouncing her way over to the info-screen that dominated one wall; the device was an all-in-one television, computer and room service system, and with but a few selections she had sent out for a series of, in her words, "entertainment enhancers."

In mere minutes, a little robot floated through the door, borne aloft by a set of four propulsion pads, its surface a flat tray carrying a number of bottles and boxes. Seconds later, it was denuded of the same.

'Alright,' Sander said, bringing his hands together. 'We should be safe so long as we stay in the suite. Fiori's powerful, but he's not stupid enough to take on Nirvana alone. Not for Amy.'

'Oh, thanks!' Amy slurred, unable to wipe the hazy smile from her face nonetheless.

'Yeah, that,' Sander tipped a bottle from the table in front of him, letting it spin end over end before catching it deftly. He dropped down beside Amy and, still unable to shake just how odd this familiarity was, motioned to share the drink with her.

And so it went. The night was theirs, uniquely theirs, given the captives' new languid attitude. And they took full advantage of it, despite being sequestered.

Hours passed...

*************

Sander had never been one to wake easily into a hangover, but once the conscious world got its hooks in it dragged him inexorably up, above the waves of sleep. His back ached, something hard and unyielding poked up into the small of it, and without opening his eyes he wriggled to free himself from the intrusive pain. It was only when he found that he couldn't that he begrudgingly cracked open an eyelid, squinting at the electronic daylight.

It turned out he had been sleeping against the wall, and during the night the little delivery robot had shown off the inaccuracy of its pathfinding A.I, getting itself caught under the awkward arch of his back, the edge of its tray digging into his skin. When Sander shuffled away from it, it continued its journey as if nothing had happened, trundling out of the room and down the hall with nary a look back.

Still, that was better than if it had stopped to talk to him...

Sander stood, trying to stretch as many muscles in his body as he could at one time, kinks and twinges registering their complaints as he did so. The daylight transition had occurred quite a while ago, by his reckoning, but given how late he and the crew had been... doing their thing last night, the lateness of his rising was entirely justified. His head still throbbed, but there were pills for that; Amy had made some reference to being hungover in the morning last night, and it had taken him several seconds to even understand what the word had meant.

His crew were mostly still sleeping, though occasionally Ren's recumbent form stirred, perhaps in the grips of some toxic dream; occasionally she swore under her breath, hearty, violent curses that stabbed at the air, quite at odds with her relaxed posture. Mara was close by, just the way he liked, and Kanaria was on the couch, using Tsugi's arm as a pillow. It was vaguely adorable.

Far from the rest of the group, Dulcimer's neck now streamed with a visible haze, ribbons of transparent color threading up into the air before fading out completely. Every now and then she actually sparked; obviously an individual without a mouth couldn't drink like the rest, but there were plenty of psychoactive substances that could reach into her telepathic field and create all sorts of fun effects. Usually her kind didn't even sleep, but apparently she needed it now.

Something prodded at his mind, some inkling half-realization; something was wrong.

Mentally he took inventory in the silence, flicking through his memories of the night before and matching them to what he saw in front of him; in the end, the problem was rather obvious. All at once, the weight seemed to drain out of him, taking with it his sense of stability; he felt like he could float away at the slightest impetus.

But he had to move.

Sander ran from room to room, gaze wheeling, desperately hoping against hope that it would fall upon his quarry and all his worrying would have been pointless from the outset, but deep at the heart of him he knew that wouldn't be the case. All around his suite he went, before switching to the next one down the hall, fishing around his pockets before finding that his keycard was gone, effectively locking him out of all the other rooms; he managed to make it back to his own a mere second before it closed over on him too.

'Ah,' He murmured. 'That is... well... uh...'

He trailed off. Usually he'd have something to say, some casual jibe or comment, laden with sarcasm, to reduce the tension of the moment. It was his thing; he was part of a crew that had it as a thing. But now, that reaction failed him. Things were too serious for that. He couldn't joke, but he could yell; and he did just that, waking everyone he could possibly wake.

Amy, Christina, Sally, and Lorna...

Where the hell had they disappeared to?

To be continued...