Perverse Instantiation Ch. 03

But, as her distracted footfalls eventually came to a stop before a locked gate, Prime's triangular red-and-white striped logo plastered on its bare surface, she figured she was getting ahead of herself. A nasty habit to get into in a place like this. Layla cast a look backwards, both comforted and disturbed that Shae was only a few steps behind, her posture alert and ready. Those damn silent steps of hers. Before the gene-mod took the attention as an invitation to talk, Layla twisted her head back around, staring balefully at the company logo.

"Is this it, Nix?"

"Affirmative, the orbital ring lies just beyond that gate. It's only forty meters to the entrance of the Leisure lab, nearly a straight shot across the ring."

"Any chance you can tell us what might be waiting on the other side?"

Nix's avatar appeared, offering an apologetic shrug. "I don't have camera access, and sensors are still fuzzy. There are definitely things moving around in there though, so I'd be on your guard."

"Nothin' we didn't already know." Layla approached the edge of the door, bracing her carbine tight against her shoulder. Despite the hostile unknown lurking beyond, she felt more confident than ever. With a few new toys from the security station in her pack and a (possibly) trustworthy teammate to back her up, she was in a much better position than when she first landed here. Layla looked back to Shae. "You ready?"

The fox-girl offered her an encouraging smile behind her visor as she turned up the power on her twin pistols. "As ever."

"Good. If there's goos or Draconids on the other side, we deal with them, and hurry to the access point. If they're far enough away, we sneak towards it instead."

"You don't want to clear the ring entirely then?"

Layla grimaced as she shook her head. "Even if we could, all that noise would just draw the freaks from the other parts of the section right to us, it's basically a massive hallway after all. No, quick and quiet if possible."

"Understood, Layla," Shae nodded, and she stacked up just behind Layla's braced form.

She took a deep breath. "Alright, Nix. Open it."

A holographic locking mechanism appeared over the Prime logo, cycling twice as Nixie overrode whatever command had kept it shut. With a hiss, it quickly retracted to the ceiling, and Layla stepped into the revealed space quickly.

Just as she'd assumed, the orbital ring was fairly bare; just an ovoid hallway, stretching far in either direction. It was small enough, however, that the curvature was quite visible, the black-hued thoroughfare in the middle of the hallway rising out of sight in both directions. But the quirks of deep-space architecture weren't the first thing that caught the pair's notice.

As Layla and Shae stepped onto the thoroughfare, they both instinctively ducked as the chatter of raised voices filtered through the echoing hallway. After sharing a quick glance, they hugged the wall, making their figures as small as possible, for whatever good it would do in the exposed area. Though the space between them and the access point was empty, there was a group of figures farther down the ring, close enough both to clearly make out, and even hear what they were saying. And after only a few seconds of observation, two pairs of eyebrows rose in astonishment.

Three goo-girls were standing close together, their naked forms jiggling in apparent frustration. One of them was rolling along on a blob of goo while the other two had formed legs. They protested and pleaded with their harassers: four Prime androids who circled the gooey monsters. Held in awkward hands, each android wielded a shock prod, which they were using to seemingly herd the goos through the hallway. At least, they were trying to. Their jabs were clumsy, and each goo deftly avoided most of their attempts, all while complaining loudly.

"Go away, plastics! We don't want to play with you!" One of them sneered, but then let out a shriek as one of the male androids poked her lightly on the hip, the charge only seeming to annoy the creature rather than disable it. It was an almost comical sight: the androids were clearly pleasure models, being clothed entirely in naked synth-skin, their limbs lithe and bodies supple. And yet their crafted faces were set in some facsimile of a stern scowl, their posture almost militant. Or, at least, trying to be.

"Desist retrieval operations," one of the them droned flatly, missing entirely as she tried to prod the largest of the three goos directly in the chest. "Relinquish the employee and return to storage at once."

"You aren't Mom!" another goo yelled, rubbing at her backside after a droid gave her a zap. "You don't tell us what to do!"

The androids just repeated themselves flatly, continuing to prod the creatures slowly down the hallway. Whining and groaning, the goos were slowly giving way under their persistent assault.

As Layla turned her head incredulously towards Shae, the girl could only offer a bemused shrug as the synthetic beings continued to bicker. Making sure her external speaker was turned off, she spoke to Shae. "This place is a fuckin' madhouse."

Shae chuckled behind her mask. "You've never seen virtual intelligences argue before? It's quite amusing. Their programmed responses just go around and around forever in new patterns." She looked down the hallways again at the retreating figures as they moved farther away. "Though these seem to be a bit more advanced than the ones I'm used to."

"Let's just be thankful for our luck; those sex bots are pullin' them away from us. All we need to do is wait for them to leave eyeshot, and we can..."

And of course, because Layla's luck was truly never that good, one of the goo girls took that moment to twist around angrily, shoving past her android captors. The two droids bringing up the rear of the group stumbled as the pink slime squeezed abruptly between their bodies. Though they were already bringing their shock batons to bear, the damage had been done.

"Fleshies!" the rebellious goo shrieked, her newfound freedom giving her a perfect view of Layla and Shae's crouching figures further down the ring. Her sisters both perked up, their amorphous figures twisting to look with shocking speed.

As a trio of excited screams echoed throughout the corridor, Layla could only let out a groan of frustration. "...fuck." As the three goos quickly escaped the confused androids' disordered attacks, Layla slipped off her backpack and threw it to Shae, the girl catching it awkwardly in surprise. "There's a thunder charge in there somewhere," she spoke hurriedly as she set down her carbine and extended her shock maul. Standing up fully, she shook out her limbs in anticipation as the maul's charge fully powered up, "Should take out all three at once if you've got good aim. There should be an attached grounding tool, make sure to put it on."

Without a second thought, Shae dropped her twin pistols to the ground and got a better hold on the bag, beginning to rummage round inside intently. Layla turned from her companion and narrowed her eyes at the charging monsters.

The three had managed to entirely outpace the androids, their gooey forms moving quickly along the thoroughfare. Offhandedly, Layla noted that the one carrying a body had dropped it behind her, squelching alongside her sisters on newfound legs as she sought to keep up.

"They're mine!" She yelled, but the other two just laughed.

"Nuh uh, I saw them first!"

"You're the youngest, you have to wait! I get first dibs!"

As Layla raised her maul to greet the bickering creatures, she raised an eyebrow as the two leading goos began to shove one another in their haste, quickly slowing their pace to a crawl.

"They're mine!"

"Mine!"

They began to slap at each other, their movement stopped entirely. Layla cracked a smile, peeking over to Shae as she continued to rummage about in the bag. Stupid things were giving them time to get organized. Maybe she wouldn't even have to get slimy if the corpo found the charge in time.

"No!" A third scream rang out, as the third slime caught up with her fighting siblings. Without slowing at all, she crashed directly into them, and the three gooey figures collapsed onto the ground in a wave of pink ooze. The substance rippled and churned for a few seconds, until it began to take on a human shape again. Layla's eyes widened as she realized it was forming one humanoid shape. Rising into a statuesque figure that nearly touched the lofty ceiling of the orbital ring, the reordered goo smiled maliciously down at Layla's figure. "They're ours." Three voices spoke in harmony. The goo began to slide forwards again, and at its rapid pace, it would be on them in mere seconds.

"Shae?"

"I can't find it! Do you even organize this thing?"

Layla grimaced as she realized she need to buy her more time. She did not, in fact, organize her bag. At all. She took a few running steps towards the center of the wide thoroughfare. "Hey goo-slut!" She yelled, reactivating her speakers and pumping up the volume. "You want some of this?" The monster's dripping face turned unerringly toward her and angled her advance.

"Yes," the thing rumbled, and Layla braced herself as it came within meters of her. "And we'll take all of it!" With a torrent of goo, the monster bore down on her, swinging a massive hand that could engulf Layla entirely. The scavver rolled underneath the limb, rapidly regaining her feet as the goo splattered against the flooring. She moved to swing her mace into the gelatinous mass, but the creature was quicker than the others she had faced. The maul's crackling head passed harmlessly through the air as the goo-woman sucked her insides in, becoming absurdly skinny for a brief moment to avoid Layla's blow.

The scavver only stumbled for a moment, throwing herself hard to the side as the monster tried to squash her again with another heavy blow. Her neon pink form jiggling ponderously, the united goo sneered down Layla's sprawled form as she recovered from the second near-miss. "We're gonna fill you up to bursting, sweetheart."

Her heart pounding, Layla rolled as the goo tried to step on her. She regained her feet in a flash, adrenaline pumping hard as she stared up defiantly at the looming monster. After easily dealing with several of the monster's sisters back in the central orb, the gooey construct wasn't quite as terrifying as her first encounter, even in this combined form. Eyes not leaving the pink creature, Layla opened her mouth to call out to Shae, but the goo-girl struck again before she got a word out.

But she was ready.

Twisting under the oozing slap, Layla lunged forward, thrusting the head of her maul into the offending limb as it passed. She smiled grimly as the lethal electricity sparked inside the being, and the massive artificial construct came to a sudden stop. But, she worriedly noticed, the creature didn't scream as the others had, and the moment of rigidity was extending much longer. Looking up slowly, she gulped as the monster's cheerful smile came into sight. "We can play rough too," it crooned sweetly, and before she could let go of the handle, the goo sucked it into its body, yanking her forward as well. In an instant, she was entirely enveloped.

Layla thrashed furiously within the pool of pink ooze before she was suddenly locked in place, the liquid become hard and unyielding around her. Alarms started to go off inside her helmet and she tried to steady the wave of panic that washed over her. "Shae!" she yelled into her comms desperately. With terrifying speed, she felt the warm touch of liquid seep onto her skin as her suit was ruptured in a dozen different places "Help!"

Gritting her teeth, Layla stifled a gasp as she felt a tendril of goo sneak between her legs, teasingly prodding at her pussy. At the same time, her small breasts were entirely engulfed, and an odd suction pulled at her hardening nipples. The creature was certainly quicker than the last she had encountered. Heart pounding and body writhing as the goo began to stimulate her, she had to admit that under different circumstances, the full-body teasing would have been very enjoyable. But this is definitely not what she would have had in mind.

Desperately searching for some method of escape, her eyes locked on to the only thing she could see through the bleary covering of goo. Four Prime androids, marching up to the victorious monster with batons raised.

"Users detected." she heard one of the androids speak through the muffling goo. "Cease hostilities at once, Immersion Units 86-88." Layla let out a full gasp as a teasing tentacle pushed insistently within her, squirming against her sensitive inner walls. "All active users must be transferred to Columbia. Release her."

A bolt of sensation, pain and pleasure, thundered through Layla as the goo twisted around the face the droids, the motion sending the invasive tentacle deeper within her. "Leave us alone!" the goo screamed, her vocalization vibrating Layla's entire body. With a single motion, the goo-girl swept her arm out, catching all four androids in a single blow. Rather than be absorbed, they were tossed like rag-dolls, their synth-skin splitting to reveal the metal beneath as they crashed against one of the corridor walls.

Whatever small hope their sudden appearance had given Layla died, and she closed her eyes as the terribly pleasurable sensations wracking her body intensified. With dreaded familiarity, her blood was heating up as the gooey tentacle pumped its aphrodisiac into her body. Entirely against her own volition, her hips began to jerk to the rhythm of the creature's thrusts, the artificial lust overtaking her panic. She clenched her entire body as she felt another slithering tentacle spread the cheeks of her ass, and she futilely prepared herself for the invasion.

And then, the muffling goo doing little to lessen the sound, a piercing crack like thunder rumbled through the corridor, and the pulsing goo within her froze with a shudder. The bright afterimage of a bolt of lightning burned itself through her closed eyelids.

As the massive goo began to wail, electricity coursing through its body, Layla breathed a sigh of relief for the foresight of putting on her grounding tool before they even left the security station. Each deadly shock of lightning abruptly streaked towards the circular disk strapped to her belt, rather than shocking her through her liquid prison. She was still immobilized for another frustrating moment, before the goo surrounding her exploded in every direction, and she fell heavily to the floor.

Jerking into an upright position immediately, Layla let out a disgusted shiver as she felt the inanimate remains of the gooey tentacle slip out of her, joining the pools of ooze that now covered a good portion of the corridor. Not given more than a second to process the rapid series of events, a suited mass slammed into her side, and two arms wrapped tight around her in a crushing hug.

"You're alright!" Shae cried, her helmeted head knocking awkwardly against Layla's as she practically wrapped herself around the sitting scavver. "I was so worried about using the charge with you inside, but then the goo started to approach me and I just..."

"Hey, it's fine," Layla said wearily, patting a black-suited arm. "The gooey bitch stuffin' things where they don't belong was the bigger concern. I had my grounding tool already on me, I was perfectly safe."

She pulled back, and Layla could see the upset flush on her cheeks behind the transparent visor. "Perfectly safe?! What even was that charge?" She looked back to where she had been standing, and Layla could see the silver and gold plating of the fist-sized orb where it lay discarded on the ground. Its payload spent, the casing still crackled with little sparks of remaining energy. Looking around, it was hard not to notice that the entire corridor was covered in blackened marks, the lighting fixtures above dark.

"Told you," Layla said, self-consciously shrugging herself out of Shae's embrace. The fox-girl's touch was rousing the lingering heat still in her bloodstream, and the orbital ring was absolutely not the place to enact those desires. "Thunder charge. Found one of 'em in security, figured it'd be a good secondary option if we ran into more goos." She stood up, only slightly off balance, and walked to where the orb had fallen. She kicked it experimentally, and it spat a weak jolt of lightning at her, once more drawn to the disc at her hip. "I'd heard about the ones Wyrd came out with a few years ago. Great for clearin' out large groups of synthetics. Seems Prime made their own knock-off."

"Can you recharge it?"

Layla huffed a laugh. "Not without specialized equipment, no. One blast is all we get. Still..." she reached down, picking up the inert ball now that it had ceased discharging. She brought it over to her discarded pack and stuffed it inside, "Might find a use for it at some point down the line. Heh. There's a tried-and-true scavver's motto."

"It was certainly...potent," Shae said as she came to stand beside Layla. Her gaze was fixed to the other side of the room, now liberally coated in slime. Specifically, she was looking at the blackened husks of the Prime androids, which seemed to have received direct hits alongside the goo-girl. "It's a shame about the androids. They seemed like they wanted to help."

"Maybe. Or maybe they wanted to drag us off to some other nasty part of the station. Did you hear them talkin'? Said they wanted to take us to 'Columbia'. The Void is that supposed to mean?"

Nixie appeared suddenly, her avatar looking disdainfully at the numerous rips now dotting Layla's soft-suit. "It usually refers to an area on Earth, in the North American Territories. Alternatively, it also described the imagined female personification of the old United States of America."

"Not particularly helpful there, Nix," Layla muttered, but packed away the information anyway. She grinned, "Female personification, huh? Was she hot?"

Nixie looked disgusted with her. "Pervert," She sneered, and petulantly flickered off.

"I'll take that as a yes." Layla pulled on her pack and lifted her carbine, looking over to where Shae waited for her. "Alright, enough fuckin' around. We need to get movin' before something comes to see what all the fuss was about," she looked down at the torn remnants of her softsuit and let out a grumble, "...and also find a fabricator."

Shae's head cocked, and by the mischievous curve of her lip, Layla knew that she was checking out the flashes of bare flesh now visible in several...sensitive...locations. And no doubt, the perceptive girl could likely discern the flushed tint to her skin left behind by the goo's influence. Smartly, however, she didn't say anything about it. "After you."

After two quick looks towards the other (thankfully empty) ends of the thoroughfare, Layla jogged the rest of the way across the passage. A circular access door was nestled into an alcove in the metal paneling of the orbital ring, with a flickering holographic sign reading 'Leisure Productions' above. A particularly large blob of the exploded goo had spattered across this part of the wall, and partially covered the alcove, making Layla grimace as she gingerly stepped through the inanimate muck to reach the door.

Just like the entrance to the orbital ring, this portal was locked, and Layla slotted her computer's cord into the access port. Shae's shoulder brushed up against her own as the gene-mod slid into the alcove alongside her, keeping a wary eye on the thoroughfare. "Can Nixie tell if the lab has been recently accessed?" she asked.

"That's a negative," the A.I. spoke across the shared comms link to both Layla and Shae, "the access log is corrupted, along with almost everything else electronically stored in this awful place. I can tell you that there's two functional security turrets in the hallway beyond, though."