Temptation Protocol Pt. 05

Terese gasped at the sight of the night of Sarea's bonding, fury creasing her brows. Sarea didn't let it distract her. She had her goal: hide a part of you, mask yourself, save yourself, and she wouldn't let it go now. Lucas, for his part, responded as Sarea expected all men would. He saw tales of his conquering, and whether it was the dominance disiac in his system or his inherent masculinity, he responded viscerally. He grew hard, distorting his skin suit. His eyes never left hers, even when she glanced about for more material to throw him off the scent.

After what felt like an eternity, Terese exclaimed, "Well done Sarea! You are a supplicant to him now. You've made only one mistake."

Sarea turned her eyes to Terese.

"You gave him everything he's already seen. He knows this part of you is manufactured. Lucas, it's your turn to learn. How would you pierce this?"

"I'm not sure," Lucas said after a moment's hesitation.

It was his turn to get whispers from Terese. Sarea strained to listen, but she only caught murmurs. Lucas's eyes widened more than once, and finally he said, "That's possible?"

Terese nodded excitedly, then said, "Show me. Try it," before walking to the door and fiddling with the control panel on the wall.

The lights turned a moody red. Sarea's heartbeat rattled in her head, pulsing with anticipation and fear. She flattened her hands against her hips and tried to calm down, subtly rubbing them down her thighs, trying in vain to wipe away the sweat. Sarea had expected Lucas to do something physical. After all, it was how infiltration had worked previously. So when something seized the thoughts in her mind, she yelped, wrapping her arms around her torso.

"Whoa, wait!" Sarea cried feebly.

Lucas took the first of the memories Sarea had presented-the dirty club where she'd found the data-and crinkled it up like a piece of trash, discarding it. Next was the fight, with which he did the same. When he got to her bonding, though, something changed. He held that memory in place, then, like a piece of cellophane, he stretched it until it eclipsed the bond and wrapped her mind in it.

It was like time travel.

She was there on the table again, filled by Lucas, who rutted into her with a need so desperate she felt it in her bones. She moaned loudly, cried out as she reentered this memory. The table squeaked and shook as Lucas shoved his cock into her pussy over and over again. He stood at the end of the table, her ankles in his hands, his eyes down on where he entered her. Then his eyes were on hers, his hands on her face.

"Look at me," he said.

For a moment, Sarea inhabited two places in time. In one, Lucas was breaking her, in another, she was pressed against a cold wall, Lucas's body almost smothering her. When her eyes met his, the scene changed again. Minutes passed as they lived each memory.

They were in their room. She straddled him, grinding her clit into the base of his cock as he filled her with his cum. Was this a past or future memory? It was familiar and different at the same time. She smelled their love in the air, felt the heat from his body, his breath. She grinded her hips into him, feeling his cock swell inside her with each undulating movement. He kissed her, his breath sweet. His hands on her back, on her face, making a map of her body. His weak gasps and moans as he came inside her. She cried out again, but she couldn't tell whether it was fear, pleasure, or pain.

A new room, a new moment. Sarea was on her back. The wet plaps of Antoine pounding her filled the room. She could see only that masked man, feel only his invasion of her body and mind. Then it happened. The mask had disappeared. Time crystallized and slowed. Sarea crashed back into the present. Lucas had her pressed against the wall, her hands pinned above her head. The bulge of his hard cock pressed against her crotch and onto her stomach, and their skinsuits had melted away, providing access for their skin to touch. How long had they been standing? She was sore, her legs tired, her arms weak from struggling against his iron grip. Her mouth was bone dry. How? Why?

None of that mattered though. He was there, at the precipice in her mind.

She screamed.

Chapter 27: Training

Lucas had done as Terese instructed, and even through the haze of the disiac pushing his dominant traits to new heights, it felt wrong. Slowly, deliberately, he had smothered Sarea in the memories and falsehoods she presented. What Terese hadn't told him, and what he hadn't expected, was how real they became for both he and Sarea. They were there in that dingy club, forcing a bond on a woman who never wanted it. He felt her terror and reticence. He saw Antoine, felt Sarea's need and fear commingling as she was infiltrated.

Each new memory haunted the present and dismantled the safeguards Sarea had given to herself until, at the end of the line, Lucas saw her, or what she'd hidden from him. He struggled to name it or describe it. It was a small black box, a void where she kept herself safe from him. At first it looked featureless, an orb of darkness with no chance to open or take purchase. Then he saw that, with the right memories, the right pushing and prodding, his mind could find a tiny seam and slowly, awfully, pry it open.

What he found was much more, and worse, than he'd expected.

The memories and thoughts she'd protected were precious. Not just of the business she ran, her clientele and jobs, but of her past, of pain it seemed very likely that she wanted to forget herself. One memory stood above all others: Sarea, so high she barely knew where she was or who she was, her wrists chained to a pole in a disgusting subterranean bedroom, with a large man rabbiting behind her hard. In the memory, Sarea looked around for someone to reassure her, a person who ought to have been there, but they were gone.

Sarea breathed in great gasps, her hands pinned above her head by Lucas, her fingers wriggling to break free. He hadn't realized he had done that, but it felt right. He looked down into her tear-filled eyes, at the fear and submission in them, and a thrill of joy shot through him. It was covered in the distaste of what he was doing and how he had done it, but he couldn't stop his smile. He felt electric, as though he could power all of the upper city. Sarea struggled under his iron grip, but it was no use. Her small body writhing beneath his also felt correct. Her soft skin rubbed against the bottom of his cock and drove him nearly to lose control. Their minds mirrored their reality.

Her thoughts raged like a torrent against him, trying to batter him away from the small space that was her. Some of them were uncontrolled and, Lucas could tell, unbidden from deep within her. Him fucking her. His cock in her mouth. Her bent over the table, his hand knotted in her hair. Others were more visceral, like memories that escaped prison. A childhood he couldn't imagine. Pain at the bonesaw's place as she got her first mods. A vow to never be a prisoner again. None of them stopped his advance, though.

He had reached the chink in her armor, a small sliver of an opening where he could reveal her deepest self, when her scream shattered his concentration, and she shoved him entirely from her mind. He reeled, and for a moment he saw through the misty drug high that had taken him over. What have I done? Sarea collapsed against the wall, hugging her arms around her torso and gasped in deep breaths. She became a ball of panic; it overtook her completely. Lucas lunged to the ground, putting a hand on her back. To his great shame, she jumped at his touch.

"My god, are you alright Sarea? I'm so sorry," he said.

"What were you doing?" she asked through her labored breaths.

"What I told him to," Terese said, "And he did it well at that, but you, Sarea, were marvelous. A successful clearance after a breach. We thought you were a netrunner before, but now I'm convinced. You must be a marvelous hacker."

Sarea shot a venomous look at Terese.

"How do I release her from the compulsions?" Lucas asked.

"Will her freedom in your mind," Terese said with a smile.

Lucas did just that, all the while keeping his eyes on Sarea, the sweat on her brow, her shaking body, her hair hanging in lank curls. The drug still pumped in his veins, still screamed for him to take, and take, and take, and bend her to his will completely. Everything was his for the taking, even Terese, and she'd be so nice to have. Terese laughed lightly. Had she heard his thoughts? It didn't matter. Only Sarea did. Only this woman he'd hurt and abused for some potential vengeance he couldn't imagine in this moment. It couldn't be worth it.

"Can I help you up?" he asked gently.

Sarea was clearly afraid of him, but after a moment, she gave him her hand. He got her to her feet and set her on the bed.

"Catch your breath. I'll stay out of your head."

"Thank you," she said, flushing.

Lucas couldn't bring himself to look at the bond to see what she was feeling, his shame was so great.

"This might be a good time for a break indeed. We've been at it for over almost two hours!" Terese said.

Lucas whirled on Terese in astonishment and noticed Sarea's dumbfounded stare as well.

"Two hours?" Lucas said.

"Another lesson best learned by experience. You went to those moments in time, to those memories and thoughts. As you train, you'll become better aware of your surroundings while you infiltrate and breach. Early on, you vanish for hours at a time," Terese said.

"That was an infiltration?" Lucas asked, "But then what was-?"

"Observant. This was not an infiltration. We call using these types of bonds a breach. Infiltration requires physical contact. You were close to attempting one by accident," Terese said with a smirk.

Lucas's shame was evident on his face.

"Is that why it didn't feel the same or look the same as when you did it?" Sarea asked.

Terese took a seat and crossed her legs before continuing, "Yes, because I am not a part of your bond. I was an external breach. Think of it like a virus. Though we are getting ahead of ourselves. That lesson comes in time. What you experienced just now is far and away the easiest, and most successful, way to get information or control someone. Slip the drug in their food, their air supply, what have you, then press your advantage."

An awful silence hung in the air as the ramifications of such an operation dawned on Lucas.

"This seems like pure evil," he said finally.

Terese sighed. "Perhaps now it does, but would you do this if it meant stopping a dictator from committing genocide? Stopping human trafficking?"

"Are all of Covenant's goals so pure?" Sarea asked sarcastically.

"No," Terese said, "They are not, but many are. We have found that the ends justify the means. Now, before I dismiss you for the day, remember a few points: one, you are still under the influence of these doses. We have no neutralizer. Two, you are to rest, eat, and back in this exact training room tomorrow morning at nine. Is that clear?"

Lucas looked to Sarea, who nodded, then he nodded.

"Wonderful! You know your way to your quarters. Can you walk, my dear?"

Sarea looked at Lucas before answering. Was it for permission? He desperately wanted it to be so. Then she answered meekly, "Yes."

"Then I will see you in the morning," Terese said with finality, exiting the room.

There was no one outside waiting or watching. Lucas could've melted with relief. Sarea stood on shaky legs. Lucas wrapped his massive arm around her waist and pulled her close to him, commanding, "Lean on me."

Sarea obeyed, and drugs or not, Lucas's heart sang.