I stand in the corner and let water from the showerhead pour over me for a moment before I wash myself and put on a pair of clean shorts. There is a razor, shaving soap, and brush set out on the edge of the sink, and I stare at my unfamiliar face in a small, round mirror as I shave.
When I’ve finished cleaning up, I sit on the edge of the bed. Riley tells the guards they can leave and then offers to answer more of my questions.
“How long have I been here?” I ask.
“About four months,” she tells me.
“I was unconscious that whole time?”
“Most of it, yes.”
“I don’t remember any of it. The first thing I remember is waking up alone.”
“I’m sorry about that. There was a miscalculation. I should have been there.”
Recalling my state of mind at the time, I start to say something about how I might have hurt her if she was there, but I realize that isn’t true. I wouldn’t have hurt her. If she had been there, I would have been fine.
Why am I so drawn to her?
“Why did I volunteer to do this?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that. I haven’t been given much information outside of your physical characteristics.”
“Do you know anything about me?”
“Very little,” she admits. “Frankly, it’s inconsequential. Your past life is over. This is who you are now.”
For the first time, I find no comfort in her words. I have no idea what kind of man I am or was. I don’t know where I came from. I don’t even know my name or how old I am. There has to be a reason I volunteered. Am I a patriot, as she said, or am I just violent? What about my family? Do I even have one? What kind of man volunteers to have his memory destroyed?
Someone who doesn’t want to know his past.
I’m tired. I have no idea what time of day it is, not that it matters here, but I can barely keep my eyes open.
“Lie down,” Riley says. “You’ve had enough for now.”
I lie down on my side and blink slowly. Riley sits next to me on the rolling chair, and I reach out to her. She takes my hand, and I rub her wrist with my thumb.
I can feel her pulse. I count her heartbeats as my head becomes cloudy.
“How old were you when your father was killed?” I ask.
“Seven, but I remember him clearly.”
“Did they find out who did it?”
“I don’t know who pulled the trigger,” she says, “but I know who is responsible.”
“Who?”
“His name is Peter Hudson. He is the head of the Carson Alliance.”
“Will I ever meet him?”
“I don’t know.”
“If I do, I’ll kill him for you.”
Chapter 3
The ground beneath my feet is cracked, but there’s a thin layer of moisture on it from the brief rain—the first we’ve had in months. If I act quickly, there may be enough to get the crop going at the foot of the hill. If not, we won’t have enough water to get us through the season.
“Galen!”
I halt in my tracks and turn to face a large red barn. I’m used to my sister’s whiny cries for attention, but there is something very different in her voice. My stomach turns over, and I begin to run for the barn. As I get close, I see vehicles out in front—two large, impossibly armored machines running on tracks.
No. Oh fuck, no.
“Galen! Help me!”
I run faster. I’m nearly to the door of the barn when I’m hit from behind. My vision dances with sparks as I drop to the ground.
“Leave her alone!” I sit straight up on the bed in the laboratory. My throat hurts. I’m alone, and I’m cold. There’s a powerful sense of dread in my gut, and my head is throbbing. I shove myself off of the bed and back away from the door. I press my palms against the cold mirror on the wall as my breath comes in gasps.
That wasn’t a dream. It was real.
A moment later, Riley rushes into the room. I look into her eyes, barely comprehending what is around me. I want to grab on to her. I need to feel some sort of…of stability…but I can’t make myself move. I stare at her, pleading. If I could just touch her, smell her, maybe everything would start to make sense again.
What’s happening to me?
“Sten! What’s wrong?” She reaches my side and grasps my hands in hers. She strokes the inside of my arm with her fingertips, and my skin tingles under her touch.
I’m in a lab. I volunteered to be a soldier in a war I don’t remember. They’ve changed me—they are still changing me. What am I becoming?
“Galen.” My voice is nothing more than a raspy gasp. “My name is Galen.”
*****
“This isn’t supposed to happen.”
“I realize that, but with the change to the TST formula and the additional cybernetics, we knew there could be other side effects.”
“This wasn’t supposed to be one of them.”
“We’ll get it corrected.”
I turn my head toward the sound of Riley’s voice, but I feel so heavy, I can hardly move. I had just been in the lab. I had been upset about…something. How did I get here? Where am I?
“Riley?”
“Relax, Sten.”
“What’s happening?” I try to turn, but I’m strapped down to a rolling table. A bright light pierces my eyes. I need to touch her, but I can’t move my hands.
“Nothing to worry about,” she says. Her face is covered in a white mask. “We just need to make a few adjustments to your primary implant.”
“Implant?” I remember her talking about cyber implants in my head. She hadn’t given me details. It was just one of the ways they had changed me.
“There’s a small glitch. We’re going to take care of it, and then everything will be fine.”
“I remembered something,” I say, mumbling. “There was a barn...tanks. Where’s my sister?”
“Christ, how can he remember that?” A man stands beside Riley, his face also covered with a mask. I feel his hand press something to the side of my head. “There shouldn’t have been any of that left at all. Captain Mills is going to have a fit.”
“We’ll take care of it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the nausea in my gut. This is wrong. I’m not supposed to be here. I strain against the strap around my chest, and my body suddenly goes stiff as pain ricochets through every neuron.
I scream. I buck against the restraints. I don’t just feel the pain; I can see it inside of me. I can visualize every neuron as it fires, sending electrochemical impulses across synapses from my muscles and skin to my spine, up my spinal cord, and into my brain. They’re bright flashes of white and blue. I scream again before everything goes black.
*****
My whole body aches, but the soreness barely registers compared to the pain in my head. I try to sit up and get my bearings, but I can’t move.
“Sten?” I feel Riley’s touch on my shoulder and arm. Her scent wafts into my nostrils as I inhale. “How are we feeling now?”
“What happened?” I’m tightly strapped to the bed again.
“You’re fine,” she tells me, and I relax against the bed. “I think that run might have been a little more than you were ready for, and we had to make a couple of adjustments for you, but everything is fine now.”
My head continues to throb. The last thing I remember is running on the treadmill, though I didn’t feel like I had overdone anything at the time. I must have though. I feel like I’ve been run over.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t like the idea of disappointing her, but I must have. Why else would I be restrained?
She reaches out and runs her hand over the side of my face. I press my cheek into her palm and inhale her scent, wishing I could reach out to her. I’m hard, and there’s tension radiating from my chest and groin.
“No reason to apologize,” she says. “We’ll go just a little slower next time.”
I nod, and
Riley brings me water and a container of some liquid nourishment. She holds a straw to my lips so I can drink. It’s the first sustenance I’ve had since I originally woke up alone in the lab, and I wonder how long I can go without food and water.
“Can you take those off?” I ask, nodding toward the straps.
“I think we can do that.” She glances at the mirror, but no guards appear as she unstraps me and I sit up. I grab for her hand, and she lets me hold it. I flex the fingers of my right hand, curling them around hers. The bandage is gone, and my knuckles no longer ache.
I sit on the edge of the bed, and she pulls the rolling chair closer so she can sit down in front of me. From this position, I’m looking down on her. There’s nothing revealing about her lab coat. I can barely see the collared tan blouse underneath it. The sleeves go all the way down to her wrists, and the only visible skin is her legs. She’s wearing pantyhose and simple black flats.
In my head, she spreads her legs instead of crossing them. The lab coat opens and falls away, and her blouse is unbuttoned at the top. I think about how her hose-covered legs would feel in my hands as I stroked up her thighs. I think about how she would look bent over the edge of the bed with her ass in the air as I slid into her from behind.
“Are you more comfortable now?” she asks.
My dick isn’t.
“Can I ask you something?” I look into her eyes. She hesitates a moment before nodding. “When you’re near me, everything makes sense. That’s not an accident, is it?”
“No, it isn’t,” she says.
“I’m drawn to you.”
“I know.” She turns her hand over and grips my fingers for a moment. “It’s part of your design. You are extremely powerful, and we needed a way to make sure you could be tempered.”
“You mean controlled.”
She stares at me a moment. I don’t need her to answer the question to know I am right. She’s left alone here with me, but she has no fear for her own safety. I could kill her in an instant—there would be no way someone could get in here in time to stop me—but I would never hurt her.
“It is necessary.”
“I get that.” I raise an eyebrow at her. “You can’t exactly have your super soldiers running around unleashed, can you?”
“Something like that.” She sighs. “We have to be sure you’ll be able to complete your training effectively. The implants are only part of it. The chemical compounds introduced into your blood stream can induce intense emotional reactions to stimuli. It’s for your own protection as well as ours.”
“How does it work?” I ask. “What is it you’re injecting me with? Is it just you, or will I feel like this toward everyone?”
“One thing at a time,” Riley says as she runs her hand up my arm.
I feel myself relax, but I’m more aware of it now. My response is reflexive—autonomic. My knowledge of this doesn’t change the facts. Whatever her request, I will comply. Whatever she wants, I will acquiesce.
“There are two primary compounds introduced,” she explains. “TST provides you with added strength and energy. It heightens your senses, but that can have drawbacks. Your emotions can run very high. When in battle, this will keep you focused on your goal. The second compound is called FOG.”
“Those are abbreviations for something,” I say. “What does all that stand for?”
“TST stands for Transanabolic Synthesized Testosterone,” she tells me. “The other is Furioquel-gamma, or FOG for short. It’s an immune booster that also allows you to metabolize nutrients very slowly, reducing your need for caloric intake. It also contains another substance, one that reacts to a compound I ingest. It creates a pheromone-like response in your system, specific to the chemicals in my system.”
“Your scent.”
She stares at me for a moment.
“Can you actually perceive it?”
“Yes.”
“That surprises me. Even though all your senses have been heightened, I would have expected it to be undetectable.”
“There’s more to it though, isn’t there?”
“What do you mean?”
“That TST stuff—it’s testosterone based?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why I can’t stop thinking about fucking you.”
Her eyes widen, and she quickly looks away from me. She stands and starts to pull her hand away, but I push myself off the bed and grasp her arm before she can go anywhere. Our bodies touch, and I reach one arm around her back and pull her tightly against me.
I cup her face with my hand and run my thumb across her lips. Her scent is all over me now, and I want to experience her with my tongue. Would her taste resemble her scent or complement it? I have to know.
Pulling her closer, I press my open mouth to hers. Her body stills, and she grips my shoulder with one hand as the other presses against my chest. Her mouth is warm. I can feel her breath as my tongue slides inside. Her taste is indefinable, smooth like sweet liquor I can’t recall ever tasting.
There is a shift inside of her. It can’t be seen or heard, but I can smell it and taste it. The smell of her skin becomes darker, thicker. I feel her flex her fingers on my shoulder as she tilts her head to allow me to deepen the kiss.
How would her scent change if I were inside of her? What sounds would she make when she comes? Would she muffle her cries or be loud enough for all those watching us to hear? How would it feel to come inside of her? What sounds would I make?
I don’t even know if I’m a virgin.
Reaching behind her, I shove whatever is on the side table to the floor, lift Riley up, and set her down on the edge. I grip her hips and pull her against my stomach. The table is too high. I can’t fuck her from this angle. I break the kiss, lift her effortlessly, turn, and drop her ass to the edge of the bed.
“Sten, stop!”
I freeze my actions. My entire body tightens, and my dick throbs in my shorts.
It’s too much. I need this. I need her.
I don’t move.
“You have to let go of me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and withdraw my hands only enough to release her. I keep them close enough to still feel the heat from her body and detect the shift of air when she moves. She uses her hands to push herself backward on the bed, away from me.
The muscles in my legs shake. I’m so wound up, and I can’t let it go. The tension becomes painful and the need for release so prevalent, I can no longer think. I grip the edge of the bed until my knuckles turn white. As soon as she pulls her legs back and pushes herself off the edge of the bed, on the side opposite me, I grab the bed and throw it, smashing it into the mirror.
I glare at my reflection, and the strange dark eyes glare back at me. The unfamiliar lips are curled up in a snarl, and the unkempt beard creates a frightening image. Everything about the man looking back at me is alien.
Didn’t I just shave last night?
“Jesus, Sten!”
I meet her eyes, see her shock and horror, and shame rushes through me. I didn’t intend to scare her, but the insides of my body feel like they’re going to erupt into a plume of molten lava. I’m shaking all over, and I don’t know what to do. Pressure builds behind my eyes, and my throat tightens until I gasp.
“Why am I like this?” I scream at her.
“Calm down, Sten.” She takes a small step toward me and stops. She glances at the mirror and gives a slight shake of her head. It’s a signal to whomever is behind there. She thinks she can handle this.
Can you?
“It’s a…side effect.” She stares into my face. “Heightened sexual energy goes along with the desired factors we’re trying to amplify. You’ll need them to survive.”
I watch her eyes flicker. She isn’t telling me everything. There’s something about all of this that she’s holding back from me, but I’m sure she isn’t going to give the information up. Not now.
“Riley…” I plead with her. I don’t even know what I expect
her to do, but I need her to do something before I explode.
She stands up straight, squares her shoulders, and walks to me with confidence. She reaches out with one hand.
“It’s all right, Sten. Take my hand.”
When our skin touches again, some of the tension subsides. She runs her hand up my left arm, and I can breathe again. Her fingers stroke my hand, and my legs give out. I drop to my knees in front of her, instinctively reaching out to wrap my arms around her, but I stop myself. She said I had to let go of her.
I lean forward just enough to lightly press my forehead against her stomach. I clench my hands into fists until my nails are cutting into my palms. I feel her hand against the back of my head as tears fall from my eyes.
Chapter 4
Time is an elusive and undefined thing.
I think I’m losing track of entire days. I’ll be standing in the shower, checking for missed shaving areas, and the next thing I know, I’m strapped back to the bed with several days’ worth of beard growth. Once, I woke up with shorter hair but no memory of receiving a haircut. I was disoriented and confused, like I had been the first day. Then Riley appeared, and all my misgivings dissipated.
As long as she’s near me, I question nothing. She’s my doctor, my guide, and the subject of nearly every thought in my head. Everything I do—everything I am—centers on her.
My days are broken up into two segments—when Riley is present and when she isn’t. When she’s gone, I’m alone in the lab. I use the sink and the shower to clean up. I sleep on the small bed. The lights are never dimmed, but I’ve come to realize that doesn’t matter. I’m not sure if it is just the way I am now or if it’s because my food is drugged. Maybe it’s both.
When Riley is here, she monitors my progress and administers treatments to further my transformation. Under her guidance, I train. At first, all my training is done in a gym. I run; I lift weights; I swim. Eventually I progress to virtual training in a simulator. I’m given objectives and evaluated based on how efficiently I achieve them. At first, the goals are easy, but they become increasingly difficult.
“Time for some simulation training,” Riley tells me as I finish drying off from my shower and pull a pair of pants up over my naked ass.