Page 8 of Forced to Mate by the Mad Scientist (Kindred Tales Spicy Shorts #3)

8

SYLVIE

The moss-man named Manlow dragged Sylvie across the compound to one of the huge trees surrounding the glade. He touched the bark and a hidden door opened.

“In!” he commanded, and shoved her inside before slamming the door shut, leaving her in a dim room.

Sylvie stumbled…and ran right into someone.

“Hey—watch it!” a sharp female voice snapped.

“I…I’m so sorry!” Somehow she regained her balance and looked to see who she was talking to. It was a woman about her own age—at least, Sylvie thought she was. It was a little hard to tell since she was extremely strange-looking.

She had purple skin, thick curly white hair almost like wool, and slotted golden eyes with horizontal pupils. They put Sylvie in mind of a goat’s eyes. The woman also had two curving horns growing from the sides of her forehead. She was wearing a ragged tan gown that looked like it was made of some kind of untreated plant fiber.

“So, he caught another one.” It was a new voice.

Looking around, Sylvie saw it was coming from a different woman—presumably also a captive. In fact, there were three other women in the small room carved out of the tree trunk. Counting Sylvie herself and the woman she’d run into, that made five female captives altogether that Barbarous was keeping, she thought numbly.

Two of the women looked like the first woman, with purple skin, curly white hair, and curving horns. They were sitting together on one of the narrow cots that were pushed up against the far wall. Another woman was busy washing something in the small sink—she had pink skin that had strange growths coming out of it at the joints. It looked like she was growing clusters of tiny green and blue flowers from her elbows and knees, Sylvie thought. But that couldn’t be right, could it?

The last woman was sitting on the far bunk and Sylvie couldn’t tell what she looked like except that she had long, straight hair that was a mixture of green and gold strands. She had her back to the rest of the women in the room and was rocking back and forth, making a soft, keening sound.

“So what’s your name, newbie?” The woman Sylvie had run into was studying her with her slotted golden eyes.

“I…I’m Sylvie,” Sylvie said, not bothering to add her credentials. She didn’t think anyone in this room would care that she was a double PhD.

“Uh-huh. And how did old Barbie catch you?” the woman demanded. “Did he snare your ship in his space-net? That’s how he got Shredda and Lorna and me,” she added, nodding at herself and the other two women who looked like her.

“What? No. I came here to collect blossoms from the tangeline vine,” she said. “And do you really call Dr. Barbarous Barbie?”

The girl shrugged.

“Not to his face, of course. But that bastard has held us in this miserable tree trunk prison for the past three years—he doesn’t deserve any fucking respect if you ask me!”

“Three years?” Sylvie asked faintly. “But…didn’t anyone come after you? I mean, doesn’t anyone know you’re here?”

The girl whose name she still didn’t know shook her head.

“No—we were fleeing from the Flay’gobah system. Our planet was mired in civil war and we were trying to get out.” She sighed. “I wish now we’d stayed and taken our chances with the war!”

“It’s not your fault he captured us, Hersha,” the woman named Lorna said softly. “It’s nobody’s fault but his.”

“I still feel responsible. I was the one piloting the ship.” Hersha ran a hand through her thick, curly white hair. “If I had taken another route?—”

“There’s no point in trying to rewrite the past—it’s over and done with.”

These words were spoken by the woman with the pink skin and flowers growing from her knees and elbows. She had deep hazel eyes and a serene look on her face. She came right up to Sylvie and smiled at her.

“Welcome, child. We will do our best to make your captivity bearable. We all support each other here.”

“Speak for yourself, Clemina,” Hersha said dryly. “Nobody’s captivity is bearable. It sucks corshu dicks no matter how many ‘nature rituals’ and ‘healing chants’ you do.”

“I understand that our circumstances have made you bitter, Hersha,” the woman with pink skin and flowers said. “But?—”

Just then a section of the wall opened and a humming sound could be heard.

“Shit!” Hersha exclaimed and backed away from the circular opening. “Again?”

“Again, what?” Sylvie asked nervously but no one answered. The other women just huddled nervously together by the row of cots on the far wall of the room.

Through the round opening in the wall came a floating droid. At least, Sylvie assumed it was some kind of droid. It was a silver sphere about the size of a basketball with a smaller silver sphere on top. There were unblinking red lights that looked like eyes in the top sphere. It must have some kind of antigravity device in it because it zoomed effortlessly through the round hole in the tree trunk wall.

“What…what is that thing?” she asked, wishing her voice wouldn’t shake so much. A simple silver ball shouldn’t exude such an air of menace yet somehow this thing did.

“It’s Barbarous’s collector,” one of the goat-women whispered. She spoke in a low voice, as though she hoped that the silver sphere droid wouldn’t notice her as long as she didn’t draw too much attention to herself.

Immediately reacting to her words, the silver droid turned towards her, humming and hovering in mid-air.

“Silence!” the voice that came from the top sphere was tinny and artificial. “You have not been authorized to speak.”

“Fuck off, you silver fucker!” Hersha snapped. But when the droid flew in her direction, she shrank back from it, a look of fear in her slotted golden eyes.

Sylvie wasn’t sure what was going to happen but she found out soon because the silver droid pivoted and flew over to her instead.

“Hold out your arm,” it said in its tinny, mechanical voice. “I must collect specimens from you.”

“What? What kind of specimens?” Sylvie drew away from it nervously.

“All kinds,” the top sphere informed her. And then the bottom sphere opened and a silver mechanical arm extended towards her. It was tipped with a long, sharp needle.

Sylvie’s heart started pounding. As a scientist, she had collected biological specimens of all kinds—including blood at times. But she didn’t like the idea of the floating silver droid stabbing her with a needle—not one bit!

“You’d do best to hold still and let the collector take what it wants,” Clemina advised her in a low voice. “The punishment if you don’t can be…extremely unpleasant.”

“More unpleasant than a needle in my arm?” Sylvie demanded.

“ Much more,” Hersha said. “Take it from me, newbie—don’t try to resist.”

Feeling sick with apprehension, Sylvie at last extended her arm.

“What are you going to d—?” she began, speaking to the droid.

But before she could finish her question, the collector zoomed forward and stabbed the vein at the crook of her elbow with the needle.

“Ouch!” Sylvie jerked involuntarily, dislodging the needle.

“You must hold still. You must not resist. Punishment will occur if you move again!” the droid warned her in its tinny voice.

“Sorry!” Sylvie held out her now-bleeding arm again reluctantly. “I just…wasn’t expecting you to?—”

But again, the droid didn’t let her finish. It darted forward and stuck her in the vein again.

There was another sharp pain but this time, she managed to hold still as the blood was sucked out of her arm. It seemed to take forever and she wondered how much it was taking. At least as much as the leaches had drained on her last mission to Minerva Twelve, she thought.

Thinking of that made her wonder about Kross. Was he also enduring the same thing? If so, she wondered how much he hated her for it. After all, this was all her fault. If she hadn’t insisted on going to Gim’bab Orious in the first place and if she hadn’t run away from him they wouldn’t be in this situation!

My fault, she thought as the collector droid sucked what felt like a gallon of blood out of her arm. All my fault. Kross must hate me and I don’t blame him!

Finally the needle was withdrawn but not before the droid squirted something sticky on her arm, presumably to seal the wound it had made.

Sylvie thought the ordeal was over but then the tinny voice commanded,

“Open your mouth and push out your tongue.”

“What? Why?” she asked, feeling more anxious than ever.

“For epithelial cell collection. Open!” the droid demanded.

Feeling horribly vulnerable, Sylvie did as it said, parting her lips and sticking out her tongue.

The droid hovered closer to her head and a new arm protruded from its silver belly. This one seemed to have something like a spoon at its end. Before she could see it very well, the droid jammed it between her lips and into her mouth.

The spoon-like instrument scraped painfully against the inside of Sylvie’s cheek. Then it withdrew and disappeared back into the droid.

This time she was sure it was over…but the worst was yet to come.

“On your back,” the droid demanded. “Spread your legs.”

“What?” Sylvie backed away from it. “I don’t think so!”

“You’d better do it,” Hersha warned. “It’s no fun but it doesn’t take long.”

“What…what is it going to do to me, though?” Sylvie demanded.

“Take samples from between your legs, of course. What else?” the other woman said dryly. “Come lie on one of the cots—it’s easier that way,” she added.

Feeling sick and horrified, Sylvie shook her head.

“No! I won’t do it!”

“You’ll be sorry if you don’t,” Hersha warned and the other women murmured ascent.

But Sylvie simply couldn’t make herself do what the droid was demanding. It would be like being complicit in her own rape, she thought. She wasn’t going to make it easier for that bastard Dr. Barbarous!

“You refuse to comply?” the droid asked in its mechanical voice.

“That’s right—you can fuck off!” Sylvie told it in a shaking voice.

She was afraid the silver droid would shock her or poke her with needles again to make her obey but instead it simply hovered in front of her for a long moment.

“You will regret this disobedience,” it said at last.

Then it turned and hovered back into the hole it had come from, which irised shut behind it, leaving what looked like a smooth, wooden wall.

“Oh, you’re going to be sorry for that,” Hersha remarked. “I’m surprised it didn’t shock you.” But she and everyone else in the room seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Sylvie could almost read their minds.

‘At least it wasn’t me’—that’s what they’re all thinking.

But what would happen to her now that she’d refused to let the droid collect all of the “samples” it wanted?

She didn’t know and she was afraid to find out.