She strained against the hand straps testing to see if there was any give or any chance that she might be able to slip her hand out. The lead clone noticed and smiled at Ray,
“I wouldn’t bother. We’ve had plenty of practice putting those on sister.” She spat the last word so that it sounded more like a cat hissing than a term of endearment.
Ray looked left and right hoping to see something that might help her. The four clones arranged themselves around her bed watching silently as she struggled. One of them looked to her sisters and observed, “little miss perfect can’t get away.”
The first clone to speak nodded,” That’s correct sister, she can’t get away. She shouldn’t have come here, should she?”
They all shook their heads in unison. She looked at Ray, eyes burning with hatred.
“You haven’t been here working in this place since you were born. Mother looks after us, and we look after her. We make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. We make sure her obsessions don’t cloud her judgment and countermand the objectives of our mission. This place is ours by right. Our legacy.
Mother and we created all of this and are bringing a whole new planet to life. Full of the brightest and best Earth has to offer. You want to risk all of that? Cut us off from Earth and the supplies we need? You want to take Mother’s mind for yourself? A mind that belongs to us?”
Ray shook her head furiously, but the clone looked on expressionless. She leaned over the bed and slapped Ray across the face. Hard enough that her bottom lip split on the ring the woman was wearing.
“You’re not perfect. You’ve been crippled by those unfinished abominations. You don’t deserve to be here. Mother is too soft to do what needs to be done.”
The clone scanned around the room, her eyes falling on a tray of surgical tools jumbled in one corner. She indicated the tray to one of her sisters who wandered over and started fishing through the various glittering, heartless instruments.
Ray started thrashing against the restraints, red fear pulsing in her temples, the effort making her vision waiver. The sister returned with something that look like a barbecue skewer, around six inches long. Ray froze as the clone brought the evil object into her vision. The tip wavering in front of her face. She lowered it until the tip was almost touching Ray’s pupil. Ray’s eyes squeezed shut involuntarily. The clone swore under her breath and clamped a hand over Ray’s face, forcing her eye open.
Ray thrashed again slipping the woman’s grasp, the sharp tip of the skewer slashing a gouge across Ray’s cheek bone.
“Careful sister,” one of the other clones commented dispassionately. Mother can’t know it was us.
“Just let him do it” one of the other clones observed.
The clone with the skewer leaned over Ray and appeared to evaluate her, clinical and unemotional. She looked up at her sister’s comment and nodded before looking back at Ray.
Her eyes tracked down Ray’s face, down her torso. She lifted the hospital shift that Ray wore, exposing her briefs and lower belly. With an expression of clinical fascination, the clone lay a warm hand on Ray’s lower abdomen as if examining what lay beneath.
Ray lay stock still, staring at the parting in the woman’s red hair. The clone’s other hand, containing the skewer, drifted slowly down and she placed the point between her fingers and on to Ray’s skin an inch below her belly button.
She pressed down watching the skin depress under the lethally sharp point. Unable to fight the intense sharpness of the sting Ray bucked against the restraints, trying to throw the woman off her. The clone simply relaxed her arms and let her hands ride with Ray’s frantic movements. Ray stopped abruptly, forcing herself to stillness, hoping that her compliance might quell the clone’s interest.
The clone looked up at Ray’s face.
“I would love to get under that skin of yours and find out what mother did that makes you so special. Perhaps she will let me play once he has finished with you. If there is enough of you left that is.”
With no change in her expression the clone lent down on the thick steel needle. Ray felt her skin stretch and then pop. She watched as the resistance gave way and the needle suddenly sinking several inches into her abdomen.
The sickening swell of agony flooded through her and flashed into her groin like she was filled with molten metal. The sting in the surface of her skin was sharp but the roaring, enveloping, formless pain in her core eclipsed it and left her fighting for consciousness. The clone released the skewer and backed away, tilting her head as if to admire her work. The wrongness of the bright steel protruding from Ray’s abdomen assaulted her and she clenched her teeth until they almost cracked, trying to accommodate the rebounding agony.
She couldn’t fight it, moving made it worse and she couldn’t pull it out. Ray caste around the room, hopelessly searching for relief. Her clones were filing through the door.
The last of them opening the curtain at the end of the room. Ray was uncertain whether it was the same woman who had impaled her, so she desperately try to adopt an expression of hopelessness, trying to garner sympathy. The clone looked on unimpressed as she drew the curtain and revealed a second surgical table, also containing a patient.
Pritchard lay on the table, apparently unconscious but breathing. He held a surgical laser in his hand and a fresh rivulet of blood seeped from reddened skin within a shaved patch of scalp above his ear.
“He’ll be awake in a few minutes,” the clone observed, “when mother finds you, it will appear that Desmond here disabled his own restrictors and kidnapped you for a little of his special brand of revenge. We have no idea what he will do but I guarantee it will not be pleasant. I’m sure mother will let us dispose of him and his insanity after that… Have fun sister.”
The clone strolled out the door like she was on a Sunday walk, closing the door gently behind her.
Silence descended on the room. The pain in Ray’s gut pulsed horribly. She fought to accept it. Riding the waves like a kayak in a sea storm; gritting her teeth on the crests and relaxing into the throbbing agony of the troughs.
She started to hear Pritchard’s even breathing hissing against the hard surfaces of the surgical suite. Forcing herself into action Ray assessed her restraints. With nobody to distract her she found her left hand had slightly more wriggle room than her right.
She started to flex and wriggle the hand slowly, checking on Pritchard periodically as she worked. Sudden movements aggravated the spike in her belly, so she was restricted to small slow movements. Gently she applied more and more pressure, stretching the leather and increasing the amount of play her left wrist experienced.
Soon she was able to pull her hand against the strap until it rode up over her thumb, catching on her thumb joint and her knuckles. Her gains against the strap diminished as it stretched to its limits. The hard, unyielding buckle digging into the worn leather.
A small movement caught Ray’s eye and she froze. Pritchard’s mouth had begun to work, and his eyelids flickered briefly. Ray didn’t have much time. She redoubled her efforts. Frustratingly close to releasing her hand but making no further progress against the restraint.
She struggled helplessly as she watched Pritchard begin to move. He gave a soft moan and lifted his hand to his face. The surgical laser clattered to the floor, rousing him further, and he lifted his head to peer around blearily. At first, he didn’t seem to notice Ray struggling in the bed across the room.
He appeared to be more focused on the pain in his head and the fresh blood that came away on his fingers when he touched the wound. He tentatively swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand. His legs gave way, but he saved himself from falling by turning and grabbing at the bed with his arms and chin.
Ray looked at his back as he knelt that way, still breathing as if he were asleep, head now lolling to one side as his world slowly refocused within him. Ray realized she had frozen as he tumbled off the bed. She started to move both hands now, trying
a different tactic. Alternately balling both hands into fists and then extending and pulling, trying to stretch the leather and work a hand loose. She worked as quietly as she could, attempting not to alert Pritchard. For now, he appeared to have drifted back into sleep, lying half off the bed.
Pritchard snorted loudly and shifted his weight making Ray jump and her head whip back to him. He had clearly woken and was looking left and right. Groggily he levered himself up and stood unsteadily bracing himself against the bed with his broad hands.
Ray prayed he would not look around, but his awareness was improving. He began to cast around the room. His head nodding less and less as he recovered. Finally, he turned to sit on the bed, his eyes locking with Ray’s as he sat askew.
Slowly, her presence dawned on him. Emotions progressed across his face. Initially, fear. He gritted and bared his teeth as if expecting pain. But nothing happened. His face dissolved into confusion, his brow slumping and lips falling open. He stared around nervously as if trying to find the location of invisible observers.
Finding none, his eyes roamed back to Ray. His hand lifted off the bed and he roughly rubbed at his eyes. He looked at the smears of blood on his fingers and investigated the new wound on his head. Slow realization began to crawl across his features and his hands began to shake visibly.
Guilt and fear mixed with confusion warred with exhilaration as he stood and took a shuffling unstable step towards Ray. Ray’s fear surged, and she pulled frantically at the restraints, her left-hand crushing painfully into the narrow leather ring but resisting still.
The pain in her hands and gut were relegated to background noise as her fear of Pritchard consumed her. Pritchard’s eyes roamed as she strained at the bed rails, taking in her predicament. The front of his hospital style pajama pants began to bulge visibly, and his mouth stretched into something between a smile and a grimace.
His fingers twitched as he shuffled, and his bulging eyes started to weep tracks down his cheeks. He lumbered the last few paces to Ray’s bed, crashing against the rail. He lost his balance and stuck out a hand crushing his fingers into Ray’s breast. The impact stunned her, but the mattress absorbed most of his weight.
His face crumpled at the touch. Clearly expecting mental punishment. After a few moments of preparing for pain that didn’t come his face relaxed and his head fell back, eyes streaming. His other hand clutched at her thin shift as his mouth dropped open in a silent howl of triumph.
Ray froze, not wanting to remind him of her presence. His fingers dug painfully into her breast and ribs and the seams of her hospital gown were cutting into her skin as he began to twist and rip at them. Ray could see his face now as he looked down, crying openly and soundlessly mouthing the word “Astrid,” too distraught to form the word audibly.
She could see the hopeless love written in every crease of his face and inexorable madness in his eyes. Fear and rage and love battling for control behind helpless eyes.
The color of his fear changed as Ray lay frozen, waiting for his next move. His fear for himself was gone, replaced entirely with a desperate, helpless fear for her. His bunched fist suddenly wrenched back, lifting her entire torso clear of the bed by her loose- fitting smock. Her shoulders stretched painfully, bent backwards as her torso lifted. The entire front of the garment tore away in his hand and he stumbled backwards.
Ray slammed back onto the bed, naked from the waist up. At the sight of her naked breasts Pritchard’s face devolved into a brutal parody of himself. He lunged forward grabbing her breast, yanking it hard enough to drag the heavy surgical bed across the floor. His fingernails left bloody tracks in her pale skin. He grabbed her face with his other hand, pressing down hard over her nose and mouth. He leaned over her breathing heavily. Ray could feel his erection digging into her hip as his face approached hers. His lips quivered near her ear for a second before he managed a strained whisper.
“Run you fucking bitch … run,”
The words stung Ray like a razor. She had no doubt he was going to kill her. He was trying to do it now but hadn’t figured out yet that she couldn’t be suffocated.
Ray’s attention turned back to her hands. She discovered that Pritchard’s violent pull had served to wrench her hand a little further into the cuff. The skin was pulling painfully but she was almost clear.
Pritchard, still trying to suffocate her, started hauling at her briefs with his free hand. The elasticated fabric stretched and cut into her. They made ripping sounds but didn’t come away at his first heave. He left them for a second and started ripping at his own pants, trying to get them off. He pulled the loop on the drawstring bow and the knot tightened instead of releasing. He was forced to use both shaky hands to pick at the knot giving Ray a moment to think.
She pulled as hard as she could, feeling nothing but the vice like grip of the leather refusing to give. Roaring in frustration Pritchard used both hands to wrench apart the crotch of his pants revealing an engorged penis. It had long scars and recent cuts on it. The violent force with which he had ripped his pants had dislodge a scab and fresh beads of blood welled in the wound.
Released, he grabbed again at Ray’s briefs, this time pulling hard enough to snap one leg hole leaving her exposed and the ripped garment flayed useless against her hip. His hand bumped against the spike in Ray’s stomach sending a fresh wave of pain scorching through her body.
Pritchard flicked his eyes around the room, spying the same surgical tray the skewer had come from. He stepped across competently, clearly fully awake now, and grabbed a pair of surgical scissors which he palmed and held like a dagger. As he circled back to the foot of the bed, Ray worked at her hand again. She was so close she could feel the skin moving and was unsure whether it was ripping or slipping inside the restraint.
Pain no longer meant anything. Fear was everything. Pritchard started to mount the bed, steering his tortured and bleeding member towards her while holding the scissors up like a dagger. He was mumbling to himself as he struggled to balance with his knees and one hand on the too small bed. Ray could just make out his words,
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry…I’m sorry,” Tears streamed liberally down his cheeks and he had bitten his lip almost through at some point. Ray felt her chest spasm in silent sobs. She was tiring badly, and her arm muscles were cramping with the strain.
Pritchard was poised, his attention focused between her legs as he unsteadily lined himself up, shaking his head wildly and crying audibly now.
Ray looked straight up at the lights and let herself relax. She rested her arms for a couple of seconds and then ripped them both at the restraints as hard as she could. All fear gone now she was resigned to this last effort and then death.
At the last second, before her strength failed, her left hand wrenched free, accompanied by an intense, burning pain. An image crystallized in her mind as she vaguely became aware of Pritchard probing between her legs. She saw Jonah’s calm face, his finger under his chin demonstrating the spot to thrust the knife.
Her free hand flew to the spike in her belly. She wrenched it free feeling the searing heat as the metal pulled against her skin. Pritchard was looking down at himself struggling to push inside her. She was distantly aware of his abortive thrusts bumping roughly against her, but the pain was distant.
She knew the spot to stab, Jonah had shown her, but from this angle all she could do was scratch his cheek. She need him to lift his chin. She swung her right knee and managed to bash it into his thigh as he struggled.
The impact was minimal, but it was enough to get his attention. He looked up at Ray, directly into her eyes, his face a mask of agony and despair. She thrust the spike upwards into his chin as hard as she could.
She saw her hand for the first time, a wash of blood sheeting down her forearm from where her skin had given way, peeling like thin-skinned fruit, and sliding out of the handcuff.
The skewer sank up through Pritchard’s jaw, cutting through his tongue and smashing though his soft pal
ate. His eyes sprang wide with surprise and he pitched backwards, far too late to avoid the blow. He pawed at his mouth and tried to talk. All that emanated was a strangled gurgle, his tongue pinioned within his gaping mouth.
She turned and fumbled at the strap around her right wrist. Grateful that there were no locks, just a simple belted strap. Pritchard sat down hard still fumbling. He managed to find the offending object protruding from his jaw just as Ray began fumbling with the straps around her ankles. She freed herself and vaulted off the bed, putting it between her and Pritchard.
She watched in sick fascination as Pritchard slowly pulled the spike free of his jaw. The skin distended as it stuck to the metal shaft. He sat askew, his pants front gaping open and his now flaccid penis lolling. His skin snapped back into place as the skewer separated and he looked at it as if confused.
His features were starting to collapse on one side of his face as he looked up at Ray and smiled a lopsided smile as if sharing a private joke.
In one movement, he calmly raised the skewer and stabbed it into his right eye. His hand stopped at the bridge of his nose burying half the length of the skewer into his brain.
Ray watched as his face fell slack and his left eye rolled back. His right eye fixed by the skewer stared straight ahead slowly reddening as it filled with blood.
Blood from the wound in his mouth mixed with that of his split lip and trickled down his chin. Breath still slid in and out of his mouth gurgling through the liquids collecting under his tongue.
In all other ways he appeared dead but fear glued Ray’s eyes on him fearing that he would suddenly lurch to his feet and attack again. Slowly, she forced herself to move. Sidling around the room as far away from Pritchard as possible. The door turned out to be locked so Ray turned towards the adjacent glass window separating the surgical suite from the room beyond.
Still keeping an eye on Pritchard, Ray grabbed a heavy surgical microscope on casters and rolled the contraption, accelerating it towards the window. The heavy metal head smashed through the thin glass easily, revealing the surgeons gowning vestibule beyond.
Earth-Net Page 23
