“There are a couple of different styles for you to wear,” she said, pulling a small door open. “Pick out whatever you need…and then, uh, change into it.”
“Okay,” said Leon. There was a tense, loaded silence for a moment, and then Julia coughed.
“I should get going,” she said. “I’ll see you in the meeting hall after. Elizabeth should be there, and she’ll give you something to do.”
“Okay mom, bye,” he said. Julia stepped towards him and wrapped her arms around him. It was a motherly gesture, but somehow Leon couldn’t help but find it to have a deeply erotic undertone. Her breasts felt soft against him, and he could feel her hot breath against his neck. It was a struggle to keep his dick under control, and guilty thoughts began to rush into his mind.
“Bye sweetie,” said Julia. She kissed him, on the cheek this time, but Leon could sense that it was a challenge for her to keep from doing more.
Finally, she broke away, and headed straight out the door. Leon let out a sigh, and then pulled some clothes out and got dressed. Most of it was rather plain, blue t-shirts and grey slacks, along with a white overcoat which he forewent.
He walked outside, and was surprised by just how different the Dome felt in the morning than it had in the evening and night. The lights above were incredibly bright, and Leon found himself wondering about what kind of power source would even be able to generate so much illumination.
It had the effect of making the water directly around the dome much lighter and more visible than it would have been otherwise. At the depth of the sea floor and Project Cobalt, almost none of the sun’s natural light made it all the way down. The lights, operating at the capacity and intensity of daylight, made it seem like there were only a couple dozen feet under the surface.
He walked over to the meeting hall, noticing several other scientists also on their way. Leon smiled at them when they looked his way, and noticed that they all seemed to view him as almost a curiosity. It was a sealed off community, and he was the new guy. In his mind, it made perfect sense.
The inside of the hall was buzzing with activity. Elizabeth was at the center of it, and Leon started over towards her only to realize that she was preoccupied with several other people. Instead, he veered off to an almost empty table that his mom was sitting at, and joined her.
“I hope you’re adjusting alright, sweetie,” she said to him.
“Well enough. It’s definitely different from living in a regular city.” Leon noticed that his mom seemed to be looking across the hall at an attractive older woman, who was sitting at another table with one of the few other men that he’d seen in the dome. “Who’s that, mom?”
“That is Kendra,” said his mom. “Stay away from her, if you can. She’s a liar, and I wouldn’t put it past her to take advantage of whatever she can. Your father…she worked her snake tongue on him more than once.”
Leon didn’t say anything, and wasn’t sure if he understood his mom’s meaning. Luckily, he didn’t have to. Elizabeth had finished delegating out tasks to the people she had been talking to and was on her way over.
“Leon, there is a site that we need an extra hand to investigate outside of the dome,” she said to him. “I know you’re still new here, but it would be a big help for us if you could learn the ins and outs of suiting up and going on an expedition.”
Leon nodded.
“Sure, I don’t mind at all. It actually sounds like it could be interesting.”
“Great. Meet up with Miles at Gate 3 in fifteen minutes. Kim is going to serve as your operational manager for the duration.”
She walked back over to the people she had been working with before, and Leon turned to his mom. She had an apprehensive look on her face.
“Honey, be really careful,” she said. “It’s dangerous heading outside the dome. There is a lot you have to be mindful of, and if you drop your guard for a second…”
“Of course mom, I will.” Leon was actually a little excited to be getting a chance to explore the sea floor. It seemed like he’d been given a chance to explore a new frontier, and the risk was not a factor he took into major consideration when he had heard Elizabeth’s request.
“I’m serious Leon. There have been disappearances before, not here at Project Cobalt, but during the testing of the WAVE suits. Divers and explorers that just vanished, and their bodies were never found.”
“Quit worrying, I’ll be fine,” he replied.
Leon rubbed her encouragingly on the shoulder, and then after one last guarantee that he’d come back alive, he headed outside of the meeting hall and began to make his way towards Gate 3. It took him a moment to get his bearings, but he managed to find it without much trouble.
Gate 3 was a different entrance than the one the submersible had docked at the previous evening. There were two large storage and equipment stations on either side of it, and a man was standing outside of one that Leon had seen before. He had been sitting next to the woman his mom had been so suspicious of in the meeting hall.
“You must be Leon,” said the man. “I’m Miles. I’ve been given the task of making sure that you don’t die or do anything stupid today.”
Leon smiled at him.
“Well, hopefully you don’t stress out too much on my behalf,” he said. “What’s the first order of business?”
“That would involve getting you fitted for a suit!” Kim had walked up behind him and covered his eyes playfully. “Guess who?”
“Ha ha, very funny,” he replied. “Come on, we shouldn’t waste time.”
Kim led him into one of the stations, and Leon was a little taken aback by what he saw inside. Running up against one of the walls was a row of strange looking suits. They were lined with artificial scales, with what looked like a small backpack attached to the shoulders.
“These are the prototype WAVE suits,” said Kim. “They’re designed to handle the intense pressure of the ocean, and contain oxygen filters in the back that recycle breathable air and also distill small amounts of it from the water. There’s also a small computer screen on the wrist that keeps track of your vitals and handles a couple of other things.”
“Nifty,” said Leon.
“They’re powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and though they look tough, you’re going to want to be very careful about bumping around with them. The pressure down here will kill you in an instant if it finds a way in.”
She walked over to Leon and began taking his measurements with a small, flexible ruler. He was slightly bemused by the process, along with Kim’s seemingly complete lack of respect for his personal space and boundaries. She had no qualms about fondling his crotch in the name of science, and it made him smile and get a little excited.
“Alright, I think you’re a high medium, maybe a small large,” she said. “The suit should tighten around your body until it perfectly fits your form. There is a breathing tube that’s going to fit into your mouth, so you won’t be able to speak regularly when you have it on.”
Leon looked over at Miles, who appeared to be rolling his eyes impatiently.
“So how do I communicate?” he asked. “I’m assuming that’s going to be at least somewhat necessary on a mission like this.”
“Sub-vocalization.” Kim picked up on the confused look her gave her and shook her head. “Basically, just move your lips and mouth as much as you can to form the words without focusing on actually making noise. It won’t be very much, the tube and suit fit very close into your mouth and on your face, but the computer will pick up on your movements and speak them out through a machine voice box.”
“Sounds good,” said Leon. Kim handed him a suit, and he started to put it on over his clothes.
“Uhm…” The female scientist was blushing a little bit as she looked at him. “You’re going to want to strip out of your clothes first. And also, take this…”
She handed him what looked like a small, padded pair of underwear.
“Wait, what is this?” he asked. Kim
hurried out of the room, and when Leon turned towards Miles, he saw nothing but contempt on the man’s face.
“You’ll figure it out when you hear the call of nature,” Miles said with a smirk.
CHAPTER 6
The suit fit Leon much more tightly than he had expected, even after Kim’s explanations. It also turned out to be a lot more rigid than it had looked hanging from a hook. He had trouble even just walking in it at first, which was only made more infuriating by the ease with which Miles seemed to move around wearing the WAVE suit.
“Maybe you should hang back for this one and let a properly trained explorer take care of this.” The voice that Leon heard in his ear piece, which was also contoured and pushed into his ear canal, sounded robotic, but with a strangely natural tonality that was more advanced than most artificial speech generators that he had heard before.
He tried to subvocalize a response, and failed in his first attempt miserably. The breathing tube pushed into his mouth, almost up to the back of his throat. It made him gag a little at first, but the feeling abated after a couple of minutes.
“Leon? Can you hear me?” asked Kim. Her voice sounded almost musical in his ear, which was a refreshing change from the annoying jabs of Miles.
“I…I can hear you,” he finally managed. It felt weird hearing the machine voice in place of his own, almost as though he was listening to a recording of himself speaking.
“I’m going to have the two of you head into the pressurized chamber,” said Kim. “It will slowly fill with water over the course of a minute or two, and then you’ll be outside. I’ll run you through the basics before we get underway with the mission.”
Leon followed Miles into Gate 3 and stood in the pressure chamber. The hatch closed behind them, and a flexible polymer shield rolled into place over it and seemed to meld into the contours of the door. This was followed by a couple of loud popping noises, and then water began to flood into the room, not from the outside where Leon was expecting, but from a small tube in the framework of the dome structure.
“We pressurize the chamber with stored water, first,” said Kim. “It allows us to have a lot more control, and reduces damage to the gates. Otherwise, there’s a chance that they could react to the outside pressure in a rather…unsavory manor.”
The water slowly filled the room, and Leon was surprised that he could feel the temperature of it through his suit. He waited as it rose up past his ankles, and then his waist, and then over his head as the room became completely submerged.
“Don’t try anything stupid when we get outside,” said Miles. “The last thing I need is the trouble of saving your ass from some dumb shit newbie mistake.”
“Nice attitude, man,” replied Leon.
The outer door finally opened, and Leon stepped through it ahead of Miles. He felt strangely agoraphobic as he stepped out onto the true ocean floor. The bottoms of his suited feet had weights attached to them, which were just heavy enough to keep him from floating up and make walking possible.
“Alright Leon, try moving around a little but,” said Kim in his ear. “You should be able to make a decent pace. I forgot to mention, your backpack also doubles as a water turbine, you can use it to accelerate or launch yourself up higher, if you need to.”
Miles was tuned in to the same frequency, and turned his on to demonstrate. He shot forward, moving almost like a fish, and then twisted and launched up higher into the water until Leon almost couldn’t see him. He came down near the entrance to the gate, and crossed his arms as though becoming impatient.
“Hurry up and figure this shit out, we haven’t got all day,” he said.
After a little bit of experimentation, Leon got to the point of being comfortable with all of the new technology. The water turbine was fun, and also essential to moving at higher speeds. Using it allowed him to move through the water at speeds that were at first hard for him to control. He also found a small headlamp attached to the forehead of the suit, which he realized would be critical after they moved outside of the small illuminated area close to the dome.
There was sea life all around them, but most of it seemed to keep a small distance away. Leon was a bit more wary of the shadows and movement than he had been watching it on the other side of the dome. He had intentionally avoided asking Kim or Miles about just what else was out in the ocean depths, fearing that the knowledge of it might do him more harm than good.
“Alright, I’m all set,” he subvocalized once he had gotten down the basics. “Where are we headed, Kim?”
“Right now the two of you are on the southern side of the dome,” she said. “We haven’t explored much out here yet, but one of our ocean cartographers picked up some signs of something unusual about two klicks out. Just keep headed straight south and you should get a visual on it before too long.”
It would take them a little over a half hour to make the trip. Leon was still adjusting to the fit of his suit, but on top of that, he found himself having to focus on moving forward and not being distracted by all of the sights the ocean had to offer.
There were fish of every shape, size, and color. Once they had moved a couple hundred feet beyond the dome, it was too dark for him to see anything in the water other than what his head lamp illuminated, but everywhere he pointed it, there seemed to be some sort of life.
“Quit wasting time,” said Miles. “We’re here to do a job, not scuba dive.”
Leon ignored him, but continued forward. They reached the sight after another minute or two, and what he saw when they arrived seemed like something out of his dreams.
The remnants of a large, wooden ship lie in front of them. It was encrusted with life, and a huge gaping hole in its hull seemed to serve as a passageway for fish and sea creatures in the area. Leon slowly moved over to it, taking large, floating steps as he approached.
“Kim, can you see any of this?” he asked.
“I’m watching the live feed from your headcam,” she replied. “It’s about what I was expecting. Most likely the two of you are the first humans to ever lay eyes on this thing.”
“Let’s take a look at the inside,” said Miles. The two of them ducked in through the hole and began shining their headlamps into the ship.
“Hmm, this is strange,” said Leon. “There are some old chests here, but they look like they’ve already been raided.” He looked inside one of them and reached around within. There were a couple of old coins, with strange, arcane writing on them, but Leon got the feeling that there had once been many more.
“Bring one of them back if you can, some of the archaeologists here would kill to get their hands on them,” said Kim.
“This place is a bust, I don’t see anything of interest,” said Miles. “Let’s turn-“
His subvocalization cut off in mid-sentence, and the entire hull of the ship suddenly shook and flipped slightly to the side. Leon moved fast and pushed Miles out of the way, saving him from being struck by a large wooden spur as the structure began to collapse on top of them.
“What the hell was that?” Leon swam up through the hole in the hull, which had shifted with the ship so much that it was now above them. His headlamp caught sight of something swimming up as he exited, but it was too far out for him to gleam any details from it other than the fact that it was big, and fast.
“It was probably just us moving around inside,” said Miles. “This is an old shipwreck.”
“No, it was definitely some type of creature,” he said. “Kim, did you see any of that?”
“I couldn’t make much out on my feed, but I can review the recording later, if you want,” she said.
“I’d appreciate that,” said Leon. “Come on, let’s get headed back.”
They made much better time on their return trip to Project Cobalt, in part for Leon’s experimentation with the water turbine’s thrust capacity. Miles seemed to be silently stewing about something, and Leon wasn’t interested in delving into what. The unlocked the outer hatch of Gate 3 and st
epped back into the facility without saying much to each other.
The pressurized hatch slowly drained, in much the same way as it had filled earlier. The inner door opened, and Miles stepped through it first, stripping out of his suit with practiced ease. Leon, on the other hand, found himself struggling to even get the seals on the airtight layer loosened.
“Here, “ said Kim. “Let me, uh, give you some help with that.”
She pulled him off and into the small storage room that they had taken the equipment out of originally. Miles had changed and move on at this point, leaving just the two of them in a relatively private, enclosed space together. It was hard for Leon’s mind not to wander and think about just how pretty Kim was, and the fact that she was helping him get undressed only seemed to intensify his feelings.
“These suits can be pretty tricky to get off at first,” she said. “The stick to your body like a second skin.”
She ran her fingers along the various seals, coming into direct contact with Leon’s naked flesh. He felt a little embarrassed, especially at the fact that his cock at the strange situation.
“Thanks,” he said. “I can take it from here.”
“Oh no you don’t,” said Kim. “I’m the expedition manager. I have to take care of all of the needs of my explorers.”
She pulled the suit down, exposing the lower half of Leon’s body and his hard member, which bounced up as if it had been drafted for duty. There was a strange smile on Kim’s face, and she looked at his nakedness with an expression that seemed downright provocative.
Her face was level with his crotch, and he could feel her hot breath on him. Kim locked eyes with him as she moved her lips closer and closer to his cock, and time seemed to slow to a crawl, and the temperature in the room went up through the roof.
Suddenly, reality seemed to snap back with a vengeance. The young expedition manager was on her feet, and seemed to be deeply ashamed at her own behavior.. She turned away from him, and Leon felt himself aching under the pressure of his hard cock, and wishing that she had gone through with what she’d obviously been considering.
Depths of Desire: Complete and Uncut (Taboo Erotica) Page 3
