Original Flavor (anime influenced)

Rated: R

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (Part III:  Everyone is a Predator)

	III.
	EVERYONE IS A PREDATOR

	My trip back to the hotel was spent in a state of complete mental 
turmoil, partly because of my conflicting feelings about what I'd just 
done, but mostly because of the young, beautiful, and exceedingly 
desirable woman at my side.  After settling up with Stiegel, signing off 
the indentures, and collecting the Corellian, I hired a private capsule 
to take us home.  I was beginning to seriously regret that as, with a 
total lack of conscious knowledge, she started filling that dangerously 
small and airtight space with her pheromones.  Corellians, once they are 
purchased and indentured, feel an uncontrollable ingrained desire to bond 
with their new master, to be totally dominated and commanded by another.  
To, in short, achieve physical/psychic completion by melding themselves 
with the appetites of someone else.  My empathy was resonating to her in 
such a way that her need for that particular type of union was becoming 
mine as well.  The part of me that responds exclusively to hormonal 
prompting was making lascivious suggestions in the back of my mind; the 
part of me that had discovered the joy of monogamous relationships was 
hissing disapproving comments; and the part of me that couldn't believe I 
had done this was telling me just that.  I sat as far away from her as I 
possibly could (not very), thinking righteous thoughts about Hunter and 
how much I loved him.
	If my own mind was a mass of conflicting impulses, I couldn't imagine 
what she must have been going through.  She kept her face carefully blank 
and didn't move a muscle during the whole ride; obedience is drilled into 
Corellians before birth, and I had the terrible feeling that she wouldn't 
do anything--show an expression, display an emotion, make a move--without 
my express permission.  I had managed to find something a trifle less 
revealing for her to wear, but when you've got a physique that could 
bring dead bodies back to life, it's hard to hide it.  The dark, silky 
material of the dress clung to every inch of her body, outlining high, 
firm breasts, a slender waist and hips, and legs that tried gamely to 
stretch on for miles.  She wasn't even trying to seduce me yet, and I 
needed every ounce of self-control in my body to keep from taking 
advantage of hers.  If anything about her helped maintain my slowly 
cracking sense of decency it was her eyes--the fire in them was no longer 
banked but beginning to burn in earnest, something I found encouraging.
	We cleared hotel security without any problems, the fact that I had 
walked out alone and walked in with a Corellian slave-girl causing not 
even a ripple of comment; as long as it's not a listening device, this 
place doesn't care what you bring with you.  She stayed the traditional 
two paces behind me, her head bowed so that she didn't accidentally meet 
the eyes of her betters, moving in a gently flowing glide as graceful as 
it was soundless.  I locked the door behind her as she entered, not even 
glancing up at her new surroundings before she began unlacing her dress; 
it was almost off her before I could find the voice to react.  "Stop!"
	She did, holding the bunched fabric just as it was across her breasts, 
her back still to me.  "Turn around."
	With that same silent, distressingly perfect obedience she did so, her 
eyes staying virtually glued to the floor the whole time.  "Look at me."
	Her green eyes were burning with fury and hatred as they met mine.  She 
didn't speak but everything about her, the tension drawing her muscles 
taut, the look in her eyes, and the intense emotion she was radiating, 
communicated her anguish.  I was feeling pretty miserable myself just 
then.  Very deliberately, so she could see exactly what I intended, I 
pulled the disk detailing the terms of her indenture and authenticating 
her as a Corellian virgin of such-and-such baseline genetic stock out of 
my pocket.  I felt her eyes driving lances of pure hatred into my back as 
I crossed the room, pulled open the matter recycler slot, and dropped the 
damn thing into it; there went the legal records of her existence as a 
slave, and I, at least, felt the atavistic urge to watch it burn.
	This time, I turned to face her.  "I have no need for a slave or for a 
plaything.  Your freedom is yours if you want it--I can't, in any kind of 
conscience, claim the right to own you."
	Her lips moved experimentally and for the first time I heard her low, 
clear, musically accented voice.  "Then why did you buy me?"
	The corner of my mouth twitched slightly and I let it curve back in a 
crooked half-smile.  "Would you have preferred the Eridane?"
	"I would have preferred not to have been sold at all," she replied 
tartly, and I found myself feeling admiration as well as sympathy for 
her.  "but that was not one of my options.  And I believe that it is rude 
to answer a question with a question."
	"You're entirely correct--it is rude.  I bought you because I sensed 
there was something more than the typically passive little Corellian 
maiden lurking inside that head of yours and I felt the need to preserve 
that."  I hesitated a moment as a look of recognition crossed her face.  
"Whether you believe this or not, I know exactly how you feel."
	"You are the one I made psionic contact with as I was coming onto the 
block."  Her own smile was a mirror of my own, faint and twisted.  "I 
didn't suspect that someone so...compassionate...would be among my 
potential masters--though I must admit, I am almost glad that you were."
	"I am not your master."
	Her green eyes sparked with a sudden flare of rage as she gestured 
violently at the matter recycler.  "Do you really think that did 
anything?  I am on record as being produced by the Network for public 
consumption, the details of my creation are on file in one of their 
entertainment division I-cores.  My purchase-price was registered, as 
were the details of my indenture, in at least three other places.  Even 
if you choose not to acknowledge me as your personal property, the rest 
of the galaxy will--I belong to you now, whether either of us likes it."
	Her clear, alto voice was shaking with rage and anguish, her pale skin 
flushed and her body trembling, and she was putting out so many 
pheromones and so much emotion it was driving me absolutely insane with 
desire.  Neither of us could help it--she was so enraged that control of 
her abilities was completely beyond her, and I was drowning in her 
physical/psychic need to solidify the Corellian slave/master bond.  
Almost before I realized what was happening, she was in my arms, her 
trembling body pressed against my own, her arms around my neck and 
pulling our lips together.  Raw, wild hunger poured through me with the 
first flesh-on-flesh contact, coupled with a rush of pleasure so intense 
it was actually excruciating.  What happened next still isn't clear to 
me, but I distinctly recall pulling her tighter, her lips on my neck and 
face and chest, her hands sliding down my back and across my hips, even 
the slightest caress bringing another surge of agonizingly powerful 
desire.  Somewhere in there we managed to lose our clothes and find the 
bed--I remember tasting her skin and her lips and her tears, the feel of 
her body against mine as we moved together toward the union that we both 
wanted/didn't want, her hair trailing across my face and chest, her soft, 
smooth, damp skin under my hands and against my tongue, her voice in my 
ears crying out in passion and her nails raking down my back.  I remember 
the stunning empathic echoes resounding through my/her/our mind as we 
achieved the same perfect psionic fusion that I had only ever experienced 
with one other person.  Afterwards, we lay twined together physically and 
mentally, too exhausted to move, her head resting over where I'd keep my 
heart if I had one, and mine buried in the pillows, wishing I had tear 
ducts.  This hadn't, you realize, turned out exactly like I had planned.
	The rude little voice that sometimes gives me advice in moments of 
erotic crisis poked me in the brain and reminded me of something.  I 
lifted my head out of the pillows and looked down at her, red head 
propped up on my chest, green eyes half-closed in a state of 
semi-exhaustion, pressed so close that a casual on-looker would have 
mistaken us for conjoined twins.  I figured I looked at least as 
satiated/debilitated as she, and I felt like it, too.  "What's your 
name?"
	She rolled over, burying her face in my neck and somehow managing to get 
even closer, her voice an I'll-be-asleep-in-three-more-seconds whisper.  
"Dansyr."
	My own brain and body concurred with the idea of passing out while I was 
still in my current carnally gratified state and getting some rest before 
the guilt kicked in.  It never even occurred to me, until much too late, 
how unusual it was that she had a name at all--Corellians generally go 
nameless until they're purchased, and then they answer to whatever their 
master calls them.  But, as I said, I didn't think of that just then--I 
fell into a restless, nightmare-filled sleep that, once again, woke me up 
in the small hours of the morning.  Dansyr was still fast asleep and I 
lay there in her arms for a long moment, gasping for breath and working 
hard at convincing myself that everything was all right.  Eventually it 
worked, but by then I was wide awake anyway; I gently peeled myself away 
from Dansyr, slipped one of the overstuffed pillows into her arms, and 
covered her up.  She stirred slightly but didn't wake up and I went into 
the bathroom, thinking dark thoughts about my need for therapy or, at the 
very least, a chastity belt with a large lock on it.
	I filled the tub and climbed into it, wishing for Elyena to call or 
Jordan to send another message or even the Network to try and hit me.  
Anything to take my mind off Hunter, Dansyr, and what I was going to say 
to both of them.  "Gee, Hunt, I hope you like threesomes...."  "Dansyr, 
I'm sorry I impressed you but now that I have, I'd like you to meet my 
lover..."  My subconscious mind had been at it for hours and all I had to 
show for it was a new crop of nightmares to tell my therapist about and a 
splitting headache.  I got out of the tub, took an endorphin analogue for 
the headache, and toweled myself off, all the while thinking, "Redheads.  
My life is a plague of redheads."  I was in the process of getting 
dressed when I noted the conspicuous lack of activity going on outside 
and began to get a trifle uneasy.
	In order for this to make sense to you, I have to make one thing 
exceedingly clear:  Luxura is never not busy.  The place always resembles 
a barely contained riot, albeit a riot devoted to partying as hard as 
humanly possible; the streets are always full, as are the restaurants, 
the bars, the casinos, the whorehouses--nothing ever closes completely, 
it simply becomes less active.  The ultimate city that never sleeps.  
This fine predawn morning, however, none of the usual crowds of tourists 
were in evidence on the neon-lit street, nor were any locals loitering 
about, looking for some action.  Bells and whistles started going off in 
the back of my head as I eased closer to the bathroom windows, peering 
around the edge of the drapes and optical scanning for anything out of 
the ordinary.  I finally found it both on the ground and on the roof of 
the building across the way--two teams of fairly well-armed shock 
troopers, not wearing any insigniae that I could identify, but obviously 
not there to inquire about anyone's health.  Even as I watched, the 
six-man team on the ground began crossing the distance between their 
cover in the outer reception area across the way and the lobby of my 
building.
	Oh, joy.  I was about to get my wish.
	I cleared the windows as quickly as possible, grabbing the gun I kept in 
the bathroom and checking its clip before I did anything else.  
Twenty-millimeter teflon-coated titanium-jacketed high-velocity rounds 
are wonderful things--I like it even better when I have three full clips 
of them, one of which was actually in the gun with a round chambered.  
Unfortunately, since I kept the majority of my hardware in the other 
room, it was about all I had at that point.  Hoping that the team on the 
roof was just for back-up, I popped open the door and stuck my head out, 
hissing, "Dansyr, wake up!  We've got--"
	I got a rather long, extremely good look at the gun she was holding 
pointed at me--a forty-millimeter military-issue machine pistol--just 
before she fired it, my cybernetically enhanced reflexes barely getting 
me out of the way in time to avoid being cut in half.  As it was, she 
blew a good-sized hole through the bathroom wall and nearly aced me 
anyway, the blast from the explosive rounds slamming me flat and knocking 
the air out of me.  She came in behind me as I struggled to catch my 
breath, the oversized gun braced in both hands and a your-ass-is-mine 
look on her face.
	"I guess this means it wasn't good for you," I gasped out as she moved 
in on me--my sense of humor is sometimes stronger than my 
self-preservation instincts.
	In any case, self-destructive mouth or not, she hesitated and I took 
advantage of it--I kicked the barrel of her gun away from my center of 
mass and toward the roof, her finger convulsively tightening on the 
trigger and stitching a line of detonator slugs across the ceiling.  The 
ensuing explosion was spectacular and ripped most of the roof off my side 
of the building (thankfully, I was on the top floor so I had no upstairs 
neighbors to worry about), showering not only my rooms but the street 
below with red-hot burning wreckage.  Dansyr hit the ground shortly 
afterwards as I swept her legs out from under her, knocking her flat and 
sending her gun flying, naturally, into the bathtub--which had managed to 
stay full throughout all this.  Sometimes I'm luckier than I deserve.  
But not so lucky that I could avoid the snapkick she drove into my 
stomach as she came back up, considerably faster than I thought she 
would, which she followed up with a knee to my solar plexus and possibly 
the best right cross that has ever connected with my jaw.
	Here's a tip:  never sleep with a Corellian and then get into a 
bone-breaking, skull-fracturing, soft-tissue-damaging fist-fight with 
her.  By the next morning, she'll know every sensitive spot on your body 
and exactly how hard to hit them in order to inflict maximum agony.  
Believe me, I know.  I had a gun and by the time Dansyr was finished 
pummeling me, I didn't have the sensitivity left in my hands to use it.  
I recall her pounding me out the door with a kick that would have made 
Mi'iko weep to see it and hitting the bedroom floor with another 
catastrophic loss of breath; my internal command/control/communications 
and tactical networks were spasming from the beating I'd just taken, my 
cybernetic limbs (equipped with a pseudo-nervous system designed to allow 
tactile sensation) were numb from being hit in their nervous-impulse 
transmitters, and my skull was ringing from the impact with the floor.  
Dansyr charged out of the bathroom after me, clearly intent on finishing 
me off before I could come up with something cute.  I came up with 
something anyway, gathering the energy for it as she crossed the distance 
between us and targeting her for a center-punching shot.
	While telekinesis can best be described as the ability to physically 
manipulate objects by the power of one's own mind, it does have a variety 
of other uses.  One of them--the process of building up telekinetic 
energy and then releasing it in a surge of concentrated force at a 
specific target--is my personal favorite; the telekinetic spike hit 
Dansyr square in the chest, lifting her completely off her feet and 
hurling her through the allegedly shatterproof windows on the far side of 
the suite.  I staggered as best I could to my feet, firmly resisting the 
urge to see if she was laying on the street or had pulled out a trick of 
her own; I took the time to grab the gun that I had managed to loose, 
convince my rather recalcitrant body that there was nothing wrong with it 
a little willpower wouldn't fix, and went out into the hall.  My second 
big mistake of the day, as the security team I'd seen earlier finally 
made the show, coming around the corner as I exited my suite.  Within 
seconds, the wide, aggravatingly open (read, devoid of cover) hallway was 
filled with flying, armor-piercing pulse-cannon rounds and I was wishing 
for a bigger gun and more bullets.
	The leader of this happy little group was apparently discussing the 
situation over a tactical communications network; she said, "Package is 
targeted and neutralized, Commander, we'll have this wrapped up in--"
	That's as far as I let her get.  The only thing I find more personally 
objectionable than being called a "package" is having it said that I've 
been "neutralized."  I mean, it's never true but I have to go to an 
incredible amount of effort to convince people of that.  It also told me 
a few things about these chumps--for one thing, they definitely weren't 
Network.  The Network built me, they'd know better than anyone how to 
take me apart, and they'd never assume that just because I was pinned 
down with only one gun and very little ammunition as compared to easy 
targets that I was threat-neutral.  These amateurs had no idea that I cut 
my teeth, so to speak, on situations that made this one look like a romp 
in the park; ergo, they were not Network operatives.
	My tactical combat network came back on-line and I moved--I mean, really 
moved, faster than human and even most enhanced perceptions could have 
seen, quite literally sidestepping incoming ordnance and avoiding the 
worst of the damage it could have done with a dive-and-dodge display that 
was, if I say so myself, pretty impressive.  I nailed the woman who 
appeared to be in charge first and then her second-in-command--a neck 
makes a brittle snapping sound when it breaks, but it's also one of the 
quickest, most painless ways to kill that I have in my repertoire.  
Teflon-coated titanium shells, such as the ones I fed their four 
teammates, will pierce armor, but their velocity is significantly chopped 
by the effort--anything less than perfect head or body shots frequently 
leaves the target lying in pain for hours as they slowly bleed to death 
or go into terminal shock from the diameter of wound trauma.  Luckily for 
them, my scaneye targeting was on-line and I had four exceptionally 
perfect shots lined up.
	I know what you're thinking.  I'm sitting here casually discussing 
killing six human beings, the willful taking another's life.  Here's a 
clue:  they shot at me first, I just shot back with better aim.  I 
haven't developed so much of a conscience that attempting my murder 
doesn't result in the automatic suspension of your breathing rights; I 
personally have a very high regard for my own life, and a marked distaste 
for dealing with people that want to separate me from it.  I took a 
second to search my six assailants for anything useful, coming up with 
two more sidearms and the ammunition for them, as well as a couple 
electromagnetic pulse grenades and a very small, three-shot plasma 
darter, before continuing on my merry way out of the building.  It didn't 
escape my notice that there was apparently no one else in the building to 
do the same; I had the feeling that Dansyr was there partly to take the 
first shot and partly to distract me while whoever was behind all this 
cleared out the civilians.  The fact that my unknown assailants didn't 
want any collateral damage on their hands wasn't much of a comfort--they 
seemed to want me dead well enough.  There were emergency exits on each 
floor of the building that dropped directly to an evacuation tunnel in 
the underground part of the city--my basic idea was to get into one, get 
downstairs, and then get lost, eventually winding up at Elyena's place.
	The plan might actually have worked if it hadn't been for one thing.  As 
I skidded around the corner to the emergency exit hatch, I found myself 
body-to-gun muzzle with possibly the biggest saurian Dy'killian it had 
ever been my displeasure to meet.  He was absolutely gigantic--eighteen 
feet tall if he was an inch, and at least half again that wide across the 
shoulders, his hugely powerful body covered with overlapping bronze 
scales scarred and chipped from a lifetime of fighting.  He was regarding 
me over the end of his equally gigantic gun--some kind of directed energy 
weapon from the bore configuration--one eye sealed permanently shut under 
a mass of white scar tissue, the other gleaming a baleful lizard-yellow, 
his lips twisting back to reveal a snaggletoothed set of fangs as he 
pulled the trigger.  All I have to say is that the recoil on that thing 
must have been massive--I know that the impact was, because I absorbed it 
on a hastily erected telekinetic shield.  The shockwave hammered me to my 
knees, the shield nearly shattering under the force I expected it to 
handle, the particle beam he fired at me glancing sideways to take out 
the wall, the windows, and a good-sized chunk of the opposite building's 
facade.  My response to this was accomplished more or less by 
instinct--my head was still vibrating in time with psionic shock-echoes 
that the particle beam had caused--as I pulled the plasma darter and 
emptied it in the general direction of the Dy'killian.  I think I only 
hit him once, but it was enough to knock him off balance and prevent him 
from getting another shot off, which was what I needed.
	While the Dy'killian was still reeling from the plasma dart, I took 
advantage of his distraction and jumped out the now thoroughly shattered 
windows, targeting the crumbling face of the neighboring building as I 
did so.  Once I had an appropriate target-lock, I fired the self-driven 
grappling hook/microfilament line mounted into my right forearm.  The 
ride across the intervening distance was extremely interesting as well as 
full of flying lead as a previously-unseen team on the ground started 
shooting at me--luckily, the old adage about moving targets proved true 
and I avoided any major damage to irreplaceable parts.  I blew the 
microfilament line the minute I hit the building's facade, allowing my 
forward momentum to carry me inside, landing in a respectable combat roll 
as I did so and flashing a grin at the couple whose activities had first 
been interrupted by a near miss from a particle thrower and then by me.  
I suppose they figured themselves lucky to be alive, because they smiled 
back as I sprinted out the door and continued with my original plan, in a 
slightly altered fashion.
	I had no idea if this place had emergency exits and I didn't exactly 
have the time to go exploring; I solved the problem by blowing the 
nearest window with one of the EM pulse grenades and jumping out that 
one, too--this time landing on one of the upper floor-to-upper floor 
bridges that sometimes connect a hotel with a restaurant.  I didn't pause 
to check what was on the breakfast menu, just hopped the nearest 
turbolift to the underground and went as far down as possible in one 
shot.  I considered it a good sign that no one tried to kill me along the 
way; I had evidently managed to lose my attackers and hadn't attracted 
any more unfriendly attention once I started doing my 
blending-with-the-crowd act.  Despite Elyena's belief that I couldn't be 
inconspicuous if I was invisible, I was apparently doing a decent job of 
it today.  And speaking of Elyena, it was time to find out if she'd found 
me a job or not--the climate was definitely moving south of congenial on 
Luxura.
	I was so happy to see the below-ground "back" entrance of the House of 
Passion that I was almost looking forward to having my teeth kicked in by 
Mi'iko--at least I knew she was doing it in fun.  I punched my personal 
entrance code into the airtight service hatch in the bottom of the 
building's foundation, thinking cheerful thoughts about being safely 
sequestered in my old friend's sacrosanct bedroom, slipping inside the 
sealed service tunnel with a heartfelt sigh of relief.  I hit the 
comm-panel located next to the internal airlock master control.  "Elyena, 
it's me Manslaughter--buzz me in, would you, I've just had a hell of a 
morning."
	It's a sign of what a trusting fool I can be that I didn't even sense 
the attack coming.  The first indication I had that something was wrong 
was the hissing crackle of high energy passing through air--I was 
spinning to face its source when the neuro-disruptor lash hit me, 
wrapping its nine electromagnetically charged tines around my neck, and 
sending its full load of raw power coursing through the natural conduit 
of my spine.  It must have been set on or close to maximum power--lethal 
voltage for an unenhanced human being and near-lethal for a cyborg, 
because it only required one solid hit to take me completely down.  I 
can't communicate to you the agony inherent in being hit by a 
neuro-disruptor, the pain of feeling all your surge protectors blow at 
once, of feeling every nerve in your body suddenly bathed in white hot 
fire, in acid, in raw, molten torture beyond anything I've ever 
experienced before--and, believe me, I'm no stranger to suffering.  I 
think I screamed, and I know I fell to my knees and from there to face, 
every inch of my body shuddering in reaction, seizures from the 
uncontrollable oversurge raking neuro-electric talons up my spine, my 
cybernetic C3 systems completely blown and crashed, an incomprehensible 
stream of programming data running across my scaneye's head-up display.  
I tasted blood from where I'd bitten my tongue as I was rolled over, the 
neuro-disruptor unwinding from my throat, and I found myself staring, 
semi-conscious, up at my attacker, visible in the dim light of the 
security lamps.
	"E-Elyena?!"  It took all my remaining energy to force my vocal 
apparatus to make the whisper--otherwise, I would have screamed it.
	Her lips tightened, her face coldly and completely expressionless as she 
looked mercilessly down on me; up the hall, the pressure door leading 
upstairs swung open.  Dansyr.  And, right behind her, the huge 
Dy'killian.  Elyena drew a gun from somewhere in the depths of the robe 
she was wearing and pointed it at my head, pulled the trigger--after 
that, the only thing I saw was darkness.