Snorri Sturluson
Keeper of Hugin and Munin
~BBW, Intrigue, Feeding Machine ~XWG – A top scientist becomes target of a bizarre experiment
Author's Note: A bit darker than my other stories (which I still plan on finishing someday). Personally, I've never seen The Cube or all of Saw, which inspired Mr. Monopoly's story, but I do love Psychological Science Fiction.
Part 1
“Wake-y wake-y little miss Jane-y.”
Jane jumped, tangling herself in the bed sheets. Once she extracted herself she sat perfectly still and listened. That was the first sound she had heard (assuming she hadn’t imagined it) since she found herself in that concrete room. The light never went out, there was no sound, nothing even to indicate that she wasn’t the last living thing in the world (or that the world even still existed). She waited but heard nothing else.
“Hello?” she tried, tentatively, amazed at how odd her own voices sounded after having not been used in so long.
“Hello,” a female voice said.
Jane looked around the room furiously but no one was there. She had made a thorough search of the room when she had first woken up in it but had found nothing other than the sheets from her own bed, the light bulb that hung from the ceiling, and the door. She was sure there were no speakers around. But then again, there was no bathroom and she had never seen a scrap of food in her time there, yet neither had been a problem.
“Who are you?” Jane asked.
“Please call me Desirae.” Turning her head, Jane couldn’t figure out from which direction the voice was coming from.
“Where am I?”
“Someplace safe. Don’t worry; you will be well taken care of.”
“Why am I here?”
“Oh Jane, why do you think?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything about my research!”
“No silly girl.”
Jane flinched at being called a girl.
“I don’t need you to tell me anything about your research. You see, I already know it all. Human photosynthesis, energy to matter conversion, everything. You are quite the genius but that isn't it. Think harder.”
She didn’t believe the voice; the best and brightest in her fields barely understood her research. But if it wasn’t her research…
“Think!” The voice was becoming angry. “Think you stupid girl!”
“I don’t know,” Jane shouted back.
“It is because of you that I am never allowed outside. Well, now you are trapped inside. How does it feel?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about; I don’t know who you are or what you want. Please, just let me go.”
The voice didn’t say anything else and after several hours of pacing around the room, banging on the door occasionally, Jane went to sleep.
***
It wasn't that the police had given up on Jane Weston's disappearance, Charles knew that. It was that after a month of investigating the matter with out even the hint of progress they were exhausting their options. That was why one of Charles' contacts at the station sent him what files the police had gathered. It was slightly surreal for him to read the report of his own questioning; as Charles had dated Jane some time ago he was an early suspect in her disappearance.
Charles knew he was in a particularly bad mood, a mood brought about the results of his own investigation. As a private investigator he had methods that the police weren't comfortable with but, like them, he had come up empty handed.
By all appearances, Jane had simply left her lab one day and never came back. By all appearances and accounts, she left work, got in her car, and drove off. She never made it to her apartment and her car had yet to be found.
For all anyone knew, she had just randomly decided to move somewhere else. Loosing a Nobel-laureate, however, did not look good to the University or to the city.
***
Jane had come to measure time by the growth of her hair. She had liked to keep it cropped short; less of a distraction and waste of time in the morning. It was already long enough to reach just above her neck.
Almost everyday now the voice talked with her for a few minutes. Almost every day their discussion ended with the voice being angry that Jane had no idea who Desirae was or how Jane had wronged her.
Today was a little different. "Good morning Jane."
Jane had been pacing the room for what seemed like hours, trying to apply her mind to figuring out a way to escape with no luck. "So it is morning?
Desirae giggled. "Well, it is morning somewhere in the world, it might even be morning here, but you don't need to know one way or the other. Maybe if you showed some manners I might be more indulgent with your wants, however. It is good form to respond in kind when someone wishes you a good morning."
"Fine. Good evening, or whatever time it is."
"Good show."
"When are you going to let me out of here?" Jane asked, a little afraid. Desirae had always stopped talked when she asked to be let go. It wasn't much, but talking to the voice did help pass the time.
"You've been free to leave whenever you wanted."
"What? The door's been locked!"
"Nope, never once. It doesn't even have a latch, go look."
Jane went over and pushed the door. Sure enough, it swung open with no problem. She stepped back and the door swung in the opposite direction like those doors in restaurants that lead to the kitchen.
"You've blocked it somehow!"
There was a hint of amusement in Desirae's voice. "No, though I doubt you'll believe me."
"It's always been locked when I've tried before."
"Again, no. Perhaps you had a guilty conscience that didn't let you open it?"
"Whatever." Jane stepped out the door and found herself in a larger room, though this one was decorated with hundred of roses. Upon closer inspection, Jane found them to be chocolate roses, the sort available in stores around Valentine’s Day. Ignoring them, she strode across the room to the other door and pushed on it. It didn't budge.
"I thought you said I was free to go."
"You are."
"This door is locked too, or are you telling me a sense of guilt is holding me back again?"
"Oh no," Desirae said, "the door is locked but the key is right in front of you so I didn't think that counted."
Jane looked at the door and saw that a small computer screen and number pad had been built in. The screen displayed the images of five dice with a title at the top that said Petals around the Roses.
"That," Desirae continued, "is a little bit of a thinking game. Surely it shouldn't prove more than a formality for you. Whenever you hit enter, the dice will roll and you will have to give the appropriate answer. The name of the game is important, the answer is always zero or an even number, and you must be correct on ten consecutive answers, to prove that you have solved the problem and are not just lucky. Additionally, do you see the chocolate roses around the room? Every time you get an answer wrong, you will have to eat the difference between your answer and the correct one in flowers."
"No way - I won't do it."
"You really don't have a choice but feel free to test me."
"And why should I play at all?"
"You know the room you came from and you are free to look around this one. The only way out is through that door."
Figuring it would take all of five minutes to figure out the answer, Jane sighed and began. She hit enter on the number pad and the dice spun for a moment. New pips came up. 5, 4, 5, 1, 2. With nothing to base her answer on, Jane typed in 10 and hit enter.
"Sorry, the correct answer is 8. At least there are only two for you to eat."
Jane ignored the voice and looked at the new pips. 6, 6, 5, 1, 1. She put in her answer but nothing happened. "As I said, you have to eat the difference."
***
Charles had to call in quite a few favors in order to get access to Jane's financial records, during which even more time had passed. If she had been kidnapped or hurt it was almost assured that she was dead now. Still, many kidnappers had a desire for attention and the lack of any evidence was actually the closest thing to good news he had to offer those who asked. Her financial records might offer a hint as to if she had planned her own disappearance; traveling required money and if the government and businesses did one thing right it was to track money.
Unfortunately, the closest thing to odd that he had found in her financial records was the occasional trip to a local buffet; hardly the sort of food that one would expect a genius to be eating.
Jane had apparently been quite dutiful in her investments. An impressive stock portfolio, mutual funds, even rental properties across the nation. Her salary as a Professor and researcher was fairly modest -- most of the funding was directed towards research instead of pay -- but she had done quite well with what she had.
Charles hated to admit it but he might never find out what happened to Jane.
She had disappeared long enough ago that the shock and urgency had worn off. Taking a bit of a break, he leaned back and thought of those months when they had dated. He had been Jane's first boyfriend. She usually didn't have time for relationships and few men were comfortable being overshadowed like that.
Closing his eyes, Charles imagined what she had looked like when they first met. She was a fair five feet tall, no inches, with hair cropped so close to her head that he had thought she was military at first. Some people have a particular style of dress, but Jane's style was more of a lack. She wore loose black pants and a size-too-large blouse every day; indeed, her wardrobe was filled with nothing else. She said it was so she didn't have to waste thought power deciding what to wear.
For a researcher she wasn't bad looking, she tried to keep herself as health as she could without going very far out of her way to exercise or eat right. She considered such things important but couldn't really focus on it.
Curiously, after the two had broken up Charles never dated someone that thin again. He defined it as liking "bad girls," someone who didn't care about consequences (such as of being overweight).
***
"I'm sorry Jane, I didn't think it would be that difficult for you."
Jane knew Desirae was lying, why else would she have put the puzzle there in the first place.
Jane also knew she was sick of chocolate, something she hadn't thought possible. It might as well have been a week as a month; her hair was now down to her shoulders. Still she hadn't cracked the code but she had a feeling she was getting close. Using shards of chocolate flowers, Jane had filled the walls with complex equations and records of previous tries. The best she had gotten to, however, was a winning streak of 6 correct answers.
Her body, however, was loosing. Jane estimated she must easily be eating a hundred or more chocolate flowers every day; the number had been much less at first. She had hoped that perhaps after she had eaten every flower in the room she would win by default, but ever day it looked like there were just as many as before. Somehow they were getting into the room but Jane was sleeping in front of the door and never woke when it was done.
Her stomach, once only hinting at being pudgy, was putting strain on her blouse, which had already been a size too large. Her black pants were stretched tight, the seams straining with every movement, and if it hadn’t been for modesty Jane would have discarded them. Her breasts, never an object of pride for her, were doing their best to pull her blouse apart as well. Unfortunately, without the aid of a mirror she couldn’t see her face.
Leaving the computer terminal in disgust, Jane wandered around the room, looking over her notes, and munching on the chocolate that she had to eat before she could progress.
“I’ll give you a hint; it really isn’t as complex as all this,” Desirae said
Jane couldn’t see how it could not be complex; there was no simple mathematical equation that would solve something like—
“Oh it can’t be this easy…” She ran over to the terminal and stuffed the rest of the chocolate down. 1, 1, 3, 2, 4. “One,” she said to herself. Correct. 3, 6, 4, 5, 1. “Six.” Correct.
In a minute she blew through the puzzle. “See,” Desirae chimed in, “it was easy!”
“It was misleading! You knew I’d over think the problem, didn’t you?!”
“I suspected.”
Pushing the door open, Jane was endlessly glad to be rid of that room, though she suspected she wasn’t free yet. The door led to a terribly small hallway that led to her right and ended in another door. The walls were close enough together that she had to sidle along, her stomach touching the wall in front of her and her rear brushing the wall behind. The door opened into the hall, making it difficult to squeeze herself into the next room.
Like the other rooms thus far, this room was also concrete. It was divided in two by what appeared to be a thick glass or plastic panel, reaching from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. On the far half of the room there was a door leading out, presumably into another hallway. In the clear panel there was another door with a metal lock. There were also two chairs in the room, one in the center of each side. A young college-aged woman was sitting in – no, Jane realized, strapped to – the far chair, a gas-mask like device covering her face with a tube reaching up into the ceiling.
Running to the panel, Jane hit her fists against it, trying to get the woman’s attention. The woman’s head rolled a bit so she was looking at Jane but her eyes were closed.
“What are you doing to her?”
“Oh nothing much, she was just hungry. Now,” Desirae continued before Jane could speak up, “I am sure you want to continue your journey to freedom. There is a slight problem, however. The door in the middle of the room is locked, an oversight on my part I assure you. Fortunately, there are two ways to open the door. The first and simplest is that it is activated by a pressure plate underneath the woman. Her name is Anne, by the way. Unfortunately, she seems to be so malnourished that she doesn’t weigh enough to activate it. It is lucky, then, that I am feeding her so well.”
Jane noticed that Anne’s stomach had an unhealthy swollen look to it. “You’re going to kill her!”
“Nonsense,” Desirae said. “She can take off the mask any time she wants… wait… oh dear, it looks like someone has strapped her hands down. I can’t turn off the flow as long as the mask it attached and I am not ready to let you see me just yet. Oh well. She might die, but the pump will fill her corpse enough to trigger the pressure plate.”
Jane could feel her stomach heaving at the thought; she felt like she was going to throw up.
“But as I said, there are two ways to open the door. The other way is for someone on the other side to open it for you. Anne, I am sure, would be happy to help you, but as you can see she is a bit busy right now. Once the holding tank is empty of food, it will release her straps and she will be free to move about. I am afraid it doesn’t look like she will last that long, however. It is a large tank and she is a small thing. There are two outlets, though. She is attached to one, the other leads to the chair on your side of the room. I am afraid the only way to activate it is to strap yourself in as well.”
“So then I’ll die too?”
“Jane, Jane, Jane.” She could imagine Desirae shaking her head. “If I thought it would kill you I wouldn’t have suggested it. Of course, I have been wrong before. Regardless, I will leave the choice to you. You can do nothing, in which case Anne will die, but on the bright side you will then be able to continue on. Or you can strap yourself in. You might die, but if you succeed you will be able to continue on and you will have saved Anne’s life. But you should decide quickly, I am not sure how much longer she can last. It looks like she has already been topped off.”
It was an obvious ploy, Desirae seemed to be maneuvering Jane to gain weight of her own volition… to an extent at least. Still, a life was a life and so Jane strode over and sat down. A mask like Anne was wearing lowered from the ceiling and Jane put it on. As soon as she had done so straps shot out of the chair and tied her down. Jane knew this would happen, but the manner in which it occurred did surprise her. Within seconds she could feel a tube snake its way pass her teeth, down her throat, and she supposed it came to rest in her stomach. A few minutes passed before she could feel herself becoming full.
“Oh, I forgot to mention something. The tank is constantly being refilled, albeit slowly. All things considered, I think you will be making headway against it, but with sleep and the sort the progress won’t be very much.”
Jane tried not to think about that.
***
Charles was moving offices. Though he had some set backs over the last few years, he had been mostly a successful private investigator and found that he needed to expand. A large building was already set up, along with a secretary and information specialist on retainer, he only had to clean up here.
All in all, things were going well. He had started dating a new lady last month, shortly after he had closed Jane’s case for lack of leads. She was just his style; a little too close to the edge for most of society. She liked to eat (and over did it more often than not), worked as a bounty hunter (which is actually how they met), and was fast by most standards. The relationship had no hope of lasting, but it was fun for now.
He pulled open another filing drawer and started moving the cases into a box. On a whim he stopped and flipped through Jane’s file. Scattering the documents across the desk he took a nostalgic look over everything. By a bit of luck Jane’s pay stub from the university was next to a deposit slip from her bank. Charles noticed that the amount deposited was ten dollars less than it should have been. Sorting through years worth of stubs, he found that at least once every year ten dollars went missing. Once, it might have been a bank error. Twice, that is unlikely but explainable. This had been going on for years.
Charles reached for his phone and called up his lady-friend to call of that night’s “dinner in bed.” It wasn’t much of a lead, it might be a dead end, but it was something.
Story continued in post 11 of this thread
Trick of the Mind
Parts 1 - 9
by Snorri Sturluson
Inspired by Mr. Monopoly's Cube Course
Parts 1 - 9
by Snorri Sturluson
Inspired by Mr. Monopoly's Cube Course
Author's Note: A bit darker than my other stories (which I still plan on finishing someday). Personally, I've never seen The Cube or all of Saw, which inspired Mr. Monopoly's story, but I do love Psychological Science Fiction.
Part 1
“Wake-y wake-y little miss Jane-y.”
Jane jumped, tangling herself in the bed sheets. Once she extracted herself she sat perfectly still and listened. That was the first sound she had heard (assuming she hadn’t imagined it) since she found herself in that concrete room. The light never went out, there was no sound, nothing even to indicate that she wasn’t the last living thing in the world (or that the world even still existed). She waited but heard nothing else.
“Hello?” she tried, tentatively, amazed at how odd her own voices sounded after having not been used in so long.
“Hello,” a female voice said.
Jane looked around the room furiously but no one was there. She had made a thorough search of the room when she had first woken up in it but had found nothing other than the sheets from her own bed, the light bulb that hung from the ceiling, and the door. She was sure there were no speakers around. But then again, there was no bathroom and she had never seen a scrap of food in her time there, yet neither had been a problem.
“Who are you?” Jane asked.
“Please call me Desirae.” Turning her head, Jane couldn’t figure out from which direction the voice was coming from.
“Where am I?”
“Someplace safe. Don’t worry; you will be well taken care of.”
“Why am I here?”
“Oh Jane, why do you think?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything about my research!”
“No silly girl.”
Jane flinched at being called a girl.
“I don’t need you to tell me anything about your research. You see, I already know it all. Human photosynthesis, energy to matter conversion, everything. You are quite the genius but that isn't it. Think harder.”
She didn’t believe the voice; the best and brightest in her fields barely understood her research. But if it wasn’t her research…
“Think!” The voice was becoming angry. “Think you stupid girl!”
“I don’t know,” Jane shouted back.
“It is because of you that I am never allowed outside. Well, now you are trapped inside. How does it feel?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about; I don’t know who you are or what you want. Please, just let me go.”
The voice didn’t say anything else and after several hours of pacing around the room, banging on the door occasionally, Jane went to sleep.
***
It wasn't that the police had given up on Jane Weston's disappearance, Charles knew that. It was that after a month of investigating the matter with out even the hint of progress they were exhausting their options. That was why one of Charles' contacts at the station sent him what files the police had gathered. It was slightly surreal for him to read the report of his own questioning; as Charles had dated Jane some time ago he was an early suspect in her disappearance.
Charles knew he was in a particularly bad mood, a mood brought about the results of his own investigation. As a private investigator he had methods that the police weren't comfortable with but, like them, he had come up empty handed.
By all appearances, Jane had simply left her lab one day and never came back. By all appearances and accounts, she left work, got in her car, and drove off. She never made it to her apartment and her car had yet to be found.
For all anyone knew, she had just randomly decided to move somewhere else. Loosing a Nobel-laureate, however, did not look good to the University or to the city.
***
Jane had come to measure time by the growth of her hair. She had liked to keep it cropped short; less of a distraction and waste of time in the morning. It was already long enough to reach just above her neck.
Almost everyday now the voice talked with her for a few minutes. Almost every day their discussion ended with the voice being angry that Jane had no idea who Desirae was or how Jane had wronged her.
Today was a little different. "Good morning Jane."
Jane had been pacing the room for what seemed like hours, trying to apply her mind to figuring out a way to escape with no luck. "So it is morning?
Desirae giggled. "Well, it is morning somewhere in the world, it might even be morning here, but you don't need to know one way or the other. Maybe if you showed some manners I might be more indulgent with your wants, however. It is good form to respond in kind when someone wishes you a good morning."
"Fine. Good evening, or whatever time it is."
"Good show."
"When are you going to let me out of here?" Jane asked, a little afraid. Desirae had always stopped talked when she asked to be let go. It wasn't much, but talking to the voice did help pass the time.
"You've been free to leave whenever you wanted."
"What? The door's been locked!"
"Nope, never once. It doesn't even have a latch, go look."
Jane went over and pushed the door. Sure enough, it swung open with no problem. She stepped back and the door swung in the opposite direction like those doors in restaurants that lead to the kitchen.
"You've blocked it somehow!"
There was a hint of amusement in Desirae's voice. "No, though I doubt you'll believe me."
"It's always been locked when I've tried before."
"Again, no. Perhaps you had a guilty conscience that didn't let you open it?"
"Whatever." Jane stepped out the door and found herself in a larger room, though this one was decorated with hundred of roses. Upon closer inspection, Jane found them to be chocolate roses, the sort available in stores around Valentine’s Day. Ignoring them, she strode across the room to the other door and pushed on it. It didn't budge.
"I thought you said I was free to go."
"You are."
"This door is locked too, or are you telling me a sense of guilt is holding me back again?"
"Oh no," Desirae said, "the door is locked but the key is right in front of you so I didn't think that counted."
Jane looked at the door and saw that a small computer screen and number pad had been built in. The screen displayed the images of five dice with a title at the top that said Petals around the Roses.
"That," Desirae continued, "is a little bit of a thinking game. Surely it shouldn't prove more than a formality for you. Whenever you hit enter, the dice will roll and you will have to give the appropriate answer. The name of the game is important, the answer is always zero or an even number, and you must be correct on ten consecutive answers, to prove that you have solved the problem and are not just lucky. Additionally, do you see the chocolate roses around the room? Every time you get an answer wrong, you will have to eat the difference between your answer and the correct one in flowers."
"No way - I won't do it."
"You really don't have a choice but feel free to test me."
"And why should I play at all?"
"You know the room you came from and you are free to look around this one. The only way out is through that door."
Figuring it would take all of five minutes to figure out the answer, Jane sighed and began. She hit enter on the number pad and the dice spun for a moment. New pips came up. 5, 4, 5, 1, 2. With nothing to base her answer on, Jane typed in 10 and hit enter.
"Sorry, the correct answer is 8. At least there are only two for you to eat."
Jane ignored the voice and looked at the new pips. 6, 6, 5, 1, 1. She put in her answer but nothing happened. "As I said, you have to eat the difference."
***
Charles had to call in quite a few favors in order to get access to Jane's financial records, during which even more time had passed. If she had been kidnapped or hurt it was almost assured that she was dead now. Still, many kidnappers had a desire for attention and the lack of any evidence was actually the closest thing to good news he had to offer those who asked. Her financial records might offer a hint as to if she had planned her own disappearance; traveling required money and if the government and businesses did one thing right it was to track money.
Unfortunately, the closest thing to odd that he had found in her financial records was the occasional trip to a local buffet; hardly the sort of food that one would expect a genius to be eating.
Jane had apparently been quite dutiful in her investments. An impressive stock portfolio, mutual funds, even rental properties across the nation. Her salary as a Professor and researcher was fairly modest -- most of the funding was directed towards research instead of pay -- but she had done quite well with what she had.
Charles hated to admit it but he might never find out what happened to Jane.
She had disappeared long enough ago that the shock and urgency had worn off. Taking a bit of a break, he leaned back and thought of those months when they had dated. He had been Jane's first boyfriend. She usually didn't have time for relationships and few men were comfortable being overshadowed like that.
Closing his eyes, Charles imagined what she had looked like when they first met. She was a fair five feet tall, no inches, with hair cropped so close to her head that he had thought she was military at first. Some people have a particular style of dress, but Jane's style was more of a lack. She wore loose black pants and a size-too-large blouse every day; indeed, her wardrobe was filled with nothing else. She said it was so she didn't have to waste thought power deciding what to wear.
For a researcher she wasn't bad looking, she tried to keep herself as health as she could without going very far out of her way to exercise or eat right. She considered such things important but couldn't really focus on it.
Curiously, after the two had broken up Charles never dated someone that thin again. He defined it as liking "bad girls," someone who didn't care about consequences (such as of being overweight).
***
"I'm sorry Jane, I didn't think it would be that difficult for you."
Jane knew Desirae was lying, why else would she have put the puzzle there in the first place.
Jane also knew she was sick of chocolate, something she hadn't thought possible. It might as well have been a week as a month; her hair was now down to her shoulders. Still she hadn't cracked the code but she had a feeling she was getting close. Using shards of chocolate flowers, Jane had filled the walls with complex equations and records of previous tries. The best she had gotten to, however, was a winning streak of 6 correct answers.
Her body, however, was loosing. Jane estimated she must easily be eating a hundred or more chocolate flowers every day; the number had been much less at first. She had hoped that perhaps after she had eaten every flower in the room she would win by default, but ever day it looked like there were just as many as before. Somehow they were getting into the room but Jane was sleeping in front of the door and never woke when it was done.
Her stomach, once only hinting at being pudgy, was putting strain on her blouse, which had already been a size too large. Her black pants were stretched tight, the seams straining with every movement, and if it hadn’t been for modesty Jane would have discarded them. Her breasts, never an object of pride for her, were doing their best to pull her blouse apart as well. Unfortunately, without the aid of a mirror she couldn’t see her face.
Leaving the computer terminal in disgust, Jane wandered around the room, looking over her notes, and munching on the chocolate that she had to eat before she could progress.
“I’ll give you a hint; it really isn’t as complex as all this,” Desirae said
Jane couldn’t see how it could not be complex; there was no simple mathematical equation that would solve something like—
“Oh it can’t be this easy…” She ran over to the terminal and stuffed the rest of the chocolate down. 1, 1, 3, 2, 4. “One,” she said to herself. Correct. 3, 6, 4, 5, 1. “Six.” Correct.
In a minute she blew through the puzzle. “See,” Desirae chimed in, “it was easy!”
“It was misleading! You knew I’d over think the problem, didn’t you?!”
“I suspected.”
Pushing the door open, Jane was endlessly glad to be rid of that room, though she suspected she wasn’t free yet. The door led to a terribly small hallway that led to her right and ended in another door. The walls were close enough together that she had to sidle along, her stomach touching the wall in front of her and her rear brushing the wall behind. The door opened into the hall, making it difficult to squeeze herself into the next room.
Like the other rooms thus far, this room was also concrete. It was divided in two by what appeared to be a thick glass or plastic panel, reaching from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. On the far half of the room there was a door leading out, presumably into another hallway. In the clear panel there was another door with a metal lock. There were also two chairs in the room, one in the center of each side. A young college-aged woman was sitting in – no, Jane realized, strapped to – the far chair, a gas-mask like device covering her face with a tube reaching up into the ceiling.
Running to the panel, Jane hit her fists against it, trying to get the woman’s attention. The woman’s head rolled a bit so she was looking at Jane but her eyes were closed.
“What are you doing to her?”
“Oh nothing much, she was just hungry. Now,” Desirae continued before Jane could speak up, “I am sure you want to continue your journey to freedom. There is a slight problem, however. The door in the middle of the room is locked, an oversight on my part I assure you. Fortunately, there are two ways to open the door. The first and simplest is that it is activated by a pressure plate underneath the woman. Her name is Anne, by the way. Unfortunately, she seems to be so malnourished that she doesn’t weigh enough to activate it. It is lucky, then, that I am feeding her so well.”
Jane noticed that Anne’s stomach had an unhealthy swollen look to it. “You’re going to kill her!”
“Nonsense,” Desirae said. “She can take off the mask any time she wants… wait… oh dear, it looks like someone has strapped her hands down. I can’t turn off the flow as long as the mask it attached and I am not ready to let you see me just yet. Oh well. She might die, but the pump will fill her corpse enough to trigger the pressure plate.”
Jane could feel her stomach heaving at the thought; she felt like she was going to throw up.
“But as I said, there are two ways to open the door. The other way is for someone on the other side to open it for you. Anne, I am sure, would be happy to help you, but as you can see she is a bit busy right now. Once the holding tank is empty of food, it will release her straps and she will be free to move about. I am afraid it doesn’t look like she will last that long, however. It is a large tank and she is a small thing. There are two outlets, though. She is attached to one, the other leads to the chair on your side of the room. I am afraid the only way to activate it is to strap yourself in as well.”
“So then I’ll die too?”
“Jane, Jane, Jane.” She could imagine Desirae shaking her head. “If I thought it would kill you I wouldn’t have suggested it. Of course, I have been wrong before. Regardless, I will leave the choice to you. You can do nothing, in which case Anne will die, but on the bright side you will then be able to continue on. Or you can strap yourself in. You might die, but if you succeed you will be able to continue on and you will have saved Anne’s life. But you should decide quickly, I am not sure how much longer she can last. It looks like she has already been topped off.”
It was an obvious ploy, Desirae seemed to be maneuvering Jane to gain weight of her own volition… to an extent at least. Still, a life was a life and so Jane strode over and sat down. A mask like Anne was wearing lowered from the ceiling and Jane put it on. As soon as she had done so straps shot out of the chair and tied her down. Jane knew this would happen, but the manner in which it occurred did surprise her. Within seconds she could feel a tube snake its way pass her teeth, down her throat, and she supposed it came to rest in her stomach. A few minutes passed before she could feel herself becoming full.
“Oh, I forgot to mention something. The tank is constantly being refilled, albeit slowly. All things considered, I think you will be making headway against it, but with sleep and the sort the progress won’t be very much.”
Jane tried not to think about that.
***
Charles was moving offices. Though he had some set backs over the last few years, he had been mostly a successful private investigator and found that he needed to expand. A large building was already set up, along with a secretary and information specialist on retainer, he only had to clean up here.
All in all, things were going well. He had started dating a new lady last month, shortly after he had closed Jane’s case for lack of leads. She was just his style; a little too close to the edge for most of society. She liked to eat (and over did it more often than not), worked as a bounty hunter (which is actually how they met), and was fast by most standards. The relationship had no hope of lasting, but it was fun for now.
He pulled open another filing drawer and started moving the cases into a box. On a whim he stopped and flipped through Jane’s file. Scattering the documents across the desk he took a nostalgic look over everything. By a bit of luck Jane’s pay stub from the university was next to a deposit slip from her bank. Charles noticed that the amount deposited was ten dollars less than it should have been. Sorting through years worth of stubs, he found that at least once every year ten dollars went missing. Once, it might have been a bank error. Twice, that is unlikely but explainable. This had been going on for years.
Charles reached for his phone and called up his lady-friend to call of that night’s “dinner in bed.” It wasn’t much of a lead, it might be a dead end, but it was something.
Story continued in post 11 of this thread
