Days went by. Gio lost track of how many. Inside the landships, Mekker days were synched to the days of the planet Aerthe, and they almost certainly weren’t the same as Earth day and night cycles. In the artificially lighted environment of Ryke’s rooms, with him giving meals at irregular hours, with the lights dimmed and brightened but never out, her circadian rhythms were completely and utterly screwed.
Deliberate, again.
The man had plans, same as her. Mad plans.
He rarely let her eat by herself. He tied her to chairs, to a makeshift table, in ways that were uncomfortable and obscene, and he fed her carefully, gently, except when she displeased him. It was intended as torture, but mental torture.
The interrogations continued, became ever more specific, and she sometimes skirted facts. Recalling which facts she’d distorted or left out was difficult but well within her capabilities. He thought to trip her up and couldn’t. Her inner pleasure at thwarting him grew. Smiling on the outside, no, but inside she was grinning like the Devil.
He trained her to act like a slave, and act she did. So good was she that he barely had reasons to punish her anymore.
As far as she could tell, that frustrated him. She learned his manners, learned to read him. His outer calm was a façade that seemed thinner each time he commanded her to exit her cell. Her problem? In these rooms she would never find a portal mage – mage being his word. Portal scientist was hers. Mage made her think of D&D games. A plus four sword, a Black Tentacle spell, and a roll of dice weren’t solving anything here.
Going outside these rooms was essential, yet she couldn’t free herself. She needed Ryke to do that. How was as yet undecided. Maybe if she puked all over his rooms.
He unlocked and pulled open the cell door, gestured for her to follow. She’d already dressed in the strange suit he’d left her for this day. It was thin and transparent like plastic but probably skin. Leather was skin. Yeahhh. Still eww.
She’d suppressed the creeped-out feeling and put on the figure-hugging garment. Mekkers had a weird sort of clunky zip and those were at crotch and breasts, as well as one long zip at the front – without that, she’d never have wriggled into the suit.
Her nipples looked like pink, squished discs. All of her looked squashed. But...she was past being disturbed by Ryke’s fetishes, wasn’t she?
As she emerged he nodded toward her. “That’s kol hide. A type of monster with skin that strips down to a thin hide.”
Monster not creature? If there was an award for weirdest so far, this fetish won by a mile.
Bare feet, black cuffs at ankle and wrist, and see-through monster suit, as well as the ever-present blood-sucking collar. Not that he’d tried to take her blood. She’d seen him pop the capsules with the Factor H the Mekkers extracted from human and Scav blood.
“Kneel.” He pointed at the floor before his pseudo-throne then quickly turned and sat. With ankle crossed over knee, he relaxed into the chair and waited for her to obey.
The smoothness of his turn had been a pirouette worthy of a ballet dancer. Slick. Maybe it was a trait of interrogator assassins?
Ryke cleared his throat. She’d been slow.
Bad.
Gio snapped back to reality. She folded into position, sitting pertly, keeping her shoulders back and her chest up too.
He often blatantly ogled her and she was beginning to see the advantages of her femaleness where she never had before. On Earth she’d been a pasty-skinned chick with a geeky job that occupied her hours to the extent she had no time for the sun, play, or boyfriends. Or not the ones who’d stick around.
Here...here she kneeled before a man who wanted to fuck her but wouldn’t, and she still lacked for sunlight. But, what if he was so obsessed with her he lost sight of his objective? Was this a chink in his armor?
“You seem...content these last days.”
His question and precision gaze jarred her. The implication being she was too content.
Whatever he’d done she’d submitted to, thinking it was a great strategy that kept her safe. It was only between the two of them. Weird or humiliating, she’d steeled herself; she was simply a mind in a body. The mind mattered more. He wasn’t able to damage or kill her. He’d not used drugs on her, or suffocated her again. Ugh. That...
Wrapping her head to the bars had been the scariest thing he’d done. Negotiating the maze of his questions had been easy – and safe.
His gaze bored in, steady as a laser, but this robot man had brains. What had she done wrong? Answer: She’d been too damn perfect.
“I think we need to try something new.”
Though she tried to conceal her nervousness, her teeth found the inside of her lip.
She’d fucked up. Only a little, surely?
“Let’s go on a trip outside, through the corridors and parks, the pleasure areas, the markets of this royal landship. Hmmm?”
On the other hand. Yes! This was what she’d wanted. Plan A coming up. Gio nodded and tried not to seem too eager or too afraid.
Except, maybe he wanted afraid?
She’d be going out there dressed like plastic Barbie with her private bits on display.
“Over these last days, I’ve seen what you are. Not all of you, of course, even if I’ve had you upside down with your legs open. You’re a very smart girl. Smart isn’t always clever, though.”
This moment in time was stuck, the tick of the clock hand quivering, as she waited for the punchline that was coming.
Her knees hurt. Never let your enemy know your weakness. And now she remembered that other quote. From Sun Tzu? Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
She’d been showing how strong she was...
“But you can’t go dressed like that.”
Frowning, she glanced down at the suit he’d specifically given her. What was he up to?