#encoded response

[legobiwan]

"First, let's get something out of the way: a human's ability to grasp reality is painfully limited. You don't even have free will! Don't believe me? Okay, rip a dollar in half right now. Didn't do it? Didn't think so!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

"PS: Look what I just ripped in half! Suck it!"

~~~~~~~~

I love Stan so, so much for this.

[encoding-the-hellsite]

so:

n reno .gzo ev,l el@p qaxk e

Go on, tell me your code.... for the wauce.

goon ,etl le"f :rj, :,?o ?xkw ote" eawu c-

e@ 7 c7i717

[clowningaroundmars]

y'know what i've been thinking about lately for no reason at all?

miles42

yeah, yeah i know but. if his 1610 counterpart is a conflict-avoidant-anxious type who keeps running both physically and metaphorically to and from his responsibilities, always acting like he's got everything under control... then, would miles42 be like that as well?

would earth-42 let him do that at all?

by that i mean... i always thought that miles42 would also be the same way, a boy who always tries to sweep things under the rug and pretend everything is totally normal... until i figured that smoothing over important things that need addressing is probably the last thing he would want to do, at least behind the scenes.

he'd put on the happy mask and conceal his pain on the surface, never arouse suspicions. miles42 would undoubtedly be influenced by his uncle aaron of course

but when a dystopian police state comes marching into the streets of your neighborhood, and the corrupt govt ruling over them plunges your family into poverty, there's only so much you can paint over until the cracks really start showing. problems tend to escalate quickly under totalitarian regimes

both miles42 and aaron42 would have to reckon with surviving in a world like that, where every bill that comes in the mail could be their last before the cops come hauling them away to debtors prisons. every infraction against the law established by evil billionaires and ceos could mean prison for life in general. every rebellious act is undoubtedly at the risk of being captured by cameras posted everywhere

miles1610 was able to run away from his problems, at least for a little while at a time. what would a miles who didn't have that option at all look like?

how would he feel, looking at himself from another-- freer, and arguably better-- dimension?

[sevenines]

i hate the su subreddit so much so when someone posted “why did lapis reform in pants in universe i liked her skirt it was more feminine” and the top reply was “i think she just wanted pants.” that slayed

[gothcatboygirl]

on the wikipedia page for qr codes rn

[charseraph]

C&A is a neobotanics and nooscionics lab. In other words, they grow and train sophont AIs, “seedlets,” and design software and hardware to interface organic minds with digital systems.

It’s a small enough company to draw little suspicion, but credible enough to be contracted by big name operations (mainly military).

They accidentally trapped a person in a noospace, the “noosciocircus,” with Caine, a seedlet grown and owned by C&A. He’s a well meaning seedlet, tasked to keep the trapped person sane as C&A keeps their body alive as long as possible.

In an effort to recover the person from the inside, they sent in another only to trap them as well. Their cumulating mistake becomes harder to pull the plug on as it would kill both the trapped and Caine, an expensive investment who just also happens to be relaying immensely valuable nootic data from his ongoing simulation.

C&A continues to send agents to assist the trapped from within, each with relevant skills. They’re getting a bit desperate, since the pool of candidates is limited to those who work with C&A and would not draw too much attention if gone missing.

So, the noosciocircus becomes testing ground for lesser semiohazards.

Semiohazards are stimuli that trigger a destructive response in the minds of perceivers. Semiohazards can be encoded into any medium, but are generally easiest to encode into sights and air pressure sequences. The effect, “a mulekick,” can range in severity from temporarily disabled breathing, to seizure, to brain death.

Extreme amputations (“truncations”) occur when a trapped agent ingests a semiohazard that shuts off the brain’s recognition of some body part as its own. Sieving is a last resort to permanently mechanically support the life of the trapped. Thanks to modern advancements, this is cheap and sustainable. Those overexposed to the hazards become the abstracted and are considered lost. Their bodies are kept alive for archival.

Semiohazards being a current hotspot of discovery and design means C&A is sending in semiotic specialists alongside programmers. Ragatha was sent in to provide the trapped with nootic endurance training, but she underestimated the condition of the trapped. Gangle, too, was sent to help the trapped navigate their new nootic state, but her own dealt avatar clotheslined her progress. She wasn’t too stable entering to begin with, but C&A’s options are limited.

[horsesarecreatures]

Horses are among the world’s most elite athletes: When galloping, they can consume twice as much oxygen per kilogram as the fittest humans. All that oxygen supercharges horses’ cells’ energy-producing compartments as they crank out ATP, the chemical needed to power their impressive muscles. But making so much cellular fuel so quickly comes with a catch: the manufacture of pernicious byproduct molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can wreak havoc in cells.

How horses dealt with this biological trade-off and evolved into premier endurance athletes has long intrigued biologists. Researchers report today in Science that they have uncovered a big part of it, identifying a key mutation that lets horses safely produce so much ATP. The trait helped pave the way for horses to go from dog-size critters millions of years ago to the high-endurance athletes we know today.

The study’s detailed molecular work makes it “exceptional,” says José Calbet, an expert on the cellular responses to exercise at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria who wasn’t involved with the study.

The mutation in question occurs in the gene that encodes a protein called KEAP1, which acts as a biochemical bouncer, binding to a different protein called NRF2 to prevent it from entering the cell’s nucleus, where it would otherwise activate stress-response genes that help blunt cell damage.

But ROS can help NRF2 sneak in by causing KEAP1 to release its bind on the protein, allowing it to enter the nucleus and trigger the cell’s stress-response genes.

Johns Hopkins University ophthalmologist and clinician scientist Elia Duh, a senior author of the new study, didn’t set out to study horses. Initially, Duh was interested in the KEAP1-NRF2 system because its role in activating stress-response genes makes it a tempting target for treating inflammation—and aging-related conditions, such as blinding retinal diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, and neurodegeneration.

Duh wondered whether any insights could be gleaned from studying the evolution of these proteins in different animals. So, he teamed up with Gianni Castiglione, an evolutionary biologist and biochemist at Vanderbilt University. Together, they scanned hundreds of vertebrate genomes looking for notable mutations to the gene for KEAP1.

The team’s genomic work revealed birds had almost completely lost the gene, presumably an adaptation to the extreme demands of flight. When they looked in horses, researchers noticed what initially appeared to be a DNA sequence that encoded an unusually short—and therefore presumably nonfunctional—version of the KEAP1 protein. But when Duh’s and Castiglione’s team grew horse cells in culture, it discovered the protein was very much there and working. “Naturally, I was worried I was doing something wrong,” Castiglione says. “Then one day, a light bulb went off.”

As it turns out, the computer algorithm scientists had used to scan the horse genome had made a mistake. The algorithm had spotted a specific kind of mutation in the part of the KEAP1 gene that changed the messenger RNA from CGA—which codes for the amino acid arginine—to UGA, which is what’s known as a “stop codon.”

Normally, the cellular machinery interprets UGA as a sign to stop translating the RNA into a protein. But instead, the horses’ genetic machinery recodes the stop codon into a different amino acid, cysteine, causing it to ignore that order. This phenomenon, known as a stop codon read-through, is common among viruses but rare in multicellular organisms.

“The identification of this evolutionarily significant UGA recoding event represents a potentially seminal finding, offering a model for uncovering other yet-unidentified cases of stop codon read-through,” says Hozumi Motohashi, a biologist at Tohoku University who has studied KEAP1 and NRF2.

That the replacement is a cysteine is particularly notable, Castiglione says. KEAP1 senses cellular stress through its cysteines, which contain sulfur atoms whose reactions with ROS, induce the chemical changes that cause KEAP1 to let go of NRF2. The mutation the researchers had identified adds another place on KEAP1 for ROS to interact, which makes the protein more sensitive to stress—and lets horse cells respond much faster to the cellular stress of intense exercise. “It does make complete sense [that] by introducing another cysteine, another sulfur, you would have heightened sensitivity,” Castiglione says.

What’s more, this tweaking of KEAP1 is a “[key] genetic component to the puzzle of the evolution of horses,” Duh says. “Once they figured out how to run, they could occupy all kinds of ecological niches,” Castiglione adds.

The finding could also point the way toward new kinds of drugs to treat diseases by targeting the specific parts of the KEAP1 protein that help horses hoof it. “By looking at what evolution has figured out, we know this is a viable strategy,” Castiglione says.

Source

[noctiva]

Seeking An Immediate Response

X-Virus x F!Reader [NSFW!]

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WC: 17.4k

Summary: As a college student struggling to make ends meet, an ad for a medical trial in your local newspaper promising big bucks for minimal work seems like a sign from heaven. Maybe, you should’ve read the fine print.

CW: 18+ content, explicit sexual content, dubious consent, CNC I guess??, mentions of noncon, dead dove very dead dove, use of needles and medical tools, aphrodisiacs, spit and drool, medical kink? I guess? Is there a word for that?, overstimulation, wet and messy, vaginal fingering, oral sex (male receiving), sort of kind of mocking, degradation, slight dummification, unsafe sex, hair pulling, kind of rough handling, misuse of medical equipment, coercion, dacryphilia, power dynamics, dom/sub undertones, kidnapping, again - DEAD DOVE. THE DOVE IS DEAD!!!! don’t come at me I don’t wanna hear it

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NSFW under the cut! Minors do not interact!

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‘Wanted: A willing participant to partake in a trial run of a drug soon to hit the market.

Driving expenses will not be covered, but any adverse reactions will be compensated for - as well as a payment of $1000 USD for every day the participant is active in the trial.

If interested, or for any further questions, contact at the email below.

Seeking an immediate response.’

You skimmed over those words for what felt like a million times over. Sat hunched over your kitchen table, the waxy feel of the newspaper you held slipped against your fingers. Your coffee cup has been abandoned, steam long dissipated, a wrinkle in your brow as your eyes traced over the letters before you yet another time.

It just didn’t seem real. Didn’t seem plausible. You had heard of instances like this before - partaking in some lab trial to earn a hefty chunk of change. Hell, your old roommate had even done it herself, spending a week at a lab getting poked and prodded at, just to return a couple hundred dollars richer.

But this? Your eyes are wide as they hone in on the dollar amount. One thousand dollars a day? Was that a typo? Or was it just a scam designed to easily lure in people like you?

People who were currently eating plain, dry bread for breakfast, because most of the weight of your paycheck had gone into student loans. It was easy for you to see the payout offered and immediately go slack jawed, a half-chewed bite of bread falling out of your mouth and hitting your dining table. If you participated for just one single day it would be enough to lift a pretty heavy weight off of your shoulders. If you participated for more than that (a week’s worth of that kind of money almost made you feel dizzy) maybe you’d actually be able to go eat out at a restaurant for once. Maybe, you’d be able to buy a brand new pair of jeans, instead of sewing up reoccurring holes in your old ones.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Something that seemed as if it was written just for you. Too good to be true, almost.

’A trial run for a drug soon to hit the market’. You purse your lips together. ‘Any adverse reactions will be compensated for.’ There weren’t a whole lot of details. In fact, there was really barely any. No name of the drug, no expected duration of the trial, no location or name of the company that was supposedly conducting this entire program. Just a small wall of text, barely more than a paragraph, but words picked out just meticulously to entice.

It seemed horribly sketchy. Barely any ounce of trustworthiness encoded within those words. It was almost like a taunt. Who’s going to be stupid enough to agree? Who’s desperate enough to turn a blind eye towards the jarring inconsistencies?

You. You were.

You could feel it in your bones. Taste it on your tongue. That desperation that was clawing its way up out of your chest, nearly drooling at this opportunity - dangling money over your head like you were dog on a leash too tight. It made your fingers itch, twitching and jolting with the desire to race over to your laptop and send an email as quickly as you could.

You were smarter than this. You knew you were. But desperation is the ultimate demoralizer. So, despite the clear danger, you find yourself rationalizing.

Maybe, the only couldn’t give the name of the drug due to copyright purposes.

Maybe, they didn’t name themselves because they’re too big of a company. Wanting to retain anonymity in order to not sway responses.

Maybe, that’s the same reason they didn’t give the location of the study right away.

They’d probably answer all of your questions, if you just shot them a message.

Besides, what was the harm in just… Asking? All you needed to do was satiate your curiosity a little bit. Give it a morsel to pick at, so that it wasn’t left to scratch at the bars of your mind - leaving you shaking where you sat. You don’t even know how long you just sat there, your coffee cooling beside you and your lacklustre breakfast all but completely forgotten about. Long enough for you to memorize the ad complete, having read over the words so many times that your eyes started to feel dry. You don’t even know if you’ve blinked. Breathed. Absolutely shellshocked by what the universe had decided to present you with today.

Was this fate? It had to be. Maybe, god had seen you struggling, and decided to extend a hand out towards you. All you had to do, was take it.

You don’t message back right away. You fold the newspaper back up on your kitchen table, pour out your freezing cup of coffee into the sink, and do your dishes. You walk back to your room, go through your closet, and find a comfortable outfit to wear for your classes that day. Brush teeth, brush hair, make sure you have a pair of headphones in your bag before you leave. Going through the motions of the day, actions that you’ve repeated so many times that you feel as if you’re on autopilot.

On a normal day, but today its increased tenfold. You barely even feel mentally present as you tug a pair of jeans over your hips, eyes far away and foggy as you stare blankly at yourself in the bathroom mirror while brushing your teeth. You just couldn’t stop thinking about it. At the vagueness of that message. Of the opportunities you’d be presented with if you went ahead and did it.

On your walk to class you’re doing math in your head of how much wiggle room you’d be left with if you sent half of the money over to paying for your schooling. Maybe, you could just keep all of it and continue sending over your paychecks instead. Maybe, if you kept finding listings like this you could just… Quit.

In class, you’re worse. Your professors words aren’t even reaching your ears. Just a monotonous drone that barely even sounds like the English language as you sit stewing in your thoughts. Maybe you could buy that nice sweater you saw when you were out window shopping last week. It was only $100 - that was barely a dent. You could fill your cart at the grocery store too! Fill it to the brim with items you’ve had to pass up on time and time again because they just didn’t make it into the budget. Fresh meats, ice cream, the good bread that’s nice and fluffy instead of stale before you even get it out of the bag.

By the time your classes are over for the day, you’ve all but convinced yourself. It’s just hard not to. Not to think about how much better your life would be if you participated. How quickly your quality of life would raise just but barely lifting a finger.

When your old roommate did it, all she had to do was let herself get pricked with a needle once and she was rolling in cash. You could only assume it would be a similar situation for you, and the idea of that is pretty much the definition of enticing. Free money. You’re being offered free money. And a lot more than you had seen other people make from something like this in the past.

Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe the risk is higher.

Regardless, you’re pulling your laptop out of your bag mere minutes after stepping back through the front door of your apartment. Kicking off your shoes lazily, you scurry over to your couch with such urgency that you nearly trip over your rug. But, you make it, stanching the newspaper off of the kitchen table where you left it before you flop down onto the worn cushions. With your laptop perched in your lap, your flip the paper back open to the page where you had first seen the ad. Right at the back, squished in with a whole bunch of other advertisements that had paid to be there. So unassuming. No pictures, or logos, just text. Easily skipped over.

But not by you. You’re typing up an email in record time, eyeing the email address printed to make sure you get it correct.

’To whom it may concern,

I came across your listing for a medical trial in my newspaper, and I’m very interested in participating.

Could I ask for a few more details? Are there any specific requirements for being in the trial? What sort of drug is it? Any known side effects?

And, who are you exactly? A research company, or is this a university study?

Regardless, I’m interested. I could really use the money haha’

You’re not quite sure why you tacked on that last little line at the end, but it must’ve been your desperation seeping through. A little bit of candidness in the hopes that whoever was reading your response would realize that they were talking to a real, living and breathing human. Hopefully, that would encourage them to be just as honest with you as you were being with them.

You hit send, and let out a deep breath. Again, no harm in just simply asking.

Knowing not to expect a response right away, you set your laptop on the coffee table before you and stand up once more. Socked feet padding against carpeted flooring as you mosey over to your kitchen, searching for something to warm your stomach after a full day of stress and overthinking. You already know what you’ll be eating, and one quick look within your cupboard confirms that notion.

Instant noodles, again. God, you really did need that money. Hungry, but your appetite is barely excited to be fulfilled with the same damn meal you’ve eaten for weeks on end. You can taste it on your tongue before you even make it. Bland noodles. Broth that has far too much salt in it. A sprinkling of dehydrated vegetables that turn to mush the moment they meet the water.

And yet, you pull out a pot anyway. Fill it with water life you’ve done so many time before. Set it on the stovetop and turn the burner on to high heat because of your impatience. Monotony. Something that might just be fixed if you can get a little bit more cash in your pockets.

Money wasn’t everything, and you knew that, but it sure as hell helped.

The water barely comes to a simmer before you hear your laptop chime. Almost too soon to be from who you were hoping it would be, and yet you’re racing back over to the couch immediately - fuelled by hope and desperate desire. Knowing its pathetic, but not caring in the least. The more you thought about it, the more you knew you needed it. The more you hated the situation you found yourself in. The more you wanted something better.

And maybe, life decided to be on your side for once.

Sitting in your inbox, bold lettering that makes you eyes widen to an almost painful degree.

’Drug trial inquiry.’

You click on the message so quickly it makes your finger cramp, the meal you had been cooking completely forgotten about even as the pot on the stove reaches its peak. Steaming and sputtering drops of water over the edge, but you couldn’t care less. You were too busy obsessing.

’Hello, thank you for your interest in our study.

No specific requirements are required for the trial, besides wanting someone between the ages of 18-24, with no pre-existing medical conditions,

Do you meet those perimeters? We’d love to meet you if you do.’

That was all it said. Short and sweet, only answering one of the five questions you had inquired about. And the one they picked, required the least amount of information to be leaked. It was avoidant. Barely professional. It made goosebumps rise on your arms and trickle down to your fingertips, which had begun to tremble.

Everything just seemed… Wrong. Too much money, too little information. Too good to be true. So many warning signs. Like they were giving you ample time to see that this was a trap just lying in wait. But, they (whoever they were) had struck gold when it came to you, because you were just too curious.

Just too desperate.

‘Hi,

I do meet those requirements, but you seem to have missed the rest of my questions? Do you think you could clarify on those fronts? I’d much rather know what exactly I’m getting into before I take the plunge.’

You type out the message with a frown tugging at your lips, your heart thudding to a frantic beat in your chest. Your skin feels cold, head feels fuzzy. Worry and dread swirling together in your skull to create a whole new emotion - one that wreaked havoc. One that made you feel a little nauseous as you hit the send button.

One that had you needing to close your eyes and take a deep breath as you awaited a new response.

You get one even quicker this time.

Your laptop chimes again mere moments after you had sent your last message. If you had timed it, you wouldn’t have been surprised to see that it was less than a minute of wait time. Like they had been sat at their own computer, just as eager as you, just as frantic as they waited for a response.

The sirens in your brain just blared louder.

’Hello,

I did not miss them. If you’re still interested, the address below will have all of your answers.

Tomorrow, nine am sharp. No earlier, no later. If you miss your chance that is on you.’

You could throw up. You feel like you might do just that, as you sit on your couch with bated breath, your mouth feeling drier than a desert. If you were getting bad vibes before, now they were horrible. The words of that email were desperately clinging to the facade of professionalism, but it wasn’t working. Not at all. Admitting to their own avoidance of important questions. Odd ambiguity. A bad idea all wrapped up in a concise paragraph.

You don’t recognize the address. It’s not somewhere close by. Not somewhere in the city, if you had to guess. One quick google search revealed that it was far off of the beaten trail, not a single laboratory in sight as you scanned the images on street view. Nothing but dirt trails and jagged trees. The photos staticy and blurry, like they had been taken ages upon ages ago.

Like no one had been there in a very, very long time.

You gulp thickly, Swallowing back the bile rising in your throat as you try to regulate your breathing. The pot on your stove boils over, water hitting the burner and evaporating instantly. You don’t even look at it.

But you do send another email.

’$1000 a day right, that wasn’t a typo?’

Short and sweet. Just like they had been.

And even though you’re expecting now, an even quicker response sends a chill down your spine. Mere seconds after you’ve sent your own correspondence now. Like an echo of your own message, bouncing off of the walls of cyberspace and straight back to you in a fraction of a minute.

’$1000 a day. Nine am. I will be here.

Will you?’

A beckoning call. That’s what that was, and you knew it. It didn’t sound like a confirmation for an appointment, something they were scribbling down within a calendar. It sounded like a taunt.

I have what you want. Are you brave enough to come get it?

That’s what it sounded like. It sounded cruel. Sarcastic, even. Like they knew what you were going to respond with before your email even pinged on their end.

And well, you just play right into whatever sick twisted game this was. Scared, apprehensive, but hopeful. Hopeful that this was what you were hoping it would be. Something easy and quick, something that would leave your pockets heavier without much distress.

Something that you wouldn’t regret.

‘I’ll be there. I want to see the cash up front when I get there.’

You barely even get the words typed down properly, fingers flying across your keyboard like you were trying to respond before you could think about the situation fully. Hands trembling, the message is wracked with typos that you have to go back and correct, giving you one more chance to really mill it over before you bit the bullet.

This wasn’t smart. You knew it wasn’t. Everything about this - from the grandiose benefits to the strange communication with whoever was leading the entire thing. They didn’t sound like a researcher, or a correspondent of one.

They sounded like someone who was trying to trap you.

You send the email anyway. Eyes squeezed close as you hit the send button with more force than you needed to. Like you were ripping off a bandaid.

And the response you get back, just pours salt in the wound.

One word. One simple word. Packing within it more than the person on the other side of the screen could ever know. Or maybe, they did know. Maybe that’s why they said it.

‘Greedy.’

And you know right then, that you aren’t talking to someone who has your best interests in mind. You’re talking to someone who’s toying with you - tugging you around like a marionette on strings. Someone who was finding a sick pleasure in knowing that they had something you would quite possibly endanger yourself over.

Someone who was mocking you, and making sure that you knew it.

Sitting behind their own screen, probably grinning like a madman as the glow of their computer lights up their features in a cool virtual blue. Waiting for you to respond, because they know that you will, even if they only sent you one simple word. That one word was bait, the worm on a hook for a gullible little guppie like you, just taunting you with the promise of salvation. All you had to do was bite.

You do.

‘Who are you?’

You’re far past formalities, far past pretending that this was a professional correspondence. This conversation had devolved. Devolved from the fallacy of a patient and a doctor, to the king and his jester. And boy, did you sure know how to dance.

‘Who do you want me to be? A doctor? A researcher? Some undergrad student?

Does it matter, at the end of the day? You’re still going to be wishing you said yes, if you don’t. You’re still going to be sat in your shitty little apartment, wondering what you could’ve been doing instead if you had a couple more bucks in your pocket.

We both know what this is.

You, are someone so desperate for cash that you’re willing to keep talking to me even though I’m sure you’re having second thoughts by now.

I am a person looking for a participant to test something I’ve been working on, and I’m willing to pay to make that happen.

This is my last message to you. I have said to you everything that you need to know. If you want to know more then meet me at nine am.

Ask for Cody.’

The message reeked of annoyance and frustration. Like whoever this was (Cody? Is that who you’re speaking to right now?) was peeved for your undying curiosity. Growing more and more irritated at the fact that you weren’t just rolling over so easily. Receptive, clearly, but too damn nosy.

And so, they dropped the act. You hadn’t noticed it until right then - but the pronouns they had been using had switched after the first message they had sent you. “We” swapped for “I”. A slip of the fingers, maybe, but it spelled out the truth for you regardless, even more than the email you had just read did.

This was not some easy, cut and dry drug trial. This wasn’t a professional lab, with protocols to follow, and controlled environments. This was just… Some guy. Some guy searching for an ignorant slew of people to test his homemade concoction on. Like a child in his basement, mixing up ‘potions‘ for his parents to try out. You had known from the beginning that this was something fishy, but you felt far over your head now. Staring at this wall of text before you, slack jawed and wide eyed, your rumbling stomach is long since forgotten - replaced by a sickening wave of nausea that you were sure would’ve weakened your knees if you were still standing.

So bad, that you lift a hand to your mouth, as if to try and catch the vomit you could feel churning in your gut. You could feel your mouth start to water, feel a cold clamminess bead up on your palms. Your body somehow too hot but too cold at the same time. Ears ringing, the room spinning around you as you reread those same few paragraphs over and over again. Your free hand finds the trackpad and you scroll, going over each and every message the two of you had bounced between one another. The pool of dread in your gut just growing headier and headier every time you pass your eyes over what you had said. What they had said.

How they had just dropped the persona completely, once they knew that they had hooked you.

Maybe, it was your own fault. If anything, they had probably known they had gotten you from the very first message.

‘Regardless, I’m interested. I could really use the money.’ A try at honesty to gain trust, and yet all it had done was place a target on your back. From the start, it had been clear just who you were.

Someone so desperate for cash that you were willing to keep talking to them. They had read you like a damn book, front and back. Maybe you should’ve made it a little harder for them.

You barely sleep that night. You don’t eat the dinner you had been planning to. You let the water in the pot evaporate all the way down to the bottom - leaving white water stains on the stainless steel, and the ceramic of your stove top where it had boiled over. You simply shut off the burner, place the pot in the sink, and head towards your room - dead eyed and dreary. You shut your laptop, and leave it on your coffee table. Something about bringing it to bed with you that night felt wrong. Like maybe, they would be able to hear you. See you. Maybe they already had been.

How else would they have known you were messaging them from your little shoebox apartment? Assumptions, easily made, but there was such an unshakable itch of uncertainty under your bones that it felt difficult to listen to rational thoughts right now.

You had opened a can of worms that you were sure couldn’t be as easily closed. Even if you didn’t show up tomorrow, would that be the end of it?

Or had you doomed yourself, just because that dollar amount looked so delicious?

Hedonism, at its finest.

You toss and turn, your sheets feeling itchy and uncomfortable. Your pillow too stiff. The air around you too cold, but the air beneath your blankets too hot. Closing your eyes for mere seconds at a time before they’re fluttering back open again, blinking against the darkness to stare up at your ceiling. Your brain fills in the gaps of stimulation, formulating swirling shapes of colour that you know don’t truly exist, and yet you watch them anyway. Watch them twist and turn, ebb and flow. Fluctuate in shape, form, and colour.

You spend most of your night that way. Sprawled on your sheets - half of your body covered in your blanket and the other half bare - only blinking when your eyes began to burn and twitch. Honing in on the make believe, as a distraction of what you had forced yourself into in the real world.

You didn’t have to go, you knew you didn’t. You could delete all of those emails, throw that newspaper in the trash and forget it all existed. You could worry, but you doubted whoever this was would actually track you down for refusing their offer.

They had even said it themselves. ‘If you miss your chance that is on you.’

If you said no, they’d probably just find someone else. Someone just as hopeless as you, looking for salvation in places that you definitely shouldn’t.

Maybe someone worse than you. Someone who wouldn’t even ask questions. Someone who would just abide and obey, so long as they got the cheque at the end of it all.

That’s probably what you should’ve done. It would have saved a whole load of stress.

You’re still lying on your back when the sun rises. Still bleary eyed and breathing shaky when the sun starts to peek through your curtains, cloaking you bedroom in warm tones of gold and pink

The worst part, wasn’t the fact that you knew you were being toyed with.

The worst part, was that you knew you were just going to give in.

A recipe for disaster. Red blaring lights surrounding the entire interaction. The only thing positive, was the money. That damn price tag. So you had to ask yourself, was one thousand dollars the dollar amount you were going to place on your life? Was that all that you thought you were worth?

You’d like to say no, but your empty pockets were still beckoning you otherwise.

If things turned out being too strange, you’d just turn around. You could even bring that pepper spray your mom had forced you to pack when you first left for university. You could send your location to all of your friends, make sure to keep your cellphone on and close by at all times. You could take precautions.

See the cash for yourself, find out if it's all a farce or not.

And so, you do the same as you always do in the morning. You roll out of bed on the left side, drag your feet to your closet and pick out the same outfit you wear every single day. A different pair of jeans, a different hoodie, but you’d doubt that anyone who wasn’t you would be able to tell. You pull your hair up into a haphazard bun, splash a handful of cold water on your face to try and wake yourself up more, and rinse with a mouthful of mouthwash before you spit it out in the sink.

You walk to the living room and don’t spare a glance at your laptop - like it was guilty, not you. Shunning it as if it were the one who had done the damage, for it just couldn’t be you and your greedy fingers, could it?

Your phone is fully charged, and you stuff it in your bag. That, along with a can of pepper spray, and a box cutter you had kept around after you had first moved in. Two weapons that were definitely quite dinky in the grand scheme of things, but it was better to have something to benefit you than to show up empty handed. Besides, you were hoping that you wouldn’t even have to use them anyway.

You could always turn around, and forget it all happened.

You just needed something a little bit more to feed your curiosity. Once you got that, you could just go back to daily life.

And so you step through your front door, and lock it behind you. Your keys jingle as you stuff them back in your pocket, the soles of your sneakers squeaking against the linoleum flooring that made up the entryway of your apartment building. Through the hall, down the stairs, skipping the elevator because it always got stuck. Your feet were moving so quickly that you felt more so as if you were floating, rather than actually stepping on solid ground. You can barely even feel the warmth of the sin beating on your skin when you step outside - like you aren’t even truly inhabiting your own body. Just a jumble of disorganized, self-destructive thoughts and plans, so disconnected from everything else around you.

The drive is a blur.

You don’t remember sitting in your car, or setting the gps. You don’t remember driving. Don’t remember analyzing each and every minute detail of your surroundings.

You were at home one minute, and sat outside a decrepit looking building the next. Like somebody had reached within your skull and ripped out a handful of your memories.

With your car’s engine still running, you just sit there for a moment. Staring through your windshield with wide eyes and laboured breathing, in a state of both awe and complete bewilderment that you actually brought yourself here. That you actually did it. Some beast who lived within you - one who was fuelled by nothing more than greed and morbid curiosity - took the reins and tugged your body towards this… This death trap.

That’s what it looked like, at least. The building you stared at was far off of the beaten trail. Right at the end of a dirt road beginning to be covered up by grass regrowth. Bare, spindly trees surround it. The middle of spring, and yet they bare no leaves. Dead. Rotting. Hollow corpses that played the part of what they used to be.

The building itself, sends a shiver down your spine. It looks abandoned. If not, then whoever owned it couldn’t care less about upkeeping appearances. The brick of the outer walls was cracked and chipped. One window shattered, one boarded up, and the others cracked beyond all repair. Weed and shrubbery overtook practically the entire front lawn, with just one foot trail of stomped down grass cutting through all of the chaos.

Showcasing that somebody had been here. Recently at that.

Was probably in there right now, waiting for you.

A quick glance down at the clock on your dashboard made it more than clear that had to be the truth. 8:57.

Even with your brain clocked out for the greater half of the journey, you still managed to be punctual.

You’re not quite sure what it is - the time constraint, the desire for knowledge, maybe the fact that you were already here - but you find yourself pulling the key out of your car's ignition. Find yourself unbuckling your seatbelt, and opening the side door. Feeling much the same as you had just a few hours before.

Floaty. Not in control. Like you were living a dream.

If all of this went well, maybe you really would be.

You grab your bag before slamming your car door shut, slinging it over your shoulder and taking a deep breath in before you force your legs to move. Leaves and rocks crunch under the soles of your shoes. The sun is warm and yet the breeze that brushes past you still sends a shiver down your spine. The breaths you take are short and shaky, just like each step you take.

One foot after the other. Hands gripping the strap of your bag so tightly it makes your knuckles go white. You don’t even notice that you’re gritting your teeth until your jaw starts to ache.

When you reach the front door - which looks as if you could break it down with barely any effort - you don’t even hesitate. If you do, you know that you’ll just end up thinking too much and turning right on your heel.

Maybe, the issue was that you weren’t thinking enough.

Regardless, you knock. Three sharp raps against the wood, sounding so loud in the otherwise vacant scenery you found yourself in. You don’t check your phone to look at the time. If you were late at all because of all of the stewing you had been doing, then so be it. You would take that as a sign.

But of course, no sign from god. One from the devil instead.

You hear the sound of glass breaking. Muffled voices, and then footsteps. Growing louder and louder with each one. Approaching you.

You start to feel lightheaded.

When a lock clicks, and the doorknob turns, you feel queasy.

The door opens barely more than a sliver. Just enough for whoever is on the other side of it to be able to get a peek at you. You can’t see much of him. Just the side of his face and part of his shoulder, but just that is enough to unnerve you. You can’t see his eyes. Can’t see his mouth. A pair of bright orange goggles and a muzzle-esque mask hides those features from you. The sunlight glints off of the lenses of his goggles, making it impossible to try and discern what may lay below them. Even if you could, a shaggy mop of brown hair falls over his forehead and obscures them ever further.

Definitely not a researcher.

You’re not quite sure how long you just stood there staring at him. How long he stood there staring at you - neither one of you saying a word. Like some unspoken game of chicken, seeing who would crack and cave under the pressure first.

Surprisingly, it's him.

”What d-do you want?” His voice is low and raspy, muffled partially by the mask he wore. He still doesn’t open the door further, but you do notice the way his neck sharply cracks to the side before he’s letting out an annoyed grunt. “You got-gotta be pretty damn stupid to come knocking at a place like this. Even i-if you’re lost.”

”I’m not lost.” You mutter back to him, straightening your back and letting out a shaky breath through your nose. “I’m here for the lab trial? This is where the directions lead me.”

The man on the other side of the door stills completely. In fact, you’d swear he completely stopped breathing for a moment. Then, he opens the door a little further. Your eyes scan across him, his attire, cataloguing each tear and stain on the hoodie he was wearing. Some, definitely just dirt caked in deep, other were dark enough to spike a wave of panic within you. Your eyes drift back up towards his face and your mouth goes dry.

A crudely bandaged hand comes up to lift the goggles off from over his eyes, pushing them up into his hair. His eyes are darker than you’ve ever seen on anyone before, with even darker bags beneath them. His eyes are sharp. Scrutinizing. Looking more so like they belonged on a bird of prey, than a human being.

So stunned, it would be easy for him to sink his talons into you.

”L-Lab trial?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. His gaze is unblinking, making your stomach twist and turn with an uncomfortable queasiness. You don’t think you’ve ever felt so sick, so often, within such a short span of time.

You don’t answer verbally, can’t force yourself to without fear of your last meal crawling up your throat. So you just nod, hands starting to tremble where they still grip the strap of your bag. The man lets out a soft hum, seeming to think on it for a few more seconds before he opens the door completely. “Alright. Sure. L-Let me show you to the lab then.”

He lets out a snort of laughter, like he knows something you don’t, before he’s turning on his heel - clearly expecting you to follow.

You do. Through the doorway, into the darkened exterior of the building. Lighting was sparse, in the main entryway it seemed as if the only source of it was daylight coming through the windows. The floor was littered with broken glass and old pieces of scrap. Any furniture was either broken beyond further use, or stained to all hell.

You were starting to think that this man may be right. You’ve got to be damn stupid. “Who’re you he-here for?” The man asks from before you, not bothering to turn his head to meet your gaze. He walks leisurely, hands in his pockets, feet kicking up debris with each step. Through the main area, now down through a hall. Further and further from the front gate. Further and further away from your car.

You’re making a mental map within your mind of the floor plan already. Just in case you need it.

”Uh, Cody?” You try, your voice coming out much shakier and much hoarser than you had meant it to. You clear your throat and let out a little huff before continuing. “I don’t… I don’t really know. That’s the only name I was given.”

”O-Oh you’re fucked.” The man lets out a harsh laugh, a sound that rips from his lungs and splits through the air - like he just couldn’t hold it back no matter how hard he tried. “Sorry, sorry.” You can see his shoulders shake, still very clearly attempting to hold back another bout of laughter. “Yeah, C-Cody’s the guy you’re looking for alright. It’s his lab after all.”

You know you should turn around. You should turn around right now, and book it towards the entrance before you get in too deep. This guy wouldn’t chase you down, right? He wasn’t even the one who was expecting you.

And… You could probably outrun him even if he did, right? All you had to do was make it to your car.

“That right?” You mutter, lips tugged down into so deep of a scowl that it made your jaw quiver. The air around you felt stale. So much so that your lungs ached and your chest felt tight with each breath in. Everything within this building seemingly honed to make you as uneasy as physically possible. Especially the man before you, and the way his limbs spasmed and jerked in an unpredictable pattern. Joints cracking. Soft grunts slipping from his lips every now and then. “Then who are you? His assistant?” It’s a stupid question and you knew it. You were far past believing that any of this had even a semblance of professionalism to it.

But playing the game was a lot easier to stomach.

“Assistant?” The man rounds a corner and starts down a flight of stairs - skipping down the steps without an ounce of care. You can’t do the same. Your legs are trembling with each step you take, joints turning into goo as you descend lower into the maw of the beast. It gets darker. One singular lightbulb at the bottom being the light source for the entire journey down. It would be easy to trip up and lose your footing, if the man before you wasn’t so confidently leading the way - like he had done this trip a million times before. “Sure, I g-guess. I help him out here and there.” For the first time during the entire trip, he glances back at you over his shoulder. “Like right now. You w-woulda probably been standing out there for hours knocking if I wasn’t he-here. He’s deaf to the world when he’s d-down here.”

”Well, he said he was expecting me.” You breathe back out. “Nine am sharp.”

”He’s been up since four.” The man snorts before hopping off of the last step and turning towards you. “Probably d-doesn’t know what time it even is right now.” He waits for you to join him on the landing, concrete beneath your feet, before he’s reaching out to the door at the bottom of the staircase. This one looks a lot more heavy duty. Solid metal, and you can pick out at least three different sets of locks.

Stepping through that door had to be the worst idea thus far. “Crazy that the g-guy with no internal clock is trying t-to make appointments.” His hand closes around the handle of the door, and he turns it before giving it a little tug.

To your surprise, even with all of the security measures, its not locked. It gives way on the first pull. “C-Cody, there’s some girl here for ya’.”

The man steps into the room, but not before reaching out to you and taking a rough hold of your arm. He pulls a yelp from your lungs when he drags you across the threshold with him, finally answering the question you had been wondering about throughout your entire interaction.

Was he as dangerous as he looked? The strength of his grip answered that pretty quickly. Tugged into a new room, with your assailant kicking the door closed behind him, you feel as if one wrong move would have him breaking your arm on accident. (Or, on purpose? You didn’t even know anymore.) “You g-gotta start paying attention. I got my own shit to do, y’know?”

”Huh? Is it nine already, Toby?” A new voice has your head snapping in the direction of it. You had been fruitlessly struggling against the hold you had been trapped in, but that sound had your motions ceasing completely. It was soft, monotone, and smoother than silk. The exact opposite of the other man - ’Toby’, you suppose.

The differences really stop there though, because you feel as if you’re feeling double. A choppy mess of brunette hair, pushed off of his forehead by a pair of goggles with blue lenses this time. Dark circles just as prevalent, like he hadn’t slept in days.

It sure looked like he hadn’t. He was curled over a microscope, absolutely abhorrent posture in the swivel stool he sat hunched. He didn’t look up. Gloved hands switching between slides to observe, his knee bouncing absently - like his own internal metronome. “Set her on the bench and get out. Close the door behind you.”

He - Cody - spoke like you weren’t even there. Like you were an object, not a human being just like he was.

Toby seemed to find no issue with that.

”S-Sure, dick.” He snorts out an amused laugh before tugging you over to what looks to be a bed, the same kind you’d find in a doctor’s office - complete with the waxy sanitary sheet to cover the surface of it. With one rough shove, Toby’s pushing you onto it - but not before snagging the strap of your bag in your shocked stupor, ripping it from your body. “Don’tcha worry.” He laughs when you immediately shoot back up and reach for it, holding it high above your head and lifting a leg to push you backwards with his foot. “You’ll g-get it back. You just don’t need it right now. R-Right, Cody?”

”Uh huh.” Finally, the man looks up to you - bright green eyes glinting under the overhead lighting of the lab. “Stop making a fuss, would you? Toby didn't drag you all the way here against your will, did he?”

Something about his gaze paralyzes you. One look from him and you were turning to stone, your heart rate kicking up a few notches in your chest. The way he was looking at you… It wasn’t like one human to another. It was far less connected than that. As he watched you uselessly try to grab for your bag back, he looked at you with all the interest of someone watching a trail of ants scurry past.

Curious, but with no empathy behind it. Just pure, unbridled, scientific fascination.

“No.” You choke out, and lower your arms. Cody tracks each and every movement. Especially when you fold completely, and take a few steps back. Letting Toby just turn around and walk away with your bag in hand, snickering to himself as he makes off with your phone, and every single weapon you had brought to try and avoid a situation like this.

Your entire ‘plan’ was going downhill extremely quickly.

”That’s what I thought.” Cody stands, letting out a little sigh through his nose before he removes his goggles completely and sets them on the lab bench before him. Then, he’s rounding it. Approaching you. Gloved hands folded behind his back as he does so. “You decided to contact me, you decided to come here, and you decided to follow some strange man all the way down here.” He comes to stand before you, and cocks his head to the side. “You’ve got no reason to complain, do you? You could’ve avoided this all.”

He nods his head towards the bed you had sat on for a total of five seconds before leaping back up again. “Take a seat. Let’s talk.”

You barely even hear the sound of the door closing off to the side. Definitely don’t hear the sound of a lock clicking shut. It’s like he had you under some sort of spell, exuding a cool - almost clinical - form of confidence that made your entire body feel cold. You felt like a patient, just blindly believing everything their doctor says because they must know best.

You take a seat, the sheet crinkling loudly beneath you. “Good.” He doesn’t say that like a genuine praise, more so just an acknowledgment of something he had expected. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move. Just stares down at you through his bangs, his gaze unwavering. “So, why did you come?” He asks. “You sounded awful wary over email last night.”

So it was him. This was the man who had been messaging you. Taunting you. You supposed that you shouldn’t be shocked by his apathetic attitude.

”I still am.” You murmur, fingers curling into the fabric below you. “You lied in your ad.”

”Lied?” Cody raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t lie. Everything I wrote there was the truth.” He takes a step closer, and tilts his head down a little bit. “Besides, you would’ve come even if I had, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Why? Why are you here?”

His gaze is piercing. Like he’s staring through you rather than at you. Like he’s got you under a microscope, staring down at your bare essentials. Cells and all.

“I need the money.” You mutter, shifting where you sit. “Real bad.”

”Well, I bet you do.” Cody lets out a soft snort through his nose. Barely a laugh. Like a hollow imitation of one. “But that can’t be all it is, right? What’s the use in money if you won’t leave here alive?” He leans down a little bit further, and raises an eyebrow, his face still completely monotonous. Not a single change in his expression that you could pick up on. Like he was wearing a porcelain mask that would crack if his lips so much as twitched upwards. “Money’s useless to the dead, you know.” When your eyes widen in panic, his eyes flash with something you can’t quite decipher, before he’s taking a few steps backwards again.

This was a game to him. It had been from the start. “Not that I’m threatening your demise, I’m just saying. You took a pretty big risk.” He casts you one last look before turning back around and slowly walking back to his lab bench. “Just for money? I doubt that. If you’re truthful with me, I’ll be truthful with you.” You watch as he slowly peels the latex gloves from his hands, before dropping them in a wastebin right at the corner of his desk. Mere seconds later, he’s reaching into a drawer to pull out a new pair. “I’m going to ask one more time, and what you say is going to determine how easy this is for you.” He pulls the new, sterile pair of gloves on with a snap that rings through the air. “Why are you here?”

With no weapon, no phone, and no easy way to escape, what other choice did you have than to just submit? For all you knew, Toby was stood at the other side of the lab door - waiting to catch you if you tried to make a break for it.

”I was curious.” You bite out, casting your gaze off to the side. “That’s it.”

Cody stills, his shoulders tensing and relaxing where his back was turned to you. And you can’t see it, but a grin stretches across his face. Wrinkling the expression you were sure was impermeable.

”Right answer.” He hums. He rounds the lab bench once more before reaching forwards and reaching for a breaker of something you couldn’t discern. It was a cool purple tone, near fluorescent. “Curiosity is a good thing, you know? It’s what keeps humans going.” Out of a drawer, he grabs a syringe. Your breath catches in your throat. “If humans weren’t curious, we’d never have evolved. We’d still all just be mindless monkeys, picking bugs out of each other’s fur.” His nose wrinkles a little, but he shakes it off quickly. “I’m curious. That’s why I do what I do.”

”Yeah?” You watch with rapt attention as he dips the tip of the syringe into the beaker, before pulling the plunger upwards and filling the chamber with the mystery substance. “And what is it exactly that you do?”

”I study.” Cody answers shortly. Once the syringe is full to the brim, he places the beaker back where it once was. “Humans. Our reactions to things. How fragile they are.” His gaze flicks up to meet yours. “What our limits are.”

He reaches forwards and places the syringe in a holder - clearly to lie and wait for further use.

”Did you go to school for any of this?” You choke out. “Like, do you have qualifications? Or are you just some nutcase with a homemade lab?”

”Lets not start name calling.” Cody sighs softly, his lips twitching into a frown. The way he looks up at you, it’s like a disappointed parent scolding a child. Not really mad, just barely irked. “I think I’ve been pretty nice to you, can’t you do the same?”

”Not until you tell me what you’re going to do to me.” Your response is immediate. Snippy. Packed with enough annoyance to make Cody’s brow wrinkle. “What’d you just put in the syringe? Is that what you’re using on me?”

Cody pauses completely, his movements still as his gaze locks in on you. Again, he takes a moment to just stare, to analyze you, before he’s letting out a soft sigh.

He makes his way back towards you, this time wheeling his lab stool back over to you before taking a seat. He leans forwards, knees on his elbows, as he stares up at you through the messy strands of his hair.

”Yeah, it is.” He answers back to you matter-of-factly. “Want me to tell you what it does?”

Immediately, you’re nodding. You’re realizing at this point that getting pricked seemed to be unavoidable, so you’d much rather know what you’re getting into than go in blind. “It’s a… Stimulant.” He hums softly. “I don’t know, I guess you could call it an aphrodisiac. I want to see if it’s as effective on humans as it was on my rats.”

”Your rats?” You choke out, eyes wide. Definitely not what you should’ve been focusing on, out of what he just told you, but you think that dwelling on what else he had just said to you might just make you pass out.

”Yeah.” Cody lets out a soft chuckle. “My rats. Darwin and Remy. They took it like champs. Curious to see if you’d do the same.”

”What…” You shift uncomfortably on the bed, your mouth feeling extremely dry all of a sudden. It almost hurts to swallow. “If I let you,” You begin, stressing that fact, “What’s going to happen to me?”

Cody merely smiles, as if this conversation was nothing more uncommon than speaking about the weather.

“I’m not 100% sure.” He breathes back out to you, tapping his fingers absently against his knee. “That’s why you’re here, after all.” He notices the way your entire body tenses at that, and lets out a little hum. “But if I had to guess, it’ll probably go a little something like this;” He scoots his stool a little closer to you, wheels squeaking against linoleum. “You’re going to feel really hot. Feverish. Probably going to wish you could crawl out of your own skin.” His eyes stay locked on yours, watching the way they turn glossier with each word he speaks. “Your mouth is going to water. Drool accumulating like a faucet’s turned on. And then all that heat? It’s going to travel down low. Right where you want it the least.” You nearly flinch, and he smirks. “Think… A cat in heat. That’s what you’re going to be, if all goes well.”

”Why?” You choke out, scooting back on the bed a little bit to try and get away from him. “Why would you want to see that?”

”Same reason you’re here.” Cody hums back to you. “I’m curious.” He kicks off of the bed and pushes the stool backwards, sending him right at the edge of his lab bench again. “And I’ll let you know this - You can say no, but either way, you won't be going home.” He reaches behind him, snagging the abandoned syringe between his fingers and showing it off to you. “You sealed your fate, the moment you knocked on my door. I can’t just let you leave now that you know what I do here. Now that you’ve met me, and Toby no less.” Using his feet, he wheels himself back over to you. “I don’t think anyone’s ever met us and lived to tell the tale.” He snorts. “Not unless they stay.”

You feel dizzy. So much so that you need to grasp at the sheets below you as an attempt to ground yourself. You had known from the first message that this entire thing was a trap, but having it all laid out for you? There were black dots spotting your vision. “So, two options.” Cody holds the syringe between the two of you, his eyes glinting. “Let me experiment on you, and earn a couple bucks - as I said before, I’m not a liar.” You take in a shaky breath. “Or, say no, and I’ll throw you over to Toby. I can bet he’d find something useful for you to do.”

”That’s a lose-lose.” You mutter back to him softly. “I was going to use that money for student loans.”

”Well, then it's actually a win, no?” Cody raises an eyebrow. “Won’t have to pay for loans if we keep you here. You’d be gone. Off the grid.” He taps the syringe impatiently. “So? What’s the plan?” He points the syringe towards you, and you can’t help but flinch. “I’ll warn you though, Toby’s not known for being hospitable.”

”And you are?” You bite back, narrowing your eyes.

”I’m nothing but respectful to my specimens.” He gives you a sickening smile, one that sinks into your bones like a toxin. “I’ve had Darwin and Remy around for years.”

”Your rats.” You clarify, raising an eyebrow.

”Yes, my rats.” Cody lets out a soft chuckle, and it seems as if he’s resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m a good caretaker, I promise. This is a fairly ethical lab.”

“Kidnapping isn’t ethical.” You point out, lips twitching down into a frown.

”Good thing you came here of your own volition.” Cody scoots closer, hovering the syringe close to your skin. Close enough to make sweat bead up on your brow. “I’ll be nice to you, I swear it.” He murmurs. “I just want to… Document you.” He cocks his head to the side. “Will you let me? I think it’ll be worth it.”

It’s the illusion of choice. Tricking you into believing that you had any semblance of power in the matter. You didn’t. You were just a pawn to be played now.

”And there’s no chance of me leaving?” You can’t help but ask just one more time. That fact doesn’t feel real to you, won’t sink in properly. To think, that just yesterday you had your life completely planned out for you. Now, you just had to float along, playing into the whims of two clearly ill-intentioned men.

One of them seemed… A little bit kinder though. If kind was even the word you should be using in this scenario.

”There’s no chance.” Cody nods back to you. “Not alive, anyway. That’s what we do, make people disappear.” He pauses. “Well Toby does, for the most part. I just like toying with them before we throw them in a ditch.” His eyes flicker with something unhinged, his fingers tapping against the glass of the syringe. “You’re my first living specimen in a while, that’s how you know I’ll be careful. Don’t wanna break you.”

He shifts his hand, letting you feel it when he just barely scrapes the tip of the needle against your neck. Your entire body tenses up immediately, your muscles locking up in fright. “You really don’t have to be so scared, you know.” His other hand reaches up, the coldness of his latex glove cupping your face in a gentle hold. Barely even squeezing, just enough to tip your head to the side a little more. “This is probably… The least scary drug I’ve created in a long time. The fatality rate is less than 2%”

”There’s a fatality rate?” You squeak out. With the huff he lets out, you don’t even have to look to know that Cody is rolling his eyes.

”Too many questions.” He mutters. “Some of the shit you buy off of the shelf have even worse percentages, so don’t go latching onto words just because they sound scary.” His fingers give your jaw a light squeeze. “So? Say it. Yes, or no. Or I’m picking for you.”

With such a rigged outcome, you feel as if you just have to go with your gut on this one. Even though he’s quite literally holding a needle to your neck right now.

”Yes.” You mutter out the word so softly you wouldn’t have been surprised if he missed out on it completely. But, he was close enough that your whisper meets his ears like a soft breeze. Just one simple word, and yet it was the most lovely thing he had heard in a very long time. Your eyes flutter closed in silent resignation, so you can’t see it - but Cody’s lips curl up into an incredibly self-satisfied smile. Little dimples appearing in his cheeks, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.

He had known you’d say that.

”Good. You’re going to feel a slight pinch, that’s all.” That’s all the warning he gives you. After that, he’s pricking you. Piercing your skin with the needle and making sure it slides right into a main vein. “You’re probably going to feel… Tingly as it circulates.” He murmurs as he presses his thumb down on the plunger, slowly dispensing the full volume of the drug right into you. He watches in fascination, how your body just drinks up his creation - watching the fluorescent liquid disappear beneath your skin. “It’s nothing to worry about, it just means it's working.”

You can already feel what he’s talking about. Your veins feel warm. Starting in your neck at the injection site, down your arms and shoulders. Swirling in your chest, pooling in your heart to pump the rest of the way through your body. You try to keep your breathing even, even as Cody’s hands slowly pull away and the needle is dislodged from your skin, but it's incredibly hard to stay calm.

Even though Cody’s voice is soft and soothing. Speaking to you like any kind doctor would. Calm, collected, knowledgeable. Giving you any detail you’d like to know about your procedure.

Sure, he only told you once he had you trapped, but regardless.

You were counting your small wins. “Okay.” Cody pushes his stool back off of the bed frame again, wheeling his stool back over to his work station once more. He reaches over to drop the used syringe into a sharps bin, before once again removing the gloves he had been wearing. It was almost comical, the way he felt a need to change them between each and every little thing he did.

Another small win. At least he was sanitary. You wouldn’t be getting sepsis from this, hopefully. “Now’s the fun part.” Cody doesn’t grab a new pair of gloves this time, instead he reaches for a clipboard and a pen - collecting both items before wheeling back over to you. “I just get to watch you.” He grins. “How are we doing now? Feel anything yet?”

Short answer, yes. The sensation was strange. It was as if you could feel every ounce of blood flowing through your veins. Like when you drink something cold, and you can feel it travel all the way down to your stomach - giving you a pretty clear reminder that you were just a machine made of fleshy parts all working together to keep you breathing.

You were more aware of that than ever. You could feel your blood rushing around, feel your lungs expand with each breath you took. You could feel your eyelids move over your eyes with each blink, could feel your throat contract each time you swallow down the saliva that had begun to accumulate in your mouth.

But, you’re not quite sure how to put that all into words, So instead you just say,

”I feel…” You breathe out a shuddering breath, curling your fingers into the sheet beneath you. Looking up to meet his gaze, but your vision swims. Cloning the man before you into double right before your very eyes. “Jesus Christ this stuff works fast.” You gasp, before bringing one hand up to prod at your face. Rubbing your eyes to try and clear up your vision a little bit, pinching and pulling the skin of your cheeks to try and ground yourself with that sharp sting. It doesn’t work.

”Yeah, I probably should’ve mentioned that.” Cody snorts, observing your pathetic state with one eyebrow raised and an amused smile tugging at his lips. You’re shifting and squirming, unable to sit still for the life of you. Breathing so heavy you’re practically panting, but he’s sure that you don’t even realize that. There’s a flush beginning to creep onto your cheeks, so potent that it's spreading down your neck too. Sweat beads up on your brow, fingers fiddling with the hem of the sweater you were wearing. “Try and put it into words, though. Are you hot? Do you feel restless?”

”Hot.” You agree immediately, slumping forwards a little where you’re sitting. You're definitely panting - damn near hyperventilating - saliva pooling in the corners of your mouth that you have to swallow back down. It’s just replaced by more as soon as you do though. “Fuck- Can you…” You let out an involuntary whine, so disgruntled that your body barely knows what to do than to act like you are at your core - a scared little animal. “Is there AC in here?” You gasp out. “There’s gotta be, right? I feel like I’m dying over here.”

”No AC.” Cody snorts, shaking his head in amusement before scribbling something down on the clipboard perched on his knee. “In fact, it’s pretty cold in here already. Usually is.”

”You’re fucking with me.” You grit out, a shudder going down your spine as you reach up to dab at your forehead with the sleeve of your hoodie. It comes back to you drenched. “This isn’t fucking funny.”

Cody seems to think otherwise, because right after you speak he’s letting out a soft huff of a chuckle that he can’t bite back. He scribbles down something else, all whilst gnawing at his bottom lip to try and stop any other small bits of laughter from slipping out.

”I told you this was going to happen.” He hums, before meeting your gaze once more. “Why don’t you take your sweater off? You might make yourself overheat.”

If he had said that to you the moment you had walked in, you probably would’ve had a lot more fight left in you. Probably would’ve cut him a harsh glare and called him a ‘creep’ within a fraction of a second. In your current state, you’re stripping the heavy material off of your body before he can even finish his sentence.

It lands as a crumpled heap on the cool laboratory floor, and the relief is immediate. The sweat on your skin meets the air around you and cools, giving you a slight reprieve from the hell you had been enduring beforehand. Your chest is heaving with each breath, and Cody can see now that it was even worse for you right now than he had expected. It definitely did work faster on humans than it did on his rats. Or maybe he flubbed the dosage a little bit.

Regardless, you looked like you were melting.

That pink flush he had noted extended down your neck, over your collarbones, and swept across your chest - which was rising and falling to an uneven rhythm. It was creeping down your abdomen, hell even down your arms and up to the tips of your ears. You looked like you were burning up from the inside out. Your skin was glossy with a sheen of sweat, hair sticking to your forehead because of it. Your lips are parted as you breathe raggedly through your mouth, eyebrows scrunched together in discomfort. “You’re not in any pain, right?” Cody asks you softly, his eyes scanning across your body as you shift and squirm - as if you were trying to wriggle out of your own skin. “Just uncomfortable?”

”More than that.” You gasp out, your eyes near pleading as they flicker up to meet his. Pleading for what? You didn’t even know. Anything that would cool you down. “I feel like I’m.. I’m burning up. Melting.” You learn forwards a little, and extend a shaky hand out towards him. “Do you have water? Anything?”

”I don’t.” Cody frowns, his eyes flickering between your hand and your reddened face. Such a pitiful sight really. He scribbles down a couple more notes. “You’re really struggling, aren’t you?”

”Yeah.” Your brain feel foggy. Like the heat you’re consumed in has melted it into a pool of goop. Every logical thought you try to form fizzles out before it comes to fruition, evaporating into the air. Right now, there were only two certainties.

You might just combust, or pass out if you don’t receive anything to help your situation.

Cody can help. It’s his lab, after all.

And so you’re left grabbing at him, fingers clawing at his knee through the fabric of his jeans, the contact making him jolt and scoot his stool back a couple inches. “Cody, please.”

“Please, what?” Cody raises an eyebrow, keeping his gaze trained on you - dodging your advances when you try to get your hands on him once more. “Hands to yourself.”

You ignore him.

”I can’t stand it.” So overwhelmed, that tears spring to your eyes. Blurring your already hazy vision before they’re breaking free and rolling down your face. Just like the rest of you, they feel hot as they streak your cheeks, your entire expression crumpling in complete and utter defeat. “You said-“ You sniffle. “You said you’d be nice.”

Cody’s eyes slowly widen, his gaze tracking the trail of a teardrop before it rolls off of the tip of your nose and hits your thigh - leaving a small stain on your jeans. Your face was wrinkled in discomfort, your entirely body trembling where you sat. Your heavy breathing had turned into strained, choked off gasps - devolving more into a state of panic than anything else.

You were a mess. Melting in a pool on the bed before him. He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. When he had tested it on his rats, the effects had paled in comparison - it just made them more eager to mate. You were falling apart right before his eyes.

”Jesus-“ Cody breathes out, his lips pursing together for a moment as he decides exactly which route he was going to take with you here. It’s not that he hadn’t expected something like this to happen - in fact that was the entire point. But having it right before his eyes, having you begging with tears streaming down your face… That was something else entirely. He had seen many, many people sob to him before - begging and pleading for him to spare their life.

He wasn’t quite sure what you were begging for. His eyes scan across your face, narrowing slightly in thought. “I’m not going to touch you.” He finally huffs out, before dropping his clipboard on the ground beside him and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why not?” You ask, leaning forwards on your palms and peering up at him. Desperate, definitely. But had you not been from the start? Cody watches as a bead of sweat rolls down your temple, and lets out a soft, disbelieving snort.

”Because that’s not what this is about.” He chuckles softly. “You’re supposed to sit there, and just let me observe you - regardless of how uncomfortable you get.” He cocks his head to the side. “You’re not going to make me strap you down, are you?”

He watches as your eyes widen, how your irises flicker with something so far removed from the fear you had walked into the room with. Pupils blown out wide, your gaze was heady - practically heating up the air around the two of you with just one look. He knew what you were thinking, could see it in the way your gaze trailed from his face, down his neck, across the length of his arm to settle on watching his fingers fiddle with the pen in his hand. Nearly drooling. There was a glossy sheen on your lips, saliva bubbling in the corners of your mouth.

And you just can’t sit still. Shifting, trembling, rubbing your thighs together in a way that was far from discreet.

Cody lets out a short huff of breath, pinching his eyes shut before reaching up to rub them.

It wasn’t even that you were difficult to handle, his brain was. He should just make true on his threat and tie you down - watch you wriggle and squirm in discomfort for a couple hours until the effects wore off. But for some reason, that just didn’t seem as… Appealing. Not with how you were looking at him like he was a God. The answer to every single trouble you were facing.

And maybe… Maybe you weren’t too far off with that. Maybe he could be.

And so finally, he moves. Stands up slowly with you watching each and every little movement. How his hair looked so feathery soft as he reached up to run a hand through it. The sound of his sneakers squeaking against the floor as he made his way back over to the lab bench - unhurried, dragging it out. Making you feel even more pathetic than you already did, because he just seemed so indifferent. So apathetic towards your situation, while you were sitting behind him falling apart at the seams.

He doesn’t say a word when he turns on the faucet at his sink. Doesn’t make a peep as he washes his hands clean, before drying them off and retrieving yet another new pair of gloves. Pulling them on just as he had done with the last two pairs, before grabbing a couple other things out of the drawer that you couldn’t get a good look at.

Then, he’s back over to you, staring down at you with that same gaze he had before. Clinical, detached. Like you were nothing more than a pitiful animal. “Open your mouth.”

It takes a few seconds for the words to register - your mind so clouded that every sound around you sounded far away and foggy. But he was looking at you expectantly, one eyebrow raised, making it quite clear that he expected you to listen.

Which was fair. You were his experiment after all.

And so you do. You swallow back a mouthful of drool before parting your lips - your breathing ragged and your limbs trembling as you stay that way, waiting for his next move. “Good.” Again, such hollow praise. “Now stick out your tongue.” You follow that command just as easily as the last one, your heart thudding against your rib cage in anticipation - excitement - for what he had in store for you. You can feel saliva pool in your mouth again, but you don’t move a muscle. Not until he tells you to. Not even when it begins to drip off of your tongue, staining the fabric of your jeans even further.

Cody wrinkles his nose and purses his lips, but he reaches forwards regardless - pressing two fingers down against your tongue. “Such a mess.” He mutters out, right as you let out a soft whimper and jolt at the contact. The latex of his gloves felt so cool in comparison to your body. Like he had dropped two ice cubes into your mouth.

You can’t help but savour it.

Your lips close around his fingers, a soft moan rumbling from your chest when you suction to them and suck. Licking up that rubbery taste like it was a lollipop, your eyes fluttering as you take in a shaky breath through your nose.

Cody, nearly stops breathing completely. Your mouth is so warm and wet, so eagerly sucking his fingers in like it was a gift he had bestowed upon you. Barely even doing anything, and yet you were eating it all up eagerly. Greedily. Grateful for any sliver of physical contact he was allowing you. “Did I ask you to do that?” He asks you, and yet he doesn’t retreat. In fact, he pushes further. Sinking his fingers into your mouth until his knuckles are hitting your teeth - the tips of his fingers grazing your throat.

And that’s when he realized something quite… Interesting. You weren’t gagging. Even when he pressed a little further, far enough that any average person would have been choking and sputtering by now. But you? You were just taking it - jaw slack, your throat welcoming the intrusion happily.

Were you always like this? Or was it a product of what he had done to you?

He pulls his fingers from your mouth slowly, ignoring the way you whine and try to suck them back in, before he finally has you releasing them with a wet ‘pop’. “No gag reflex.” He comments quietly, looking down to eye his gloved hand - fingers now drenched and glistening with your saliva. “Is that normal for you?”

You swallow thickly, lips glistening and chin smeared with your own saliva, before you slowly shake your head. It was hard to deny how empty your mouth felt now that Cody’s fingers were keeping you satiated. You just can’t take your eyes off of them, licking your lips at the memory of how they had felt against your tongue. Imagining how they’d feel elsewhere.

”No.” You whisper back to him, as you shift closer to the edge of the bed. You reach out again, and this time he doesn’t stop you. Letting you curl your fingers around the hem of his hoodie to tug him in closer. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Cody eyes your hand as it paws at him, tugging at his sweater almost frantically with trembling fingers. His lips twitch up at the corners, a wry little smirk stretching across his face. “Well, I guess it could be, yeah.” He hums. “I just didn’t expect it, is all.” He extends his hand out to you again, and you part your lips on instinct, but he doesn’t humour you - instead snorting out an amused laugh before his fingers curl around your throat instead, smearing your own saliva against your skin. Just barely squeezing, enough to really feel your pulse beneath his fingertips. Fluttering like a bird in a cage, so frantic he would almost be worried. Almost. “It must act as a relaxant, just as much as it does a stimulant.”

His thumb rubs against your throat, the smooth latex of his gloves collecting your own sweat against it. You really were burning up. It was even more evident now that he was actually touching you. Warmed to a feverish degree, heat radiating off of you even from a few inches away. No wonder you had started crying about it so quickly. “Didn’t plan for that, and yet I think you’re right. It’s a good thing.” He gives your neck a gentle squeeze, watching how your eyes just go hazier when he does so. Your pupils are practically swallowing your irises now, the colour of your eyes barely even distinguishable. “A little two for one deal.”

He uses his grip to tilt your head upwards. His eyes warming at the sight of you - just being pushed and pulled around so easily. So pliant. Happy, so long as he’s touching you.

He’d bet you’d let him do quite literally anything to you right now. The perfect little lab rat. “In fact, I’d say I outdid myself.” His hand slips up and back, sliding into your hair cup the back of your head whilst your fingers tangle within the strands. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Uh huh.” Your answer is mindless, voice choked off and shaky - struggling to keep your watery eyes open as you lean back into his touch. “Cody-“ You say his name like you’ve known him for ages, all sweet and soft, like you have the right to beg for his attention. He doesn’t seem to mind though, if anything you’d swear you saw his gaze soften. “I need…” You take a moment to take a breath, so overwhelmed that you’re beginning to feel lightheaded. “Please, just keep touching me.”

“Yeah? Is that what you need?” His fingers curl into your hair, the latex of his glove squeaking when he tugs your head back. Not harshly enough to hurt, but enough the pull a gasp from your lungs. “I don’t normally take orders from my rats, you know.” His smirk widens into a toothy grin. “But then again, they usually can’t talk.”

You let out a pitiful whine, tugging him in closer by the hold you still have on his sweater. Close enough now that you’ve got him right between your thighs, staring down at you with such a subjugating gaze it makes your joints feel like goo. Was it the drug that was melting you, or was it him? “So difficult.” He mutters, before reaching up with his free hand.

You don’t truly realize what happening until you feel a cold, hard object slipping past your lips. It feels as if it expands, forcing your jaw open wide - leaving nowhere for your drool to go except to drip past your lips and slide down your jaw.

You let out a surprised whimper that comes out sounding gargled, your eyes widening like a deer in the headlights as you look up to shoot a questioning gaze. “If you want me to help you, I’m going to need you to just sit back and relax.” You hear a click, and then Cody’s hand is retreating. “No more asking questions, no more whining, no more begging.” He leans his head down a little, soft tufts of brunette hair tickling your forehead. “So, here’s the deal. If you want me to touch you, you’re going to hold these forceps snug in your mouth.” He reaches up to tap them, watching how your jaw quivers. “If you drop them, I stop.”

You let out a watery sounding whine, eyebrows scrunching together as you try to swallow back all of the dool accumulating in your mouth. You fail miserably. You can feel it trailing down your skin, leaving your chin slick. “If you don’t want to play, then we won’t. But if you want me to touch you that badly, these are the rules.” His thumb smooths against the skin right below your ear. “What do you think?”

At this point, you think you’d do quite literally anything if it meant he would soothe the ache in your bones. And so you nod - slow and shaky, as you breath raggedly through your nose. This earns you a smile, and Cody’s grip loosens minutely. His fingers scratch against your scalp, a soothing sensation that sends a shiver down your spine. “Good.” His hand slips out of your hair and trails down your neck, sweeping over your collarbones before it ventures lower - cupping your breast so gently you can barely even feel it. But its enough. Enough to have you jolting. “You know,” His fingers graze over the lace of your bra, a soft rumble of appreciation slipping from his lungs. “It’s been awhile since I’ve had a partner, especially one so pretty.”

His fingers squeeze, kneading the supple flesh beneath them - watching the way your eyes flutter when he does so, listening to the strangled whimper you let out. “Never have time. Too much to do.” His other hands smoothes down the expanse of your body, settling on your waist, his thumb rubbing soft circles against your skin. “I never… Search it out. Never really have a reason to. There are much more important things to focus on besides such… Primal desires.” He gently peels your bra strap down your shoulder, then the other one, before he’s tugging the material completely below your tits - baring you to him. You hear it when his breath hitches. “But I suppose I am human too. To fight what my biology desires, that’s just an insult to the work that I do, isn’t it?”

You don’t know if he’s genuinely expecting an answer, but you can’t give one regardless. Choking on your own spit, your mind swims as your feel a gloved finger roll your nipple beneath it, before he’s pinching it softly. “I wonder… What would you be like if I hadn’t dosed you? Just as reactive?” He repeats the action, toying with your nipple, palming the fat of your chest until your tits are quite literally tingling from sensitivity.

Before, his hands felt like ice compared to you, but now it seems as if the heat is coming from him. Instilling a warmth that stemmed from his fingertips, travelling down low, swirling in your gut, before it reaches your core. And so you’re shifting and squirming, your whole expression crumpling as you attempt to placate yourself even just a little. You can feel it, how your panties have just grown wetter and wetter - you’d bet they were completely soaked through by this point. Clinging to your folds, making you let out a gargle whine every time the fabric of your jeans brushes up against you. “I really did outdo myself, hm?”

Cody knows why you’re so restless. He can practically smell it, for fuck’s sake. The arousal radiating off of your body, charging the air with an electricity that sparked every time his hands met your body. And well, you’ve been well behaved. You haven’t once let the forceps so much as slip, even as you sputter over the drool flooding your mouth.

You had been so good. Such a fine specimen. It would only be fair to reward you.

And so his hand slides down lower, fingers curling below the waistband of your jeans - your hips kicking upwards immediately at the contact. “Ah-“ Cody shoots you a look, raising an eyebrow at you. “Be patient. Take what I give you.”

Slowly, he undoes the button of your jeans, popping it before the zipper comes down in quick succession. Then, he’s tugging at the fabric. “Poor thing, you’re so warm.” He keeps his right hand occupied with your tits, switching between the two to make sure each got an equal amount of love as he toyed with them. “Lift your hips.”

You don’t even hesitate, letting him peel your jeans off of your without an ounce of pushback. The fabric was damp with your sweat, clinging to your skin before he removed them completely and threw them to the ground. “And these too..” Your mind is hazy when your panties come off too, goosebumps pebble your thighs as the cool air of the lab hits your glistening cunt. “That’s better.”

Your underwear joins the rest of the clothing om the floor, and now you sit before him - practically completely bare with him fully clothed, shivering under his gaze - drool leaving your face and chest glistening whilst your inner thighs shine with your own slick. “Such a pitiful thing.”

Cody takes a step back, but not before he’s reaching up and finally removing the forceps from your mouth - making you let out a soft sigh of relief as your aching jaw is finally given a chance to relax. “Swallow. You’re making a mess.” Cody drops the forceps to the ground with a metallic clang, and you do just as he asks - gulping back all of the saliva that you were indeed making a mess with. “You have any idea what you look like right now?”

When a gloved finger meets the centr of your chest, your breathing hitches. It trails down the line of your sternum, down lower and lower, until it’s resting just below your belly button. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so pathetic.” He presses into your skin, right above your womb, like he was feeling the shape of your insides through the layer of your skin. Then, the journey continues. Inching down until his gloved hand meets your cunt, cupping it gently. “Can’t even think. I’ve turned you into a little doll.” He grins when his thumb presses down against your clit, watching how your body all but crumbles - a look of such unadulterated relief taking over your expression. You hadn’t been lying, you really did need this. “I wonder…”

He rolls your clit beneath the pad of his thumb, rubbing slow deliberate circles that make your breathing go shallow - your mouth dripping open slack as gasps and moans catch in your throat. “Do you even know how you’re acting right now?” Your slickness collects on the latex of his gloves, to which he smears it against your folds with an amused grin. “Would you be ashamed of you did?”

All he gets in response is a soft whimper. Just about the response he expected. “I’ve killed people, you know.” He murmurs, his voice low and gravelly as he slowly sinks a finger into you. He can’t help the shudder that wracks his shoulders as he feels your inner walls wrap around him so deliciously. Somehow even hotter than your mouth was, and so much tighter. So incredibly relaxed though, sucking him eagerly, just like your throat had. You entire body was begging for it. “Ended countless lives with the hands you’re letting touch you right now.”

He gently pumps the digit into you, feeling you just go even more pliant with each movement. Struggling to stay upright, you’re nearly falling into him now, using your grip on his sweater as an anchor. When he adds another finger, you really do crumble. You nearly double over, falling into his chest and smearing drool against the fabric. Gasping into him as you leave his sweater stained and damp, helplessly rutting your hips back to meet his movements. “You don’t even care though, do you?” He scissors his fingers open, stretching you open even wider, and you sob. “Even if you weren’t drugged beyond all hell, you still wouldn’t, am I right?”

His other hand slides down to grip your waist again, tugging your hips back to meet him as he plunged his fingers into your cunt over and over again. Curling them in just the right way to leave you choking out moans to be muffled against his chest. “You knew it was a bad idea, but you kept talking to me. You showed up here, pushed further even though your gut was telling you something was very, very wrong.” The pads of his fingers rub against your gspot, prodding at the bundle of nerves until he could feel your tears wetting his hoodie. “You fell right into my arms. You wanted this, didn’t you?”

Verbal communication is completely lost on you now, too busy drowning in a pool of ecstasy to form a single word. Too brainless to even truly process what he was saying. So, you just nod. Bucking your hips, fucking yourself on his fingers as the heat within you reaches a fever pitch. “I know.” He hums softly. “I know what type you are. You just want someone to take care of you, don’t you? Someone to make it all easier for you.”

He can feel it when your cunt starts twitching around his fingers, hear how your breathing was getting more and more frantic. Building and building, until- “I could do that for you.” Until it all snapped.

You let out a broken sob against Cody’s chest, clawing at him near frantically as your release hits you with such a force it makes your ears ring. Makes your vision white out. Leaving you to do nothing but completely melt into Cody like he was the only thing keeping you grounded. He was. It felt like his body heat was the only thing to exist to you right. The only thing that was real.

“Cody-“ You gasp out, pressing your face further into his chest - almost as if you were trying to crawl beneath his skin, curl up snug in his ribcage to hide from the overwhelming intensity of what you felt. And yet, the heat persisted. You felt like you may just combust all over again if his hands ever left you. “Don’t- Don’t stop-“ You plead, still rutting up onto his fingers even when the overstimulation made your gut twist. “More-“

“What did I say about begging?” Cody tuts softly, ignoring your wishes as he pulls his fingers from your sopping wet cunt - before delivering a sharp slap to the inside of your thigh. “I’ll turn you back into a tool holder again if you keep whining.”

You sniffle softly and shake your head. Hair sticking to your face, moist with sweat and drool, you peer up at him as your bottom lip trembles. “I’ve given you more than enough, but you’re going to act like this?” He scoffs softly before grabbing your hips with both hands and tugging you to him. “I thought about just strapping you down and setting a camera up.” He murmurs, before releasing you - only to reach for the buckle of his belt.

Your heart leaps in your chest. “I’d let you cry your heart out, and no one would be around to hear you.” He slowly undoes his belt, eyes on you the entire time he pulls it from the loops of his jeans. “Not anyone who cares, anyway.” Your eyes are wide as you watch the button of his jeans come undone, before he’s tugging down the zipper and the waistband of his boxers rather quickly after. Freeing his cock with a soft hiss, he reaches down and curls his fingers around the base, giving it a few languid strokes. “What would you have done, hm? Beg me to let you go? Or would you do the same as right now, and beg for me to touch you instead?”

You know the answer, but to say it would drag you down even lower than you already are. So instead, you wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him right to you - the length of his cock sliding against your slick core. Cody lets out a near startled moan and immediately reaches down to grab your waist and still you. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He breathes out. His other hand comes up to cup the back of your head, holding you close to his chest as he ruts up against you languidly. Slipping through your folds, the head of his cock catching on your entrance every so often. It makes your breathing stutter every single time. “S’alright though. Told you already, you won’t have to worry about much here.”

Finally he gets himself lined up properly, taking a deep breath in as the hold on your hip tightens. Then, he’s pressing in, slow and steady for both of your sakes - though he’s probably the one who needs it the most. He had known that the feeling of you around his fingers was just a taste. So tight and warm it nearly makes his knees buckle, his eyes fluttering with each inch in. “Oh, that’s good-“ He groans out, hips bucking forwards even more, getting a couple more inches enveloped in your sweet velvety heat. “You.. God, you were made for this.”

With one last nudge, he sinks all the way in - his hips meeting yours in a motion that had you both moaning into each other, sparks zapping up your spine. “I might just-“ Cody’s hand slips from your waist downwards to grasp at your ass instead, latex clad fingers digging into the soft flesh as he draws his hips back. “I might just keep you this way.”

Your arms come up to wrap around his neck, clinging to him as your thighs tremble around his hips. He just filled you so good. You didn’t know if it was from the drug swirling around in your veins, or if he really was just an incredible lay, but you didn’t really care. As his hips start to rock, you’d swear you could feel your brain melt out of your ears. Static filling your skull with each nudge of his cock against your walls. “You’d let me, wouldn’t you?” His voice is deeper now, raspy, strained like he was having to dig in deep to pull the words from his lungs. “Let me get you all loopy, begging for my dick day in and day out?”

He’s pulling you back against you with each thrust, leaning down to press his lips against the crown of your head - soft groans muffling into your hair. “You’d never have to worry about anything again. You wouldn’t even know how to.”

The rusty metal of the bed frame creaks every time your body jolts, the once quiet lab filled with the sound of absolute depravity. Your broken moans and whimpers, his absolutely filthy threats accompanied by panted breathing. Skin on skin, growing louder as the pace of his thrusts picked up - losing himself in you just as much as you were in him.

You can feel him throb inside you, pulsing with desire as your cunt does the same. Tightening up around him, sucking his cock in so good he’d swear he couldn’t pull out even if he wanted to. Your body was just pulling him in like a magnet, all control lost as he fucked more and more slick out of you - dirtying the front of his jeans and dripping down your thighs. So wet, every thrust was punctuated with a squelching sound that made his stomach flip. Made his ears burn hot. “So wet.” He murmurs out. “You feel incredible.”

You claw upwards to latch your lips onto his neck, drool smearing against his skin as you clumsily attempt to suck at his skin. It doesn’t work well, not with how uncoordinated you are, and so you’re left just leaving sloppy open mouthed kisses against his skin as you muffle your moans against him. He’d swear you were downright chanting his name too, breathing it out between each sweet whimper. Like a mantra. Like he was the only thing you knew existed. Moaning out your devotion, sealing it with the spit you left his skin slick with. “But you’re so messy.”

Cody’s hand curls back into your hair, tugging your head back and away from him - a thin line of saliva connecting your lips to his neck before it breaks. Then, it slips down and around to cup your face, fingers pressing into your jaw. “So dirty. Drooling all over me, making a mess on my cock.” His fingers squeeze your cheeks into a pucker, his hold keeping your hazy eyes trained on his face as his hips snap into yours. Harder. Deeper. Rough enough to make your eyes roll back and your legs twitch. “But you don’t care.” He mutters, huffing out ragged breaths as he tries to fight off his release - dreading the moment he had to peel himself away from your addictive skin. “I bet I could throw you over to Toby and you’d let me.”

“No-“ You whine, squirming in his hold as your squeeze your eyes shut.

“No?” Cody lets out a soft laugh, releasing his grip on your face just to land a couple light slaps against your slick cheek. “Just me?” You nod weakly, moans growing higher and higher in pitch as he brings you to the brink once more. Thighs locking around his hips, whole body trembling as it moves against him. “You really are stupid.” And then he’s grinding the head of his cock against your gspot, catapulting you over the edge with barely even a second to blink before it happens.

So overwhelmed that the tears just double, wetting the latex of his glove when he smooths his thumb against your reddened cheek. You arch up into him completely, your bare chest meeting the soft fabric of his sweater as stars dance behind your eyelids - the moans that slip from your lips so loud, and yet you can barely even hear yourself. Barely even bring yourself back to reality.

All you can focus on is the pleasure that buzzes through your veins and washes over your skin. His cock still pumping into you sloppily, fucking you through your release as your cunt convulses around him. His breath against your skin, hot and heavy, his composure having far too many cracks to stay intact.

His grip on you is near bruising, his moans strained, sweat beading up on his forehead to roll off the tip of his nose.

He hadn’t been lying when he had said it had been awhile since he last got to lose himself like this, and so to break that streak with someone like you? This soft, supple body that just took everything he gave you with no complaints? You were heaven sent. Like a gift from god, dropped straight onto his doorstep.

He fucks you until your moans turn into sweet little satisfied whimpers, and then he’s pulling out - backing up and pulling you along with him. Letting your weak knees give out just so that you crumple to the floor in front of him, staring up at him bleary eyed and confused. “Your mouth.” He huffs out, reaching down and grabbing you by the chin. “Open it.”

And of course, just as last time, you oblige.

Jaw dropping slack, your eyes flutter closed in complete submission. A sight that nearly has Cody’s buckling before he even nudges his cock against your tongue.

His teeth are grit from the effort it takes him to reel it back in, his entire body trembling from the strain of it all as he cradles the back of your head and pulls your mouth down onto him. Slipping into that wet heat so easily, sliding down your throat with not even an ounce of resistance. Even when he started bucking his hips into it, his soft grunts ringing through the air each time your nose pressed into his pelvis.

You really were like a doll, just sitting there and taking it, bare skin against the concrete flooring as your lips suction around him - sucking him back in eagerly every time he pulled out. Moaning every time his length pressed into your throat.

So perfect, he’d feel incredibly cocky over the overwhelming success that his creation turned out to be, but he can’t focus on that right now.

He was too busy falling apart before you.

He doesn’t get to fuck your throat for nearly as long as he’d like to before his hips are stuttering. Nails scratching against your scalp as his fingers curled into your hair, pulling you right down onto him as he finally let go. Hot release shot straight down your throat, you could feel the heat of it settle low in your stomach. Almost too much to gulp down, sputtering as he lazily rocks his hips to ride it out.

When he pulls out, your eyes flutter back open - hazy and unfocused - ears ringing from the intensity of it all.

And Cody looked… Lovely. Red faced, hair slick with sweat, his chest heaving as his expression melted into one of pure unadulterated bliss.

You almost wished you could’ve dwelled on it, appreciated it more, but - you are only human after all, and there’s only so much a human can take.

So you get one last look at him. At those green eyes, sparkling with what almost looked like adoration towards you, before your body crumples. Stars in your vision before your vision blacks out completely, leaving you to be nothing but a pitiful heap at his feet.

When you awake once more, your body feels heavy. Weighted. Your eyes burn as you blink against the bright lights above you, your limbs feeling as if they had been replaced with lead blocks. You can feel something beneath you. Something soft, and yet when you shift - it crinkles.

The bed. In Cody’s lab.

You’re still here. Of course you would be.

You force yourself upwards with a pained groan, the movement immediately enticing a brutal headache to rip through your skull.

Your hand flies up to your head, to your temple - a hiss of pain breaking up the silence in the room.

“Ah, good morning.” You have your eyes squeezed closed, the lights in the lab too bright to bear, but you know that voice. It was the last one you had heard before everything went back. “You slept for… About twelve hours. It’s almost midnight.” You feel a hand come to rest on your back, warm and absolute, like a soothing salve for your discomfort. “I was a little worried, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise. You definitely needed the rest.”

His hand smooths across your shoulder, and it's then that you realize that you’re still bare. It's then that you notice how cold you are, compared to him. “You look like you’re in pain, is the comedown truly that bad?”

You barely manage a weak nod, and you hear Cody let out a soft hum. “Hm. That’ll be something to work on. I’ll get you painkillers.”

Then his hand retreats, leaving behind a warm handprint against you goosebump pebbled skin. “Oh-“

A pause, and then there’s a thud on the bed before you. Curiosity getting the better of you, you peel your eyes open - squinting against the harsh lighting. And you don’t know if you should’ve expected it, but the sight of a wad of cash before you nearly makes you laugh. You probably would’ve if you had the energy to. “Your pay. Told you, I didn’t lie.”

You don’t even reach for it, though it was the driving force for you even coming here in the first place. It just seemed so insignificant now.

So… Stupid. What was the point even, anymore? It was useless to you now. Just a stack of paper that meant nothing.

Money’s no use to the dead.

And for all intents and purposes, that’s practically what you were right now. Dead to the world, at least. Dead to everyone outside of this lab.

And so you simply shake your head, scooting back further on the bed to distance yourself from it further.

“Keep it.” You force out hoarsely. “I don’t need it.”

And Cody smiles.

He had known you would say that.

————————————————————————-☆

holy FUCK I did not mean to make this so long. oh my god. looked at the word count at the end and my eyes bugged out of my skull

whatEVER cody debut on my blog in the nastiest way ever LOLLLL

thank you for reading!

[ktownshizzle]

Masterlist

My name is K and this is the byproduct of my Min Yoongi and Bangtan Sonyeondan brainrot. In other news, Jeon Wonwoo of Seventeen has also been contributing to my sanity’s decay.

Please remember all stories herein are purely fiction. I do not claim to know BTS or SVT irl. I put warnings in every chapter. Please be guided by them, so you can have an enjoyable reading experience. I do not have an upload schedule. I will turn on my requests soon, but for now please enjoy my ongoing and completed stories below. do not copy, repost, modify, or translate my writing without my express permission to do so.

About Me | WIP update | Buy me a ko-fi | Simpler M.list Join my permanent taglist Minors DNI

Wild & Free

Status: Completed

Part 1 | Part 2

Summary: Everybody says they want to marry Min Yoongi. But what if he only wants to say 'yes' to you. Alternatively: While on the last leg of their PTD tour, Yoongi discovers there was such a thing as drive-thru weddings in Las Vegas - spontaneous, wild, exciting - something his pretty little brain can't seem to process having lived the last decade of his life planned to perfection by his management team, which includes you. When he goes down a rabbit hole of Youtube videos about The Little White Wedding Chapel (Omo! Michael Jordan got married there!), he starts getting all sorts of ideas - all of it starring him and you. Genre: Fluff, Angst, Eventual Smut, Childhood friends to lovers, Idol!au, Coworkers to lovers (reader is a HYBE employee)

Terms & Conditions

Status: Ongoing

⋆.˚ Series Masterlist ⋆.˚

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 Teaser | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7

Summary: Managing Min Yoongi as one of your encoders during his alternative military service should’ve been simple. He is quiet, punctual—and can apparently type as fast as he can rap! Not to mention the fact that he is easy on the eyes and keeps wanting to help you. You’ve signed an iron-clad NDA, detailing the full terms and conditions of his temporary employment, so you’re supposed to keep things professional, but what happens if neither of you wants to? Genre: Fluff, eventual smut, co-workers to lovers, office romance, idol!au

Love & Lullabies

Status: Ongoing

⋆.˚ Series Masterlist ⋆.˚

Teaser | Part 1 | Part 2 Teaser | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5 | Part 5

Summary: What begins as a simple favor for your best friend Namjoon soon pulls you into the rhythms of Yoongi’s life—afternoons spent caring for his son, late nights filled with candid conversations, and a connection neither of you thought you needed. You’re fresh out of a long-term relationship with an ex who didn’t want a family with you, so did you really just stumble into a life you’ve always dreamed of? (Thank god Namjoon isn’t the only one who’s clumsy.) Alternatively: It’s 2025 and BTS is prepping for their comeback. All members seem to have gained muscle weight from their time at camp. But Min Yoongi has gained a different kind of weight—an 8-pound baby and a fuck-load of responsibility. Genre: Fluff, Angst, Smut (tbd), idol!au, Acquaintances to Lovers, Reader is Namjoon’s bestie

Friends & Fools

Status: Completed

Click here

Summary: You and Yoongi have always been just friends—inseparable since childhood, roommates in the city, partners in navigating life’s chaos. At your high school reunion, the questions start: Are you two finally together? Uh, no. But as the night goes on, and Yoongi looks at you like that, hmm—has everyone else seen something you’ve been too scared to admit? Genre: Fluff, Suggestive, non-idol!au, best friends & roommates to lovers

A Christmas Encore {Holiday Fic}

Status: Completed

Part One | Part Two

Summary: You never thought you’d see Min Yoongi again, not in this lifetime, not in this place. He left years ago with big dreams and bigger talent, trading snow-covered Seollim Hollow for the city lights of Seoul. But now, with the cultural center—the heart of your hometown—on the verge of being sold to a soulless corporation, you’ll do anything to save it. When Yoongi appears on your doorstep, it feels like a miracle wrapped in regret. But as the two of you work together to save the center, old promises resurface, along with feelings you thought you’d left behind. Can you trust someone who was never meant to stay? Or will you just get hurt again? Genre: Childhood Friends to Kinda Lovers to Kinda Strangers to Friends to Lovers (WHAT?! Yeah I got dizzy too) Second chances basically, Fluff, Smut, Mild Angst, Very Hallmark

Let Me Love You {Song fic Drabble}

Status: Pending

Click here for the Preview

Honey & Citrus

Status: Completed Read here

Summary: You haaate your job, but at least there’s this sexy eye-candy at your favorite cafe to distract you from your miserable 9 to forever grind. Your simple, casual nods with him, turn into a silent caffeine war when, after his small act of kindness, you buy him his coffee—and he refuses to let the favor go unanswered. Suddenly, you’re locked in a daily battle of who pays first, and just when you think you’ve reached a stalemate, fate (and a very nosy barista) throws in a twist you never saw coming.

That Tricky Hickey

Status: Completed Read here

Anonymous asked: Very specific request: Yoongi and you are into each other except he doesn't make it obvious. You guys are complete opposites (you're extroverted and emo and he's introverted and into rap). Your bff is dating Jimin. You + maknae line + Yoongi go on vacation. Long story short Yoongi gets mad that they're flirting with you and he proceeds to get drunk. The boys have to wake you up to take Yoongi to his room and put him to bed because he keeps asking for you. Yoongi asks you to sleep in his bed with him and gives you some pjs. He then starts marking your neck and confesses to liking you and you put a subtle stop to it because he is drunk and rub his back so he can fall sleep (fluff ). The next morning he sees your neck and is mortified but you decide to be bold and straddle him (whatever smut you want to write) and yeah that's pretty much it. I've never made a request before but it's my take of the classic there's only one bed to share situation :) You're very talented and I love your writing!

Nerd & Nerdier

Status: Completed

⋆.˚ Series Masterlist ⋆.˚ Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

Summary: Moving in with two introverts should have been easy. Not when it’s Min Yoongi and Jeon Wonwoo, who decide they both want you. Unhinged, awkward, and nerdy as hell, they proceed to compete for your attention in the most unnecessarily dramatic fashion that culminates into a… rap battle.

Sweet & Spicy

Status: Completed

Read here

Summary: Turns out some cravings are just so hard to ignore. Genre: Fluffy fluff, idol!au, strangers to ?, Reader is ARMY

Yet to come

Yet to come

Yet to come

Yet to come

Yet to come

Banners by the uber talented @glossdebut

[altariartx]

Ink's psychology is so interesting. Let's talk about it.

Think back on one of your core memories. You're able to associate said memory with a feeling - good or bad, right? Perhaps you're able to recall a place, too. Now, imagine being Ink. Depending on his consumption of vials, he might only recall events when those same circumstances are recreated. How difficult would that be? How feasible is it to consume an exact amount, an exact combination, at an exact place and time? This is known as state-dependent memory, something Ink is incapable of experiencing.

Memory is most effectively recalled when context matches an encoding environment. An AU carries so much variability. Factors shift at the drop of a hat, and usually, it becomes impossible to recreate a moment. Ink feels something, but is he able to internalize it as a true experience? What he processes is a mechanical mimicry of enotion. It's so easy to avoid introspection when these things pass you by so quick. It's not worth dwelling on.

On that note: Identity Diffusion. It's something I see explored infrequently, but Ink's inner struggles are so rich with potential. Who is he, really? What was he meant to be, and will he ever know? The straight answer: no. Ink was never meant to be, and it's up to him to shape his own identity. His goals and values are always changing based on external factors. What does it look like inside his mind, when he's put at odds with his sense of self? What does he believe in, and does it align with how he felt yesterday? The extent of Ink's derealization is so underutilized. When he pauses mid-sentence, disassociates when all he comes up with is null. I'd like to see Ink's thoughts on his blank state, when he's off his vials and turns to a living instinct. I see a lot of interpretations where Ink avoids his "negative feeling" vials, because it's too difficult, or not worth the hassle, or he doesn't care. But what if he did allow himself to feel the guilt and remorse? The harrowing, sinking feeling that there is no "him." He's a projection, he has no real grasp on how he behaves. It's all an illusion in the end.

Closing thought, I wonder if Ink ever experiences a form of Pavlovian Memory; emotional responses linked to stimuli in the environment. Even if he can't perfectly recreate a memory, what of his subconscious? Does he have some deep-rooted color theory going on? When he looks at a clear blue sky, does his mind's programming attempt to piece together a notion or feeling, even if he isn't on his blue vial?

I think about him a lot. I'll try to write some more of these.

[sightseertrespasser]

Odds of Survival Part 8

Per usual, the tf mecha au was spawned by @keferon

Prowl and the flyt he said he didn’t want: “It’s not an ESA, it’s a tool for detective work that runs on food and affection.”

Anyways why do pets always look like their owners?

———————————————————————

Prowl had approximately 6 breems before Elita finished cleaning her skull.

The tactician added 4 additional breems to account for time spent in adding the piece to her skull throne. On average, Elita One spent between 8 to 13 breems total on “personal art projects” as a way to unwind after intense battles.

As soon as Prowl was within comms range, he had sent an encoded message to Red Alert suggesting Breakdown intended to plant listening devices on the exterior of the Lost Light.

Nevermind the fact they were working on the same damn side.

That trick would keep the mech busy for at least 5 breem.

Typically, Prowl was the first to defend Red Alert as an invaluable head of security. His paranoia secured their defenses so well, security chief had completely countered every infiltration attempt by the Functionalists to date. That said, the price of privacy for their ship was Red Alert having a total monopoly on it instead.

The distraction was not only so Prowl could have a single minute of peace, but also to ensure the security officer did not interrogate an injured and highly unpredictable mech.

Because Jazz might actually give Red Alert a spark attack. (;7%)

Prowl tried to rub away the ache between his optics. Tacnet thrumming angrily with pent up, unfinished calculations. Most of which were completely defunct now thanks to the violator of numerical probability sitting in the medbay.

Jazz…

Fragging Jazz.

Prowl shut the door to his office. He could feel his helm getting warm again. He’d need to take what time he could to sort his processor before the logic cascades that had been accumulating since he found the mech became too much to manually keep on pause.

Luckily, the tactician had discovered a secret technique to unraveling Tacnet build up without requiring a constant cycling of industrial grade coolant.

Prowl unlocked the wardrobe-like habitat next to his desk.

A faintly cool breeze sighed from within, as the thawing process completed. Uncurling in response to the change of stimuli, a flyt woke from brumation to look at her praxian with bleary eyes.

“Hello Green.” Prowl eased a servo beneath the flyt. “we have much to discuss.”

As Green tucked herself against the ambient warmth of his frame, Prowl activated the large screen built into the adjacent wall.

“I met someone today.”

Tapping away, creating categories, connection points and theories arranged by probability, Prowl slowly filled the screen with a tree of possibilities.

All the while, conferring with Green to ensure his thoughts stayed at a conversational pace, rather than whirl through the labyrinth of his mind at breakneck speeds.

“-and then, he gave me his designation number, except it’s just a completely nonsensical string of seven numbers!”

Green squawked at the audacity of the mech.

“He did space out the numbers while reciting it. Two eight four, pause, four three four, pause, five five zero eight.” The praxian typed in the numbers, adding dashes where appropriate.

He muttered, mostly to himself, “This had better not be some sort of prank.”

As Prowl continued to verbally filter through his mental evidence locker, Tacnet finally straightened out the concrete math of the situation.

“Jazz is either an alien or a lost government experiment. Alien 57%, cybertronian 43%” The screen automatically supplied a pie chart, superseding several lesser graphs beneath it.

Prowl tilted his helm back and sighed, expelling all the hot air he’d holding behind locked vents at once.

Tacnet had finally. Finally, attached a precentiall figure to Jazz’s existence. The sheer relief of that knot untangling was better than any oil bath. Rolling his shoulders and neck, Prowl continued.

“There are two schools of thought regarding The Jazz Situation.” Prowl divided the board in two beneath the chart.

“The first, was that Jazz is a wholly alien mechanical lifeform, and it is through convergent design that he happens to closely resemble a cybertronian. Albeit with various physical abnormalities.”

Green squawked.

“Precisely. Until the language barrier is further overcome, we cannot rule out the second theory either. That Jazz is a creation of the Functionalists. It would account for the physical abnormalities while removing a significant amount of uncertainty the Alien Theory comes with.”

Prowl gathered a small bit of skitter. Green didn’t have much appetite immediately after waking, but the prospect of food still served as positive reinforcement for her “help”.

Ostensibly, caring for the flyt was supposed to take Prowls processor off of work. Jokes on his government assigned therapist, Green was a fantastic assistant and confident.

While he did care for his brothers, Smokescreen was explicitly unhelpful when Prowl latched onto something intellectually stimulating. Constantly cajoling him into going to bars or casinos or wherever else the elder Praxian considered “actually stimulating”.

And Bluestreak, meanwhile, was a mech physically incapable of keeping a secret.

“You don’t try to get me overcharged or tell everybody about the Mesothulas Incident.” The tactician cooed while scritching the underside of Greens beak.

Nevermind it was the same night.

Green trilled happily at the attention and praise, waking up more thoroughly.

“I’ll see about introducing you later. Jazz shows no discomfort concerning organics and I predict a strong likelihood he will appreciate your work.”

Just as Prowl was about to close the theory board, a comm came through, making him pause with a servo still hovering over the screen.

[VELOCITY]: Update about the patient for you sir.]

Speak not of Unicron lest he appears.

[PROWL]: Go ahead. Do you need me to come back to the medbay?]

[VELOCITY]: No, he’s not displaying any adverse behavior you warned me about. His common is very rough though and he’s definitely struggling to understand my questions and clearly articulate his answers. Outside of that, the patient seems fairly relaxed actually.]

Rough? Jazz had been making steady progress with his language acquisition. He should be capable of understanding and answering Velocity’s questions with 76% accuracy.

[PROWL]: He did suffer a helm injury, though I am certain you’ve taken that into account already.]

[VELOCITY]: I already ran a simple cognitive test and he passed without issue. I’d have to open his helm up to make sure, but he otherwise seems completely fine mentally.]

Prowl settled himself at his desk, tapping the surface absent mindedly.

[VELOCITY]: His other vitals are what concerns me however. By cybertronian medical standards, you brought me a talking corpse.]

Prowl stopped tapping.

[PROWL]: Elaborate.]

[VELOCITY]: The patient has no energon, no nanites, and no spark signature. He’s absolutely covered in the tiniest welds I’ve ever seen, which I should not be able to see if he had even 5% of the nanites a healthy mech should have.]

[PROWL]: Does he require more intensive medical treatment?]

[VELOCITY]: That’s a bit complicated to answer. He’s an alien so I’m not sure what his baseline for healthy is supposed to be. And if what you say about prior medical abuse is true, I don’t think he knows either.]

[VELOCITY]: He’s taking repairs like a champ so far. I can see he’s had a ton of previous repairs that all look clean and well executed despite being done without anesthetic.]

There are other kinds of avoidance than just physical aversion. Jazz is being compliant to get through the repairs quickly but faking confusion to avoid deeper medical questioning 88%.

[PROWL]: Unless it is to ask for consent for a procedure, you may desist questioning the patient for medical information. Rely on your own observations and expertise to form any pertinent theories.]

[VELOCITY]: Understood. The patient has turned down any deeper scans around his helm and chassis and I don’t want to push it on a first time check up. I’ve finished fixing his feet and the replacement part for his shoulder is almost done being machined.]

[VELOCITY]: I want to deal with his visor and helm sooner rather than later, but that’ll take a much more thorough scan to deal with. That’s all I have to update so far. His arm won’t heal on its own so I need to concentrate on rewiring the sensory network manually now.]

[PROWL]: Understood. Contact me immediately if anything changes.]

One more horrifying concept to add to the list. He was completely and utterly reliant on potentially manipulative doctors to fix even the most minute scraps and pains. No wonder Jazz had the pain tolerance of a Titan.

Prowl went to pull his data pad from subspace to update his Jazz Theory Board and stopped short with a full body cringe.

He gingerly took out Jazz’s missing shoulder and placed it on the table.

Prowl shuttered his optics.

The fact he forgot he had another mechs shoulder on his person was a testament to how badly he needed to defrag tonight. He briefly considered comming Velocity, but didn’t want to interrupt her operation on delicate wiring. Besides, if Jazz lacked a self repair system, then it wouldn’t matter if the piece was original or machine made.

It was such a fundamentally wrong concept, Prowl was unsure whether he’d prefer that to be Jazz’s natural state (51%) or a condition inflicted on him by whatever sadists created him (49%).

The tapping sound of beak on metal pulled Prowl back into the room.

“Green, do not.” He said sternly, lifting the flyt away from her object of fascination. She looked at him with pitifully wet eyes at the unhappy tone.

The praxians wings drooped. With some difficulty, Prowl attempted to project his EM field in something like “Your actions displeased me but I harbor no ill will towards your being. I am simply under a significant mental load and find the prospect of you attempting to eat a piece of someone’s body fairly distressing and ask that you discontinue that behavior and not act on any future impulses to put foreign objects in your mouth.”

What he got was a wobbly Meehm-blah-sorry-sad.

Flyts were supposedly capable of picking up on EM fields (12%). Prowl suspected Green was simply quite good at interpreting his body language and tone (88%).

In either case, Green responded by attempting to groom his plating, cooing softly. Organic EM fields were small and alien, but with practice and exposure one could begin to map one’s field to cybertronian equivalents. Green radiated a lightly brushing sympathy of sad and want-happy.

Prowl gave up on his field projection practice, and idly returned Greens affection with physical pets. If that damn therapist asked, he’d count it towards his quarterly goals.

That mech bothered him. Not just because he put limits on his workflow or for the one sided glaring contests Prowl would enact during their sessions. But because for the life of him Prowl could never remember his name. And that missing data point drove Tacnet crazy.

Everytime Prowl tried to investigate where the therapist even came from, something always came up distracting him from the task.

In a moment of determination, Prowl reached for his pad to look up his own therapists name on the ship’s registry and paused mid action.

The tactician turned his gaze back to the morbid weight resting on the desk.

His brow furrowed.

Lifting the piece closer (where Green couldn’t get at it), Prowl inspected something odd along the surface of the shoulder.

It looked like a row of staples protruding from the metal.

It looked like ladder rungs.

A frantic banging on Prowls door interrupted his introspection. He quickly subspaced the shoulder joint.

The indignant voice of Red Alert carried through the door, yelling to be let in immediately.

Prowl sent a few consecutive pings to clear the board, reduce interior illumination by 40% and then finally allow the chief of security entry.

Red Alert stumbled in through the sudden opening, plating misting off the residue frost formed by the chill of outer space. His optics darted rapidly around the dimmed interior, landing on the stone faced mech seated behind the desk.

Impassive and unreadable, the only signs the tactician was alive were the cold glow of his optics and the servo lightly stroking his pet. The flyts beady eyes bored into Red Alerts. Silent and unwavering.

Mouth suddenly dry, the mech was unable to form words.

The desired effect was achieved.

“I’ve been expecting you.” Prowl did not offer him a seat, as there was none to offer.

Red Alert got a hold of himself and puffed up his plating.

“Why is there an unauthorized mech on board this ship and why did I only hear about through gossip?!” Red Alert’s voice cracking the last word into a higher register.

“Jazz is authorized to be here. By me.” He offered Green a bit of skitter. “And by our captain. I found him stranded in open space after he fell out of a Quintesson gate tear.”

The smaller mech blanched slightly at the sight of an organic feeding. Prowl estimated the presence of Green would speed their meeting along by a factor of 120%.

“So you’re just bringing home random mechs then.” Red Alert flapped his arms at his sides. “How do you know he isn’t a Functionalist spy? Or a High Command spy? Or a third party spy?!”

Prowl raised a single digit. “One, Velocity has confirmed Jazz is absolutely an alien lifeform and not cybertronian in origin.” He held up a second digit. “And two, he fell out of a quintesson gate tear in the middle of empty space.”

Red Alert began to pace the room. “Okay fine. He’s not a plant for any cybertronian factions. How do you know he isn’t some kind of twisted Quintesson creation? Maybe he was created to infiltrate our ranks, and then a sleeper agent switch flips and he kills us all!”

“He is not a quintesson creation.” Prowl plainly stated to Red Alerts increasing exasperation.

“And how do you know that?!” Throwing his servos in the air.

“He likes music.”

Red Alert reset his optics. “Come again?”

Prowl cleaned off his servo with a rag in his desk, and played a low quality snippet of Jazz’s music that he’d managed to capture.

Red Alert startled at the sudden unfamiliar sound.

When actually was the last time any of them had heard new music? Before the civil war at least.

Prowl continued, “Quintessons do not value nor comprehend alien aesthetics. Their culture revolves around expansion and material acquisition and whatever may qualify as “art” to them does not equate to our understanding of it. They have absolutely no records of partaking in sound based recreation nor of collecting samples from other cultures.”

The snippet cut short. “Simply put, quintessons don’t know good music. Jazz does.”

Red Alert was loosing steam, but still had one more point to contend with.

“Isn’t just too improbable though?” Hands on the desk, leaning as close as he dared. “That out of the entirety of the universe, Jazz just so happened to pop out exactly next to the shuttle you were riding on, conveniently alone, unconscious, unharmed AND he gets picked up by high ranking decepticon?” For once, it looked less like Red Alert was fighting him, rather than pleading with him.

Prowl tilted his helm slightly, “You are correct. The odds are unfathomably low. So low in fact, it is nearly statistically impossible to achieve such a scenario on purpose.”

Quintesson gates were finicky. They had a margin of error the breadth of planets. That was also usually their targets however, and quints weren’t picky where they touched down.

“But-“

“But what? I have addressed every concern you have presented.” Prowl flared his doorwings. “I found a lost mech of a new alien species that may very well be an invaluable ally in the war against the quintessons. It’s a valuable opportunity.”

Red Alert balled his fists, fear manifesting as a last burst of rage. “It’s a trap! It’s an Oil-Pot! It is so obviously a purposeful manipulation when you look at it from the outside!”

The security officer began counting on his digits, “Step one! Put a handsome mech somewhere in need of saving so the target feels like they’re in control and the hero. Step two! Ramp up the flirting and the codependency, they need you so you stay in touch and start giving in to more of their requests. Step three! The Oil-Pot gets you alone somewhere under false pretenses where they SPLIT OPEN YOUR PROCESSOR AND SCRAPE IT FOR SECRETS!”

Red Alerts fans blasted hot air around the room. The mech challenging the Praxian for whatever excuse he had this time.

Prowl stood. Taking his time to return Green to her habitat.

“What am I most known for?”

For not the first time since entering his office, Red Alert was knocked off balance.

“I..uh. Math?” He stammered. Knowing the answer but not wanting to say it.

Prowl lacked that reservation.

“Any spy worth their shanix would have done their research thoroughly before even attempting such a scam. If one were to sift through information on me organized by Decepticons, the most prominent word would be Efficient.”

Prowl leisurely shook out Greens cloth-mop nest of any remaining ice crystals.

“If they sourced their information from the Functionalists, that description would include the word Ruthless.”

Prowl gave the flyt one last scritch before closing the door.

“Other popular words I’ve cataloged in relation to my name include Cold, Severe, Sparkless, Unfeeling and Merciless.” The smaller mech shrunk a little with every addition.

Prowl stepped around the desk in the dimly lit room to stand directly before Red Alert, servos clasped behind his back. “With this information available, any spy would be an idiot to attempt an Oil-Pot against me specifically. Ask nearly any mech aboard this ship if they think I’d go out of my way to save a stranger for no apparent benefit and they’d tell you No.”

Red Alert fiddled with his servos, torn between a nervous tick and the pressure to be professional. “If that’s all true, then.”

He chanced a glance at Prowl face, which gave away nothing. “Then why did you save him?”

“Because they are wrong.”

The room brightened back to normal levels, as Prowl sent a ping first to the lights and then to open his office door. He held out a servo, gesturing to the exit.

“Until further notice, Jazz is to be treated the same as a rescued non combatant. He will be kept under observation but not interrogation. We can work out the details at a later-“

[VELOCITY]: Jazz is gone.]

Prowl closed his servo. His doorwings twitched once. Red Alert tensed.

[VELOCITY]: I just finished the last repair and when I turned around he disappeared from the medbay. The guards outside didn’t see him.]

Prowl marched out the door, pulling Red Alert along in the direction of the security office. “I require your assistance immediately, as Jazz is currently loose somewhere on the ship, unmonitored.”

The tactician endured the security chiefs well earned tirade the entire way. Prowl kept a steely grip on the situation, only barely convincing Red Alert not to raise every alarm on the premise that Jazz would be easier to find if he didn’t think they were looking for him.

Tacnet stubbornly held onto the 56% saying Jazz was experiencing a delayed negative reaction to his medical care and was acting out of fear.

A steadily growing percentage screamed sabotage in a voice annoyingly similar to Red Alerts.

Said mech was almost cheery with vindication, in between vehemently describing every way the Lost Light could explode with the next few breems.

Red Alert worked fast. Sifting through the camera feed at a dizzying speed. A camera caught Jazz quickly slipping out of the medbay. Barely escaping the notice of the two mechs tasked with keeping watch. Prowl noted their designations for later scathing admonishment.

“The port side door lock is time stamped as malfunctioning just before Velocity discovered Jazz’s disappearance. It looks like the lock experienced an extremely localized electromagnetic pulse, putting it in Safe Mode.”

Red Alert switched the camera feeds on the main screen. “After he rounds this corner he just vanishes. I can’t find him anywhere on my system.”

Prowl nodded. “Good. Then I know exactly where he has to be.”

There were very few places to hide upon the Lost Light. Red Alert made certain of that. Which by extension meant that someone desperate to stay out of any camera views would have an extremely limited amount of space to operate in.

That space would normally be un-traversable, unless the mech in question was in possession of incredibly powerful magnetic augments, allowing them to crawl along the ceilings.

Prowl sent out a flurry of comms, updating Elita and calling in trusted reinforcements. He set out down the hall.

[PROWL]: What rooms aboard this ship do you not have any cameras inside of?]

[Red Alert]: The war room. The Captains quarters, your office, the therapists office and the operating theater.]

[PROWL]: There’s a camera in my berthroom?]

[Red Alert]: I mean. It’s not like you use it?]

Prowl consistently removed any bugging attempts in his office. Half the reason he kept Green in there was to deter Red Alert from trying. The other half was because he legitimately spent more time there than in his quarters.

He mentally crossed off his office, Elita’s quarters, the operating theater and the therapists office from the list as each one had someone inside at the time of Jazz’s disappearance.

All that left was the war room. Windowless, minimalist and with only once entrance, Jazz would be cornered like an animal in a trap.

Prowl gathered several of the least impulsive guards he could summon on short notice. Lining them along the hallway, he ordered them to shoot to disable. Prowl added that he would make an attempt to talk the mech down before escalating further.

If Jazz was spec ops (44%), the only benefit of infiltrating the war room would be to plant listening devices in its purposefully sparse interior. If Jazz wasn’t acting out of malice, and simply having a panic attack (56%), he may still react violently to suddenly being cornered.

Matchup: Close quarters fight Jazz versus Prowl. Jazz victory 97%.

The 3% in Prowls favor mostly depended on Jazz having some kind of sudden health emergency.

Prowl carefully assumed a neutral pose, knocking on the door to the war room.

“This is officer Prowl speaking. Please exit the room peacefully, we do not want to hurt you.”

Silence, save for the shifting of many nervous peds behind him. Prowl risked opening the door a crack, keeping his body well out of the line of fire. “Jazz, it is Prowl speaking. I need you to say something. Otherwise we’re going to have to come in.”

When there was still no response, Prowl signaled for the gathered soldiers to come closer in preparation for a raid.

On the silent count of three, they entered the war room, blasters drawn and optics searching.

Prowl kept special focus on the ceiling. Fanning his doorwings, He created a real time 3D map of the room, tracking every mechs movements within.

Jazz wasn’t here.

Instantly, Prowl prepared to order a ship wide mech hunt. They’d already wasted so much time with their one sided negotiations. The tactician began rerunning his mental map of where Jazz could have disappeared.

Elita had already sent him several unhappy comms messages about what she was going to do to the alien and him if Prowl didn’t find them. Confirming between threats that Jazz hadn’t gotten into her room.

Velocity had Nautica and Nightbeat in the med bay with her, turning the place upside down in case Jazz doubled back.

He found the comm line for the therapists office.

[PROWL] We have a rogue, possibly unstable mech loose within the Lost Light. Are you inside your office?]

[RUNG] Ah Prowl! Good to see you reaching out to me first for a change. Just finished up a lovely talk with Jazz.]

[RUNG] I think he has something important to tell you.]

———————————————————————

I am generally intrigued by the concept of how being apart of the Decepticon’s pecking order messes a person up.

There’s references all over to how Prowls physical and mental well being got absolutely wrecked and is now in recovery from being apart of High Command. (Inspired partially by @glitchgh0sty’s Deception AU go check ‘em out they’re cool.)

I also wanted to explore the social side of things.

Prowl makes himself unapproachable on purpose, Elita makes acts of excessive violence on her enemies a prominent display and Red Alert is even more invasive than normal.

It’s all to ward off other Decepticons from sensing weakness and stabbing them in the backs. Younger mechs like Bluestreak and Velocity can get away with being much more relaxed and friendly because they’ve got scary ass mechs like Prowl and Elita behind them radiating the “I will fucking destroy you.” energy on their behalf.

We get to see the masks slip a bit here and there. Red Alert genuinely concerned for Prowls safety underneath the paranoia. Elita gives Jazz and Prowl a lot more freedom than an actual tyrant would, even if it’s granted with over the tops threats of physical violence. And of course we see a lot of what Prowl is actually like removed from the pressure of behaving like a “proper” Decepticon.

Wonder what will happen when a certain mecha pilot gets a crowbar under those masks.

-SSTP

<- First Next ->

[funeral]

Mineralogists tell us that if you want to understand the basic structure of a crystal, you should examine the places where it is broken. . . . Traumatic experiences [break] the "crystal" of people's ongoing, otherwise cohesive lives and let in a mysterious light. The broken places or lines of cleavage represent what we call moments of dissociation, and dissociation is something the psyche does in response to trauma. In order to protect us from the full impact of experience that is unbearable, different aspects of the traumatic experience (sensation, affect, image) are fragmented, divided into compartments, and encoded in segmented "neural nets" in the brain. In this way they are prevented from joining up into a meaningful whole. After this we no longer make sense to ourselves. We can't tell our own story as a coherent narrative.

Donald Kalsched, Trauma and the Soul: A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its interruption

[pucksandpower]

So … I rarely talk about politics on here. I prefer to take action in real-life, and put my time and money where my mouth is.

But, as a medical student and a United States citizen, there are some things I need you to know.

- Unfortunately, many states have laws requiring healthcare providers ask patients about their immigration status. You do not have to answer this. Despite what is encoded into law, you will not be turned away nor reported, especially if you are seeking emergency services. Do not let fear stop you from getting the care you need, that’s what the government wants.

- An executive order has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization. While the WHO is not perfect, they are responsible for some of the most comprehensive research networks, vaccine initiatives, healthcare surveillance systems, and pandemic response protocols around the globe. Every healthcare provider and medical student I know is worried about what this means for our future and the standard of care we are able to provide nationally.

- Dismantling DEI programs only serves to hurt already marginalized communities. Contrary to what the White House claims, DEI initiatives do not allow “less qualified” applicants to enter the workforce. Instead, they provide individuals who have systematically been given less opportunities a more equitable playing field. For example, only about 6.9% of physicians identify as Hispanic and about 5.7% of physicians identify as Black or African American in the United States. This is extremely disproportionate when looking at ethnicity statistics of the country as a whole. And it largely comes down to the same root cause — lack of resources. No medical school is accepting unqualified applicants, that’s simply a fact. What DEI initiatives do promote, however, is qualified applicants to study and eventually become healthcare providers. Because guess what? Research has shown that physicians of color are most likely to practice in underserved communities and provide medical care to some of the patients who need it most.

There is so much more I want to say that can’t be adequately condensed into a short post on tumblr. But what I can do is try to do my small part in educating how current events are going to trickle down and affect national healthcare as we know it.

My comments, messages, and inbox are always open for anyone who wants to talks.

[lxgentlefolkcomic]

First page || Previous page || Next page

Start reading Episode 1

Dialogue transcripts:

Panel 1

Jonathan: My diary! You fiend!

Panel 2

Nemo: Stay your anger, Mr. Harker. I perceived you had lied to me, and for the safety of this vessel and its crew it is my responsibility to determine the truth.

Panel 3

Jonathan: The truth about what?

Nemo (offscreen): Your reasons for coming to sea, for one.

Godfrey: This is a monstrous invasion of privacy!

Panel 4

Jack: He wouldn’t be able to read it, anyway—Harker uses shorthand.

Nemo (offscreen): Yes, and wisely so. Fortunately, I have had occasion to study this form of shorthand, and was easily able to decode it.

Panel 5

Nemo: Consider the facts, Mr. Harker. I found you three in the wake of a great monster, sifting through the wreckage of its latest target. When Mr. Harker lied to me about your intentions, my suspicion was aroused.

Panel 6

Nemo: I suppose you suspected me, just as I suspected you. Yet now, with the evidence of this encoded diary you assumed would be safe from prying eyes, I am satisfied on the matter.

Panel 7

Nemo: I am sorry, Mr. Harker, that I have brought up so many unpleasant memories of this “Count”. Now that I have verified your trustworthiness, perhaps I can win your trust in return.

[thatnightlamp]

I adore Big E's cosmic ex just being So Done with his bullshit. 10/10 I would love to see him being sassed more, maybe having to begrudgingly explain what the fuck is going on

Big E and his Ex part 3

He appeared before you in a blaze of gold, armored in psychic flame and divine presence. The Warp screamed and parted around Him, reality itself unsure whether to bow or run.

You? You rolled your eyes.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Mister Universe-Build-A-Bear. You finally crawled out of your little flying coffin to talk to me like a real person?”

The Emperor didn't flinch, but you saw the slight twitch of his eyelid. That familiar muscle that used to twitch whenever you mocked his vocabulary.

“You should not be here,” He intoned, voice layered with galaxies.

“And you should’ve thought twice before starting a galaxy-wide imperialist fan club,” you shot back, arms crossed.

He sighed. Loudly. The kind of sigh that echoed through dimensions.

“This is the Great Crusade. I am unifying humanity, bringing order—”

“You’re conscripting child soldiers and setting fire to entire cultures because they use too many vowels in their dialect.”

The Emperor blinked.

“That is… an oversimplification.”

“So is calling this a ‘crusade’ instead of a bloody cosmic pissing contest.”

For a moment, just a moment, the God-Emperor of Mankind looked genuinely unsure of what to say. Not because he lacked words, he had an entire lexicon encoded in his brain, but because none of them were safe from your words.

“You always do this,” He finally said, quieter. “Make light of things that shouldn’t be.”

“You always make things that shouldn’t be. Me making light of them is the least destructive response possible.”

Behind Him, the Warp shimmered like a mirage. Shapes moved. Daemons watched from the edges, wary of both His presence… and yours.

“I didn’t want this,” He said. “I wanted peace. Unity. A future where humanity could survive what’s coming.”

“Then maybe you should’ve stayed,” you replied, not yelling, not cruel, just… tired. “You could’ve chosen a future with me. But you picked the stars. And look how well that’s going.”

He closed his eyes. For a heartbeat, the entire bridge of reality went quiet.

“I did what I had to do,” He murmured.

“And I’m doing what I have to do. Which currently includes flipping you off every time you try to turn mankind into your personal action figures.”

You smiled, wickedly.

“And by the way? Your Primarchs are dramatic as hell. I met the one with the lion hair. You raised that?”

The Emperor groaned, audibly.

[charseraph]

I couldn't find it if it's been asked before, but what is a mule/mule kick?

A semiohazard is deleterious information that can be encoded into any stimulus. A tripwire is the medium that a semiohazard occupies, whether it’s a precise sight, sound, temperature sequence, or an injected thought. A mulekick is the effect of perceiving a hazard, ranging in severity from dizziness, to unconsciousness, to autoimmune response, to mind death. A mule can reproduce a predetermined semiohazard with its body. They are like walking bombs.

Whether a mule is immune to its own kick depends on how worthwhile their deployer deems the mule’s survival or reuse. Some mules are not immune, so when they detonate their semiohazard, they mulekick themselves and anyone who witnesses them. Some mules are immune for reasons I’ll describe, and they can be reused after detonation.

A mule can either be an organism (an animal/human, plant, microbe) or a seedlet (conscious artificial intelligence).

There are four methods to mitigating a semiohazard:

Having…

Fewer senses to perceive the semiohazard in the first place

More acidic whiterooms (mental immune system)

Slower clockspeed (cognition rate)

Fewer life systems vulnerable to mulekick (typically this means using a seedlet instead of a human since seedlets don’t have organs that can be shut off)

Seedlets are uniquely suited to deal in semiohazards. However, a human can don sensory cancellation apparel, be nootically subtracted (cognitively engineered before embryonic development) to have a slower clockspeed and potent whiteroom, have mulekick-vulnerable organs artifically replaced, and/or be born without certain senses at all (blind/deaf/anosmic/anaptic). These are called lightfooted soldiers since they don’t “trip wires.”

Slower clockspeed can only be created prenatally. It can either be fixed (clunky but consistent) or toggleable (finicky but versatile). Clockspeed can only be slowed, not quickened.

Some clockspeeds have an oscillating or randomized walk to disarm timing-based tripwires. In other words, the perceiver’s sense of time is warped, eliminating the threat of a hazard that needs to be perceived in exact sequence.

Having a slower rate at ingesting information allows a person’s whiteroom or accompanying mustard (a seedlet specialized in detecting/filtering semiohazards) to find and eliminate the hazard before it mulekicks the perceiver.

Lightfooted soldiers and semiotic disposal technicians can get away with preserving some of their senses when handling hazards. This is until the far future discovery of the theoretical universal silencer, or UNISILE, a semiohazard capable of killing organics and seedlets by targeting the anima, or measurable soul, via a minimally complex tripwire.

But they don’t have to worry about that right now.