Be Prepared - For Anything

I howl with pain despite implants trying to suppress the signals.

I also feel the edge of arousal dimming quickly, which lets more pain through but is a reprieve I am deeply grateful for.

Oh, that's right. I have implants that process drugs. Not quickly, and they only work on blood flowing through them, but it's a start.

I manage to flop around to face the pool, and get my head over the edge to drink. I have no idea what's in the pool, but at the moment I don't care. It can't be poisonous or I'd be dead by now, and if it's nutritious, well, that's just a bonus, isn't it?

It tastes like a swamp, but I suck up water until my belly is beginning to hurt from stretching, and I still feel dehydrated, my throat in agony and my headache galloping right on in. My arousal climbs again.

Oh, for fuck sake, if that creature generates stimulants, I just drank them, didn't I?

But I manage to keep my hands off myself, if only barely.

The water helps revive me, though. And the surface of the pool stays unrippled. The monster really must be well controlled.

I manage to crawl towards the door. I think I might be able to stand up, but crawling is good. Crawling doesn't force my heart to push blood too far uphill. Crawling exercises my arms.

When I lift my head to look around blearily, there are no weapons I can see from this posture. Dammit.

I hear footsteps, then the door opens.

His knee makes a really nice cracking sound when a palm-heel strike bends it backwards.

Luckily he's not even remotely a fighter, so he's completely clueless, totally disarmed by pain, and doesn't even try to fight back or press any buttons to activate the creature, or anything at all.

So I have time to grab his leg as he falls, groin-punch him, then get myself into a position behind him to put him in a choke hold until he stops struggling. My arms are little better than wet noodles but, on the plus side, so are his.

Pressing against him feels far too good, with my breasts squashed against his back and my groin pressing into part of his hip, and I'm gasping and wanting to come while he's writhing against me, which almost pushes me over the edge, and I am putting every bit of concentration I have into not releasing my arms.

When I realise he's dead, the relief tips me over the edge and I gasp out another orgasm while clenching around the body of a dead man.

Keep moving. Keep going. With badly shaking hands, I take his remote-control tablet thing. I take his pass, and I take a set of keys. He's not carrying anything else in his pockets. I don't have the time, let alone the energy, to explore his office. When I interrogate my implants for the time, I get a spike of panic that almost gives me more energy.

Unbelievably, my clothes are lying in a heap in the room holding the pool.

The creature stays dormant, but I grab all my clothes and haul them outside, shutting the door before dressing.

I have no idea where the rest of my kit got to, and I have no time to find out.

At this point, there's no point trying to hide from any cameras, so I go straight back through the loading bay, where a small but fancy car is parked. Getting there takes forever.

I'm beginning to move reasonably well again, so I think there's a chance I can make a break for it if necessary, but hey, there's a car!

Sure enough, I find the right remote on fuck-face's keyring. The car has a remote for the warehouse doors.

The car has the acceleration of a fat asthmatic, but it also has darkened windows.

When I get back home, after first ditching the car a long way away, it's midday and I am ready to kill anybody who gets between me and a good 12 hours of sleep. I got street food twice but I'm still ravenously hungry, and there is no part of me that does not ache. Walking normally was agony.

But there is one thing I have to do first.

It takes half an hour for my virus scanner to clear all my implants, then I plug in my server to download everything I have in my head.

It takes a few tries to get a connection, but I manage it.

It's all about preparation, see. My implants won't accept any connection request if I'm in a mental state associated with poor judgement. If I'm more than just a little bit aroused, in pain, scared, or panicked—they're deadlocked no matter how nicely I ask. I have to be calm, in an almost meditative state, to connect.

I feel a huge sense of relief when the download finishes and I disconnect. That's a huge payday I'm still going to collect on.

Without rule one, it wouldn't be happening at all.