Three Square Meals Ch. 062

"Sakura! Are you wrecking my garage again?" her father called to her from his study. She heard his desk-chair rolling back, and he appeared in the door, sitting on his chair with a stern look on his face.

"No, Daddy," she replied, rolling her eyes.

She was never going to make it to her first lecture this morning, and Professor Stevens didn't take kindly to students skipping classes. Rushing over to her father, she leaned over to give him a quick hug, and a peck on the cheek. Sakura ran back to the door into the garage, glancing over her shoulder at her father before diving through. His stern expression had softened, and he was smiling at her proudly as he watched her leave.

"Love you, Dad!" she called out to him, as she disappeared into the garage.

Her red and white Matsubara 1200 was her pride and joy, a present from her parents when she'd been accepted to Devonshire University to study Law. The prestigious bastion of higher learning was renowned for its legal department, producing some of the finest legal minds in the Terran Federation. She stuck her hand in the pocket of her leather jacket, fumbled for the remote for a second, then pressed the button to open the garage door.

As the door began to smoothly lift into the roof, she strode past her mother's luxury saloon, and her father's sporty red supercar, or the 'mid-life crisis mobile' as her mother called it. She jumped onto the back of the Matsubara, then started the engine of her hoverbike, and grinned as it came to life with a throaty rumble. The anti-grav cyclics began to whir as they came online, and Sakura picked up the helmet from the back of the bike and pulled it on. She revved the throttle and released the brake, launching the hoverbike out of the garage.

There was a big steel-grey hovervan parked just down the street from her parents' house, and she swung around it so that she could centre herself in the road. Resisting the urge to whoop out loud from the thrill of the ferocious acceleration, she soared up into the practically empty skylane, and raced for Elizabethtown in southern New Eden.

It was an absolutely beautiful morning, with only a few white fluffy clouds in the beautiful clear blue sky. The sun was warm and bright, and Sakura felt gloriously happy to be alive.

***

Alyssa felt the memory fading around her, and she felt a little disorientated at first, until it had completely receded. Turning to look at the ghostly apparition in confusion, she was surprised to see that it had moved on, and was now standing by another memory further up the branches of this cluster. The path that led there was a murky brown, which Alyssa knew meant disgust and horror.

She approached the next memory warily, and stopped in front of it, before turning to look at the emaciated wraith. The shade had an agonised expression on her face as she turned to point at the next memory, and the look of abject misery made Alyssa's heart ache. She knew this was going to be bad, and she braced herself for what the next memory had in store for the cheerful young woman named Sakura.

***

The cloudy memory swept out, enveloping Alyssa in its ephemeral grasp, and she felt herself becoming deeply immersed in it, just like the last one.

Sakura shot through the air on the back of her hoverbike, hunching down low to go even faster. She glanced in her wing-mirror before pulling out to overtake a slow moving freight-hauler, and was surprised to see the big steel-grey hovervan again in her mirror. It was some distance behind her, but it must have been in a real hurry to get somewhere if it was going as fast as she was! She smiled to herself, and wondered if the driver of the van was worried about upsetting Professor Stevens as well.

Tearing along the deserted skylane, she had a beautiful view over the lush green fields and forests of New Eden. She knew she was lucky to be living on such a gorgeous planet, and the classification of 'Paradise World' was well earned. Her father was certainly wealthy enough to live here, being a successful Executive at Lombardo Enterprises, one of the mega-corporations that made up the Fortune 500. Still, compared to the obscenely wealthy billionaires that lived here, her father was a small fish in a big pond.

A trail of smoke up ahead drew her attention, and she narrowed her eyes to see if she could make out what had happened. Accidents with hover vehicles were fortunately very rare, but blowing a couple of anti-grav cyclics at the same time could mean a very nasty crash, especially considering the sky-lanes started at two-hundred-feet above ground.

She slowed down as she drew closer, eventually getting a clearer look at the source of all the smoke, and Sakura breathed a huge sigh of relief. The greasy black smoke wasn't coming from the shattered remnants of a crashed vehicle. Instead, smoke was pouring from the engine of an otherwise intact blue hovercar, and a man was standing beside it waving at her frantically.

Figuring she had no chance of making Professor Stevens' lecture now anyway, she decelerated further, and gently descended on her bike. It didn't take her long to drop down to ground level, and she landed a few feet away from the stranded man and his smoking hovercar.

"Hey, are you alright?" Sakura asked him with a worried frown. She pulled off her helmet and shook her hair free.

The man was in his early thirties with a neatly trimmed goatee, and he looked greatly relieved to see her. He smiled as he said, "My engine ruptured its coolant system I think, but I've lost all power, so I can't call it in to my breakdown service." He looked around him at the lush green fields as far as the eye could see, and added, "It's probably miles to the nearest home, so thanks for stopping, I didn't fancy walking for help!"

Sakura laughed, and said, "Don't worry, I can call it in for you. What's the number for your breakdown company?"

"I've got it here in my wallet," he said as he walked over to her, reaching into his coat.

The sound of anti-grav cyclics from a descending vehicle made Sakura turn around curiously, and she saw the same steel-grey hovervan gliding down to join them. "That was nice of them to stop," she said over her shoulder to the man. "They looked like they were in a hurry."

"Bzzzttt," went the stun-prod as the man jabbed her in the back with it.

She toppled off her bike, falling in a boneless heap on the grass. Being shocked by the stun-prod had hurt like hell, but Sakura was still conscious as she lay on the ground. She could see her assailant now, standing over her with the debilitating weapon in his hand, the metal prongs still sparking with electricity. Once the shock had worn off, she tried to crawl away, but her body wasn't responding to her desperate efforts to move.

Footsteps approached from behind her, and she heard the man she'd tried to help say, "Nice timing. Let's get her in the van."

A feeling of cold dread settled on her chest as she realised this had all been planned, and she had fallen right into their trap. She tried to wriggle free as two of the men scooped her up in their arms, but all she could manage was a weak moan, as they carefully carried her to the big grey van. A sliding door panel was swung open, and the two men placed her on the floor as the other one produced a pair of hand restraints that he locked into place around her wrists.

"Fuck, she's gorgeous..." one of the men muttered, his creepy voice filled with longing, as his hand lingered on her calf and slid slowly up her leg.

"Don't get any dumb ideas," the first man snapped. "He picked her out specifically, and we're getting paid a lot of money for this."

Sakura wasn't sure if she should be relieved or even more worried when she heard that. The van door slid closed, shutting out the bright morning sun, and casting her into darkness. A few seconds later she heard anti-grav cyclics kicking in, and the van lifted off the ground.

The third man spoke up for the first time, a sinister catch to his voice as he said, "If we're careful with her, and clean her up afterwards, he'd never know."

"I've never fucked an Oriental before," the creepy man said eagerly. "Come on! She's smoking hot, you can't pass this up!"

The man she'd tried to help mulled it over for a while, and Sakura lay there, her heart gripped with fear as he decided her fate.

"Alright, but I go first," he finally decided, and she could hear the unsavoury hunger in his voice.

She wanted to scream in horror, but the stun-prod had done its work, and all she could do was lie helplessly on the floor.

"Fine by me," the sinister man agreed. "I want to break in that tight little ass..."

A single tear welled up in Sakura's right eye, then rolled down her cheek as the creepy man began tugging down her biker leathers.

***

Alyssa forcibly yanked herself out of the memory with a powerful surge of willpower. She knew that terrible memory wasn't going to end anytime soon, and while her heart was full of pity for the poor girl, she had no desire to experience a gang rape. It was all a little too close for comfort with her own sordid experiences back on Karron.

When the cloudy memory had receded, she looked around for Sakura's ghost, but she'd already moved further up the branch and was standing by another memory. The path to this memory was stained with a deep purple, which Alyssa somehow knew represented a soul-crushing feeling of grief and loss.

Ignoring the memory for a moment, Alyssa turned towards the spirit, and said quietly, "What happened to you was truly awful, and I'm so sorry that you experienced that. It still doesn't excuse what you did to us, or all the terrible murders you've committed."

The ethereal guide stared at her for a long moment, then turned towards the memory, pointing towards it with a gaunt finger. Alyssa studied the deathly pale figure, but it made no effort to look back at her again; instead Sakura's spirit was transfixed by the next memory, staring at it intently.

With a sigh, Alyssa girded herself, and stepped up to the next memory, expecting some more horrific recollections. The swirling memory reached out to embrace her, and events began to play back as Alyssa watched, feeling everything that the girl had felt.

***

Sakura groaned in pain, unable to move because of the restraints, and she shivered on the cold, hard surface she was lying on. The gang rape in the van hadn't been the only time her captors had abused her, and twice more she'd been subjected to the three men's attention. Her body felt sore, completely unused to being taken like that in either way, and she whimpered dejectedly as she tried to shut out the horrible memories.

The abuse had stopped earlier that morning, and they'd cleaned her up in the shower, preparing her for the handover to their client. She overheard one of the men saying that they'd nearly arrived at the transfer point, and that they'd be handing her over later that afternoon, which was how she found herself strapped to this cold metal table.

She'd been left there for nearly an hour, and she was terrified at the thought of what might await her now. One of the men had said that this 'client' had picked her out specifically, and after what she'd just been through, she could only imagine one reason why that would be. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she began to cry, devastated by the horrid fate that had befallen her. She'd always imagined she would meet a kind, handsome boy, and her first time would be loving and gentle, just as her best friend Tina had described her first experience. Not in the back of a van, gang raped by depraved criminals.

A sudden noise on the other side of the room stopped her muted sobs, and new pangs of fear clutched at her heart as she realised the door had opened. Light footsteps echoed around the room, bringing her captor ever closer. Her fear mounted with every step, and she craned her neck, desperate to see the man who'd ordered her capture. There were spotlights in the room, and they made it difficult to make out the features of the man standing at her side.

She had no trouble hearing him though as he murmured, "Just as I'd always imagined. Absolutely perfect..."

Summoning every scrap of courage she had, Sakura managed to gasp, "Please let me go! I promise I won't say anything!"

The man didn't reply for a long moment, but he glided around the table, leaning in close towards her face and blocking out the spotlight behind him. "You won't be going anywhere, Shinatobe, you are mine now," he said in a chilling voice, which was made all the more sinister by the undercurrent of excitement.

"My name's Sakura, not Shinatobe!" she blurted out. "Please, I'll do anything you want, just let me go back home!"

He leaned closer, and she could see him clearly now. The man was Asian like her, and handsome, with his clean shaven face and short black hair. She stared into his brown eyes, searching for a spark of humanity that she could connect with, looking for some hint of compassion she could reach out to.

Although his eyes were a lovely rich dark-brown, now that he was close enough for her to get a good look at his face, she shuddered as she gazed at those uncaring orbs. There was no mercy to be found in his unwavering gaze, or any other sign of humanity for that matter. She had to look away, no longer able to bear that dreadful sight any longer.

"You are home..." he whispered to her, before standing up straight and snapping his fingers.

Two orderlies moved around the table, and began to push it out of the room, suddenly alerting Sakura to the fact that she was on a wheeled table of some kind. Strapped down to the table as she was, the girl could only stare up at the ceiling lights as they flashed by overhead, her mind filled with an ominous sense of foreboding.

Her nerves were fraught when they finally wheeled her into another room, and she grew deathly afraid when she realised she was in some kind of operating theatre. Twisting her head to one side, she saw rows of sinister metal operating instruments on a table, and sitting on a sterilised surgical tray, two human eyeballs stared back at her.

She only stopped screaming in terror when the doctor gave her a powerful sedative to knock her out.

***

Alyssa jerked out of the memory, shuddering with fear as the emotions she'd experienced slowly washed off her. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and she bent over as she drew several deep breaths, before she remembered she was in the Astral Plane, and the physical needs of her body didn't apply here. Straightening up, she calmed herself, then looked around for her ghostly companion. The spirit of Sakura had moved on, and was standing by one final memory, the pathway to which was a cold, bleak, black.

Alyssa walked over to the final memory, and staring at the drawn, grief-stricken figure who was standing beside it. Her tone was full of sympathy as she simply said, "I'm sorry."

The mournful spectre nodded once, then pointed at the last memory on this branch. Shivering involuntarily, Alyssa turned to the final memory, and didn't shrink back as it slowly enveloped her.

***

Sakura let out a low groan as the shadowy haze from the anaesthetic faded from her. Her entire body was a mask of pain, and she wanted to scream out in agony, but even drawing the breath to do so would have been too hard. She opened her eyes and then immediately regretted it, blinking in the harsh glare from the spotlights.

"Rise, Shinatobe," a cold voice said, and she immediately recognised it as belonging to her captor.

All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball and die, but she found herself sitting up, then turning to dangle her legs over the edge of the hospital bed she was sitting on. Sakura was drowsy and distracted by the pain, but she knew that something was dreadfully wrong when she hopped off the bed without consciously willing her body to do so.

"Very good. Now come to me," the man said, and she felt herself gliding over to him.

Sakura felt a chilling surge of horror threaten to overwhelm her as she realised she was no longer in control of her body. She actively railed against following his command now, desperately trying to turn around and flee from the man. However it made no difference, and she found herself marching over to him obediently, rushing to follow his commands like a lemming eager to throw itself off a cliff.

"All the augmentations for phase one have been installed," a man in surgical scrubs announced clinically, as he walked over to join her captor.

Her captor smiled wickedly, and said, "We must begin phase two immediately. I don't wish to waste any time!"

The doctor looked like he was going to object, but he nodded deferentially instead, and said, "Hai, Idaina-sha."

Her captor greeted her with a gloating smile that didn't reach his eyes, and said, "My name is Amatsu Mikaboshi, but you may address me as Idaina-sha, which means 'Great One', my glorious Shinatobe."

Sakura wanted to fervently object to the name he insisted on calling her, but she was unable to do anything except stand there mutely and stare at him. It therefore came as a terrible shock when she heard herself murmur with respect, "Hai, Idaina-sha."

"Come and look at your magnificent new physique," he said, encouraging her to join him with an insistent wave of his right hand.

She padded towards him, and he stepped to the side, revealing a long mirror behind him. What she saw there chilled her to the bone, and she began to scream, or at least she tried to, but her mind was now a powerless captive in a prison of flesh and metal.

***

Alyssa lurched out of the dream, and snapped herself out of Sakura's mind, too disturbed by what she'd seen to stay in that horrifying place a moment longer. She rushed back to her body, slamming her ethereal form back into her physical one. It was a blessed relief to be back in her own body again, and she drew in a big lungful of wonderfully fresh air before opening her eyes.

"What happened?!" John asked in alarm, seeing the look of shock on Alyssa's face.

The blonde girl stared at the assassin for a long moment, before her horrified gaze finally settled on John. "We have to help her..." she pleaded with him, her voice throbbing with emotion.

After the initial surprise had worn off, Dana snorted in anger, "You've got to be fucking kidding! That thing broke my ankle, hurt Rachel and Irillith, sliced up John, blew up Calara's hand, and -killed- Jade! No fucking chance!"

Letting out a troubled sigh, Alyssa replied, "She didn't choose any of this, it was all done to her. Sakura's a victim of the Master Assassin, and she's been suffering for decades."

John put his arm around her, comforting the unsettled young woman, and said quietly, "You better tell us who this Sakura is, and what you found out in there."

Alyssa nodded, then began to recount everything she'd learned from the tragic woman's mind, giving them every horrific detail. By the time she was done, her audience was as badly shaken as she was.

"She's been enslaved, just like I was," Jade said softly, her expression full of compassion.

Irillith nodded, and said, "This all sounds exactly like the Maliri tech I mentioned earlier. I'm sure you can see why creating unquestioning cyborg assassins appealed to unscrupulous Matriarchs."

Calara was standing there quietly, and she murmured, "I thought I'd had it bad being captured by those pirates, but the things this girl has endured... How can people be so cruel?"

Dana had unfolded her defiantly crossed arms, and she sighed before looking at John, then said in a sombre voice, "Forget what I said earlier. I agree with Alyssa, I think we should help her."

John locked eyes with Rachel, and asked, "Can we help her? Are you able to get all that shit out of her body?"