6 – Entrenched

After their train ride, the misanthropic trio of Doctor, Hippo, and Hippo took a banana-colored cab to their final destination, a gunmetal skyscraper that disappeared into the sky, its top floor far beyond the cloud line. In the lobby, a dark haired receptionist with tight features led them to an elevator that was supposed to carry them down to their quarters. Dr. Hadjaz thought the idea of underground quarters was strange, but didn’t mention anything to his companions. They weren’t the type to exchange words, built like boulders and just as silent. The Good Doctor soon realized that the tall edifice launched into the sky was just a show for simple-minded passers-by.

Once it had descended a few hundred yards, the lift opened and its inhabitants spilled out into a large, cavernous amphitheater. A fifty-yard movie screen was hung like a portal above sprawling stage. At least thirty rows of black pleather chairs were tiered such that there was not a bad seat in the house. The “house” was more like a bunker; a whole regiment could have sat comfortably in the available seats. Less than a minute after the trio’s arrival, a video began to play, projected from some invisible source. Trumpets blared a heroic fanfare as the lights dimmed and the secretary ushered her wards to their seats.

A deep, excited voice filled the air; it sounded like it belonged to a radio jockey, intensely aroused by the next song he was going to play. “Welcome, friends, to Epitaph Industries! Congratulations on your new positions!” The screen was filled with cartoons of smiling children, dancing dogs, and expensive houses. The children were merrily dancing and singing some gibberish lyrics while the dogs wagged their tails politely. “Here at EI, we only accept the most qualified candidates for careers under our roof. That’s right, I’m talking about you! You’re the best people to help us reach the stars and make our dreams reality! Always remember, our goals are the people’s goals, and the people’s goal is freedom. Freedom to be born the way they want, to live the way they want, and to die the way they want.”

Suddenly, the horny fanfares screeched to a halt. The children on the screen stopped singing and looked upwards at some distraction yet invisible to the audience. Their faces were masks of fear, stuck the way their mothers always teased them they might freeze. “There are forces at play that want to end this way of life, our sacred right as human beings!” A giant globe fell from the sky, sending the children into a tizzy as they tried to escape; the dogs went mad, snapping at each other and all the children, non-discriminately. More than a few tykes and pups were crushed as the great sphere bounced around the screen, homing in on anything that moved. The globe bore the emblem from the Hegemon’s family crest.

Very subtle, Dr. Hadjaz thought. He glanced over at his companions. The Hippos stared blankly at the movie with content smiles on their mirrored faces, unfazed by the strangeness of the situation. They seemed to think this screening to be a very agreeable welcoming party.

The video continued for several more minutes like a fugue, emphatically repeating its theme. The screen showed a variety of scenes, all involving happy people and their animal friends. Every scene portrayed some utopian ideal being destroyed; things looked idyllic for a moment, but the bouncing Hegemon ball would stop by and ruin everything for everybody. Meanwhile, the announcer’s voice babbled on about the noble aspirations of Epitaph Industries and how, through their valiant efforts, they would change the world to a better place, where free will was truly free for every person. There was no mention of the game Anonymous, no mention of the grand prize, and no mention of the lives that would be destroyed as a result of the EI’s actions.

Dr. Hadjaz couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this video and one of the old conscription propaganda tapes. In the era just before the formation of the Hegemony, when humanity was on the brink of destroying itself, these types of videos were very common. They were used to promote patriotism and instill hope in countries razed by weapons and soiled by plagues, a last ditch effort to revitalize comatose societies.  Lots of bright colors and noises distracted from the real meaning behind the film: welcome to the war party, don’t forget to check your hat.

After a hapless poodle was rolled into a pancake, the video drew to a close but the announcer would not let his audience leave quite yet. “Please stay seated for a word from your employer!”

In silence, on a white background, bold, black words of the Epitaph appeared on the screen:

WELCOME. I AM SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WERE EACH CHOSEN TO PLAY THIS GAME. I DON’T NEED TO HOLD YOUR HANDS. THIS INITIATION CEREMONY WAS JUST A FORMALITY FOR LESSER HENCHMEN. MINIONS OF COMMON CALIBER.

JUST GET BUSY AND CREATE SOME CHAOS. I WILL SEND YOU MISSIONS PERIODICALLY, BUT FOR NOW JUST KEEP ON DOING WHAT YOU DO BEST. WHEN I RELIEVE THE HEGEMON OF HIS DUTIES, YOUR REWARDS WILL BE MERIT BASED.

ALSO, HIPPOS, JUST GIVE THE SCIENTIST A CHANCE FOR ME. HE’S A NERD, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

————–

It wasn’t long before Dr. Hadjaz realized his instincts were correct; he was entrenched in a war where his knowledge was the most powerful weapon.

Two weeks into their habitation in the underground lair, Dr. Hadjaz and the Hippos still hadn’t met with the Epitaph, face to face. The Doctor surmised that they never would. The Epitaph only communicated through typed messages; he was achingly careful not to give away any trace of his identity. He managed all his employees by sending orders at the beginning of each day. At the end of the day, he would release a report on how much chaos had been generated by Epitaph Industries and how much overtime would have to be worked over the weekend. Because he was a high-clearance employee, Dr. Hadjaz also received reports about the attacks on EI outposts in other countries. The other Anonymous players would stop at nothing to win.

The Doctor hadn’t realized the extent to which Epitaph Industries permeated the world. It had nearly one two million total employees causing chaos throughout the globe. No part of the Hegemony was left untouched by EI. No depth of ocean was left unsplashed, no dark crevasse unspelunked. If it weren’t spread so thinly with so many enemies, the corporation could have easily declared itself a sovereign nation.

Despite his aloofness, the Epitaph turned out to be a very generous employer. Dr. Hadjaz’s location, the EI Eastern European headquarters, was equipped with a complete laboratory, outfitted with the most advanced instruments for every test imaginable and then some. He also provided a near limitless expense account, in case anything unforeseen was required, for any reason. Everything was just as Dr. Hadjaz had hoped it would be; he had found an elysian neighborhood, just like the children from the initiation videos. However, though The Good Doctor was given free reign to experiment as he liked, the Epitaph had very specific needs for the immediate future.

The Doctor’s first objectives were to analyze the bifurcation serum, replicate it, and, ultimately, find an extremely chaotic use for it.

The first task yielded surprising results, almost immediately. The liquid in the syringe was less a serum and more an automated modeling kit. It was comprised of complex nanomachines and a superdense blend of common biological molecules and stem cells. The nanobots were programmed to take a reading of the subject’s DNA, estimate his age from genetic decay, and using that data, sculpt a clone from the superdense material. It was a simple concept to create a complex organism; the Doctor wouldn’t have believed it worked, but he’d seen it do magic before his own eyes.

Once Dr. Hadjaz had extracted the code from the nanobots, it took him only three days to completely recreate the serum. An extreme anal-retentive, by this time the Doctor had already optimized his daily work schedule. He allotted one hour sleeping at midnight, spent the next ten hours working, slept one hour at noon, and used his remaining ten hours to work through the night. He reserved one hour for leisure time during each work cycles immediately before his rest time; he realized the importance of diverting his attention to other tasks so that his subconscious could work on solving problems, too.

Improving the serum proved to be a trickier task that he had anticipated. The code inside the nanomachines proved to be incredibly intricate; Dr. Hadjaz realized it would be extremely tedious to try and get a good understanding of their basic functions before experimentation. Tedium wasn’t his area of expertise; he preferred a blind shotgun analysis. A few test injections of modified code were horrible disasters. In his first batch of test subjects, one monkey was duplicated with a second head right above his buttocks; another duplication resulted in siamese triplets, forming a triangle walled by their merged arms.

Almost all the functions in the code used recursion to call on other functions, so changing a single variable or constant would result in drastic changes of output. He wanted to ask other scientists for advice, but they were too absorbed in their own research to care.

Self-important bastards! Dr. Hadjaz thought. Your research is hardly as vital as mine! Ha! It’s not like you’d have been able to solve my problems anyway.

Dr. Hadjaz’s silent, gargantuan partners weren’t particularly helpful either. In fact, they were often more frustrating than his academic colleagues. The Doctor’s hypnosis technique had long since worn off and the device couldn’t be used on the same victim a second time. That victim would more than likely punch the Doctor in the neck before he could flip the switch. The Hippo Twins would only take orders directly from the Epitaph himself; the Doctor couldn’t ask them to do anything himself unless he could get the Epitaph’s approval to back him. Nor could he ask them for advice in his research because they were simpletons, at best.

The Hippos were inseparable. Either all of their missions were two man jobs or the Epitaph was a huge fan of overkill. They made a deadly team that was dangerously close. When cooperating, they acted like a single organism with more than double the destructive force of one Hippo on his own. If the Hippos weren’t away on a mission, the assassin pair spent their days engaged in furious chess matches that almost always ended in stalemate.  If either of them actually won a round, the other would accuse him of cheating and go sulk by himself for a while. The Doctor guessed the feelings were fleeting because the duo would end up in a heated rematch only minutes later. Despite being such efficient killing machines, the Hippos would never hurt each other.

The Doctor wondered how long their relationship would last.

Though the Twins shared the same exterior and a love of crushing spines, they were not exact doppelgangers. An Epitaph mandated brain scan of Hippo Number Two revealed that, even though his body’s sculpting was complete, the nanobot sculptors still remained in the clone. Instead of a fully-functional, human brain, the robots built a specialized organ in the cranial cavity. This pseudo-brain had special receptors for the nanobots, allowing them to dock safely and communicate between one another, providing a form of temporary consciousness. They seemed to be tweaking Hippo Number Two’s brain, programming their host with an incredibly diverse knowledge of worldly data and quirky personality traits. It wouldn’t be long until Hippo Two became a walking encyclopedia, a braniac with two weapons of mass destruction on the tips of his arms.

Dr. Hadjaz worried that Hippo Number Two would even outstrip his own prized intellectual aspect. He wasn’t progressing quickly enough on his assignment to suit his tastes, though the Epitaph himself hadn’t made such exacting demands. His over-clocked brain began to fear for his career and personal safety. This super-clone could easily replace him given enough time! Hadjaz’s worry quickly turned to fear and the fear evolved to panic. So, the Good Doctor did what any irrational being would do in his situation, he injected himself with serum and passed out in his sorely neglected bed.

4 – Cunnilingus

As he regained consciousness, Petyr briefly thought that he had died and gone to heaven. Despite his years of atheistic fervor, he had managed to arrive at nirvana. His vision was swirling with images of beautiful women, all beckoning him nearer with sparkling, doe eyes. His own eyes had turned into kaleidoscopes; repeating images of the women spiraled into the distance, as far as he could see. He gathered his strength and tried to skip toward the gorgeous females, but his arms were yanked back before he could finish his first hop.
That harsh jerk forced dreamy visions to fade into a much harsher reality. Cold, metal shackles adorned Petyr’s wrists, securely attaching him to sturdy rings in the stone wall behind him; the rings were located at shoulder height, trapping his arms perpendicular to his body. A sharp pain pierced his senses like an infant on an airplane, its epicenter on his breast. He looked down to see two metal clamps, one attached to each nipple; the clamps were also equipped with wires running up into the ceiling above him.
The infinite fractal of spiraling beauty began to settle down; thousands of sultry faces congealed onto one seductive body. Petyr recognized the figure of his captor immediately; her silhouette informed him that his notion of a heavenly future couldn’t be further from his present situation.
The tall, scathingly clothed woman stepped closer to her captive, shifting her hips like a horse in heat. She was wearing a red leather one-piece that stopped short, halfway down her thighs; the neckline dipped low, almost down to her waistline, exposing ample cleavage. Her bosom might have fallen out, but six small buckles, evenly spaced, attached the sides of the swooping neckline. Black combat boots with four-inch heels gave her an exceedingly overwhelming, but undeserved air of authority.
“Dear god or whoever,” Petyr mumbled, “Why couldn’t you have just let me die?”
“Vell, vell, look who has voken up. Is naptime over, my little raccoon dog? Are you ready to play vith me?”
Petyr sighed and spoke, his voice monotonous like a lonely robot. “No, mistress. I’m not in a playful mood today. I’m glad to see you’re still keeping things business casual.”
The Dom Com, sometimes called the Himalayan Minx, unveiled a wide, sharp grin. She had finally caught her prized quarry after months of failed attempts. Little was known about the voluptuous mercenary, other than her penchant for wearing leather, her Eurasian origin, and her extremely sadistic tendencies. A prominent Anonymous player known as the Bullmoose had hired her as an assassin, but the Dom Com’s objective in Anonymous was not to help him win the game. Instead, her goal was to force others to lose. Nothing ignited her pleasure center like breaking an opponent’s will, cracking them like a raw egg and sucking out the insides. If she were in an especially good mood, there would be beating and whipping of the eggs. The Dom Com used an encyclopedic knowledge of torture techniques to interrogate her captives. After her violent thirst was quenched, she would force her prisoners to reveal their names and disqualify them from the game. Her tactics were quick and dirty, much like the woman herself. She and Petyr had a special relationship; he was certain that she had special treats waiting to surprise him.
“Can we just get this started aleady?” Petyr asked. “I’ve got an appointment with my dentist tomorrow. I’m pretty excited about this root canal we’ve got planned.”
“Oh, silly boy, ve can call him up and reschedule,” the Dom Com said, tying her hair up in a short bun. “I’ve been vaiting so long to catch up vith you! I’m sure you’ve got a lot to tell me.”
The Dom Com had been tracking Petyr for over nine months. They had first met on assignment, their missions at odds with one another. Petyr had been sent by the Minotaur to capture a genetically-engineered, super chimpanzee from a research facility; the Com had been sent to erase it. Petyr managed to sneak the ape away safely by disguising it as a janitor. From that day forth, the sultry assassin had sworn to achieve vengeance. Every month or so, they would find themselves at odds once more and again Petyr would use his superior tactics to outmaneuver her. She never surrendered, and her day for revenge had come at last.
Petyr winced. He must have been unconscious a long while for her to catch him so easily. That meant the briefcase, the mission, and his life, were all forfeit. His embarrassment must have shown all over his face, because the Dom Com walked over and pinched his cheeks into a smile.
“No, no. Ve can’t have you being so unhappy. You have such a pretty face. Look, I vant you to meet somebody. It’s somebody I think you’ll like.” She stepped back and clapped her hands aggressively. “Aleister! Attend!”
A door creaked open behind the Dom Com and a portly caucasian man scuttled into the room. He was wearing nothing more than a black latex speedo and a matching collar, revealing a flabby torso spattered with coarse, graying hair; the shambling man looked like the love-child of a grizzly bear and a manatee. He shuffled over to his mistress holding a heavy bucket, eyes focused on its turbulent contents.
“This playtoy, he is new since ve last met. My little fox, are you familiar vith the Snapdragon? You know his vork?”
“Sure, he’s one of the best henchmen around. He’s supposedly released hundreds of convicted murderers from high security compounds and never even had a photo taken. Quite the impressive record.”
“Yes, he is a player, just like you. That is, he was, until I learned his name. Please, I vant you to meet Aleister Bowfinger, once known as the Snapdragon. Now, after being shamefully diskvalified, he became my slave. Much better than the typical alternative, yes?” She raised an eyebrow, hoping her prey would be duly impressed, or at least a little intimidated.
Petyr was neither. “I don’t know. Probably. Maybe? What did you do with my briefcase? Where are the samples?”
The Dom Com paced over to her prisoner; her torso hovered perfectly still as her waist gyrated in a hypnotic orbit below it. “I don’t know anything about that. I vas assigned a mission to kill some scientists. I come to this site and I find my vork completed! Vat a disappointment! However, I also found you vrapped up like a present from the heavens, so I am not too upset.”
“You really don’t know who you’re messing with. The Minotaur will come after me and do terrible, embarrassing things to you and your boss,” Petyr bluffed. He had no illusions about his employer; The Minotaur was much more likely to look for the briefcase and its contents than a dispensable agent, no matter how skilled that agent might be. “He will stop at nothing to get that briefcase and its secrets. Come on, what have you done with it?”
The Dom Com clicked her tongue discerningly. “I already told you, I don’t know vhat you are talking about. Also, I don’t think you quite understand the little role-play ve have going on. I am the one vith the pover right now.” She reached into her boot and pulled out a small black cylinder with a big red button, a trigger for some unseen device. “I have some qvestions for you, my naughty pup. I hope you vill answer correctly, for your sake. Do you remember how ve first met?”
The clamps were siphoning too much blood to Petyr’s nipples. He was certain they would fall off his chest. They were all too sure of the purpose behind the Dom’s trigger. “Yes. It was in Jakarta. Nine moths ago, I think. I was there to escort a chimpanzee that somehow managed to discover a solution to some equation or other. Something about the energy shortage. You were there to kill the very same ape, to stop the chimp’s brainpower from being used for good or something. I don’t know. It was a mission; it’s long done. I like to keep things simple.”
The Dom Com politely clicked her button; a small shock coursed through the clamps, turning Petyr’s veins to molten sludge. He knew the Dom meant it as little more than a warning; his situation would become much more excruciating over the next several hours.
“Not qvuite, you scamp. That vas the first time we met as cloak and dagger, but not the first time ve met as man and voman. Do you remember, two years ago, vhen you vere on leave in Moscow?”
This question took Petyr by surprise. To him, the trip to Moscow had just been another vacation, another opportunity for him to waste his money on pleasure and debauchery. He remembered the city and its offerings well, but nothing struck him as significant about his time there.
“I remember. I was on leave for almost a week. What about it?”
“You took my viginity from me!” the Dom Com screamed, pressing the button with vigor. “You stole it vith your mouth! In the bathroom at the Kremlin’s Korner! How can you not remember this?”
As terrible jolts of electricity caused him to dissociate from his body, Petyr had a vision of his past. He remembered going to the Kremlin’s Korner while he was in Moscow. The trouble was, he didn’t remember leaving. It was the most popular bar in his hotel’s district, known for serving a drink dubbed the Molotov Cocktail. The drink was simple; it consisted of a shot of vodka with high enough proof that it could be lit on fire. Petyr had lost count after swallowing around seven. His Russian blood had granted him immunity from cold weather, but had neglected an ability to tolerate alcohol. His liquor processing system was so weak that he didn’t remember much of the next two days after that night of debauchery. He certainly couldn’t recall a fun romp with anyone like the Dom Com. Deranged as she might be, Petyr would have treasured memories of a night with her.
“I’m sorry,” Petyr said, panting, “I don’t recall. Maybe you’re confusing me with someone else. I was-”
Before he could finish, more intense shocks wracked his body. His spine arched, his wrists burned where they were attached to the metal rings. The Dom Com was through maintaining onto any pretense of playing nice.
“Don’t mess vith me. Hah! As if I could forget your face. I stared into your eyes for a good…no, an amazing hour.” She shivered, a wave of pleasure flooding her through the memory. Aleister straightened up his posture, hopeful that his skills might be required after all. “I recognized you immediately in Jakarta. Do you know, I have been vith no man since then? I had been vith no man before then. You are the only man for me, my little fox. I vill have you as my pet, forever.”
Petyr was shocked, electrified, and silent; he was disgusted to think that he might have been responsible for creating such a sadistic monster.
“Now tell me, vat is your darkest secret?” As she yelled, the Dom Com pulled the torture trigger once more. All of Petyr’s senses flared intensely as electricity overclocked his system; he experienced sensations unknown by most creatures limited to only five senses. Self-immolation couldn’t hurt half as badly as what Petyr was experiencing, a transubstantiation into an electrical entity. He tasted metal, as if an unwashed sword were cutting out his tongue. Colors flashed before his eyes, constructing a tempered mosaic of his life’s memories. A sweet siren’s song twittered in his ear, tempting him to obey his new master, to give in to inertia’s flow. As the shock died down, a hint of cinnamon lingered in his nostrils.
Petyr hung motionless and out of breath, a stressful euphoria replacing the unbearable torture; his body was entirely limp and useless. The only things keeping him upright were the chains on his wrists. He could see the excitement in his captor’s eyes; she licked her lips and fondled the shock trigger like a lover.
Peter knew exactly how this farce would play out; his years of training had prepared him for situations just like this one. He could avoid telling the mistress anything, just as long as she could keep torturing him; his mind was locked in a steel vise and pain was not its key. And yet, from a distance, his body was telling him that those shocks hurt like hell. His future held endless days of pain with no respite in sight. The Dom Com would work him hard a couple of days, before seeing his resilient nature shine through. She would inevitably grow bored, and set up an automated torture regiment while she was otherwise occupied; this robotic painfest would continue until Petyr was dead or rescued.
Unfortunately, Petyr also knew what the Minotaur was planning. Failure of his mission left Petyr as good as dead in the Minotaur’s eyes; his employer wouldn’t be sending any rescue missions, limiting Petyr’s futures to various forms of gruesome expiration. If Petyr managed to escape, he would no longer be welcome in the Minotaur’s circle. He would be blacklisted to prevent him joining any other Anonymous syndicates and would probably run into more than a few hungry assassins. Most futures appeared pretty bleak for the shocked agent.
There was only one viable option available to Petyr; only one choice would allow him to stop the cycle before it could even begin. It might place him in an even more dangerous situation, but at least he would see a glimmer of hope that he might survive. As long as he survived, he could find another source of money. He could find another reason for living. He looked directly at the Dom Com, his blue eyes colder than the Russian steppes.
“Mistress Com, my name is Petyr Dmitriev.”