Lexi

PART ONE ~ 1 ~ 2 ~ 3 ~ Some consider it a travesty, of course. The fate of the human races pinned in stasis, demons and demiurges sat at a pinnacle never intended for their ilk, that sort of thing. True as far as it goes, but not my concern. In fact, I think there’s a beauty in it. The closest to a closed causality the Center of Everything and its hundreds of Attendant Universes has ever known, the center raised above the edges, terrifying cliffs only scalable by those who can adapt to the new reality, order imposed on every world, for ever… beauty in stasis, that’s more in line with my thinking. It’s worked out for me personally, at least in comparison with the previous thousand years of my existence. For all the irreplaceable cultural treasures lost to pillage, some things deserved to be overturned. ...

CHAPTER 1 ON A COOL summer night in Prague, there’s no club more Insta-worthy than NERO in the estimation of Gina Maddis and her fellow travelers. The eight girls have been in Europe for nearly a month now, cutting loose on their summer break. Gina’s coming out of the bathroom, fresh off a line, when her eye catches on a young man sitting at the blue-lit bar. He’s got dark hair and a cast to his features that suggest he’s a local, but something in his eyes and his slight smirk have her curious. ...

The Select Bank headquarters slouches toward the riverbank, nothing like its competitors’ skyscrapers in the core of downtown a couple miles away. The office we’re sitting in, though, is just as sleekly appointed as any of its counterparts I’ve seen in the last four months. Below the huge windows of the top-floor office, its strip of landscaping gives way to the tangle of undeveloped land it neighbors. I’m sure the clientele appreciates the privacy. The river here is wide and sluggish, a single small boat picking its way upstream. ...

Part 2 I FIND MYSELF crying over my rotten luck for the first time in months. This is why I usually try to avoid thinking of anything beyond my present concerns. I take a moment to compose myself. Then I turn around and realize Galasso is leaning against the doorframe of the suite I’ve been cleaning and I jump about a foot. How long has he been there? There’s a girl lurking behind him, too - it’s Candy. She’s allowed to give me orders, but right now she’s just standing behind Galasso with a neutral expression. She’s a short, small woman, her strawberry blonde hair in a long braid. She has nothing on but high heels and a pair of gauzy pink panties wet with cum, and her arms are in a box tie behind her back, which thrusts her B-cups front and center. Given Galasso is shirtless it’s safe to assume the two were fucking just a few minutes ago. ...

Part 1 I’M SCRUBBING THE soap scum from a scumbag’s bathtub when I hear a chime from my earpiece. Then Mistress’ voice: “Fucklips, please drop what you’re doing and hurry on over to the parlor in the front wing. Bring a restraint cart - one with a chair.” Mistress’ voice is calm and easy, but I know better than to think she’s not serious when she says to hurry. I tuck my rag and cleaning spray into the plastic basket I carry when I’m on janitorial duty. ...

Part 1 I want to begin this account of my experience in the Panzher Station CIGI (we pronounce it “siggy”) by saying for the record that I’m not like most of the other girls who get sent there. I didn’t drift around from failed training program to failed apprenticeship through my late teens and early twenties, whether from a lack of direction, emotional instability, criminal behavior, or any of the other qualities that saw my classmates at the CIGI fail to hack it. I’m not a dropout or a basket case. As far as I know, anyway, which in fact isn’t saying much. ...

Part 2 When the wake-up sounded at hour-6, I got right in line for the showers, but I was still behind half my roommates. Since it took us twenty or thirty minutes apiece, it was nearly hour-7 by the time I was clean. I combed out my hair and dried off quickly before getting dressed and heading to the fifth floor cafeteria. I finished my meal and returned to my room. It was past hour-7.5; I couldn’t put off checking my schedule any longer. ...

My sleep that night was far from restful. The Kennel was chilly, and I came half-awake many times as the lights flickered on as some group or another came or went. Twice I woke up thrashing at a bug that had wandered onto my face or belly, and there was always some noise from other girls doing the same. I’d had to piss in the middle of the night, too, crawling into the corner to avoid getting it on the girl in the cage under mine. So whenever I was woken up, it would have been too early. But I was pretty sure it was also, objectively, too early. ...

CHAPTER THREE I WASN’T SURE at first whether or not I’d returned to the waking world. The sight of the clean, white room before my eyes was warped and fuzzy, none of the details quite clear. People moved through the room in front of me, but I couldn’t see who, or what they were doing, or really anything but vague shapes and colors. I thought maybe I was experiencing some kind of sleep paralysis. I tried to move, but there was a heavy pressure closing in on me from every side that kept me completely immobile. I could move my eyes, but I couldn’t blink, and yet my eyes hadn’t dried out. The pressure extended into my mouth, keeping me from moving my jaw and forcing me to breathe steadily, and even up my asshole. ...

CHAPTER TWO I THOUGHT I was blind when I woke up, but I quickly realized it was just that my eyes were covered. I was lying on a thin foam mat, covered in plastic and thin enough I could feel the concrete floor through it. I groped around in a panic, only to realize my wrists were cuffed together with a thick but light metal chain about a foot long. ...

CHAPTER ONE “ONE CAR IN the driveway,” Chantrea whispered from her perch in the tall grasses to my right. I nodded. The red Mercedes - a midlife crisis car if I’d ever seen one - was parked in the well-lit driveway of the sprawling exurban home. The BMW, the wife’s car, had been away since the afternoon. “No security system you could see?” she asked for maybe the third time. ...