This story is a continuation of the story, A Strange and Dangerous Game by Michael Randall. The story is continued with his permission, using characters who were about to meet an unknown yet likely otherwise dismal end.
There are elements and nods to prolific authoritarian author Pete Brown (petebrownuk), and a healthy dose of science fiction lined up in this work, and the author is grateful to Michael for his blessing.
The words filtered through the Colonel’s mind. “Weren’t they renowned Grecian warriors? Much like the Spartans?”
“They were pre-Macedonian warriors from Boeotia,” Ryan said, agreeing with Gabe’s recollection. “They were one hundred and fifty men who worked, lived, fought, and loved together.”
“Loved?” Geoff asked.
“Yes. What made them so effective is that every man they were on the field with was a lover with at least one other man on that same field. The men had found great intimacy with each other, and in return, fought hard to see their lovers safe in their arms at the end of the day. So great was their love that when the battle came that finally crushed them, they were dead to the last man. King Phillip of Macedonia himself set up a monument in honor of the men he conquered.” Ryan ended his speech with reverence to the warrior-king.
“Wow,” Gabe said, pulling Geoff in for a side hug.
“Indeed,” Ryan said. “This underground complex is Thebes II. Most of the men don’t know that, but I figured you’d enjoy the reference.”
Both the new men smiled.
“How do you feel, Gabe?” Ryan asked.
“I’m good,” Gabe said, clearing off a mental checklist of the signs that usually led to an episode of uncontrollable heat. He was starting to get a feel for when the heat was about to strike—his heart would beat harder and faster out of the blue, elevating his body temperature a few degrees within a breath or two. When that happened, the only thing his brain craved was immediate, frequent release.
Gabe nodded at his keeper.
“Then let’s continue the tour,” Ryan said, guiding the men to living quarters dedicated to his eight pilots.
The formation of jostling, sweaty flesh outside was decidedly different than the scene in the pilots’ quarters. The six men were all nude, stretching in advanced yoga poses as Ryan and company approached. The lead in the group was the pilot who flew the recent rescue with him.
Ryan waited until the lead acknowledged him. Softly, he spoke to the men he was leading.
“From here, we go into the corpse pose,” the man said, his smooth, richly tanned skin glistening. The men shifted and lay down on their mats on their backs with their hands to the sides and their eyes closed.
“Grow roots, loves, and let rest and calm overtake you,” the lead said gently with a light English accent. “Breathe, let the oxygen feed your blood, your blood bathe your organs…”
Gabe and Geoff watched with interest. It was relaxing—meditative and slow, unlike most of the training they had done to get where they were at this point.
The lead reached for a metallic bowl with a short, blunt wand in it. He pulled the wand out and ran it along the edge of the inside of the bowl, creating a soft ringing sound. “When the bell rings, lovers, you may open your eyes.” He struck the bowl gently, slowly, three times. The men opened their eyes. “Let your breath move the tips of your fingers, your toes, your knuckles, tarsals, wrists, ankles, so on, until you can feel your pelvis and ribcage once more. Then sit up at your leisure, and then welcome each other.”
The men wriggled to life. Some arched their backs so their pelvises thrusted upward. Some reached for their knees, their toes, in an effort to wake their backs. Some rolled to their sides and got up slowly, rubbing sweat down and off themselves. A couple of the men turned to each other, took each other’s hands and went into an adjacent room where pleasurable moans ensued.
The leader came to embrace Ryan. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said.
“Afternoon, Josh. You do a great job with this,” Ryan said. The amber-eyed dirty blond smiled.
“You and the Primes are always welcome to join,” Josh said with a wide grin. “It’s their way of loosening up for what’s to come. Good afternoon, Colonel, Captain,” Josh said to Gabe and Geoff with a deferential nod. Both men returned the gesture.
“Josh is one of the men here who didn’t start off in any branch of the military,” Ryan said. “He was a civilian, an American pilot for an owner in the UAE who we took down. Our own pilot was… lost, and Josh stepped up in that moment to help.”
“That’s not to say he’s not capable,” Alpha said. “We’ve trained everyone, military or not, to be more than efficient as combatants. Everyone can fight hand-to-hand, are qualified marksmen with pistols, semi-automatics, some are even snipers. Even knives are a part of the training.”
Ryan nodded. “There’s not a one on this island who couldn’t put up a fight.”
Geoff nodded, awed. Gabe was silent, but the awe was the same.
“Why are you men housed here?” Gabe asked.
“Sometimes, we have to be ready to go on a moment’s notice,” Josh said. “A rescue mission can happen any time, so we are already prepared to go when Ryan is ready to board.”
“Crimson Team is due back soon, right?” Jack asked.
“They’re en-route. They should be here by nightfall,” Josh affirmed. The other pilots gave Ryan a wave before they retreated to their rooms. “I hear there are twelve more men on the plane. Aside from my two pilots and the six rescuers, the plane is full at twenty.”
Ryan nodded and turned to Jack. “These men—post-sale or pre-sale?”
“Post. They’ve already been conditioned. This wasn’t particularly advanced, but they were really efficient. No lengthy training, no psychological conditioning. They were beaten unconscious, drugged, and with a few minutes of suggestions, repurposed. They spent at least five months in slavery before we rescued them,” Jack said.
“We should be able to help them,” Ryan replied. “I think they’ll be in a better place with us, anyway. Thank you, Josh. I think Abed and Mitch are waiting for you,” he said, pointing at the two men who left earlier, now peering into the main rec room at their yoga instructor longingly. Josh blushed.
“If you need me, sir,” Josh began.
“I know where you are. Enjoy,” Ryan said with a smile and a wave. Laughter bubbled out when Josh disappeared around the corner. The pilots’ quarters rec room was now devoid of pilots.
“Let’s get back downstairs,” Ryan said, motioning towards the hangar and the central lift. Jack moved alongside Ryan, with Gabe and Geoff behind, and all four Primes behind them.
After a few minutes, they returned to the john. Ryan walked over to the new bench Jack set up earlier.
“Gabe, we’re going to clean out once more before we put you on the bench,” Ryan directed calmly. “Primes, I’ll need you ready to breed. Geoff, Jack, you’re more than welcome to participate.”
“Breed?” Gabe asked after he settled onto a metal horse next to the bench.
“It’s… colloquial. The men are going to ejaculate into you one after the other until their semen is literally flowing out of you.”
Gabe felt he’d shrunk back onto the horse and gave a quiet, “Oh.”
“It’s necessary. The treatment will burn up too rapidly inside you without an ample source of healthy proteins for the drug to feed on. The men will pleasure themselves, and you, until you’re full, at which point, we’ll administer the serum,” Ryan pulled out a butt plug, similar to the ones used in the previously applied enemas. However, it was prepped with a syringe that was filled with a bright purple liquid.
“We only want your pleasure, Gabe, not your pain. Are you ready?” Ryan gently massaged the man’s thick neck, and he ran his hands over the muscular contours of Gabe’s wide, hard back and traced a finger down his spine to his tailbone. The Colonel grunted softly.
“Yeah.”
Ryan administered a brief cleansing, as was done before. But with the cum Gabe had accumulated in his recent heat, it was necessary to cleanse him out for a fresh… dose? Load? He would be filled with new proteins, new cum, to satisfy the needs of the serum. Gabe switched from the metal horse to the bench. Ryan secured one arm, Geoff secured the other, and Jack and Bravo secured his legs. Geoff stayed at Gabe’s side, rubbing his thumb up and down the cleft of his best friend’s chest in a soothing gesture, while Ryan took hold of Gabe’s hand.
“I want you to know, Gabe… You are so loved. We’re not here to shame you. We’re here to help,” Ryan cooed softly.
Ryan hit the nail on the head in Gabe’s mind. Shame was a huge part of what happened to him. He was proud of who he was, proud of how far he’d come despite his cold beginnings. What his… handlers did to him was beyond cruel—and they intended for him to live the rest of his natural life in that fashion.
At that moment, he knew what he would do. When he was done with all the treatments, the therapy, he would join Ryan’s group. If he could, he’d talk the other men into it, too.
Every muscle in his body tensed as Gabe gasped. “Ohhhhh”, poured from his mouth as he felt his skin tingle with heat and sweat and lust. “Fuuuuuck…”
Ryan signaled to the Primes, but Gabe called out. “No…”
Ryan took Gabe’s face in his hands. “What? What do you need, Gabe?”
“Want… Want Geoff first, please,” Gabe begged. Tears formed as his body writhed on its own. Ryan looked to Geoff, who knew what to do.
Geoff led the charge. While he made love to his desperate friend, Ryan stripped down and waited for Geoff to climax. Geoff took pleasure in touching Gabe, exploring his mouth, tasting the clear precum that practically flowed from Gabe’s engorged, rock hard cock. Gabe needed Geoff’s climax. And climax he did.
Ryan followed, reinforcing sentiments of love, of pride. Gabe cried as Ryan kissed him, entered him, loved him, and released within him.
Jack followed, giving Gabe reverent and tender treatment right up until his climax took him.
Of the Primes, Bravo went first. “Colonel, I hope you get better soon, sir. I think we’ll have a great time with you here. I love you, sir.” As Bravo’s length slid past Gabe’s ring, he leaned in and kissed the man. Gabe cried out at the pleasure and pain, but more the pleasure. Bravo drank down the sounds poured into his mouth. Bravo coaxed Gabe to cum before he released his own load. He swept up Gabe’s thick cream and shared it between himself and the man who made it, sealing the act with a kiss when all the cum was cleaned away.
Delta went next, offering support and love. Then Alpha. Then Charlie.
The men went again, each contributing three rounds of warm, fresh ejaculate. Gabe finally stilled—the lizard brain finally sated. Ryan applied the new plug and administered the drug while the other men cleaned off and wiped the spent Colonel down. Jack disappeared momentarily, returning with a thin but warm blanket. He draped it over the sleeping, satisfied man.
“Bravo, Delta,” Jack said. Bravo stood straighter upon being addressed, as did Delta. “Shower up, you two, and keep an eye on the Colonel. When he wakes, page us, okay?”
“Yes sir,” the two said in unison. As the two Primes showered, the other two Primes rinsed and dried quickly to follow Ryan, Jack, and Geoff away from the john.
“Geoff,” Ryan said, giving the Captain his regard, “Gabe’s in good hands, though for the drug to work its course, we’ve added a sedative that will put him out for about six hours. We’ve had Major Porter sedated since we first gave him the first ‘wake up’ technique. Like Gabe, our records indicate they administered drugs on him anally as well.” Ryan dressed fully from a laundry capsule in the john’s clean storage.
Geoff shuddered. He wanted to know what the handlers did to Clay, but he felt revulsion at the idea of knowing. “What else did they do?”
Ryan’s eyes never moved from his as they walked. “They attacked his genitals. Tortured his testicles with punches and pressure applied through their boots and shoes. They treated his sack like it was a speed bag, and crushed them beneath their feet.”
“They stepped on them?” Geoff exclaimed.
“He was pretty resistant,” Ryan sighed. “If they were given more time, they would have been more liberal with spacing their drugs out for better results. As it is, they’d have shocked him into submission, and he would lost his mind.”
Geoff’s heart raced. He couldn’t bear to lose a friend to this. Gabe was the goal—and he failed. These men volunteered to help him, and he failed them. To lose any of them would destroy him.
The men came into a room that was clearly a hospital bay. There were twenty beds. Only one was occupied. A man sat next to the bed Clayton Porter lay in, taking notes. Two other men approached Ryan and the gang. One was a blue-eyed guy with a devil-may-care kind of day-old growth of dark brown hair. He was about Ryan’s height, and build, judging from the way the tee shirt and shorts hugged him. The other was something of a surfer in appearance—blond hair that was both dirty and bleached somehow, tied back in a low ponytail that touched the middle of his shoulders. He had sea green eyes and an even, warm tan. Wearing only shorts, and wearing them low, it looked like the tan was even… everywhere.
Every minute in this complex, those kinds of thoughts crossed Geoff’s mind almost every other second.
“Doc Marty, Doc Fisher,” Ryan said. The brown haired one nodded, followed by the surfer-type blonde. “This is Captain Geoff Ranford.”
Geoff put out his hand to shake with the doctors. “Doctor, doctor,” he said. The two smiled.
“Please,” the brown haired doctor said. “It’s Doc Marty, or Marty. This one’s Fisher, sometimes Fish.”
“They were both surgeons in the Army,” Ryan said. “Lieutenant Colonels. Now, they’re the men’s physicians.”
“We’re training a few men to help, hopefully one day be good with the preliminary stuff—triage, minor surgeries, that kind of thing,” Marty said. “We’ve got a lot of great students and assistants. But it’s probably better if Ryan recruited from the outside. Nothing can replace that eight-to-ten year education.”
“When it comes to it, Marty, I’ll bring new men in,” Ryan smiled. “How’s our patient?”
The doctors motioned the men to follow them. As they approached, the man sitting at Clay’s bedside jumped to his feet.
“Sorry, sir, I’ll get out of your way,” the young man said. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, but his boy-next-door face and strong body spoke of someone who was at least a private in the Army.
“You’re fine, Philip,” Ryan said calmly. “Were you monitoring the Major?”
Philip nodded. “We’ve been monitoring him for any spikes in blood pressure, changes in temperature, like with Colonel Haverhill. He’s had one spike every three hours, but with the sedative, his brain activity remained stable.” The young man spoke with so much confidence.
Ryan turned to Geoff. “He’ll be a fine nurse,” Ryan said. “You can stay, buddy. We’re not trying to get in your way.”
Philip dipped his head. “I’ll just move a station over, sir. I’m still charting.”
Geoff looked at the man before him. He still bore the piercings their handlers forced upon them. While there was a sheet pulled up over his legs and lower abs, he was naked beneath it.
“We removed the demeaning jock thing the handlers put on him. Well, put on you all, really,” Jack said. “But we didn’t want to remove the piercings without him being conscious to it. While it was attached to him traumatically, having them removed with him conscious may help to ease that trauma.”
Geoff nodded. “Whatever you decide, I’m all for. Just let me know how I can help.”
“He’s about to come out of sedation,” Ryan said. “We’ll see how he’s doing.”
Alpha and Charlie stepped away for a moment, returning wearing black shorts and tee shirts. They stood a comfortable distance away, giving the doctors and their keepers room to move. Charlie leaned in, offering Geoff clothing.
“Probably be less of a shock to your friend here when he comes around, sir,” Charlie said quietly. Geoff nodded. He took the clothes and slipped into them—shorts and tee shirt. Charlie gave Jack the same. Doc Fisher grabbed himself a shirt as well.
Geoff sat down in the chair previously occupied by the young nurse. His eyes roamed over Clay’s well-chiseled body. The handlers shaved him—like they shaved everyone. It wasn’t something he’d even thought of before, but he remembered it—a rich brown trail the color of the man’s hair that went from the base of Clay’s button navel into his underwear. He subconsciously brought his own hand to the lowest segment of his abdominals, feeling the smoothness there, his own growth shaved, and replaced with a light stubble.
As far as he could tell, that hair was missing. So were any other traces that Clay used to bear on his chest, torso, arms, and legs.
Geoff waited. The others shared notes in hushed tones. A deep breath and a loud exhale let everyone know that Major Clayton Porter was awake.
Clay felt a pounding in his head like none other. He felt aching and throbbing pain elsewhere—between his legs, at his rear, places he remembered being punched, grabbed, kicked…
“Clay,” a voice said calmly, quietly.
“G—Geoff?”
“I’m here, buddy,” Geoff said.
“Where am I?”
“Open your eyes all the way, Clay,” Geoff said. A hand gripped his own tightly, but warmly. As Clay did what was asked of him, he saw what looked like a hospital bay. Two familiar men stood in the background, with his friend, Geoff closer in the foreground.
“Clay, this is Ryan Masdorf, and his partner, Jack Masdorf. They rescued us from Germany.” Geoff motioned for the two to step forward.
Ryan was a distinguished looking man. Salt-and-pepper hair, a trimmed beard much the same color as his hair, with pale blue eyes. He was fit for his age, though nothing like Geoff or Gabe…
The other man, however, could have been a younger version of Gabe. Bright green eyes, the shorn blond hair, and the way he filled his frame—a quarterback to Gabe and Geoff’s linebacker builds.
Gabe.
“Where’s Gabe?” Clay rasped. Geoff took his hand with both of his own.
“He’s being treated. He’ll be… well, soon. Like we want you to be,” Geoff said.
“Major,” Ryan began, “how do you feel?”
Clay rattled off the inventory of his aches and pains. The two men behind Ryan and Jack discussed notes as he spoke.
“Where am I?” Clay repeated.
“We’re on an island north of Norway,” Ryan said. “Wilhelm’s Island. We’re in an underground complex. The residents here are all men who were either slaves or programmed to be slaves and sold as property. We rescued you, Colonel Haverhill, Captain Ranford, Captain Castillo, Lieutenant Colonel Morris, Colonel Colfax, and Captain Hanson from the handlers who trapped you at General Benjamin’s manipulations. The gang that did this to you men… They’re either dead, or permanently incapacitated.”
So much information. Clay must have had overwhelmed etched on his face when Ryan spoke. “If there’s anything you need me to go over, just say the word, Major.”
Clay took a deep breath and winced. He knew his next question.
“Why am I in pain?”
Geoff explained what happened to the best of his knowledge. Ryan stepped in every now and then, but the Captain urged patiently that he should do the explaining.
Clay was grateful for that.
But the end result was that Gabe was being treated to minimize the damage the drugs had done to him from the inside out.
Damage in that Gabe had been repeatedly raped, forcibly stripped his identity, and programmed to submit to being a sex slave who knew only his master’s pleasure at the sake of his own.
The same fate befell the others—Geoff, Ollie, Owen, Emilio, Hanson and himself—but of the men who were drugged specifically through the highly absorbent tissue of the rectum, that torment was given to Gabe in extremis, and him at a fraction, but enough to make him suffer.
Still, he experienced a pleasure he never knew before. That without the horrifying pain, would actually be worth keeping. Questioning who he was in terms of his erased heterosexuality? it was a small price to pay to be alive.
“I’m sorry we didn’t get to your records sooner, Major. Had we known what they did to you,” Ryan said, “we would have re-woken you in a different way. One that wouldn’t press any more pain on you.”
Clay groaned then smiled. “It’s alright, sir,” he said. “I’m just glad I’m alive.”
The younger version of Colonel Haverhill spoke up. “When we woke you, it was only a moment after we moved you from the reception hall to your recovery room when you started screaming,” Jack said. “It was a lot of pain those assholes suppressed. Had you arrived to a different buyer’s location and they received you that way, they might have tortured you or let you scream off your pain with no treatment.” Jack slid up to the various devices near the head of the bed. “There’s a pretty good pain regimen going through you right now.”
Through the vague fuzziness of his awareness, Clay could only agree. “When can we leave?” the Major asked. Geoff’s face dropped with worry.
“Because we went against General Benjamin’s orders, we were labeled traitors. Since he’s dead, and no one’s alive to corroborate our story, it’s gonna be difficult if not impossible to…” Geoff couldn’t finish.
“We can’t go home as who we were,” Clay finished. Geoff nodded.
“Besides, we’re all in some form of treatment,” Geoff added. “Gabe will need it longer than most of us, but it’s likely you’ll need it longer than me.”
“We have a bead on your heat episodes,” Ryan said. “You’ll be having one in about a couple of hours. At that time, we plan on administering a treatment. But we need to tell you…”
Clay waited a little before he spoke. “Tell me what?”
“The medication we’ve created will need an ample amount of fresh protein to work through before it can touch the digestive lining of your rectum.” Ryan paused a moment. “We were able to administer Gabe’s treatment after he was inseminated repeatedly by seven of our men.”
Clay worked it out. “I need men to cum in me.”
Geoff winced. Clay said it so calmly that it almost felt like a sting somehow. Ryan remained calm as he addressed the issue at hand. “It would work better that way. When semen is exposed to air, the spermatozoa tend to die at exponential rates as opposed to being released into a human body. To up the odds, it’s best if there’s enough semen that it’s overflowing. So it means what you think.”
Clay nodded.
“Clay,” Geoff began. “What do you need?”
“I don’t want them all to be strangers, Geoff. Can you… Can you be there?”
Geoff nodded. “Of course, buddy. Whatever you want.”
“We’ll get you set up in a few, Major,” Ryan said. He took Clay’s hand in his own. “We all want to help. And you will be better.”
“Thank you, sir,” Clay said, his voice a touch gravelly. “I’m in your debt.”
“You are only bound to me if you want to be, Clay. I love all these men, and they can come or go as they please. I will love you if you stay, and I will love you if you go.” Ryan gently lifted Clay’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to it.
Clay nodded shakily.
“Hang tight, Major,” Jack said. “We’ll come for you in a sec. Docs? Can we prep him for the move?”
“Already on it,” Doc Marty said, pulling out a gurney.
“I can walk, guys,” Clay chuckled.
“We don’t doubt it,” Ryan said with a smile. “But we’re trying to minimize further trauma to your genitals. The docs have administered a salve which encourages healing and a little numbing agent, but for now, they have recommended non-ambulatory bedrest for at least a week. This is necessary, but only for now, handsome.”
Clay winked. “You’re a heartbreaker, aren’t you, sir?”
Ryan laughed. “I’m a softie. My Primes are the heartbreakers,” he said, thumbing the two giant redheads behind him.”
“He really is a heartbreaker,” the bright red-haired one said. “And a fuckin’ wildcat in bed.”
“Charlie,” the dark red-haired guard hissed.
“What?” Charlie laughed. After a slight pause, he said, “well, he is.”
Ryan blushed.
“It’s okay, sir. If I’m reading things right, I’d love to have a go at you,” Clay grinned.
Ryan leaned in and gave Clay a kiss, one which the blond Marine returned. “I’ll be in you soon, don’t worry,” Ryan whispered in his ear.
A tenting in the thin blanket covering Clay gave away his arousal. Ryan eyed it and gave Clay a grin. “May I sample your wares?”
Clay felt his breathing uptick. “It’s all yours, sir.”
Ryan pulled the blanket back and exposed ten inches of Marine. It was a beautiful cock. The man’s sack was padded, but the dick was definitely free. He was uncut—his meat evenly colored with his own tan.
“Get a lot of sun, Major?”
“I tan nude whenever I get the chance,” Clay said with a smile.
Ryan grinned and grappled the thick cock gently. He pulled back the hood and suckled the Major’s fat head, groaning.
“God, you taste incredible,” Ryan said, lapping the glans and around the head. Clay squirmed in his grip. “When you’re out and about, Clay, I’d be happy to have you over for a little fun.” Ryan replaced the blanket and caressed Clay’s still stiff dick through the cloth. “But first we have to get you on the road to wellness. Geoff, wanna keep an eye on your boy while we get set up?”
Geoff nodded. Ryan, Jack, and the Primes left the room. The doctors were at their desks at the center of the bay, and Philip, the doctors’ assistant, remained at the nearby station, filling out paperwork.
“Are things really this free and open here?” Clay asked.
“If the guy who saved us sucking your dick like it was something he did every day in front of me and his men wasn’t an indication,” Geoff smirked.
“What about you?” Clay squeezed his friend’s hand. “How are you with all of… this?”
“It’s… new,” Geoff said. “A guy can get used to getting’ off with anyone at any time, but it’ll take some getting used to. Just gotta dive in, I suppose.”
Clay laughed. “Yeah. I am fucking floating, man. And that man’s mouth is talented.”
“So’s everything else about him,” Geoff groaned lasciviously. “The man can push all the buttons.”
Clay sighed. “How bad was the Colonel fucked over?”
Geoff hesitated. “They beat him, that’s a given. We were in the room while they did some kind of Pavlovian response thing—smashing his balls when he saw a woman, jerking him off when he saw a man. When they started working on us, they got him to cum without anyone touching him while he watched us blow each other to survive. Then they made him suck everyone’s cock in the room while other men took turns raping his ass. Repeatedly.”
Clay’s mouth fell open.
“He… He was enjoying it. The programming took over.”
“Holy fuck.”
“No kidding,” Geoff said. “They’d fucked him before he was conditioned, injected his dick with drugs, his body with drugs, even his ass. He resisted up to that point, but when he saw us captured, I think it broke him.”
“Oh no,” Clay whispered. “You mean we—”
“Don’t think it, Clay,” Geoff said. “We knew the risks. We chose to try to save him. What they did to us—that was out of our control. And if we didn’t try to save him, he might have gotten worse.”
The two went quiet.
“How are the others?” Clay asked.
“I’ve only seen Emilio,” Geoff replied. “He was gonna try to leave, but we convinced him to stay, at least until we’re all sure he’s not susceptible to suggestion anymore.”
“I hope Owen and Ollie are alright,” Clay murmured. “I don’t know what to do now.”
Geoff scooted closer. “What do you mean?”
“I’m a Marine, Geoff. I don’t have a family, nothing I really can go back to. If I’m not holding a gun or going out on a deployment, who am I?”
“This is a chance for us to find out,” Geoff said. “Don’t give it any thought right now, especially while you’re recovering.”
“But—”
Geoff climbed up and stopped Clay’s mouth with a kiss.
“We’ll figure it out, okay? Don’t think you have to do it alone,” Geoff told his friend. Clay breathed Geoff in and gave a small smile. The sound of a cleared throat pulled the two apart. Doc Fisher stood by.
“They’re ready,” the blond doctor said. Clay nodded. Geoff moved aside while Philip, Marty, and Fisher transferred Clay from the hospital bed to the gurney, along with the pumps for painkillers and hydrating saline. Within a few minutes, the men were in the john. They found Gabe sleeping peacefully with a headset and a silky sleep mask on.
Bravo chimed in. “Noise cancelling,” he said, indicating the headset when Geoff gave it a puzzled look. “We don’t want to disturb him, and it’s gonna get noisy in a minute.” The two new men to the complex nodded.
Clay was shifted from the gurney to another bench like the one Gabe had been set up in. They explained the restraints, the procedure. Geoff, Ryan, Jack, and the four Primes would see him through, as they saw Gabe through. Ryan took special cares to clean him out without jostling him. In fact, they placed him on the bench directly, since mounting the metal horse might put pressure on his much abused testicles. The cleansing waters were applied while he was face up, and the flush was carefully released into a basin placed under the Major’s ass.
When the waiting game was over, Clay’s heat overwhelmed him, and as with Gabe, the men filed up at his legs, making him feel loved, welcome, and on the verge of healing. The men filled Clay patiently, working at a pace he allowed. When his limit was met, Ryan quickly administered the counteragent which had a sedative of its own, and like the Colonel, Clay fell into a deep sleep.
Geoff scratched his chest as he watched one friend rolled up alongside the other. Each man showered—Alpha and Bravo tended to Ryan, Charlie tended to Geoff, and Delta tended to Jack. When everyone was clean and dressed, Ryan summoned two young men who were on the Doctors’ list of trained assistants to keep an eye on the sleeping patients.
When the assistants arrived, Ryan led Geoff, Jack, and the Primes to an intimate dining hall. A sign was posted on the wall opposite the door which clearly read: “No Sex in the Formal Mess”. Geoff suppressed a snicker.
A young man dressed as Ryan was made sure everyone was seated before he spoke, offering the menu. Each man placed orders and the young man disappeared.
“It’s been a long day for you, hasn’t it, Captain?” Ryan asked.
Geoff could only nod. “I wanted to check on all the men before I did anything else,” he said. “But I realize I’m working on your time schedule, and I don’t want to interfere.”
“Considerate,” Ryan said with a smile. “We are working with Colonel Colfax and Lieutenant Colonel Morris. Unfortunately, their reprogramming involved them consciously turning on each other. The handlers exploited the Colonel’s hidden homosexuality and his desires for the Lieutenant Colonel and made him a willing participant in their schemes.”
“What?” Geoff exclaimed.
Jack brushed a hand over the Captain’s back in comfort. “Owen turned on Ollie and broke him in, Geoff. Owen didn’t even fight them. From the start, he said he’d comply.”
Geoff ran his fingers through his hair and let a ragged cry loose. “How did I miss that?”
“Geoff,” Ryan said. “Did you know about Emilio?”
Still holding his head, Ryan shook it.
“The handlers working you two didn’t know it when they drugged you. But as I read it, you two engaged in your act out of a mutual will to survive. Coupled with the heightened state of survival and the psychotropics in the water that got absorbed through your saturated skin, you two were repurposed fairly quickly. Owen and Oliver were pitted against each other. Owen didn’t resist, and in the process, he succeeded in taking his partner down.” Ryan nodded at the men waiting on them as they laid down their food. “Owen drugged Oliver, then raped him repeatedly until the drugs kicked in, then the handlers turned on Owen and had Oliver return the violence.”
Appetite left Geoff as he sat up and stared at his food. Ryan quietly signaled for one of the men in the dining hall to take it away.
“Where are they?” Geoff asked.
“Colonel Colfax is conscious, being held in isolation in a prison chamber at the lowest levels of the compound,” Ryan said calmly. “The Lieutenant Colonel is sedated, and under soft restraints, being watched by a medical team specifically trained for the various symptoms of PTSD.”
Geoff ran it through his head. One of the men he’d trusted, called “friend” was in lockdown. The other one was being kept under for his own protection.
“Geoff,” Ryan said as he moved closer to the man. “You could not know what Colfax would do under duress. And unfortunately, it is in those times when we see the measure of a man. We figured it would be best to separate the two, but due to Colonel Colfax’s participation in the violent conversion of another man, we’re keeping him away from the rest of the men, as he is now a liability.”
“What… What are you going to do with him?” Geoff asked.
“We were going to see what Oliver would say,” Jack said, pressing a kiss against Geoff’s shoulder.
“We don’t have a court of law to speak of here,” Ryan said, “in matters where one has broken the trust of the other men, we let the offending parties decide what to do. There are four options, in that case.”
Geoff could already think of two of the four, but he had to know for sure. “What are the options, sir?”
Ryan took Geoff by the shoulders and turned him so they were seated face to face. “The first is forgiveness. Many of the men here are lovers, some directly, some indirectly. What affects one affects all in that way. So with forgiveness, the men allow the trust to be reforged.”
Geoff considered that. However, Owen was not yet taken in by everyone, and the one closest to him at a time when they needed each other the most was the very man he’d betrayed. Ryan continued.
“The second is erase-and-release. Colonel Colfax would be freed, but he would undergo a month of treatment that would make him forget everything and everyone. We would set him up with a forged identity and have him relocated to one of my company’s care facilities to look after him until he can reenter society and survive on his own, with no memory whatsoever of what he used to do.”
That sounded like a clean slate in so many ways, Geoff thought. But it also seemed like a happy ending for a man who did not deserve one.
“The third is indefinite incarceration,” Ryan said plainly. “The Colonel would remain a prisoner in our care until such time Oliver decides to release him. We,” Ryan indicated himself, Jack, and the Primes, “hold the keys to his release—but we will not act until Oliver says so.”
Before Ryan could speak, Geoff murmured. “The fourth option is death, isn’t it?”
Ryan nodded solemnly. “Because many of these men have been trained to fake death or survive harsh conditions long enough to stave off death, we have one means in the chamber that reduces survival probability to zero, without allowing him the chance to escape by subduing one of our men.”
“What’s that?”
“We flood the chamber,” Ryan said. “It sounds a bit villainous, but it’s the only way to ensure that the prisoner has been effectively terminated. We keep the body there for one week, as to be certain that there’s no brain activity, no pulse, no heat signature, no deep meditative state or trance. Then the waters are drained out, and we quickly process the body for cremation.”
“How many have you had to execute?” Geoff asked.
“In the entire time this operation has been running? Three. Our record gathering process was not as extensive in the early days, and one of the men we’d rescued turned out to be a serial rapist before he was reprogrammed. When we brought him out of the reprogramming, he reverted, raping several of my men.” Ryan’s voice went cold. “None of the men trusted him here, or on the outside, so we unanimously moved to put him down.”
“Was it by drowning?”
“No. We first used drugs. But somehow, he managed to get the tech to miss his vein, and instead, the drug pooled at the skin. We missed that. He thought to wait to escape then, but he didn’t know we kept bodies in cold storage for a day before we process them.”
Geoff’s eyes widened slightly. “Meaning…?”
Ryan gave a mirthless chuckle. “We found him on the floor, curled up against the door, wrapped up in about four body bags. He was beating on the door. But it’s a thick, heavy door, and our morgue is so rarely visited, even for work purposes, so no one was there to hear him. It took us a few weeks, but we built the room Colonel Colfax is in with that man’s antics in mind. The other two plotted to kill me and take over the colony. The Primes put them both down together.”
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