fuse_box | obviously

[ Hei gives himself precisely ten breaths. Ten and no more -- he'd keep it to zero, but even he can admit. This, the jarring instantaneousness of teleportation, or illusions, or whatever mix it has bred, it makes him -- off-balance. Cautious edging toward paranoid. (Too simple to call it fear. But he's seen Amber's abilities, and Pai's, and those of hundreds of Contractors -- and he knows to tread carefully when his infallible senses become unreliable.) ]

[ Especially when he doesn't, and can't, come up with a suitable explanation for why he's here -- or how. ]

[ The room is a metal shoebox. Flat, rectangular, sealed: no vents, no light fixtures, no cameras. But he has no doubt he's being monitored. The dimensions remind him of a cell, but also a cross between a desolate gray interrogation chamber and a laboratory cage. Except he's not strapped to a table, or bound to a chair. Not restrained in any way. He's still in his tacsuit and bulletproof coat; his knives and wires are still in his possession. ]

[ The only abnormality: the metal underwear that presses cold and unyielding to his bare skin beneath his clothes. Yet instead of making him feel overheated, confined -- he feels weirdly, lewdly exposed. ]

[ It makes no sense. Who fails to disarm a hostage? Why the metal underpants? Is he being held for questioning? For torture? For experimentation? ]

[ Or -- the most chilling possibility -- is this a game? ]

[ Hei isn't sure. All his senses are dialed up, intensely attuned. His captors -- whoever they are -- haven't announced themselves yet. But he reminds himself that the waiting is part of it, part of how they try to wear you down, with uncertainty about everything, who has taken you, what this is about, where you are, what might happen next, when it might happen. ]

[ He has training for this. But nothing prepares him for the spectacle before him. There -- behind the floor to ceiling window of his cell -- is a girl. Dark-haired, well-built, dressed in strange fur-trimmed clothes and boots, like a cosplayer. He judges her to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, give or take. Restlessly, she paces a cell near-identical to his. But when Hei tries to get her attention, she doesn't notice. The glass must be one-way. He can see in; she can't see out. ]

[ It makes no sense. Is she another prisoner? An illusion? ]

Edited 2015-05-07 19:37 (UTC)

[Oh, she's real all right. Real and getting angrier by the second.] If you're going to take me captive, you can at LEAST tell me what I'm doing here!

[When she still gets no response, she shifts her stance and gets ready to bend the metal in the walls (the underwear is, unfortunately, platinum). Just as she's ready to get really destructive, there's a crackle of static.]

Welcome to the Sensual Enrichment Center! We are delighted to have you join us in testing the sexier side of science.

Testing? I didn't agree to any testing! [The voice isn't listening.]

Your safety is our main concern here at Aperature. Test subjects who threaten the test in any way will be taken to another room and slowly asphyxiated with a deadly neurotoxin. We want all test subjects to feel comfortable enough to enjoy themselves.

[Is this person an absolute lunatic?] Who would feel safe after hearing that!?!

Testing will begin in three...two...one...

[In both rooms, a bed is dropped from the ceiling; Korra squawks and just barely manages to dodge hers. On the mattresses are crude, life-size doll approximations of themselves, which are also wearing weird metal underwear.

But poking out of that underwear are their private parts.]

WHAT THE--!!!!!

[ Aperature. Hei has never heard the name before, but he files it away on instinct. Clearly some sort of scientific research facility. By the sounds -- and looks -- of it, it is on par with Meyer & Hilton, with the creepy and dubious nature of their experimentation. Except eugenics, coercive brain surgery, forced hybridization and inbreeding of Contractors for a mass-produced army makes sense -- at least from a businessman's perspective. Sensual Enrichment? Not so much. ]

[ He jerks back as a bed descends from the ceiling. His eyes are already sweeping across the levers used to lower the hefty piece of furniture, trying to map out exits or entrances or something that can be used as improvised weaponry. But he is stymied by the dummy -- an eerie simulacrum of the girl in the next cell -- sprawled across the mattress. Wearing that metal underwear, from which remarkably lifelike pink folds of labia and a poochlike clitoral hood protrude. ]

[ Sex toys Hei thinks, with a sense of climbing disbelief. What's going on here? Is there truly someone so depraved that they'd be interested in testing a Contractor's sexual reflexes? ]

[ Apparently. ]

[ That's when his gaze slews toward the window. To the identical bed in the girl's cell. A chill shoots through him, down his spine straight to the tips of his toes in their steel-enforced boots. The dummy in her bed looks like him -- a horrible half-made fake. Except for the flaccid penis dangling from between its legs. Even from the different angle, the unfamiliar perspective, it looks entirely too much like Hei's. Right down to the bluish veins and pale gradations of color, the dark hair trimmed to the quick. ]

[ Riveted, with the slow-burgeoning horror of watching a traffic accident unfold, Hei drifts toward the window. Peers through the glass at the dummy's too-real junk, hoping his eyes are simply deceiving him. ]

[ It can't be. How can they have created such a perfect replica? Not even a dildo. It's so real it could be a prosthetic penis -- modeled painstakingly off of his. Which makes no sense. None of this does. ]

[ Eyes narrowing, he pitches his voice to a mid-level shout. He doubts the mechanical voice on the speakers will answer him. But maybe there are other ears listening -- other eyes watching. ]

What the hell is the point of this? Who are you working for?

[Korra looks down at the weird dummy with the REALLY weird penis, and she doesn't bother hiding her revulsion. (She does, however, tamp down on the illicit thrill of curiosity. She's never actually seen a human one bare before. She often felt Mako's bulge against her side when they made out, but they never even got hands beneath clothing. It's like he thought she could get pregnant from a handjob.)]

I am not touching that thing. [Even if it is kind of tempting. As far as she can tell, there's nobody watching...]

[ No answer from the robot voice. Which, let's face it, he'd expected. ]

[ Buzzing with anger and a stoppered frisson of wrongness, Hei stays by the window. His breath leaves streaks of milky fog across the glass as he watches the girl -- barely a child, really -- sneak glances at the prosthetic (isn't it prosthetic?) penis with a mix of scandal and curiosity. He can't read her lips, or figure out what language she's speaking. Can't figure out, either, what part of the world she's from -- her unusual style of dress gives nothing about her ethnicity away. Between the swarthy skin and the piercing blue eyes, she reminds him faintly of that Pashtun girl on the cover of National Geographic, years back. Less faintly, of those Inuit girls he'd seen on an assignment in Alaska to infiltrate a human trafficking ring -- fluffy anoraks framing high cheekbones and vaguely Asiatic features. ]

[ Is she a Contractor? He doubts it. He's never seen a Contractor behave so expressively. Even separated by glass, unable to determine her tone of voice, her screwed-up face and jutting lower-lip telegraphs: I am not touching that thing. ]

[ Good. Maybe if the two of them remain uncooperative, they'll be deemed useless for this twisted experiment. ]

[ Or maybe they'll kill you. A more viable option. But Hei is damned if he'll willingly play labrat for a group of perverts. ]

[Korra isn't sure how long she waits for something to happen. Anything. (It's not that long.) Growling, she rips the metal from the wall and hurls it across the room.

There's more metal behind it.

She keeps hurling metal until her limbs feel like jelly and she collapses on the bed. She throws off her jacket in a fit of anger (also, one should never bend metal in a warm room while dressed for the arctic). Panting, she sprawls back -- and finds that penis right next to her cheek.

Why is it warm?]

[ Blinking, Hei watches the girl go through a series of mysterious katas that tear the metal plates off the wall. Cautiously, he steps back from the window, readjusting his opinion of her by the minute. She's not a Contractor -- at least she doesn't behave like one -- but she definitely isn't human, either. Her movements, the way she weilds the metal off the wall, scrap after scrap like cardboard, stirs in him memories of the sort of brash, relentless ferocity that only a fighter of Pai's caliber was willing to risk -- particularly in unsafe territory. ]

[ Not that it matters. Her efforts yield no results. Whatever these cells are composed of, it is near-impenetrable. He can't glimpse any wires or electric sockets, either. So much for attempting to short-circuit the security system, if all else fails. ]

[ He's going through a list of contingency plans -- weighing pros and cons -- when he jerks at the distinct sensation of something silky-hot brushing his penis, swaddled in the strange metal underwear. Automatically, Hei glances down, gingerly tugging back his trouser's waistband as if to check. Nothing there. ]

[ Then he glances up and notices the girl sprawled across the bed. Her cheek millimeters from the dummy's dick. He watches the languid rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. With each exhale, it's as if the air is a ticklish rush across his own skin. ]

[ Suspicion wars with rationality: his thoughts are like rusty nails skittering in his skull. When the most obvious answer presents itself -- that his dick has somehow been supplanted on that dummy, the same way the girl's fleshy pink bits are stuck on the doll in his cell -- Hei nearly chokes on fast-bubbling hilarity. ]

[ That's ridiculous. There's no way ... ]

[ The girl lets off a breath -- and Hei catches himself mid-shiver. The sensation is a hot feathery arc across his groin; in the metal underwear, his cock twitches, a dull, drunken interest. ]

[ Shit. Shit. ]

[Not only is it warm, but it's twitching, stiffening. Korra jerks away and stares at it. She knew that penises could be soft and hard, but watching the first stirrings of transition...

She bites her lip. The whole situation feels surreal. She can't even muster the proper amount of anger/fear. Instead, she just feels like...maybe this is a chance to do the things she never could before. None of this is real, after all. So maybe it doesn't matter what she does.

Hesitantly, she reaches out...and pokes the mostly flaccid penis with her finger.]

[ She pokes the penis -- and it twitches, base to tip, like something stirring from sleep. In the other cell, Hei twitches too -- with alarm, with anger, with affront. What the -- ? Some miswired, still-human speck of his brain chants No no no over and over. Because there is no way this can be real. There is no way this scenario makes any fucking sense. ]

[ The rest of his brain, always the tactician, concentrates on how best to discourage the girl from handling the penis. Handling him. A sense of fury and unwanted violation is bubbling up; the idea of that vulnerable dangly bit in a stranger's grasp -- literally! -- is tantamount to a knife pressed to the jugular. ]

[ Scowling, he raps the window -- hard -- with his knuckles, trying to get her attention. If he can't -- if the glass is too thick -- well. His gaze drifts toward the bed. To the female dummy with its live, curly-crowned pudenda. ]

[ He'd rather not touch it if he can help it. But if he can't -- ]

[ Well. There's a reason negative reinforcement is so effective. ]

[Korra runs her finger along the shaft, marveling at the texture. It's all warm and squishy and a little sticky. She wraps her hand around it and starts stroking it the way she saw in that magazine Asami showed her. She feels really silly doing it, but it's also exciting. She's finally getting to do the thing Mako never let her do. (One of the many reasons their relationship didn't work.)]

[ The penis radiates a glowing heat against her palm. Bit by bit, it fills her small hand to overflowing, the skin hard yet pliant, the tip glistening moistly as the head bobs with a drunken interest, until it is standing up on its own. She will feel the pulse beating under her fingers. ]

[ Meanwhile, in the cell, Hei's breath is caged in his throat, his hips jerking forward before he can stop himself. God -- what is wrong with him? He's usually better at forcing his unruly flesh into submission. Especially in such ghoulish, exploitative circumstances. He bangs around against the window, even as the girl keeps at her attentions, oblivious, infuriating. On her face is an expression of strange, intent curiosity, a guilty-happy childlike wish for a desired yet unknown outcome. The lips parted, blue eyes half-closed. ]

[ Distantly, Hei wonders if she's ever gotten her hands on an actual cock before. Her efforts aren't teasing or businesslike. More the shy explorations of a little girl with a new toy. ]

[ Except he's not a fucking toy. ]

[ Hastily, his pulse a jumping, quivering network all through him, Hei approaches the bed. Leaning over the dummy, with its transplanted vagina, he grabs a fistful of the springy pubic hair. Tugs, not with force but with clear warning. A signal to make her stop. ]

[Korra jumps and squawks as something yanks on her pubic hair, and her hands instinctively go down to protect her crotch. Except it's not possible for something to be pulling it, not with that weird metal underwear on her. (Unlike Hei, she doesn't have a frame of reference to help her make the connection between the metal underwear and the exposed private parts.)

She tries, without much success, to adjust the underwear so she doesn't get any more uncomfortable tugs, and turns her attention back to the penis. She's pretty sure the penis is her ticket out of here. This place is about the sexy side of science, right?]

If I get this thing off ["make it come", she means, and speaks loudly, clearly addressing the voice] you'll let me out of here.

[Still no answer, but Korra doesn't know what other options she has. She can't break out. She takes a deep breath and starts stroking it again, not realizing her grip is too soft for any kind of satisfaction.]

[ No. No. ]

[ Hei doesn't know how much more of this he can stand -- not that there seems anything to do but stand it. No way out of this cage. In other circumstances, if he knew the girl weren't an enemy, if she was someone he'd met at a bar, in a crowded pub, the scenario would be almost pleasant -- but this puppetry makes him hate it. He's half-tempted to throw a close-fisted punch -- not hard but solid -- against that fluffy little motte of hers. But she's not a target, and there's no trusting his own strength. ]

[ Do it anyway. The sly, dark-winged thought batters at his brain. The Reaper -- at his cruelest and most pragmatic. Hard enough to knock her unconscious. Then focus on escaping this box. ]

[ Forcibly, he shakes the temptation off. He's not damaging a non-principle. Particularly when she's barely a threat, with no clue what she's doing. It's not her fault he's in this mess. But ... she could be the key to escaping. Or, if not her, then the plump pinkish part of her that is fixed between the dummy's legs. ]

[ His breath hisses between his clenched teeth. Hard to think straight when her hand is wandering shyly across his disembodied length, which pulses with a stoppered urgency. He wants to shout Stop. Or maybe Harder. Hard to tell, especially when his mind is blurring the two words together. Blurring necessity versus indulgence with the mad relish of a wizard concocting a poisonous brew. ]

[ Steeling himself, he reaches out. Starfishes his palm across the chubby folds of vulva. The curls are a warm crinkle against his palm; she is faintly damp. Just default slick, not arousal, he assumes. Ignoring the clit for the moment, he strokes his thumb across the soft seam of the lips. Probes lightly between them, tracing circles -- out, not in, an experimental rhythm. ]

[ Meanwhile, his gaze stays fixed on the window. Curious to see how the girl reacts. ]

[Korra screams and falls off the bed, clawing between her her legs as she tries to pull away the hand fondling her. But there's nothing there. Her vagina is encased in that weird metal underwear; there's no way even an invisible spirit could be touching her like that.]

STOP IT! WHATEVER YOU'RE DOING, STOP!

[Whatever brought her here must be doing something to her mind.]

[ Hei jerks his hand away with an almost whiplike precision. He doesn't think he was doing anything to hurt the girl. But the way she flails and shrieks, it's clear the touch is unwelcome. Well -- why wouldn't it be? Unlike him, she has no visual demo to alleviate even a fraction of her confusion. She understands far less of what's going on than he is. Probably she believes that either sinister spirits are molesting her, or she's losing her mind. ]

[ Something churns in his gut; it makes him feel restless and unsettled and vaguely guilty. He forces the weird sensations aside. Tells himself he's accomplished his intended goal. It's a relief not to be handled by strange little paws anymore. His dick, nowhere near as smart, simply bobs in the cool air, a sizzling ache of frustration, a tremor of urgency. He ignores it -- the way he's learnt to ignore countless shades of discomfort in his body. ]

[ Maybe if the two of them remain uncooperative, their captors will release them from the cells. Most likely to kill them -- but at least there will be movement. And movement creates opportunities. ]

[The touching stops. Korra holds breath until she's certain it's gone... for now. Slowly she stands up and focuses on her breathing until the urge to cry or hurl fireballs dissipates. She's already tried bending her way out of here. She needs to change her tactics. What would Asami do?

Even as she thinks, her gaze is drawn to that weird, almost living penis. And she notices something she hadn't considered before: the dummy is also wearing metal underwear. A quick peek in her pants determines it's the same underwear she's wearing. The idea of portals is too alien for her even to imagine, but it occurs to her that if she can figure out how to get the metal underwear off of the dummy, maybe she can get it off herself as well. So she kneels down next to the bed and carefully holds the penis away so she can get a better look at the underwear itself.]

[ She's examining the dummy's underwear. It's a practical choice, Hei thinks: the metal shorts are clearly operated by some sort of matter-displacing technology. Maybe there is a lock, a catch, some familiar mechanism to loosen the garment. It's worth a shot, he admits, trying not to afford the usual trust in his would-be-rational Contractor's mind, which warns him that it won't work. Reaching out, he skims his fingertips across the metal waistband, a careful examination. ]

[ Then he feels the girl's coasting hand, warming skin, setting atoms jostling. The sensation is a cool tremor fluttering beneath his skin; in the other cell, the darkish cap of his erection goes all slick, a clear bead of pre-come oozing from the eye. ]

[ Damn it. ]

[ Hei twitches, grabbing a fistful of the pubic hair on the dummy's vagina on instinct. He tugs sharper this time -- a warning for her to knock it off. If she keeps this up, he's not going to be able to think straight for much longer. ]

OW! [Korra glowers up at... Well, nothing, but she glowers.]

For the record, there is NOTHING sexy about pulling my pubic hair. OR SCIENTIFIC.

[She still hasn't made the connection between touching the dick and the tugs on her pubic hair, so she goes right back to moving the penis so that she can better see the underwear. Not that she's managed to find anything useful yet.]

[ Little bitch, Hei thinks, but doesn't speak it, his eyes squeezed shut, his cock twitching, lengthening, and all the stoppered energy in him pulsing with renewed fire. He starts to tug the curly hair again, enough to make it hurt this time, to stop her in her tracks. But the split between his erection and his brain, between the high-pitched sensations he can't curb versus the crazy thoughts pinwheeling in his skull, make every muscle in his body turn blocky. Trying to fight the burgeoning need is like shifting a ten-ton boulder with your shoulder -- you can bust yourself until you pass out, but the boulder won't budge. ]

[ The fucking boulder has no more idea you are there than ... than a damn inanimate rock. ]

[ Which is exactly what his dick feels like. The ache spreads through his disembodied balls -- high and tight with their load. Heat crackles through the rest of his body, trapped in the other cell, until it feels like his bones will melt. To his utter fury and defeat, he feels his hips stirring restlessly, as if struggling to gain friction, pressure, while the damn girl handles him with her mindless indifference. Detachedly, he regards his dick, glistening and jerky and purplish, and knows he's at the threshold of orgasm already. ]

[ Teetering at the edge, then abruptly hurtling toward it, splattering the girl's hand with rich, sticky white. ]

Ewwwww! [Korra jerks back as the penis spews its payload on her hand. Gross! She shakes come off her hand, and then reluctantly uses her discarded jacket to wipe the rest off.

Still, this could be a good thing. She looks hopefully at the door, which she thought might open if she got the penis off.

It did (in both rooms)... But there's a second door behind it.]

Oh come on. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!?!?

[ Panting, Hei feels a wave of self-disgust rise like nausea. He's always functioned by maintaining perfect control, as much as he's adept at unraveling someone else's. To be robbed of that -- even for a split-second -- makes a swell of bright-red trepidation swell in his chest. More than trepidation -- pure, unadulterated fury. This whole scenario is like being one of those patheticos in movies, muscles dissolved by strokes, or brains trapped in waking comas, perfectly sane and rational yet unable to translate thought to motion by twitching so much as a pinkie finger. ]

[ And really the stroke victim has it all over him, because at least that idiot is nothing more than paralyzed and mute, flat on his back in bed, utterly hopeless and robbed of all dignity, sure -- but still able to look down the cleavage of any pretty nurse that might lean over and plump his pillows. Whereas he feels forced to ride shotgun, straitjacketed and gagged, while his body -- his dick --is jigged about by some stupid teengirl. ]

[ Catching his breath, he watches her scowl and sputter, telegraphing disgust. Mutual, he thinks acidly -- then hears a distant scrape. Almost like a lock unclicking itself. ]

[ Eyes narrowed, Hei focuses on the door. Maybe the sickos watching have opened it? Maybe the stupid experiment is over? Cautiously, he approaches the door. It opens easily enough -- only to disclose a second behind it. Irritated, Hei tries the handle, a quiet electric surge humming beneath his skin, ready to divert the flow of any potential shock that the door might emit. ]

[ He's prepared to fry the thing off its hinges if that means escaping. ]

Edited 2015-05-10 03:48 (UTC)

[Frying is not recommended, although Korra is ready to try it herself. Then the voice comes over the speakers.]

To help facilitate your testing experience, please enjoy this complimentary soundtrack.

[ First the imprisonment. Then the disembodied sex parts. Then the looming threat of asphyxiation. ]

[ Now they're trying to drive him insane with schmaltzy music. ]

[ Teeth gritted, Hei glares at the general direction of the noise with manifest disapproval. Facilitate your testing experience. Which means it's not over yet. Impatience crashes through him; he narrowly avoids attempting to kick a dent right into the door. ]

[ Instead, his tone flat and seemingly resigned, ]

So what's next?

[Doesn't the music make it obvious? G-spot really isn't impressed by this test subject. He blows his load with hardly any touch from the girl, and it has yet to occur to him to return the favor. Somebody clearly needs lessons in the love-making department.

But G-spot runs tests, not lessons. The music is the only hint it plans on giving.

In the meantime, Korra has yanked off her pants and is doing her damnedest to get the weird metal underwear off. It may not help her problem with the door, but at least she won't be vulnerable anymore to that stupid invisible hand.]

[ The music won't stop. Tension edges its way through Hei; his skin is hot with the stoppered frustration of his situation, closer to rage. He also feels distinctly unwell. A headache stabs at him, and his stomach churns. Not because he's stuck in this goddamn cell, but because one particular lyric, crooned with such sugary intensity, keeps pinging at his brain. You'll do it to me, I'll do it to you. ]

[ Is that what they're after -- whoever is monitoring this depraved experiment? A mutual masturbation session caught in real-time? ]

[ Well -- forget it. He's learnt, over the years, to fine-tune his particular brand of selfishness. It extends to the bedroom; since that fiasco with Amber, he's been driven primarily by his own satisfaction. He uses sex as a tool on the job, a way to lure marks into a false sense of intimacy -- but as a purely therapeutic way to anesthetize himself off-duty. Once the buzz fades, so does his interest. ]

[ This doesn't even qualify as sex. It's a comedy of horrors. ]

[ He glances back at the window to remind himself that nothing is going to happen, and that nothing has changed. The kid isn't his type anyway. Practically a baby. He squints at the sight of her, stripped from waist-down, showing sturdy columns of legs as she tries to wiggle out of the metal underwear. Well, she's not easily deterred, he'll give her that. ]

[ Out loud, his voice tipped with ice, ]

I'm not fondling [ and terrifying ] a teenager so you can get your rocks off.

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