Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)
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		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Human Solos =&gt; Topic started by: Valerian on 16-05-2008, 16:10:09</h2>
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>16-05-2008, 16:10:09</strong>
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				It didn't happen often, something for which Julia was always grateful; but when it did happen, it was always at about this time of day, when work was beginning to slow and people were beginning to let themselves think of going home.&nbsp; It also always happened with the same suddenness, leaving all those left behind reeling with the shock, then the half-shameful relief that they had been left behind, that they could still leave, eat their dinners, go to bed, and start the next day in their own homes, as safe as they ever had been.<br><br>It happened now, for the first time in months, and she tensed, standing and turning to face the two men as they came into the office, always the same steady tread, the same bland faces -- the faces of low-level executives, sitting quietly in a dull but necessary meeting.&nbsp; To look at their faces, no one would imagine what they were there to do, and that was perhaps the worst part.<br><br>Everyone else had stayed in their seats, merely looking up and blinking, some guiltily even though they probably had nothing much to hide.&nbsp; In these instants, the smallest infraction took on monstrous proportions, and the most innocent often looked the most terrified.&nbsp; Some abruptly, some slowly, all eventually returned to their work, pretending that all was well.&nbsp; That was usually the safest thing to do.<br><br>The men kept a steady course, never glancing around or hesitating, and those whose desks had been bypassed went weak with relief -- it was clear in the way shoulders slumped, the way breathing suddenly began again.&nbsp; Not me, not this time, not yet...&nbsp; Only Julia remained standing, not yet returning to her desk.&nbsp; This was her section; she was in charge.&nbsp; She would watch and see who was taken, no matter the risk.<br><br>It was Maria. The men stopped, each taking an arm, lifting her bodily from her chair.&nbsp; Julia was not the only one to be shocked, but she was the only one who let that reaction show in the slightest.&nbsp; No one ever dared predict these removals, at least not aloud, but Maria would have been practically the last person anyone would have expected to be taken.&nbsp; She was quiet, diligent, steady.<br><br>Now she was gone, swept out the door.&nbsp; She was still quiet, taking her fate with grace -- or perhaps sheer terror.&nbsp; Julia hated to think which it might be.&nbsp; All she could do was what she had done -- let Maria know that she would not be forgotten.&nbsp; Even that was perhaps a double-edged sword.<br><br>She turned, sitting back down slowly at her desk.&nbsp; More bland faces lingered; some she recognized as fellow employees here, some she'd never seen before.&nbsp; One stared at her -- not blatantly, but in a way that made her hands clench and her stomach twist.&nbsp; She wondered if the old stories were true, if once a man studying a woman might have seemed like a normal, safe, flattering attention.&nbsp; Once a look like that might have meant he was only admiring her dark, shining hair; or perhaps the trim swimmer's physique she still had, two years after her victory in the Games.<br><br>But whatever it might once have been, it was only danger now.&nbsp; She forced herself to go through the necessary motions of returning to work, tried to force her hands not to shake.&nbsp; Now it was her turn to reflect on her indiscretions, remembering mementoes of the lost that she kept at home, the tiny collection of old, crumbling books that would bring far too many impossible questions if they were ever found.&nbsp; She had no memento for Maria, who she hadn't known well.&nbsp; She would simply have to remember.<br><br>The day ended -- she'd gotten through it, somehow.&nbsp; The man was gone the next time she dared to look up, but she still seemed to feel his eyes on her as she rose, gathered her few things, and stepped out into the hall.&nbsp; Leaving was always quiet and orderly, but now it was also strained, the smallest noise forcing some to stifle gasps and making others flinch away.<br><br>She walked home, as she usually did.&nbsp; The sidewalks could be crowded, but less so than the public transports, and private cars were unheard of.&nbsp; Even taxis were rare, cause for comment.&nbsp; Today she saw none of the orderly pedestrians, the slow but steady trolleys and buses.&nbsp; She only walked, moving automatically towards the uncertain safety of home.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>29-05-2008, 00:24:43</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The skin of the concrete is pockmarked and chipped, exposing gravel chunks beneath, like the deep-scar-riddled back of some long-extinct, seaborne mammal, and will soon be bathed in the inky night of the city, washed to black where the moon can't shine and the streetlights are all dead.&nbsp; No one's seen a star on this street in three years-- that summer, there was clear sky for two days, the only two clear days she could remember since her childhood.&nbsp; Most people didn't know what to do; some hid inside for hours, calling in late to work.&nbsp; Some day-laborers got sunburns and were hospitalized for observation.&nbsp; The nights were bright with pinpricks of light after the streetlights were out, and there were riots.&nbsp; Many died. <br><br>Or, so the story goes.<br><br>Maria's eyes were those of someone lost in the street, looking for a landmark-- not panicking, but searching, insistent.<br><br>The lights would stay on past blackout, if she wanted them to... it seemed the privilege of her position knew no limit.&nbsp; And on nights like this, with the vacuous night of Maria's empty stare still swallowing the light of her dreams, Julia had a secret comfort, an extravagance as inexplicable as her secret collection of crumbling, yellow-paged books: she had a light, a tiny one... it was the size of a Christmas light, back when one could find them, and it plugged into a circuit and burned so very little electricity that she risked it, on the darkest, emptiest nights.&nbsp; She let it burn, under the covers where all night, she could sleep with its tiny glow washing her skin, illuminating her eyelids to twin globes of amber.<br><br>That's where she could be found, that night... after draining the rust-water from her pipes, she'd drawn a old porcelain tub full with steaming water and stepped within, and watched out the window as the city went dead, one grid at a time, to the night.&nbsp; Now would not be the time to enter the streets-- few police were out at night, and in that pitch-black of dead-city, starless night, every sensible door was deadbolted against the nightcrawlers... predators with night-vision goggles, drug-seekers and hunters and killers and rapists, the most vile, hungry beasts-- predator and parasite alike-- waiting to destroy and maim and suckle blood from any body, a black ocean of Piranha.&nbsp; <br><br>Or so the story goes.<br><br>Against this, her window shutters tight-- the low hum of the electric motor as the metal shade scrolls into place is like a passing el.&nbsp; <br><br>And it's in that night, under that blanket stuffed with down, the light of the tiny, fingernail-long bulb's glow making her world a close-breathed nest of heat there in her studio apartment's bed.&nbsp; She can hear the steady thumping of two lovers trying desperately to stay quiet as they fucked on the floor above her-- the insulation was thin, she could hear lip-bitten panting, whispers.&nbsp; Desperation-- desperation not to sound like they were enjoying it.<br><br>Funny.&nbsp; Society allowed someone of her station many things, so long as they weren't apparently too well-enjoyed.&nbsp; And Society was a fickle engine of social design, military infrastructure, legal authority.&nbsp; All at once.&nbsp; <br><br>At that, she recalls Maria again, the thought of the noise above her-- devoid of emotion or expression, it was just noise-- melted into the warm light of the bulb, and as if his face were underthe blanket with her, she recalled the detail she'd somehow missed: The man watching her, the officer with black hair, wavy and short, a contrast to pale blue-gray eyes that stared into her with an eagle's sensitivity, the man with pristine amber skin like some ostrich-skin smooth military leather, fresh-oiled from some glass case-- the man had smiled, hadn't he?&nbsp; Broad lips, youthful and dusky features-- smiling, though barely, like something had seeped into his lips.&nbsp; Had he... enjoyed... what he was doing to Maria?&nbsp; <br><br>The valve of understanding opens in Julia's mind, then, as alien and unexpected as if a memory burst into fragments and perforated her understanding... he didn't care about Maria, but herself-- <br><br>A glass lens the size of a brad's head swivels very slightly, from the far corner of her room where a camera, the size of a moderately small ant, watches her.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>29-05-2008, 03:06:26</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The man had smiled at her, was smiling at her still, his gaze holding hers.&nbsp; She would not, could not look away, and so it was that when hands grasped her arms, not violently but firmly, unavoidably, she did not see them coming.&nbsp; Hands forced her to turn, pulled her away to look at her captor, and she saw those same blue-grey eyes, the same frighteningly youthful face, framed with that wavy dark hair.<br><br>She woke up then, for a moment not understanding that was what had happened, though also, strangely, not entirely alarmed by the lingering dream-image.&nbsp; But her dark eyes were wide, unseeing even with her faithful light there, casting away one tiny part of the blackness.&nbsp; There was something important there, something she understood only dimly, and she could not get a firmer hold of it.<br><br>She would remember Maria, as she'd promised herself, and she clung to that as she clung to her flickering light.&nbsp; But that meant remembering the man, that smile, the realization it had driven her to, and if she'd been standing, she would have risked falling, reeling under fear and confusion.&nbsp; Anything inexplicable was dangerous, and should be feared.&nbsp; She had to reason through this, somehow, find some comforting conclusion, however false.&nbsp; Sometimes the sharp edges of hope were all she had.<br><br>He had smiled at her.&nbsp; Not admiringly, not in greeting, not in anything she would call amusement.&nbsp; That left preciouis little.&nbsp; He'd been mocking her, perhaps.&nbsp; Yes, that was it.&nbsp; He knew her, knew her yearning to intervene, and had smiled to berate her for that, to remind her of her foolishness.&nbsp; She needed no reminding; she knew she was a fool, clinging to fairy tales and a nightlight like a long-ago child, from the days when children didn't have to grow up quite so quickly.&nbsp; A fool, a coward, clinging to her privileges, useless and uncertain as they were.<br><br>She slept again, briefly, her thoughts too worn out to continue.&nbsp; Then she woke to the same confusion.&nbsp; All was quiet now, the lovers asleep after their exertions, or perhaps risking a few moments of furtive, whispered words of affection.&nbsp; Some instinct kept her from moving, barely even breathing, the air beneath the blankets too warm and too stale.&nbsp; There was something else, some noise or some stillness that would not let her rest or get up, that demanded her attention, and she fought to focus on it, to tease some shred of understanding out of the void.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>29-05-2008, 19:28:22</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The perspective of the micro-camera reveals the bundle of her on the bed's sheets, its fish-eye vision reflected into airwaves, encoded and encrypted and bounced through a dozen relays to be compressed, recorded, and stored on a flash drive somewhere far, far away.&nbsp; A million signals just like it flitted through the air of the city by night like invisible moths... if one could run the right software, it would be like shining a floodlight into a swarm of night-borne mosquitos... there would be more than one could count, one could never trace out so many signals-- each one an intimate portrait of a citizen's life.&nbsp; <br><br>A snapshot of a bedroom, where an old man lay curled in his uncertain dreams of his own continued utility.&nbsp; A shower stall, where the indigo blue tile was fogged, flecked with a few stray bits of a man's beard-stubble.&nbsp; A closet in night-vision green, racks of coats and a clear space with room for one to dress.&nbsp; A kitchenette.&nbsp; A toilet.&nbsp; A pile of down-blanket, wrapped tight around something-- a man in the corner, for only the faintest moment-- now out of camera angle.&nbsp; That signal's override code comes on, and the receiver goes silent, then directs to a new location... its route reconfigured to a new address.&nbsp; <br><br>His chosen destination.&nbsp; He's the one recording, now.<br><br>"Wake up."&nbsp; A fatherly insistence, decisive and casual, pervades the voice.&nbsp; For a moment, the stillness that follows is as if the air's been shocked into submission.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>29-05-2008, 20:47:01</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Every muscle in Julia's body seems to tense, for fight or flight; every nerve shivering with a strange mix of fear and pain and disbelief, yet somehow she doesn't move, all this happening while she is utterly frozen with panic.&nbsp; He's there, <em>right there</em>, in her apartment, watching her.&nbsp; It never occurs to her to question that it is the face from her dreams and visions that she will see, if she ever finds the courage to turn to see.&nbsp; Perhaps he'll be smiling again, the way he was in the office, and this time there will be no doubt of what prompts this smile.<br><br>Her light goes dark, and again a thrill of panic fills her.&nbsp; But it was her own hand that shut it off, moving the switch as silently as possible.&nbsp; There is still a click, hanging in the air.&nbsp; He's heard it, he must have.&nbsp; To her ears, it sounds like thunder, echoing and re-echoing against the plain, pale walls.&nbsp; She moves, again without realizing it, driven by that sound.&nbsp; She has to move, to obey, to act as though everything is quite normal, and she is merely an ordinary, loyal, hardworking citizen.<br><br>Her hands scramble clumsily at the blankets, pulling them down, and she turns, half sitting up, with no need to feign shock and confusion.&nbsp; All she has to remind herself of is her own innocence -- certain in her own mind, but that conviction isn't at issue here.&nbsp; "Who is it?&nbsp; What's wrong?"&nbsp; Natural questions.&nbsp; She wonders how many times he's heard them, in just such circumstances.&nbsp; Her eyes light on him automatically somehow, a mere deeper shadow against the black, her eyes still adjusting to the sudden loss of her lifeline.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>31-05-2008, 09:38:58</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The voice again-- this time, just as clear, with the subtle, government-academy accent steadying every phrase like a waiting, loaded gun.<br><br>"You know who.&nbsp; You know why.&nbsp; But you don't want to admit it."&nbsp; <br><br>A footstep, and the shadowy figure edges closer.&nbsp; She can make out the cold glistening black lenses, the only source of light-- each of the two dome-like lenses is rimmed with a pale amber glow, creating the illusion of two hovering rhombuses in the air of her room, not 3 meters away.&nbsp; "Stand up, drop the blanket, and put your hands out from your side."<br><br>The sound of a high, soft, electric whine, something like the sound of an old-fashioned camera's electric flash charging its capacitor to release a flash.&nbsp; She knows the sound from instructional videos to be the sound of a stun-gun charging.&nbsp; "No funny business, lovely.&nbsp; You are being placed under the care of the state--"&nbsp; they stopped saying 'under arrest' seven years ago, "--until you can be formally charged in a Society Assembly.&nbsp; Arms out, feet apart, on the floor.&nbsp; And don't fret with the light."
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>31-05-2008, 17:26:35</strong>
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				<em>Stun gun.</em>&nbsp; She knows what happens next from the videos, too.&nbsp; The target -- never 'victim' -- briefly loses control of voluntary muscle function, writhing and collapsing in a fit made all the more alarming by its complete silence.&nbsp; The target cannot scream, either.&nbsp; They call the guns humane.&nbsp; They can call them anything they like.&nbsp; Once someone has been hit by one of them, it is all but unheard of for them to reappear to tell the tale of how humane it felt.<br><br>She hears his every word distinctly, his voice precise and formal, even when he uses phrases that appear nowhere on any instructional video.&nbsp; Funny business.&nbsp; Lovely.&nbsp; Perhaps this one has a sense of humor, she thinks, which makes it worse.<br><br>She is already moving as commanded, deliberately, giving him no excuse.&nbsp; Some use force anyway, as a matter of course, judging from the stories, but perhaps this one is more reasonable than some.&nbsp; What a coward she is, she thinks, trying to avoid the small, immediate pain so she might be delivered whole and conscious to the nightmare beyond.<br><br>Bare feet light on the cold floor, her legs wavering and almost giving way.&nbsp; But she will not let him see that.&nbsp; Her arms were out for balance as much as to obey his command.&nbsp; She stares at the glow of his goggles, the only thing visible, except for the faintest hint at the line of his face beneath, a shadow of his hair above.<br><br>He sees every bit of her, she knows, slim body pale in the strange night-vision view, the plain grey government-issue sleeping shirt her only garment.&nbsp; She had thought, almost whimsically, that he might be admiring her short dark hair, the plain and practical haircut unable to disguise its thickness and sheen.&nbsp; She had once been proud of that.&nbsp; Perhaps he still admired it, even tousled and awry as it was now, falling into her eyes.<br><br>Her lips are parted as though about to speak, but she can find no words.&nbsp; Perhaps that would only make things worse -- the stories are divided on that.&nbsp; She only watches, standing as still as she can, waiting for the restraints, for his hand across her face, for the sting of the gun.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Caustic</strong> on <strong>03-06-2008, 02:46:59</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				The silence stretches out.&nbsp; She can't see eyes, just the amber rims of the opticals hovering, twin eclipse-moons, sure signs of some primitive apocalypse.&nbsp; Her own breathing is the dominant sound, an audible shushing sound over the thrumming of her heart, driven on by the electrical-arc pulse, driven by a certainty of its worth and overloaded with adrenaline-saturated glucose, endorphines, androgens-- the body fueling itself for flight, desperate to keep living in the most primitive sense, the thing that conditioning, discipline-- The Society-- have on lock-down.<br><br>Every thunderous hammering in her chest is a rebellion.&nbsp; Every intake of breath a surreptitious protest.&nbsp; Living is the one thing the Society can't abide, but-- as of yet-- can't find a way to circumvent.<br><br>Darkness still-- his silence, the pressing glare.&nbsp; "This is the part where your sins are recounted, humiliation brought forth in full visual glory, complete with audio.&nbsp; If you're <i>quite</i> lucky, you get a dose of Axiatine-- it's epinephrine, MDE, LSD, and phencyclidine.&nbsp; It's all very low-dose, I promise, but it makes the whole experience of watching security video of yourself doing bad things all the more exciting."&nbsp; <br><br>The LCD on the north wall whines softly, springs to life-- it's incredibly dimmed, for night-time viewing, but it sheds enough light to outline their forms in the dark, close room.&nbsp; Her eyes are drawn to it, the synchronous flashes repetitive, patterned at intervals first discovered in epilepsy research to induce an attention-fixing response from a viewer.&nbsp; Images flicker by-- morning breakfast, her walk from work, a celebration of The Society's recent victories in financial restructuring-- and, suddenly, her sliding a book from a shelf in what she'd thought to be an empty, autonomous corridor street through the Condemned's Quarter, where the structures hadn't yet been leveled to make room for the imaginarily-expanding populace.&nbsp; The furtive, cool stare at its cover, the delicate sliding of its frail and dry cover over a worn shelf coated with dust.<br><br>"Your nightclothes... please be so kind as to remove them for your arrest photo-still."&nbsp; The voice is incredibly close now-- somehow, while she'd stared into that flickering screen, he'd drawn up closer, narrowing their distance to but a few inches.&nbsp; Now, she could feel his height, the compact metallic presence of him under the charcoal coverall, ferro-fibrous armor, a massive trenchcoat-like cloak.&nbsp; The face is hidden under a baliklava mask, a single navy-blue covering over his mouth and nose, up to where the goggles rest over his cheekbones like black, insectine eyes.
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			<dt class="postheader">
				Title: <strong>Re: Dominion Day (Caustic and Valerian)</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Valerian</strong> on <strong>04-06-2008, 16:15:21</strong>
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			<dd class="postbody">
				Julia doesn't want to look.&nbsp; The last thing she wants to see is this, the pattern of how she was caught, betrayed by her own nature.&nbsp; But fear helps the steady flickering pull her in, that ever-present fear that things can always, somehow, get worse if she disobeys.&nbsp; So far, the stories have been frighteningly accurate, so it seems safe to assume that things can always get worse.&nbsp; The stories always do, until they are forced to stop, when the tellers can no longer even bring themselves to speculate.<br><br>But it was the books that were her undoing, after all.&nbsp; She'd always thought it would be the mementoes, the forbidden trinkets of the taken.&nbsp; Surely those would be a worse crime?&nbsp; Then she shook her head, fractionally.&nbsp; All crimes were equallly terrible, these days.<br><br>Then he speaks again, almost into her ear.&nbsp; She does not flinch openly, barely holding back the reflex, but inwardly, every nerve and muscle in her tingles with the repressed energy.&nbsp; Fight or flight, she thinks, but she can do neither.&nbsp; She gasps faintly, only now aware that she hasn't breathed since the lightshow began.<br><br>She can see him, her eyes just making out his shape and a few details of his armor and clothing in the faint light, but she's afraid to look for too long.&nbsp; If she met his gaze boldly, would he respect her for it?&nbsp; Or would that earn her the stun gun, or worse?&nbsp; That problem is too overwhelming to be decided on now.&nbsp; She's still running on instinct, on adrenaline.&nbsp; For an instant, she even craves the Axiatine, anything to make her thoughts race less painfully.<br><br>Finally she realizes what he's said, and forgets herself long enough to look directly at those goggles.&nbsp; It's only for an instant, but enough to make her wonder what color his eyes are.&nbsp; Was this in the stories, the nakedness?&nbsp; She can't remember, though it makes a certain sort of sense.&nbsp; Unclothed, even the uncooperative must be slightly easier to handle.<br><br>With shaking hands, she takes hold of the fabric, pulling it up over her head.&nbsp; Now there is no possibility of looking him in the eye -- even if she was commanded to, she doubted she could do it.&nbsp; One hand hovers over her sex, the other tossing the shirt aside and half-covering her breasts.&nbsp; Her hands will be pulled away, she's sure of that.&nbsp; The dead have no claim to modesty, and she is dead now.&nbsp; He's come to take her away so the neighbors won't be inconvenienced by her corpse, to bury her someplace where no one will ever visit her grave, never dare even to remember her.<br><br>She looks up, cautiously, just enough to see his hands.&nbsp; They will slap hers away soon, she thinks, force her to stand up straight, exposing every bit of her to his cameras and recorders of all kinds.&nbsp; He and his kind will study her, perhaps, take her apart bit by bit to discover where she went wrong, and use that to stop such rebellions in the future.&nbsp; She will be an important learning tool, perhaps, and she feels a sudden, alarming urge to smile at the thought.
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