Chapter 0 - For A Chance Of Vengeance

"You wanted to see me, Colonel?" asked the scowling redhead as she stooped under the rickety doorframe of the barracksroom. The other woman, this one taller with a long mane of black hair was sat atop a chair that looked as if it was even older than the decades barracks they were in, and even more likely to collapse. "Major, I'm glad you got here in time," she said, standing up out of it. "Shut the door behind you." The redhead did as she asked, before looking back at her with a questioning expression on her face.
"Can I ask what this is about?"
The black-haired colonel agreed with a wry nod of her head. "It's about Brenner, Tasha."
"...what about him?" asked Tasha with an eyebrow raised in surprise. "I didn't miss the funeral, if that's what you were asking, Lin." Her voice grew colder as she finished the sentence. Typical of the senior officer to try and imply she was being disrespectful, but this was a new low.

"No, no. It's not like that." Wiping her tired face with one hand, Lin braced the other on her arm. "It's about Brenner's body."
"I thought he was...unrecoverable?" Tasha asked slowly.
"That's what we all thought, until this arrived," Lin replied, picking up a small manila folder and passing it over to the major. "It's eyes only but I'm ordering you to read it."
Tasha just accepted it, leafing it open and drifting her fingers over the pages. Lin could see her eyes growing wider with every passing one, Tasha's fingers slowly reddening as she pressed them together through the folder's thin surface.

She pursed her lips together, looking even angrier than she had before she entered the room. "Is this for real?"
"Yes."
"...those dirty bastards. The...the lowlives, doing this to one of our own!"
She looked back to the folder in her hand, scanning the pages again, still saying the same thing; some of Caulder's disciples, managing to flee the chaos of the Nest's collapse, had located a decades old state of the art medical facility. If the thought of medical tech in the hands of people like that, probably perverted to kill rather than save, wasn't bad enough, the summary was even worse. They'd somehow managed to scrape together enough tissue samples from Brenner's corpse, or recover it themselves, and were going to clone it.

Looking back up at the colonel she'd volunteered to serve, she spoke up flatly. "I take it you want to launch a full-scale assault on the place." Lin just shook her head, the long lengths of her hair twitching behind her.
"Nope. I'm going in myself to deal with it. There's a handful of technicians there, no real military presence. According to our agent they've sent them out of the city to try and persuade us to follow them."
Tasha looked up curiously at her CO. "You sure about that? One person alone doesn't work well. Believe me, I tried it enough times for Lazuria."
Lin nodded patiently. "I know, which is why I wanted to ask you if you'd join me. Brenner helped us all, and I know you respected him for it." She paused for a moment, gauging her subordinate's expression. "Well?"
She got a grim smile in return. "Sure."


The grit thrown up by the oversized wheels of the scout car was incredible. Tasha had to keep flicking it out of her hair where it caught, and her dust-goggles were scratched badly. If it came to a fight, she'd have to ditch them, but she was willing to take that risk when it came to keeping watch for a bunch of Caulder-worshippers. In front and below her, the colonel was busy keeping the car going at high speed, avoiding the worst of the debris in the road entirely and driving over lesser pieces. They'd kept at it for three hours, carefully making sure they took the route furthest from any reported enemy zones of influence, but you could never be too sure on the battlefield. Years of near-constant fighting had taught her that all too well.

The colonel threw her arm up, pointing off at the left and shouting something over her shoulder to Tasha, but she could barely make it out. A moment longer and she didn't have to, catching sight of the same thing Lin had. On the left the road emptied into a cul-de-sac, a small glass-fronted office with a age-tattered sign proclaiming it to be the 'WI-DB-EA--R'S ENE-GY --MP-NY'. She recognised it from the few photographs the report had included, and she swung the roof-mounted machinegun to cover the building as Lin pulled up. "Tasha, are we ready?" asked the colonel, one hand reaching for the carbine she'd requisitioned before leaving camp, checking the magazine with a practiced hand and checking the chamber was free of any dust.

The dark-haired woman moved quickly, sliding out the car and to the side of the engine hood bracing her knee on the ground and sighting on the door as she waited for Tasha to disengage from the MG's bracing and pick up her own weapon, a battered but clean-looking Lazurian submachine-gun. "Ready?" she asked, eyes still focused on the office.
"Ready, boss." came the eager reply. At once Tasha swung out from behind the car, pounding the pavement below her as she dashed to the doorway, gun up at her hip and ready. Lin followed quickly, motioning to Tasha with curt hand gestures. The redhead turned, kicking one booted foot against the fragile door and knocking it out of place entirely.

They moved quickly, boots crunching on the shattered tiles as they made their way to the door that was concealing the entrance to the facility. "Got it," Lin said quickly. Moving together as quickly as any veteran fireteam, the two women pulled small Comp-B charges, ancient but effective, and about all they could spare from the arsenal, from their pockets and stuck them on the stainless-steel door. Springing back around the corner they set them off, charging through the doorway into a waiting room that looked like time itself had forgotten it. Behind them an emergency bulkhead slammed down over the broken wreckage, and Tasha whirled around, weapon up and aimed at the obstacle. 
"Welcome to Solaris Majestic Medical Centre," said a voice drifting from the speakers. "I am AMAI," it carried on, "And I will be your support unit during this procedure."
There was only enough time for the two soldiers to look at each other before the tranquilising gas hissing in slowly through the vents worked its way upon them.

"Thank you for your assistance, AMAI," said the white-haired woman watching it all on a private monitor. "Could you detail some of your orderly drones to pick them up for the procedure?"
AMAI's attention turned to her, focusing a security camera on her visitor. "Why certainly, Tabitha."


Lin's eyes opened up in a haze, and she blinked aside the gummy sensation as best she could. She blinked again as she looked down the length of where her body should be, but instead, all she could see was a white and green cylinder that her body had been placed into. Turning her head as best she could, she saw a lolling head with a familiar shock of red hair emerging from an identical-looking container. "Tasha? Tasha? Major!" she shouted desperately.
"Co...colonel? What happened? Last I remember there was a voi-" The major's question was broken off as something shifted in the darkness overhead, dropping down in front of the two soldiers. A machine-person, arms, shoulders, head and body all crafted to resemble a human's while the hip was joined to a long extending series of spheres that crept back up into the darkness.
The mouth was backlit with a glowing yellow, formed into a singular shape concealing a speaker of some kind. "Greetings Patients Lin and Tasha! I am AMAI, the Advanced Medical Assistance Intelligence of the Solaris Majestic Medical Centre, and I will be helping oversee your treatment here."

"What treatment, machine?" demanded the fiery redhead.
"I beg your pardon, Patient Tasha. I am not just a machine as you are not just a collection of electrical signals speeding through a nervous system to spasm a series of muscles with purpose. I am the overseer of all assistance human doctors require in this facility, and administer care to patients as diligently as any human nurse would," the machine spoke with an almost affronted tone.
Glancing sidelong at Tasha with a 'keep quiet' expression, Lin looked up at the avatar. "AMAI, we don't require assistance. We're here to stop our enemy from performing a medical experiment, an unethical one at that!"
"You must be mistake, Patient Lin. You are the only patients within Solaris Majestic, and the only humans here besides our resident doctor," replied the decidedly unnerving machine.
Lin gazed up at it for a moment. "AMAI, who is that? If we could speak with them, we could solve this easily."

"Oh easily it will be solved, colonel-sorry, patient, Lin," came a cheery voice. The voice's owner stepped out of the shadows with an easy stride, a cheerful smile adorning her face, and a long white dress flouncing as she did so.
Tasha glared at the woman, spitting the name like a curse. "Tabitha. What in the name of god are you doing here, you psycho?"
"Why, I'm the resident doctor, and I'm here to make sure my patient's procedure goes well." Tabitha was beaming now, her hands tucked together like a worried nun. "AMAI here was kind enough to volunteer to help me with the procedure."
"What are you talking about, Tabitha?" spat Lin, eyes dark with hate.

"The use of stimulated gargalesis in helping combat the strains of induced post-traumatic stress disorder. Wordy, I know, but all the big science journals require such titles." The scientist waved her hand airily at the containers the two soldiers were held in. "Observe the state-of-the-art Universal Stimulus and Analysis Units AMAI has kindly donated."
Lin and Tasha both looked down at the capsules properly. Now they could see that to each side of the capsules a tube extended, each one holding one of their arms fast, while they could just see the tips of their feet, Tasha's bare while Lin's were still covered in her heavy boots, extending from the far end. Though they couldn't see them, above each woman hung a EKG monitor displaying vital signs, and most of interest to Tabitha, scans of each woman's feet, marked out with percentages denoting the expected reaction elicited from targeting that specific area.

"Well ladies, let's begin," she said with a haunting smile as she wandered closer to the two.


"First, I'll let AMAI explain some of the ins-and-outs of the USAU's," Tabitha said as she dropped to a cross-legged stance on the floor before the two.
"Thank you Doctor Tabitha," the avatar intoned, the extending support dipping in a bowing motion, awkwardly imitating a human. "Each USAU is composed of a standard-shape shell filled with a chemically inert safety gel, with the gel holding a full range of self-mobile monitor artifices." The two women cast confused looks at each other before AMAI began speaking again. "For the safety of all patients placed within the USAU, arms and legs are restrained to avert avoidable damage to both patients and equipment." The avatar moved down lower, hovering just above each woman in turn. "If you're ready, the procedure shall now begin. You agree, Doctor Tabitha?"

"Oh yes, AMAI, I do. Activate the artifices if you would." The white-haired girl cocked her head to the side, one hand bracing her chin as she watched the faces of the two containerised women. Lin felt it first, an itch around her lower back and she tried to move, trying to shrug it off, but she could barely move in the gel. She managed to tamp down the laugh that escaped her mouth as the sensation began to spread all around her stomach, but her concentration was broken as she heard a distinctly feminine giggle from her left. Turning her head, she could only look on in disbelief as the fierce-looking redheaded major suddenly broke down into giggles.

"Colonel, look at me please," asked Tabitha. "So the procedure can finish in a timely fashion, I need to ask you some questions as you go on." Lin stared at her with anger, but Tabitha didn't even notice. "First of all, how many of 12th Battalion's companies are in the camp?" the woman asked, just as the itching began to spread up the front of Lin's stomach towards her chest. "No answer? Very well. What's the status on 12th Battalion's munitions supply?" she asked again, glancing up from the paper in her hands at Lin and shrugging. "Be like that then. What is the current location of your divisional commander?"

"Fuck you," spat Tasha suddenly from beside Lin. Tabitha frowned at her, and AMAI uttered a single electronic tut. "I see you're going to require an advancement of the procedure. AMAI, please activate the LESU," she carried on, pronouncing it 'lee-soo'. "Full awareness protocol as well, please."
"Certainly Doctor," intoned the AI. Though she couldn't see it, Tasha could still hear the clunk as the machine rose from below the opening in the floor that had concealed it, clicking into place at the foot of her USAU. She watched in horror as the plate just above her legs opened up two small ports, each one letting out a ring-finished tendril. The rings were sealed into place around her two big toes, the segmented cables becoming as solid as a wall when she tried to move them. Above her the EKG swung up and out of sight, a single manipulator arm descending bearing a pair of headphones in its grasp, slotting them neatly on her ears.


The headphones rang dully with AMAI's filtered voice. "Dear patient, you are about to benefit from the addition of the LESU, or Lower Extremity Stimulus Unit, to your current USAU device." AMAI's avatar dropped down into view next to Tasha. "Typically an LESU is used for patients when testing responsiveness in cases of possible paralysis, but Doctor Tabitha devised this extraordinary use for the unit in conjunction with her current study."
Tasha couldn't see them but she could feel the slight draft at her feet as they wavered. "Currently the primary stimulators are active." Suddenly she began to giggle quietly as the two tendrils worked their toothbrush-life surfaces over her feet. "EKG signs are nominal. Activating secondary stimulators." The giggling got worse, and she couldn't help but wiggle what toes she could.

Besides her Lin stared in horror. "Let her go, Tabitha! It's me you want, isn't it?" 
Tabitha just shrugged as she gazed at Tasha's struggles. "You had your chance, Colonel. Now then, let's see. Ah yes." With a press of a button, the remote inside her coat deactivated the automated artifices struggling through the gel inside the USAU. "Now then, Lin, can I call you Lin? I'm glad to hear it." The crazed scientist picked up the paper she'd been holding earlier. "Current status of the 12th Battalion's aviation assets?"
The captive colonel just stared at her evenly. "You know what? Tasha's right. Fuck. You."
Tabitha stared at her for a moment. "Alright then," she said, reaching into her pocket and pressing a different button. This one alerted AMAI to complete the 'tuning-up' of the LESU, and Lin gasped in horror as she saw another two pairs of tendrils emerge from it and attack the major's bared soles and toes. AMAI started talking to the major about tertiary and quaternary stimulators being activated, but the other woman was wailing in pained laughter so much she didn't hear, and Lin barely noticed Tabitha's doings as she stared in horror at the scene.

The other woman had unlaced her own shoes, delicately placing them to one side and flexing her own bared toes to the air as if to admire the thick purple polish adorning their nails. Unhurriedly she'd done the same with Lin's boots, carelessly tossing these into the distance behind her.  With a motion of her hand, the lowest portion of the LESU attached to Tasha's unit slid out gracefully. Inside was a middle tray of heated soapy water, with a pair of stiff scrubbing pads bearing handles to each side of it. Lifting them up carefully, she dipped them deeply into the water, lifting them back up and waving them in Lin's eyesight. "Did you know that hygiene is vitally important in the modern hospital?" she asked, before gleefully taking these stiff-bristled tools to the raven-haired woman's soles.

She raked them up and down, side to side. It all pleased her as she listened to the two women begging for mercy, to be let out. "You're both giving me valuable data, ladies, and for that I must sincerely thank you," Tabitha said with a smile. Pausing to refresh them in the still-warm soapy water, she looked up at the clock display on the EKG. Nearly an hour and a half on this alone? Incredible, she thought. Whistling tunelessly, she turned back to her work. An hour later, both women still had enough energy left in them to ask, to beg, to plead for clemency, but Tabitha and AMAI ignored them as they carried about their work.


Eventually Tabitha stopped and sighed, mopping her brow with the back of her hand as she checked the clock. Three hours since they'd started? Not bad, but still.... Looking back at the others she smiled. "Thank you for your participation ladies. Right now however I'm afraid I need more data for my study." She turned to AMAI's avatar, putting the brushes back in the drawer and sliding it back in as she did so, "If you'd be so kind as to deactivate patient Tasha's LESU and activate patient Lin's please, AMAI."
"Of course Doctor," replied the AI.
Sitting back as the changeover occurred, Tabitha watched the tendrils binding the major's toes withdraw back into their casing as their twins appeared to wrap around the colonels's own. The headphones on the redhead withdrew as the EKG swung back down, the same process happening in reserve over the dark-haired woman's USAU.

Sighing contentedly, Tabitha reached for the new drawer, pulling out an identical pair of pads and dipping them into fresh soap-laden water. As she gazed at the pads, she saw her own feet between them, and her eyes flickered back to Tasha's soles in front of her, the redhead's eyes closed with exhaustion. She made her decision quickly, slipping her feet between the top surface of the pads and the handles, like a pair of sandals. Lying on her back, careful not to let them drip anywhere but into the water she dangled them over, Tabitha began talking. "Did you know, Major, leg exercise is vital to maintaining good health?"
Her head still restless as she kept her eyes shut, Tasha whispered. "Glad to hear it."
"Not in a moment you won't," came the reply.
Her eyes sprang open at the first touch of the brushes wet bristles on her feet, a feeling like a porcupine rubbing itself against her skin. At the foot of the USAU Tabitha carelessly worked her feet in tune with the limited movements Tasha could afford, smiling as she heard the woman's hoarse laughter.

Eventually, she grew bored, the effort of keeping up with the sinuous and desperate motions of the redhead too much. Tucking the brushes back into the container, she peered at the drawer's contents before seeing what she was looking for. "Here Tasha," she said as she turned back with the soft cloth in hand, "let me help clean you up." Grasping one foot, she gently blew on it before smoothing the cloth down on it as lightly as she could. Over and over she did this until the sole was dry, and then she gathered up the cloth, rolling it up thinly before gripping it like a piece of floss. Here she worked it down in between one of Tasha's pinkie toes and its neighbour before sliding it out and in like a see-saw. Ignoring her patient's gasps for air, she slowly worked over each gap before caressing the other foot to repeat it all over again. When she was done she dropped the cloth back in the box, turning to the feet before her. "I think we need to test some extreme manual stimulation, don't you?" Leaning close enough for her nose to tingle at the touch of the soft skin of Tasha's arch, she yapped her tongue out, wiggling it into the soft inner curve of the redhead's arch.

The gasps became pants as she worked her tongue over the soft warm skin, and she giggled herself as she licked the underside of Tasha's toes before nipping at them gently with her teeth. She felt she was losing herself in the pleasure of crumpling the two boisterous soldiers on her battlefield, the laboratory rather than their domain of the battlefield, but she didn't care right then. All that mattered was the pleasure of torturing them, and she threw herself even harder against the other foot, licking and kissing delicately in equal measure before taking in her mouth one of the big toes still marred from its confinement, sliding her teeth along the flesh as she wormed her tongue over the smooth nail.


It was left for AMAI to warn her of the time. "Doctor Tabitha, the procedure is now at six hours elapsed. It is my understanding that the final stage was to begin by this time?"
Glaring angrily at the AI's omnipresent avatar before she managed to smooth her face's expression, Tabitha broke off her toying with Tasha's foot.
"Yes, yes, you're quite right, AMAI. Begin at your own discretion please."
"Why thank you, Doctor Tabitha," the machine said in an eery recreation of cheerfulness. The LESU tormenting Lin deactivated, tendrils drawing back into the machine. At the foot of Tasha's, the original one emerged out of the ground again, and the two cuff-tendrils emerged to pinion her big toes once more. Above her the EKG swung back yet again as the headphones descended upon her ears once more.

Then AMAI angled the headphones, making the top band tighten up as they were dropped to cover their wearers' eyes and not just their ears. Pulling a small microphone out of another voluminous pocket, she quickly set it to register on one pair of headphones alone and spoke it. "I know you can hear me Colonel, but just to make sure, wiggle your toes." As if an obedient puppy, the soldier did so. "I'm glad. Now, Colonel, I'm prepared to make you an offer; if you offer to tell me everything I want to know before the Major begs for mercy, I'll let her go. If she begs for mercy first, you're both staying here. But, if neither of you beg for mercy, I'll let you both go, you have my word."

Satisfied the woman had heard her, Tabitha changed the microphone's signal to register on Tasha's headphones alone this time. "Greetings, Major. I hope you enjoyed earlier," she said, one hand reaching out to trail across a vulnerable heel as light as a spider. "I'm going to make you the same offer I just made your colonel. If you offer to tell me everything I want to know before the colonel begs for mercy, I'll let you go. If she begs for mercy first, you're both staying here. Oh, and don't even think about trying to say nothing. That just guarantees you're staying here with me, the pair of you."

Covering the microphone with a hand as she snickered, Tabitha gazed at the two women. "AMAI, begin the procedure please."
"Certainly, Doctor," the thinking machine replied. Within a second all four pairs of tendrils on each LESU began to wave up and down the soles of the captives, and they began to laugh in thin, piteous cries, each one having their voice piped straight to the headphones of the others, and she watched as they sometimes winced as one laughed in ever-growing pitches. Tabitha waited for a few minutes more, content to watch the small brushes as they coiled around and over the soles, sometimes dodging around to the tops of the feet as AMAI judged necessary to improve data collection. That this had the benefit of giving AMAI enough time to record each voice and compile it into an essentially permanent recording was merely a side bonus, and it took the smallest hand-gesture for her to have AMAI cut the original audio links and replace them with the repeating copies.

At the same time, the manipulator arms descended bearing stiff rolls of bandages. Whirling themselves in a circle around each woman's head, the arms wrapped these bandages around each of their mouths to keep them quiet. Tasha's head was flailing about afterward, and Tabitha wondered if the woman was on the edge of breaking. No matter if she was; she was here for Tabitha's study, not for her own leisure. The shaking alarmed AMAI, whose avatar dropped in front of the two again. "I'm sorry patients, but for your own safety I must cease all movement." A single command sent an electrical impulse rushing through the circuits above and into the capsules. It took bare seconds for it to do its work, converting the energy into thermal shock that solidified the gel until it was like solid concrete to the women. "In the interests of preserving procedural data, all monitor artifices are equipped with a device to enable them to make their way through the gel in this state. Please bear for one moment as this is activated."

If they weren't gagged, Tabitha was willing to bet the volume would have doubled in the room as the tiny bug-like robots began to pull themselves through the gel, an electrical field disrupting it around them. All along the surface of their bodies, these robots pulled themselves along, prodding and buzzing as they went. If either woman had been capable of even thinking about it, they would have realised they were as naked as newborns inside the pods, but the sensations were incredible, like a wall of sound turned into touches all over their body. AMAI carried on, "Unfortunately dear patients, we must act to cool down the gel so as to preserve your health. We apologise for any discomfort this causes." Just behind the section of the panels where the cuff-tendrils had emerged, two vents opened, each one facing in the direction of a single helplessly flexing foot, and warm air began to pulsate outwards.

Tabitha still wasn't done. With the press of the last button on her control, the tendrils in each of the LESU's deactivated and wound back into their storage compartments. In their place the ignored pieces activated; hands covered in white leather, formed like a human hand while the others were soft nylon brushes, all of them rising out of their compartments like serpents readying to strike. These hands kneaded the soft and tender skin like dough, pinching and twisting as they went. Every few seconds they lifted off the surface, the large brushes rushing up the stretched soles like elevators rising up and then plummeting back down, sticking to the contours of the women's feet like glue.

Smiling at the sight, Tabitha turned her back on it and walked off. "Make sure you let them go in about six hours or so please, AMAI. Reroute all data and camera footage to the lab for download, along with those construction blueprints."
"Of course Doctor Tabitha. I'm sure we'll meet again," the AI said before the doors hissed shut, sealing the two captive soldiers in the darkness with the apathetic intelligence.