I kept street clothes on, sweatpants and a baggy hoodie covering my body and hiding the bulging diaper Haven didn't let me remove. As an additional bit of discomfort to emphasize my state, they lined the inside of my clothing, ensuring there was no airflow except up through the neck of my shirt, every step wafting the stink of my diaper right towards my face.
Even with that constant reminder of my dependence, it was hard not to feel like hot shit as I strolled up to the back entrance of the Storm Holdings office building–a relatively modest structure given Central City's imposing skyline, but still a twenty story building owned and operated by a singular company. That alone was a symbol of wealth and power matched by few others–complete and total ownership of an entire block in Central City.
Even still, they could do nothing to stop me. All I had to do was touch the handle, and Haven oozed their way into the lock, unlatching the door and allowing me inside.
Out of sight of the public, Haven covered me in their inky armor, and I discarded the hoodie and sweats, freeing up my mobility as much as possible. My plan was simple–kick ass, take names, check rooms until I found Billie.
It was simple, and reckless, but it seemed to work when superheroes on TV did it. Sure, the publicly recognized heroes tended to have allies and resources I couldn't dream of, cash that even a decade of camsite degradation couldn't come close to, but the fundamentals were the same:
Beat up the bad guys, complete my objective, a series of question marks, profit.
Inside, I was quickly met with a security camera. I grinned, an expression mirrored on Haven's night-black, featureless face as a curling up of several flapping tendrils. Let them see me, I wanted that camera.
Tendrils lashing out, I–we touched the camera, and through Haven I could feel the arcs of electricity, the wires coursing from the camera to a power supply, and another cable running across the building, towards a central network.
The further we got from this one camera, the more vague my 'vision' grew, but within a few seconds I'd built a mental map of the facility and–more importantly–the location of every camera in the building...
Including the ones deep down in a basement, four stories below ground level. A lot of cameras were down there, more than any other section of the facility.
"As good a place to look as any," I said, swaggering to the elevator.
No one had stopped me yet, but I'd only been in the building for ten seconds or so. Even a fast responding team would still need some time to get to my position and coordinate, and that gave me an opportunity to stroll right up to the service elevator.
I didn't push the button. Haven's semisolid form slipped between the doors, and with a shove, I simply pushed them apart, accessing the elevator shaft.
"You're sure?" I asked, a bit of hesitation entering me as I saw the long plummet.
(I'm sure.)
Haven's confidence bolstering me, I took a step back, took a deep breath, and–
"Hey!" a guard shouted, dressed in a blue polo shirt and a clip-on tie. He had out a taser and was approaching quickly, to deal with the 'intruder'.
I didn't wait any longer, I jumped.
The fall passed in inky darkness–twenty feet, or thirty. Haven could show me our surroundings, but there wasn't much to see, just four walls boxing us in, a shaft just barely big enough for three people to walk abreast if it'd been turned on its side.
I landed on one knee, one hand out for balance, the other on the ground to help absorb the shock. I felt it in my joints, a little, but the bulk of the impact reverberated into Haven, and the ripples of impact spread out through them and into the air above me. A burst of air created a loud 'Whoomf' like the blowback from a massive potato cannon above me, but no harm came to my body.
Standing, we ripped open another set of elevator doors, walking right into the sub-sub-sub basement.
Immediately, five more guards faced me, but they looked nothing like the semi-schlubby polo man from upstairs. These guards had on body armor, and they held some sort of not-rifle, attached with cables to hefty battery packs on their backs.
That alone, I probably could have dealt with, but a sixth guard stood behind some sort of enormous turret-mounted weapon, something I could only describe as a laser cannon.
"Uh...these guards aren't like the other ones," I whispered, uncertainty kicking the cockiness out from underneath me. I'd hoped that the element of surprise would carry us forward for long enough to get an edge, but they'd been waiting. They'd known I would come down this elevator, and had the cannon waiting for me. "This was a trap."
(Do you trust me?) Haven asked.
In front of me, the lead guard–expression masked by a helmet so that I couldn't read his face–shouted, "Get on the fucking ground."
"What?" I asked, responding to Haven's question first. "No, I–wait, I'm not refusing, just–"
The next words weren't meant for me, but I caught them anyways, picked up by Haven's acute hearing. "Take her down."
Five rifles raised, and the tip of the cannon began to glow. I swallowed–this was going to hurt. Haven could protect me, but...
A chill came over me. Not fear, not anxiety, not any emotion at all–literal, physical cold, as my skin suddenly bared itself. I hadn't had anything on save for my parasite and my diaper, but as Haven retreated, my body was left totally naked, exposed, vulnerable.
The realization struck me that I was totally helpless, and then the electric surge struck me from six strange weapons.
It wasn't like the cattle prod at all. I stayed conscious when I got hit with the cattle prod. This knocked me out, and I fell, vision turning black before my body struck the ground.
...
How will Charlie ever get out of this? Find out next time!
YOU ARE READING
Symbiotic Submission
ParanormalThis is both a continuation of a series of older short stories of mine, and also an archive of those stories - I originally wrote the first three parts of this over the course of roughly a year, without a strong idea of where I was taking the story...
