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On the End of a Barrel

There hadn’t been a lot of time to enjoy the scenic chalet, not before Abel had a gun pointed at his head and a bag slipped over his face.

Blinded by the bag and deafened by the silence of his captors, Abel could only cooperate as he was loaded into the back of a vehicle and had his arms taped behind his back.

Abel tried to keep track of the vehicle’s path, in some vain hope he could send the directions to Rorgh, but quickly found himself getting nauseous trying to record all the ups and downs, rights and lefts, in his head. The fumes from the car’s exhaust was not helping matters either.

Being a prisoner was beginning to become a tired routine for Abel. There was still the fear and uncertainty that he had way back when he was first detained by the Claw, but it was suffocated by a strange feeling, almost like boredom.

The very thought that Abel could get accustomed to this situation disturbed him. It was not something a free human should think, even if he was currently held prisoner by members of his own species.

They had all been human, Abel could tell from the breathing around him as he was herded into the car and did not detect any alien musk with his nose. Most resistance cells were majority human but Abel could not help but fear that this one was, as he feared, a human supremacist cell, and what they might think when they access his datapad and find that he has two alien dads.

Or that Abel was responsible for so many human deaths. It was not public knowledge that Abel’s actions did that, but Hada was among this group. Abel knew her as the type of person not to run her mouth and tell people too much information, but at the same time Abel didn’t see her as the type to execute two Regulians until she did it that one night, so all bets were off.

But what was the worst they could do to Abel? They did not have “Loyal Centers,” or gulags or whatever the Regulians liked to call them. Nor did they have access to the advanced torture devices that the Claw had to maximize pain and minimize fatalities. In some ways, Abel felt getting a bullet in the head would be almost simple compared to the previous threats he was up against.

Abel shuddered.

I shouldn’t be this blase about this.

But what else was there for him to do aside from stew in his own fears?

The shrill ringing of a phone broke Brolath out of his slumber. The Regulian groped around to the left, finally grabbing the receiver and placing it to the side of his head.

“Captain,” Rorgh’s voice spoke on the line, serious but with a tinge of worry in his tone, “we need to talk immediately. I’m two rooms down on the right.”

“Mmmm,” Brolath groaned, “I’ll be right over.”

Slamming the receiver down, Brolath felt Leon stir against his chest. They had been up for most of the night, sharing drinks and good conversation. The human listened to Brolath, really listened to him, and that made the Regulian’s heart soften. It was good to finally get some gratitude from the local populace.

Eventually, they laid down on the bed and they both fell asleep almost instantly. It felt good to have someone to hold, someone to protect, and the weaker human was perfect for that. His skin was so smooth and delicate.

Nuzzling at his cheek, Brolath let the human continue dozing and got up quietly, put on his clothes, and stepped out of the room.

On the far end of the hallway, with his blonde fur immaculately combed and his black uniform pressed, was Frontus, who met Brolath halfway down the hall, just in front of Rorgh’s room.

“Something the matter, Captain?” the scrawny Sirian sneered.

“Everything is fine.”

“That’s not what I-” Frontus paused and leaned forward, his black nose inches away from Brolath’s face as it sniffed. Brolath came close to punching him but held back for the sake of the mission. “Well, well! Enjoying some of the local entertainment, hm? Good for you! Now, where is that human of ours, hm?”

“He’s on a job, that’s all you need to know.”

“Oh yes, of course! He is your responsibility after all, but the Claw is still responsible for the Autonomous States, so any Guard asset let loose needs to be reported to us, just so we’re on top of things,” Frontus narrowed his eyes, “but you are keeping track of him, yes? May I see the video feed on his current mission?”

Brolath ignored the Sirian and knocked on the door, “You can submit a requisition form for it.”

“My, my! Why would you refuse me such a thing? Such rudeness does not become you!” Frontus got between Brolath and the door. “Surely the Guard would not be so foolish as to remove the monitoring bugs from the human?”

They must have had the safehouse bugged...of course they did, Brolath cursed himself for being so foolish.

“If such a thing were to happen, I’m sure you’d have your reasons to do so, but there could be great consequences if such an asset were to go rogue. It would be immensely embarrassing to the Guard, wouldn’t it?”

Brolath scowled at the Sirian silently.

“I’m not interrupting some kind of emergency, am I?”

The hotel phone lines too. Serves me right for letting my guard down in a Claw-picked environment.

“Agent, I honestly couldn’t care less about any rivalry with the Claw right now,” Brolath reached past the Sirian’s head and knocked on the door again.

“We’re not talking about some silly inter-departmental rivalry! We’re just making sure you don’t shit in our lovely little sandbox, so to speak. Losing track of a terrorist would be taking an Equuleian-sized shit in our sandbox.”

“And I’ve told you, I have no idea what you’re talking about and you can file a requisition for the video feed archives.”

The door finally swung open and Brolath shoved the Sirian aside.

“I shall do just that, Captain! Expect the form by-”

Rorgh slammed the door shut, cutting off the agent’s rambling. The rooms might be tapped but the walls were thick and muffled any noise from outside in the halls.

“I’m going to kill that worm if he keeps sticking his lanky-ass muzzle into our business,” Brolath snarled and stomped into the living room, where Rorgh had a datapad set up along with several attached monitors that took up a corner of the room’s wall.

Rorgh sat down by the wire-covered desk and started tapping away at a keyboard. The brown Lupiad’s eyelids were heavy, he looked like he had been up for hours without any rest. Rorgh had been taking that black drink again, coffee, which no doubt helped.

“What’s the problem, Adjunct? Has Abel checked in?” Brolath pointed to his ears and then to the walls, reminding the Adjunct that there was a good chance that the room was bugged and to mind his mouth.

“No, he hasn’t checked in for eight hours and was merely a few minutes away from the destination last time he did.”

“Adjunct...” Brolath tapped at his ears and then pointed at the wall again more forcefully along with a slight snarl to warn him about the bugs.

“It doesn’t matter, Captain. From what little I heard of our dear agent outside, he’s likely already aware that we’re in a bit of trouble. We need to get moving.”

“Right...” Brolath shrugged, “...there’s a chance he might be just held up and can’t check in.”

“We can’t take that risk,” Rorgh unhooked the datapad from his screens and put a pair of boots on his digitgrade feet, “either Abel’s dead, being questioned, or has gone rogue. We need to find out which and fast.”

Light pierced the darkness of the trunk and the bag. Abel awoke in a haze.

“Prime piece of meat you got there,” a slimy Regulian voice purred.

“Course, we can’t just let you pass, there are rules,” an older Regulian said.

“Of course, of course,” a human laughed, “Mr. Stein needs his newest employee and is willing to pay any additional fees you require.”

Silence. Abel’s face swam with his own hot air.

Anything could happen now.

“That’s what we like to hear,” the slimy Regulian trilled before slamming the trunk shut.

Abel was confined in the world of darkness once more.

A tree branch appeared on the road and Brolath swerved the car around it.

“We’re almost there, Adjunct...” Brolath whispered, focusing his eyes on the narrow road illuminated by the headlights.

“No word from Abel yet,” Rorgh swiped at his datapad. It was rare for Brolath to drive but he needed Rorgh to take care of the monitoring. “I’ve been checking some Claw security cameras around the area using facial analytics but no matches.”

“Bet that prick Frontus is keeping tabs on our history and laughing.”

“Focus on Abel, not him.”

Brolath felt nothing when that name was spoken, nothing save for a desire to accomplish his assignment. All the pent-up lust and idiotic desires to think of him as something more than an asset for the Empire were gone.

Though Brolath certainly would not say no if the human were to consent to a relationship. A wealthy and healthy Regulian can never settle for merely one mate, after all, but that would feel like nothing more than a tertiary objective, a welcome but unneeded bonus.

Brolath had Leon now and couldn’t wait to spend more time with him.

Rorgh’s datapad pinged, they were at the exact coordinates of Abel’s last check-in. Brolath immediately slowed down to a halt.

The cool night air brushed against Brolath’s fur as he exited the vehicle. Aside from the car’s headlights, they were in pitch darkness.

Opening up the trunk, Brolath pulled out a pair of goggles. Powering them on, he flicked between night-vision and thermal mode. He could just make out the roof of a chalet off in the distance when the dull green of the night-vision mode was enabled, but it became almost invisible when switching to thermal. Chances were the place was empty, unless it had a basement.

“I got his scent, Captain!” Rorgh called out. The Lupiad was bright white through the lenses of the thermal goggles. His nose was pressed up against a stone. “It’s been mostly washed away by the rain but he was here!”

“Got a trail?” Brolath looked up towards the chalet.

Rorgh sniffed loudly, pointing his nose down the road, “He went in that direction but...fucking rain, the trail doesn’t last long!”

“I’ll check it out, watch my back.”

Brolath pulled out his gun and left his coat in the car. It was a cold night and still a bit damp, but he’d rather be cold than visible due to the yellow coat. There was no telling what waited up ahead.

As the chalet approached, across a winding parkway, Brolath led Rorgh into a small patch of trees with a good view of the place. There, they waited for several minutes, looking for any sign of heat or movement. There was nothing, the building was as cool as the mountains around it.

A bit of paranoia ate away at Brolath’s mind, a brief concern that there might be cold-blooded Lacertans involved in this plot somehow and they were lying in wait for them to reveal themselves. Brolath pushed this flight of fancy aside and lead his Adjunct across the field without any hesitation.

Passing a set of tire tracks in the dirt, which looked fresh enough to have been made today, the two ascended the steps and flanked the glass door leading inside. Switching to night-vision, Brolath could see an empty, dusty lobby filled with cobwebs and the occasional discarded object from more fortunate times such as a brass floor lamp laying on the ground. No one had been inside it recently, at least not from this side.

Rorgh pressed his nose up against the glass.

“He was here,” Rorgh sniffed and began walking to the right along the patio, “him and at least one other human.”

Rorgh paused as he reached the corner of the chalet and stuck his tongue out while he continued tasting the scent, “I think they backtracked here.”

Heading back to the stairs, Rorgh sniffed at the railing, “Down the stairs and...”

Brolath followed the Lupiad down the stairs as he began examining the tire tracks closer.

“Shit!” Rorgh cursed. “You see this?”

Brolath stared down at where Rorgh’s claw pointed. A heel of a human footprint was just visible on the edge of the track in the mud.

“Call dispatch,” Brolath ordered, “we need a trace of any vehicles seen on the nearby roads.”

“The Guard doesn’t operate here, Captain.”

“Fuck!” Brolath snarled, slashing at the air. “Call the damned Claw then! We need to find Abel, no matter what!”

Countless hours of drifting in and out of consciousness left Abel woozy and uncertain. He did not remember being removed from the trunk but surely at some point he had to have been.

Warm blankets covered him on a soft mattress. His eyes opened up and found himself in a small room. It was dark and Abel could not see much beyond the bed, but the room looked mostly barren of furniture, save for a television screen mounted on the wall.

Abel’s wrists hurt, but they were no longer tied together. He shifted in the bed and a light flashed on.

The room was indeed bare of furnishing but the walls were lined with decorations. Posters of interspecies couples in the act of sex lined the walls, some advertised specific shows and events along with ticket prices and more concernedly, hourly rates next to names.

“What’s going on!?” Abel shrieked. “Where am I!?”

Abel tried to get up but a metal collar choked his throat and he fell back. A chain rattled at the back of his neck and he grasped around, feeling both the collar and the chain. The chain ran back to a metal fastening attached to the wall behind him.

“No...” Abel sobbed as everything fell into place, “this can’t be happening!”

The door slid open and Abel shrieked. A hulking Equuleian was standing there, his brown fur covered up by a black leather harness running along his chest and up across his long snout with golden disks hanging from the reins. A riding crop was in his meaty hand.

“No! Don’t!” Abel dug at the collar. “I’m the son of-”

“Shit, sorry!” the Equuleian threw the whip to the side and slowly walked towards Abel’s bed, whispering gently. “I’m not here to hurt you, try and calm down, okay?”

“You can’t keep me here, I’m not a slave!”

“Hon...” the bed lurched as the heavy Equuleian sat down and placed his hand on Abel’s shoulder. His warm breath swept across Abel’s face as the large alien nuzzled gently at him, “...I’m sorry. It happens to a lot of people, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, I wasn’t...” Abel’s throat closed up, “...nothing like that happened! I was meeting someone-”

“At an isolated location?”

“Yes, but...”

Was this some kind of sick revenge for what Abel had done? Did they think he was a spy for the Claw?

No, they would have killed me and be done with it and Hada...Hada would have never done this.

Unless she didn’t know it would end up like this.

“I’m not a slave,” Abel whispered.

The Equuleian hugged Abel close, he smelled like wild grass and sweat. It was not a traditionally appealing scent to Abel but breathing it in seemed to help calm him down a bit.

“We’re all slaves here,” he whispered to Abel, “it’s hard to accept, but we’ve all gone through it. It’s not so bad, it could be a lot worse.”

“How could it be worse!?”

“We look out for each other here and management is...” the Equuleian paused, “...they are harsh and demand a lot, but if you perform well they’ll let you be.”

“Harsh, huh?”

A voice that was indeed very harsh growled out and Abel’s attention was drawn to it. A bald human with a thick brown goatee was standing in the doorway, arms crossed over a red sport jacket. He looked down at Abel from behind square, black shades.

“Master!” the Equuleian got onto the floor and bowed, the golden disks along his harness jangling. “What a rare honor!”

“Mmm,” the human strutted in, gently grabbing the chin of the Equuleian and forcing him to look up, “a new client wants the Catherine the Great package. Why don’t you go to Room 3-C, Ruhan?”

“At once, Master!” Ruhan stood up, hunched over low so as to not tower over the human. His long face peered back at Abel, worry in his brown eyes. “The new slave is a bit nervous, pl-”

“Yeah, don’t you worry about that,” the human slapped the Equuleian on his large ass, “Giddy-up, horsie!”

With a playful whinny, the Equuleian danced out and the human immediately shut the door behind him, leaving him alone with Abel.

“Alright, Abel, you probably want to know what the fuck is going on here, yeah?”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Jesus Christ...if you want to survive here, you’d better start talking like a slave and not like that,” the human looked more amused than offended though, “but just to set your mind at ease, no, we didn’t bring you here just to make you a part of my business. You’re a free human still, Abel, and will always be as long as you don’t fuck up again.”

“Then why am I here? I wanted to join the fight again, not...” Abel couldn’t describe the rest of it.

“Someone gave a good reference for you, lets just say that.”

Hada.

“Said that your infiltration skills were unmatched, that you were the fellow responsible for that slave document getting leaked. Felt you were wasted with Arnold’s crew and that you needed a chance to make things right for all those precious human deaths you caused.”

“That...”

“Oh, I don’t hold it against you! Really, whatever shit the Regulians did to them, that was the cause! Fucking cats always got some shit up their sleeve, you know? Can’t fucking blame you if you step on a landmine they buried!” the human smiled. “But some feel you need to prove your loyalty while others think you need to be punished. You’d do anything for the rebellion, right?”

“As long as it advances the cause and does not degrade it.”

“You like sucking alien cock?”

Abel was not sure if that was a serious question or not. Among Arnold’s team, he would have felt fine answering honestly and saying that he’s bisexual and attracted to aliens but without knowing just who he was up against, took a more cautious route.

“Only if it’s for a good cause.”

“Good answer,” the man slapped Abel on the cheek, “you can call me Stein, or Master, at least while you’re working here. We’ve got a mission planned for you and sucking alien cock will play a part in it, so you’d better learn to suppress that gag reflex in the meantime. Don’t worry, you will have a lot of practice. Sound like fun?”

“Not really.”

“Well, every man has to do his part in his own way,” Stein shrugged, “do the right things and the messy work others won’t do and we’ll have a place for you in our group.”

“And if you don’t, well, you’ll be spending the rest of your life in this bed or in a body-bag. Really not sure which.”

“Fair enough,” Abel nodded. It wasn’t fair at all, really, but this was hardly the time or place to argue. “I had a datapad with me, can-”

Stein laughed and clicked a button on a small remote. The steel collar beeped and clicked open. Abel gasped and rubbed at this neck.

“That’s a good one!” Stein shook his head. “We’ll let you have it when we’re good and ready. In the meantime, just sit back and enjoy a movie while we prepare your training.”

Stein slapped a button on the TV and Abel was treated to a close-up of a snarling Lupiad face with thick droplets of drool pouring from his lips as he fucked a scrawny human in the ass.

“It’s all degenerate alien shit, but that’s what you’re gonna have to learn to like, so get used to it. You’ll have some hands-on work in a bit, so brush up on the theory.”