James Axler – Parallax Red Parallax Red

She squinted, trying to reason out why the long-limbed, hard-muscled man looked so familiar. Then she recognized the dark tousled hair and the profile and realized it was Kane. She had never seen him naked before, and somehow she felt a certain satisfaction in this. Her gaze traveled down his body. It stopped at his pelvis, and her eyes narrowed, then widened.

What appeared to be a bowl of black rubber rested upside down over his groin. A flexible hose extended from a sleeve socket in the center of the bowl and snaked up to a small, glass-walled box hanging from a metal armature. As she watched through blurred eyes, a short stream of milky fluid squirted from the end of the hose, splashing the transparent inner walls of the box.

A piping voice wafted from the shadows. “We’ve got a strong flow now. More than adequate volume.”

A deeper voice responded, “Good. Disconnect him and prepare Grant.”

The voice rang a responsive chord in Brigid, but the lethargy in her body and mind prevented her from attaching a name and face to it. Still, the sound of it sent cold chills over her flesh.

Twisting her head, she looked down at herself. She was as naked as Kane, restrained by the same arrangement of straps. The only difference was the position of her legs. They were widely spread, the ankles clamped tightly at the corners of the table. A length of hose lay coiled between them, its nether end attached to a machine mounted on a tripod. The hose had a bulbous, blunt tip.

A wave of fear flooded her and tore a cry from her lips. Sindri’s face suddenly appeared at her left shoulder, his smile warm and comforting.

“Dearest Miss Brigid,” he said quietly, “I should’ve taken extra measures with you. You drank the least amount of the wine, and I subjected you to more neocortex stimulation. Of course you would revive first. My apologies.”

Brigid jerked against the restraints. In a high, aspirated half sob, she demanded, “What are you doing?”

“Proceeding, Miss Brigid. Elle, if you please…”

Harp strings thrummed and vibrated. Her eyelids fluttered. She struggled to keep them open, fought not to be soothed.

Sindri stroked the side of her face. “Sleep,” he crooned. “Sleep.”

Brigid’s eyes closed, but when she felt a distant, probing pressure, she managed to wrench them open again. They filled with tears of terror and outrage when she saw Sindri very carefully manipulating the tip of the hose between her legs.

Brigid drew in a lungful of air, ready to expel it in a scream. But lulled by the harp song, she allowed herself to sink again into the warm sea of oblivion.

Chapter 21

Kane opened his mouth and tried to yawn, failed and closed it again. His head ached dully, as if he had clogged sinuses. He heard a faint rising-and-falling throb in his ears, and he thought it might be the crash of surf on a distant, rocky beach. But the sound was too steady, too overlaid with a pulsing, mechanical rhythm to be natural.

He felt something soft and yielding beneath his naked shoulders and backside. He shivered and opened his eyes. He lay on his back on a narrow bed, covered with a thin blanket. Staring upward at a blank, domed ceiling, he wondered with a degree of detachment why he felt so groggy. It was as if he had been asleep for a long time, but he didn’t feel rested. His slumber had been a chaotic jumble of busy dreams.

Levering himself to a sitting position, he blinked at his surroundings. They didn’t go away, so he knew he wasn’t dreaming. There wasn’t a great deal to see. The room was a small ellipse, like the inside of an eggshell balanced on the broad end. A single overhead light strip provided the illumination. He saw his environmental suit hanging from a hook beside a thin, dark rectangular line spanning half of the facing wall. A small square metal plate studded with two buttons was mounted beneath it.

On the opposite wall, he saw a round hatchway with irislike segments nestled within a thick metal frame.