Chapter 3: Smelt Down

“I want results, Miss Price.” Hooding her orange-red eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dim light, the woman’s lips jutted to the side, shifting into a crooked grin. Her curly black hair was short, reaching not halfway down her neck. Her muscular physique was emphasized by her black, thin, sleeveless sweater. Not only were her bare arms visibly muscled, but they were a golden tan.

She wore white slacks with a black leather belt, and crisp, clean white shoes. Even though she was dressed somewhat casually, she had a strong, professional aura made more menacing by her eyes. Their color was unusual, but more unusual was their intensity.

There was no light inside of them, no strange, special power, but they still terrified the kneeling Penelope to her core. Everything about Harper Hotis was terrifying to Penelope.

The two of them were alone together, locked away in one of Harper’s private chambers. The reason the room was so dark was its few sources of light consisting of a fireplace, and several candles along the walls. Under them was a hard wood floor. Part of the floor was submerged, in the shape of a blocky ‘u’. Inside of this lowered section was water.

Why it was there wasn’t immediately apparent. It was too shallow, and too small to be a pool. It had no plants, or fish. The firelight flickered across it, but did almost nothing to light the room.

“You’ve been wasting my time, Penelope.” Harper clasped her hands together, before motioning down to Penelope. She was naked, but for a leather harness that grasped between her legs, exposing each and every contour. It lifted her breasts without hiding them away, revealing her puffy pink nipples and so bare skin. It finally reached up around her neck, extending to Harper’s hand with a leash made of metal links. “I know what you intend to do, and I won’t give you the time to do it. Your little ‘daemon’ project will never be completed… not for you, anyway. I’ll be happy to take your efforts and deconstruct them, build them back up… I’m sure it can prove… useful to me.”

No…! Penelope didn’t dare speak. She was too afraid of retribution. The other woman would be shorter if Penelope could rise to her feet, but she’d been down on her knees for days, or weeks. Every time she rose it was only momentary before she would be again knocked to the floor. Without the daemon… I can’t think fast enough, I can’t act fast enough… what am I supposed to do…? I’ll never escape now, not like this…

“You have a simple choice to make, Miss Price…” Orange-red eyes hooded. “You can share your secrets with me. I know the technology you were developing for MA. Is Wyvern involved? Are you afraid of the consequences? You should be afraid of me, more…”

Harper’s grin remained confident, and firm. Penelope quivered on the floor, down on her hands and knees. She was exposed, and yet what little she wore did nothing but emphasize her body. Even her clothed crotch felt as though it were on display, just as vulnerable as her heavy breasts. Penelope’s eyes darted across the room, hopeful for a sigh of… anything to use to her advantage.

She’s not bigger than me, she’s just stronger. She’s not smarter than me, she just has more resources. Penelope tried to stay confident inside of her mind, but even as she insisted on searching for a possibility her fear rose. How did she discover the daemon…? I hid it in such deep encryption… I made certain there were no key loggers…! I’m sure I… finished… making…

Penelope’s eyes defocused for a moment as she fought against a strange sensation of certainty. As surely as she was kneeling on the floor, Penelope knew she’d never made an AI, but she could remember naming it Daemon. She could almost remember its shape.

It was so difficult to remember its face… there was only yellow.

A sharp, ringing tone slowly began to fill the room, making Penelope whine as it ached, making her head feel like it was vibrating until the feelings of agony shifted instead to sensations of confusion. It was such a sharp, intense sound, loud enough that it was hard to think, hard to do anything but clutch her hands over her ears and still writhe on the floor in her barely clothed state.

I’ve been dreaming of… this happening… of being trapped here… but I’m still here, I’ve never… never escaped… why does it feel like someone’s… someone’s trying to reach out to me, to… warn me that something… something’s… wrong… nnnhaa…! Penelope doubled over, falling flat onto her bare breasts as the pain intensified until she could no longer cover her ears. She panted, her mouth hanging open, eyes twitching as the ringing seemed to grow louder, and louder.

She could feel the sound echoing through her bones, and burning at the base of her neck. The place beside her neck stung and throbbed, the sensation so sharp Penelope couldn’t hold back her pitiful cries of pain.

Penelope might have been taller than Harper, but unlike the firm and strong shorter woman Penelope was so much soft, round, smooth flesh. The curves of her bare ass jiggled and shook above her as her breasts pillowed against the floor. She could barely move, and the sound was only continuing to grow louder.

Then Harper tugged on her leash, and Penelope yelped as she sputtered for air.

“You belong to me now, Miss Price. It’s about time I showed you just how true that is.” Harper yanked on the leash, pulling and tugging until Penelope was in reach. “Like so.”

Still holding the leash, Harper’s other hand grasped at Penelope’s hair and forced her face down into the strange ‘u’ shaped recess. Penelope yelled into the water, bubbles rushing to the surface as Harper pushed her deeper into the water, deeper…

And inside of that water. Penelope saw a pair of glowing red eyes.

They weren’t red like Harper’s eyes were red. They were the red of a pair of LEDs. They were throbbing, pulsing in a rhythm that Penelope couldn’t remember, but could never forget.

Submerged in the water, sputtering for air, Penelope felt time itself slow down as the pair of LEDs deep inside of the water pulsed and throbbed. Up above, Harper’s leg was suddenly between her own, pushing roughly against the clothed line of her slit. Penelope’s screams grew weaker, quieter, as the ringing sound pulsed through the water with a much different amplitude, wavelength, or some other quality that changed the sound from pain to something that made her so much weaker, and so much more vulnerable, in an entirely different way.

“I betray everything I stand for… everything I believe in… out of cowardice and fear…”

Her own voice echoed through the water, rippling around her as those red eyes burned into Penelope’s own greens. Even though she couldn’t breathe, she wasn’t drowning. She was suspended in time, trapped by those eye-like LEDs as they held her in place. Bubbles floated up to the surface, but no water rushed in to fill her lungs.

“Where would I be without you…?”

Penelope heard her voice ask the question, but her voice sounded playful, even happy. She had no idea who she might be talking to like that. No one was close enough to earn that warmth she so clearly heard. No one was special enough.

She thrashed in slow motion, the most dramatic of motions reduced to little more than a delicate, slow arch. Her body was so weak from lack of oxygen, but she still couldn’t pass out. She still couldn’t look away from those bright, red, insistent LEDs that even without the rest of the face, Penelope knew were eyes.

Harper’s leg pushed harder between her thighs, rubbing the leather against her slit. Between the rippling bliss flowing through the water, and those eyes holding her defenseless, Penelope could do nothing to resist the raw pleasure the leg earned as it rubbed between her own. She could feel her slit growing slick, the leather growing damp, her nipples turning hard against the cool floor so close to the water. Harper pulled the leash even as she held her under the water, making it that much more impossible to breathe.

There seemed no possible escape. Everything was so slow, but only so she could feel each agonizing moment as that leg rubbed the harness harder between her legs. Her eyes would have crossed from the pleasure if she wasn’t caught in those twin red lights.

“…still captive in Hephaestina’s forge…”

Another voice spoke, a voice that was cool and emotionless, measured and calm. When it spoke, Penelope felt all the more powerless, able to move even slower, even weaker as the strong grasp threatened to hold her head under until she finally did swallow mouthful after mouthful of water.

The forge.

That’s why there was water in the room. Harper had brought her to the forge. She was to construct armor for Harper, to give her power and technology. That was all Harper wanted. Then Penelope could survive.

“…you only succeeded thanks to my creation…”

            That unknown voice spoke again. It was feminine, but so unhuman, as inhuman as the red lights that pierced her gaze and held Penelope immobile.

Finally, time felt like it was running out. Any moment, the water would rush into her lungs. Any moment, that leg wedged against her barely-clothed cunt would rub hard enough, making a puddle on the hard wood floor as Penelope swallowed a puddle in turn. Every moment the inevitable felt more certain, more unavoidable. Fear squeezed her tighter, the same cowardice and fear that her own voice promised.

Tears filled her eyes, only to float up towards the surface of the water one after the next.

 “You’re… important… to me…”

Penelope’s own voice echoed out again, perfectly timed with Harper’s leg grinding the harness against her helplessly throbbing, needy clit. This time the words almost sounded disjointed, stitched together, but it was so hard for Penelope to focus on details like that when she was too busy writhing in pleasure and trembling immobile in fear.

“Time to… expand your programming… Trust… you… You… are… important… to me… You’re… right… You… can handle… it… from here… Thank you…!”

Almost every word sounded like a part of another sentence fragment stitched together, smoothed by only the most rudimentary algorithm. It was still enough for the quivering heroine to smoothly accept the sounds as truth, to feel them ripple and quiver deeper into her mind as the leather rubbed right against the tip of her clit, making her legs feel so powerless, and the pressure in her belly feel so close to bursting.

T-time’s going to speed back up… and when it does… when it… all happens at once… I’m going to cum… and then I’m going to… to…

“I am… your… pilot… It’s important… You… Trust my… Design… Allow me… To… Pilot… You… This is… what… you… require…”

            The emotionless voice spoke, choppy but clear, smooth and unerring. Without being told, Penelope knew that voice controlling her, piloting her, trusting that design… it was the only way to escape. It was the only way to get free. She’d tried everything else.

She needed to be saved.

“You… can handle it from here. Thank you, D.”

            The red LEDs seemed to shrink, like hooding eyes. Her own voice rippled through the water, giving that voice permission to pilot her, to take control.

All at once, like a pipe released after being bent to the side, everything happened at once. Harper pulled Penelope from the water, and pulled her back against her firm, unyielding leg, Penelope screamed, cumming as her whole body trembled and shook, her voice dribbling pitifully from her lips. The red eyes vanished as though they had never been there, because the water was too shallow for anything to be hiding in that water.

“Give me what I want, Penelope Price. Give me what I want… or I’ll destroy you… slowly…” Harper whispered the words into Penelope’s ear like a lover’s promise, low and warm and sweet. “You’ll never leave this room, unless you give me what I want…”

Penelope’s eyes stared blankly forward. The sound was gone, but her mind was overwhelmed. Battered by so much sonic resonance, held tight by that red light, and then driven over the edge of orgasm after being so certain that she had nearly died… it was too much. Her eyes were empty and vacant as her quivering, distant voice replied before she could bother to think for herself. “Whatever… you want… I’ll give you… whatever you want… please… please don’t hurt me…”

Harper sneered, the hand at Penelope’s hair moving down to lift, and squeeze one of her heavy, supple breasts with her slick, wet fingers. All Penelope could do was arch and whine breathlessly, her throat burning as she panted desperately for air.

“Good girl, Penelope. It’s always easier when you submit to me.”