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gins-potter · 3 years

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Chicago PD sneak peek thoughts dump

Putting it under the cut because I know not everyone likes to watch the sneak peeks...

So the sneak peeks for PD dropped earlier (honestly I'm surprised they didn't wait until next week to really torture us but hey I'm not complaining), if you haven't seen them they're on SpoilerTV's youtube channel, and they're also just floating around tumblr and twitter.

The first one is of Adam and Kevin:

They're hiding out at some kind of factory/warehouse/industrial complex with the guy who was involved in the officer-involved-shooting

As far as I can tell Adam and Kev were going to bring the other officer in to the district (either for arrest or questioning would be my guess) when they were attacked (probably in retaliation for the shooting) and they decided to hide out until they could get the officer to the district with no one else getting hurt.

The officer's running off his mouth about how he's a good cop, and how he protects the city, and he's getting judged for one incident, and Adam and Kev really couldn't give a fuck about what he has to say.

Adam's just trying to ignore him and tells Kevin to do the same, but it's obvious that Kev is getting more and more annoyed and that's when they get into the argument we saw a bit of in the promo.

Honestly I might just transcribe the whole convo because A Lot is happening

Adam: Please, I just- please, let's just ignore him. Stay calm.

Kev: Why? Why am I keeping calm? Why are you so calm? How can you just sit there with me, listening to this man defend himself, acting like we didn't just see the same tape.

Adam: Bro- I- we- it was a bad shoot. What do you want from me? I'm just trying to get through this, okay? I just want to go home. I don't want to get involved in things that are above us-

Kev: Let me tell you what we ain't gonna do. We ain't gonna say this is above our pay grade, we're not gonna dismiss this man as one bad apple, because we are in this. Alright, we have got to stop hiding behind-

Adam: Hiding behind what?

Kev: Being white!

Adam: Being white? Really?

Kev: You don't gotta be black to know wrong from right.

Adam: I never said that anything that that man did was right. Did you hear me say that?

Kev: Think about what this white man did, and how the next black kid is gonna look at you the next time you go out there.

Adam: I know. I know. But I'm not doing this with you, right now.

Kev: Why not? Why not? We're here, we might as well, we've been shot at, chased down, all while protecting the white cop that killed the black kid, and I've gotta live with that, why not you? I've gotta be angry, why not you? 'Cause you're the good white cop? That can't understand? Who has nothing to do with any of this? That what you're trying to tell me?

Adam: Because I don't! That's not me. What's inside of him, is not inside of me. And you should be the one to know that. How dare you, man? I'm sick of you questioning me all the time. Why is it me? Why is it me who has to answer for this guy, huh? Ask yourself that question.

So a really tense discussion, pretty much, and I just want to comment on a couple of things that get said, particularly about the lines that I bolded.

First off I'm really curious about when in the episode this all happens, because the way Adam says he just wants to go home makes it sound like they've really been through it and he's just tired and frustrated and really doesn't want to be dealing with this. Which makes me wonder if that's partly what leads to this blowup.

But that line also betrays Adam's inherent privilege in the situation. Like I was saying in my post about the promo, as a white cop Adam has the luxury of going home and taking off his badge and thereby taking away that problem to deal with another day. He can sit back and not think about it for a while. Kevin doesn't have that luxury, he can't remove his blackness the same way, he doesn't get to go home where it won't be a problem any more. Which is what I think leads to the rest of the argument.

So Kev goes onto say it's not good enough to dismiss this as something above their paygrade. Because again that's a luxury he doesn't have. This is something he has to carry with him every day, on the job and off it. It's not fair that the others, because they're white, get to shrug and say well it's not really our problem. I think what Kevin wants here is for them to step up and start holding each other accountable.

Because as he says right after, this isn't just one bad apple. And he knows it's not just one bad apple. Look back at the first few episodes of the season, and the way almost the entire district turned against him for not standing with the blue wall. The only people who didn't was the Intelligence Unit and they're his friends. So he knows more than anyone else that this isn't just one bad apple.

The end of the conversation kind of circles back to what I've been saying about Kevin not having the luxury of not being angry. This is something that affects him, his family, and his community. He shouldn't have to calm down. And you can see how frustrating it is for him that Adam can be so calm about it.

That is until the end anyway, when Adam kind of loses it. And honestly his last few lines might be the most telling I think. Because, look, I love Adam, I do, with my whole heart, but when he said "what's inside of him, is not inside of me" I was kind of like, are you sure? We've seen Adam draw his weapon on unarmed black men, we've seen the entire unit be more aggressive than necessary towards black men. And even beyond that, we all have inherent internal biases that won't go away unless we actively work on them. It goes back to this misunderstanding that a lot of white liberals have where they think that because they don't say slurs or agree with slavery that that automatically makes them incapable of racism. Racism comes in a lot of different forms, and it's inherently learnt because so many of the institutions that we grew up with are built on racism. And facing that is hard and it's uncomfortable and the way Adam reacts here, makes me think he hasn't had that uncomfortable conversation with himself yet. And I think he's reacting the way he is because what Kevin's saying is making him realise that maybe he's not as innocent as he thought.

And just to wrap up, I just find it lowkey hilarious when Adam says that he's sick of Kevin questioning him, because it absolutely wasn't the writers intention but it was exactly what I was saying about these type of storylines. They've been coming up for a couple of seasons now and it's consistently Adam vs Kevin in these situations, with the rest of the team rarely, if ever, weighing in, or being forced to confront their own biases and racism. Which I why I still want there to be some type of scene or arc where it's not just Kevin vs Adam, but where the entire unit is held accountable.

Anyway so that's sort of my thoughts about that sneak peek. Less theorising and just dumping what I was thinking as I watched and my take on it. Which is why I've tried to space the dot points out a bit because they ended up long af lmao.

So, the second sneak peek is between Voight and the new deputy superintendent, Sam Miller? I think her name is:

There isn't much that happens in this sneak peek, it's really just context for the other one.

Basically Voight and Miller are at a crime scene, from context I'm guessing this is where Adam and Kev were picking this officer up from when they got shot at which lead them to hide out until they can get back to the district.

Voight mentions that he's heard from Adam and Kev and that they aren't injured, that they're transporting the officer "off-book", and that their priority is keeping everyone safe.

Voight and Miller agree to work together to do whatever needs to be done to get everyone through this alive.

Miller mentions a potential leak at CPD, presumably that's how people found out where the officer and Adam and Kev would be.

Like I said, not much happens.

My only thoughts are that I really don't understand the point of Miller's character at this point.

She was described as like this tough, fierce advocator of police reform and how she was going to come in and shake things up, and I thought she was going to come in and put Voight in his place. And we really just haven't gotten any of that. Feels like she comes in, says a few pretty words, and then Voight ends up going about business as usual. Le shrug.

#one chicago #chicago pd #kevin atwater #adam ruzek #hank voight #ruzwater

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guylty · 5 years

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It’s been so bloody long, I really need to put this baby to bed. The last few things that need to be said about Red Dragon Con 5 – and I’ll make it relatively short because, yes, I am already bored with myself, too. [Added pre-publication but after finishing the post: Yeah, right, “short”… ] Sorry sorry sorry.

The brutalist charm of an airport hotel. The RDC venue, the Renaissance Hotel. Lovely.

When I rocked up in the venue at about 10.30am on Sunday morning, my first order of business was – queuing. You might remember that I had been blinded by the gorgeousness blinked in my precious photo with Richard, so I had to come in early for a re-shoot while Kate had a little more time to make her way to the hotel. I joined my queue… As I was finally getting into the room where the photo sessions were being held, observing Richard and his various co-sitters in the set-up, something amazing immediately occurred to me: Richard was putting his arm around everybody!!!! *gasp* Apparently someone had had a change of heart over night. Or someone else had taken him aside and given him a few pointers. Or maybe he just sneaked a peek at Twitter and saw that there had been some complaining. In any case, Richard seemed quite different on Sunday morning – and his new willingness to appear a little less reserved had a massive influence on his fans: The buzz in the room was undeniable; people literally appeared to be happier, more relaxed, very much in love even. Despite the human rights violation of a pair of loosely cut trousers, flapping from the supposedly delectable derriere of the OOA.

So once again the conveyor belt pushed me inevitably closer and closer to the epi centre: Leave your bag on the table. Show your photo badge to the helper. Five steps. Get the same warning as the day before. “No touching, no flower crowns.” Four steps. The flashes are really bright. Three steps. I must remember to really keep my eyes open. Two steps. Shit, I forgot Pop!Thorin. One step. I am next. Lift-off: I move into the frame. I say a polite hello to some tall bloke in a dark leather jacket. I look at the camera. Last second I decide to make the picture silly by pointing at that bloke. I feel a hand and an arm ghost across my back. I plaster a stupid grin on my face. As the flash goes off, I blink. I hurry out of the frame as quickly. What a horror show!

It remains a mystery to me how something as pedestrian as queueing and getting your photo taken, is so immensely draining on body and soul. When I came out of that session, I was basically ready for a lie-down. And it wasn’t even as if there had been any exciting exchange between me and Mr A. Quite the opposite, actually. We both very much kept to ‘our side of the bed’, so to speak. Luckily the next event was the 1pm Q&A with Richard. I readjusted my flower crown and went to look for Kate and Armidreamer.

Not *my* long face, but Claus with C – the rocking horse – modelling the exclusive Red Dragon FC, made by a sub division of RAPS Inc.

After another heart-breakingly good Q&A session with interview pro Richard Armitage, it was time for another stewarding stint again. And now the story got really interesting.

American Gothic all the way

Like the previous day, I had been put on photo collection duty for my volunteering on Sunday. When I got to the collection room, most pictures from the morning’s photo sessions had already been picked up and not much work was left to do. I spent a little while counting the photo “badges” (little receipts that had been used to make sure only paying con attendants got into the photo studio). It occurred to me to look for my own photo from the re-shoot. When I picked it up, I could not help but snort loudly. Once again I had closed my eyes when the flash went off – another photo op ruined. You really had to laugh. I was kind of muttering more to myself than anyone else “Ah no, I blinked again, my eyes are closed in my photo… too bad.” But a couple of women who actually worked properly for Starfury, apparently heard my mumbling, and I explained to them that I had ruined even the *second* of my photo ops. Ah well, no need to be sad. I had never really wanted to have a photo anyway. So I just accepted the fact that I am oversensitive to photographic flashes, and that was it.

And then, after a minute, the woman in charge of photo collection dropped a bombshell. “Do you want a re-shoot?” I could hardly understand what I was hearing. “Eh, yes…” I stammered, a thousand question marks in my tone. “Then you need to go now with this girl here. It’s the last picture of the day. Go go go.” Before I had time to understand what was happening, one of the Starfury assistants from the photo room was already looking for me in the photo collection room, and next thing I was already running with the girl through the hotel lobby to the backrooms where the photo sessions were held. The photo sessions were officially over, so the photo equipment was being packed up, the room rearranged. Instead of con attendants, the room was filled with volunteers and Starfury staff who were tidying up. The girl took me to the photographer, explaining that I was the last person that day to have a quick re-shoot. I apologised profusely for prolonging the photographer’s work, but he was calm and nice. He just told me to position myself in front of the backdrop, ready to have the picture taken as quickly as possible. Richard, I noticed, together with Mads Mikkelsen was still in the middle of signing one of the big banners that were going to be raffled off to the con attendants. Having to wait while standing under the bright illumination of the photo lights, is pure torture for someone who doesn’t like to be photographed in the first place. And I didn’t even have a prop with me to hide behind. Instead the thoughts were reeling in my head, telling myself I would have to concentrate on keeping my eyes open. And how the hell was I supposed to smile when I was actually struggling to keep myself from blushing with embarrassment?

And then things happen very quickly: At last, while I am still apologising/chatting with the photographer, Mads and Richard suddenly step into the photo area . I vaguely hear somebody explaining to them that there is to be one last re-shoot. I don’t know where to look, I am mortified, babbling apologies. Mads turns up on my left, and I sense Richard passing behind my back. It is actually Mads who addresses me with a grin and a chuckle: “Are you the blinker?” I have to laugh. “Yes. I am.” And I feel really bad when I actually turn him down – “but not with you but with Richard.” Mortally wounded (haha, or rather: not) Mads leaves the scene while somehow RA cops on that he is the one I want the picture with. I kind of sense that there is no point in saying much to RA – he is possibly less than impressed to have been roped in for a re-shoot and just wants this to be over. And so do I. I stand awkwardly beside him while trying to appear nonchalant, last-minute repeating my fun little finger-pointing gesture from the morning. *flash* I can feel I had my eyes closed. And the photographer says “hold on, let’s take another” while I feel my facial muscles spasm from the awkward artificial smiling. Yeah, American Gothic all the way now.

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Alright, alright. Richard isn’t American Gothic, only I am. He smiled and his eyes sparkle. So there:

But boy, was that a struggle! I think the picture shows the strain, and so my advice to anyone similarly suffering from acute embarrassment in face of the OOA is to actually bring some kind of prop to the photo op. I definitely felt much less exposed when I had Pop!Thorin with me the day before. In the unlikely event of having to talk to Richard, Pop!Thorin at least would have provided a topic. Moreover, Pop!Thorin gave my hands an occupation, therefore avoiding both mirroring RA with hands in pockets, or looking like a family photo from a small town photo studio ca. 1984. Believe me, I know what I am talking about. I have been there. Both in 1984 and 35 years later. – I ran back to my stewarding job to finish my shift. And to thank the photo ladies for giving me the opportunity to re-shoot that picture. I knew that they had made an exception for me – it’s usually not possible to re-shoot photos (as is actually explained when you buy a token for the photo sessions). I, however, was lucky because I was volunteering with the right people. They simply were nice women. Which they not only proved with the whole re-shoot thing but something else.

The Heart in the Right Place

I always like to leave the best for last, and the following last incident from Sunday at RDC5 definitely ranks high among the many memories. The photo collection was pretty quiet by the time I came back from the photo re-shoot, and the ladies told me that there was no need for me to continue waiting there; they would look after the photo collections themselves. I packed up my stuff and was about to leave when I remembered one thing. Even though Hariclea couldn’t attend the con because of her mother’s death, she had obviously paid for her ticket. And while her included autograph allocation basically expired, the guys at the registration had promised me I could pick up Hariclea’s badge at the end of the con. After all there was a picture of Dolarhyde on the badge! The registration guy was sitting in the same room as the photo people, so I popped over to his desk and retrieved that badge. And by way of conversation I mentioned to the lovely photo ladies, that “my friend could not attend the con because her mother died the day before the con, and I am at least bringing this back for her as a souvenir”. The two of them looked at each other. Then one of them said: “Who’s her favourite star?” I said, “Richard.” She reached out her hand and said, “Just give me that for a moment.” I handed over the badge and she vanished with it. After 5 minutes she was back.

Just to spell it out: Without any prompting or suggesting from me, she had run over to the backrooms where Richard and Mads were still doing their autograph duties, and had obtained a signature from Richard on the ticket. I don’t know what she told him and how she did it, but she got the ticket signed by the man who Hariclea would’ve wanted to see. And for free. I was gobsmacked. And I don’t think there are words enough to say thank you to the photo ladies at Starfury’s Red Dragon Con 5. This was simply two decent people being touched by the kind of sad story that life writes – and reacting in a generous, kind and thoughtful way. And that counts for so much more than any kind of petty criticism for commercialised fandom events. I am annoyed with myself that I never asked for the two kind photo ladies’ names. But even without naming them, I am sure that the universe will reward them for their kindness. They so deserve it!

(Second but) Last Words

Right, I actually wanted to wrap up the whole con thing in this post, but again, I have been too elaborate. Apologies. I could leave it at this but that would be a bit unfair. I do want to give their dues to the other people whose appearances at the con I enjoyed. And I also want to say a last word about the fannibals and the various encounters I had. I promise, just one more post.

But to tie this one up, here’s a last reflection on the whole photo malarkey. I realise I am a lucky fan. I got my photograph with my favourite actor, and I was really lucky in that I came away with a version in which I *don’t* have my eyes closed. No complaints there. If there’s anything to complain about, it is me. The fangirl mind overanalyses all the time. Too busy are we, constantly monitoring what we say, what we think, and how we feel, in face of the OOA. Sometimes, I feel, that actually overshadows our enjoyment of the moment. That’s certainly what happened to me. There I was, standing beside this bloke whose talent and skills as a performer I so admire. It’s not every day that happens. And regardless of the vibes of reluctance and/or shyness that he was exuding all weekend, I *should have* loved every second I could stand beside the guy. I loved photographing him at the panels, I certainly loved listening to him speak, and if I had been a little less dim I would have loved the one-to-one moment at the signing, too. But the photo sessions? Boy, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough! This is just me and does not apply to everyone, but here is what I felt: The fact that I had two re-shoots kind of intensified or exacerbated the whole scenario for me. A rather luxurious complaint, I know. Taking three separate efforts to get a photo with my favourite star, I felt so embarrassed and awkward, put on the spot and as if my cover had been blown. No, I don’t believe that RA recognised me – I doubt he knows who I am. There is no reason why he should know me – I am one of thousands of people who turn up at events, waving a book or a programme at him, asking him to sign. Most of the time I hide behind my camera, anyway. But as much as I appreciated the exceptional circumstance that allowed me to have my picture taken (and *again*), for me it was definitely also a situation way beyond my comfort zone.

Even though the commercial aspect of the photo sessions legitimises our desire to be close (in proximity) to our favourite actor, there is one thing that money can’t buy: genuine interest. And that is what makes these photo ops and selfies by the stage door so difficult for me: I am there because I *want to* be there. I am genuinely interested in my favourite actor, and it is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to see him live. But that is a pleasure that is not reciprocated. I understand that it can’t be, of course. There is only *one* of him – and *thousands* of fans. It is impossible for every fan encounter to be as meaningful to him as it is to the individual fan. But it is precisely this imbalance that I dislike. And I’d rather admire from afar and without acknowledgment, than from close up and only with polite tolerance. It also has got something to do with how *I* see myself, I guess. And while I know my shortcomings very well, I do believe that there is more to me than the fact that I like Richard Armitage. I don’t like to be defined predominantly by my status as a fan – especially by the guy who I am a fan of. Is that a contradiction or a logical conclusion?

I really don’t know. But I know one thing – with all my niggling about imbalance of interest: He was very fair about not singling anyone out – although he certainly had a bit of a Dibley revival weekend. But RA is not to blame for my difficulties with RL interactions. My overriding impression after observing those photo sessions and seeing Richard at the autograph signing, was one of gratefulness. I don’t know how he manages to so but he made every attempt at giving every fan their own special moment. Whether it is chatting with those Kiwi girls about NZ, expressing his admiration for Flat Richie’s international itinerary to armidreamer, laughing with Kate about Jill’s Gymkhana, or playing ‘Spot the Location’ with my photos, RA did try to be personable. You just have to be cool enough to take it. Which I am not.

High Emotions – Sunday at #RDC5 [part 9] It's been so bloody long, I really need to put this baby to bed. The last few things that need to be said about Red Dragon Con 5 - and I'll make it…

#Francis Dolarhyde #rdc5 #Red Dragon #Richard Armitage

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alphawave-writes · 4 years

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Experimental Design Chapter 4: Actions have consequences

Synopsis: Stone reminisces on his past, and how he came to become Agent Stone. Robotnik gets the bright idea to get handsy with a collar. Feelings ensue.

Read it here on or AO3. You guys can also find me on twitter @alphawave13.

If you like my writing, please do support me by buying me a ko-fi, becoming a patron on Patreon or requesting a fanfic commission from me. Especially with COVID, any little bit helps me out a lot.

I also now have a discord server for the fanfic here! Check it out here for sneak peeks and insight into the creative process and more.

Actions have consequences. That was the first thing Stone was taught back in school, long before he was given the identity of Stone. As a child, Stone wasn't too different from his adult self, with a few exceptions. The most blatant one of all was his utter disregard for any and all authority figures. But in his defense, it was utterly hilarious to see Teacher Deidre try and wobble over to chase him, her big gangly arms wafting with the breeze. Teachers had words to describe people like him. He was too nice to be a bully but too much of a nuisance to be a good kid. He was kind and friendly to his peers and his family, but showed absolutely no consideration for his teachers.

Thus, he was labelled a 'troublemaker'. For a boy with no future goals in mind, it suited him well enough.

There was one victim above all else that young Stone liked to tease. Mr Khoury was a new science teacher in his school, with slicked back hair and a wide grin and a crazed look in his eyes. As a teacher he was OK—this was his first job as a teacher and so he was still a little wet behind the ears—but it was the experiments he did during break time that awarded him his reputation amongst the students. As a son of a chemical manufacturing giant, he was able to get easy access to all sorts of chemicals and materials for his experiments, and then some. He'd mess with chemicals in bunsen burners. He'd steal compost and seeds from the school garden to experiment on the plants. More often than not, he'd make sculptures and robots from scrap metal that he fished from the school's recycle bin.

He may not have been the best teacher, but there was no denying that he was incredibly and devoutly passionate about science. That made him the best target for pranks, Stone thought.

It started small. Stone would steal little things from Mr. Khoury when he wasn't looking. A piece of scrap for his experiments, the fancy gold pen on his desk. But of course, it quickly escalated into hiding all the valves for the bunsen burners and locking the room and drawing silly stuff on his classroom's whiteboard. The best moments were when Mr. Khoury caught him in the act and tried to chase after him. He'd laugh, just a silly little kid enjoying the moment as he ran and ran, glancing behind his back to stare at his teacher's flushed cheeks and sweaty forehead. Mr. Khoury was slow compared to Stone, so sometimes he’d let himself get caught. And then he let himself get caught more often. One time, instead of taking him to time out or detention, Mr Khoury forced the young child to help him with his experiments. And then he became an active participant. He claimed it was just to observe his teacher, and in a sense he was. He remembered Mr. Khoury's quiet look of concentration, the glitter in his eyes and the fire that burned deep in his soul. He remembered it so well that those looks stained his dreams, making him feel fuzzy and warm and happy.

It all seemed so fun and idyllic. Until one day, when Stone found Mr Khoury clearing out his desk.

“But I don’t understand,” the young Stone said. It was another lunch break, and he was expecting another experiment. Instead, Mr. Khoury was packing up his stuff, his normally calm face twisted into a scowl. “You didn’t do anything. You can't be fired.”

“It’s that incompetent headmistress," Mr Khoury said. "Her and her backwards views of the world, of progress. It’s only because of her that I have to go.”

“But why?”

“I’m…” Mr Khoury pouted, then turned to young Stone. Behind his glasses, his eyes were dark but focused, a swirling and shimmering vortex. “Will you keep this a secret between you and me?”

He nodded obediently. His chest felt light, knowing that his teacher trusted him so much with such an important secret.

“I’m married.”

Stone frowned. He wasn’t surprised, Mr Khoury was very good looking for an adult. Or at least, he thought he was. His friends didn’t agree. Then again, most of his friends were boys like him. “Is that a bad thing?"

“To another man. I'm married to a man," Mr Khoury replied.

Stone tilted his head in confusion. "That doesn't sound like a bad thing."

"It's not, but of course your headmistress seems to think otherwise, the troglodyte," Mr. Khoury spat. "Not all love is equal in this society. People of walks of life are expected to fit into society's expectations of love, and when you defy it, you’re punished.”

"I love someone," Stone blabbed. His small eyes widened, his hand instinctively reaching up to cover his lips. He didn't mean to say that. Not to Mr Khoury of all people.

"Oh? Who?"

Young Stone looked away shyly. A small chuckle escaped Mr Khoury's lips, gracing his sharp features with a rare softness.

"I'm flattered, but I'm afraid you're a bit too late. Five years too late, to be specific," Mr Khoury said.

"Most people say it's just a childhood crush," he quietly admitted. "They don't think it's real."

"All love is real, to some extent. It's the same neurotransmitters firing in our brains whether it's a fictional entity or a real person, someone close to you or someone that's completely and utterly unattainable." Mr Khoury smiled. "Perhaps you do have a childhood crush, but if you learn from who you love, and why you love them, maybe you'll learn a little bit about yourself from these experiences."

He nodded slowly, a frown playing on his young and childish face. He knew nothing would ever happen between them, even if Mr. Khoury stayed at school forever. In the presence of someone greater and better than him, why would they ever fall in love with someone so weak and dumb?

Mr. Khoury's face sharpened. "You've learned something from this experience, have you?"

He nodded. "I did."

"Perhaps not everybody in this school is a complete idiot," Mr. Khoury said, rubbing his hand through the kid's short hair.

He stared up at his teacher's face. He did not know how or why, but something in his gut told him that this would be their last conversation ever. "I'll be smarter," the young boy continued. "I-I'll be better than smart. I'll be strong and cool and smart, and I won't let bullies tell me off."

In all his life, he'd never seen Mr. Khoury smile like this, soft and gentle like his favourite teddy bear. It shouldn't suit his face, and yet it did, this rare moment of softness transforming him into another person, a better person. In the reflection of Mr Khoury's eyes he saw his own expressive face, wide and beautiful. A selfish thought popped into his head, of someone looking at him with the same adoration that he looked at Mr Khoury. It couldn't be anyone. It had to be someone great. Someone brilliant and smart, who saw the world in a way no one else did, who'd grant him the kindness of letting him be by their side.

It didn't have to be Mr Khoury, but someone like him. Someone just as great and brilliant.

"Tariq?" Mr Khoury asked.

"Stone!!" Robotnik yelled.

Stone jolted in surprise, turning his head to the source of the sound. In the present, Dr. Robotnik was glaring at him from his usual spot behind his desk, his stubble peeking out a little bit more than usual.

Stone put on a smile. "Sorry, sir?"

"I was going to ask you to do something, but it seems your mind is filled with ridiculous nonsense. What is it? Did you suddenly remember that red and blue paint combine to create purple?"

"It's nothing," Stone handwaved. "Just remembered something. Nothing important though."

But Robotnik didn't seem convinced. "You've been staring into space a lot lately. Do I have to get your brain checked?"

Stone blinked rapidly. From anyone else it was an insult, but from Robotnik it sounded almost like concern. "If you're talking about the nightclub incident, I'm fine. What about you, though?"

"Obviously I'm fine," Robotnik scoffed. "Unlike you, I haven't been affected whatsoever. My superior intellect means I do not get inundated by such insignificant things like death, and dildos, and other miscellaneous things in that category."

Except that was an obvious lie. Since the nightclub incident a few days ago, a few things had changed between them. For one, Senator Willingham didn't take too kindly to being tortured, so they needed to keep a low profile for now, which meant more hours being by Robotnik's side. Robotnik in turn had devoted more time to his research, working late into the night to work on a mysterious new project he'd concocted. Normally the doctor was eager to talk about his experiments, but when Stone tried to ask this time, Robotnik would stiffen and clamp up, pretending not to hear him.

And then there were those...other moments.

They were insignificant in the grand scheme of things but Stone took care to notice the insignificant things, because in his line of work nothing was ever insignificant. The twirl of a moustache, the way the doctor chewed on the very tip of his gloves, the snap of leather gloves to the doctor's pale but firm wrists, the way he licked his bottom lip all too slowly when he was deep in thought.

It was earlier that day, as Robotnik scratched and itched at a red rash growing at the base of his stubble-lined jaw that Stone realised he had been staring at his boss for a whole ten minutes.

It wasn't polite to stare. He was sure if Robotnik actually paid attention and caught him, he might have been given some form of punishment. But then that only made Stone think about his punishment, and what Robotnik would do to him. If Robotnik made a threat, he always followed through on it. It could be any day now, perhaps even today, that he'd be punished. But usually Robotnik was rather swift with his threats, claiming that it took precious time away from his experiments. So why was Robotnik delaying it? Did he forget, or was he planning something big? If it was something big, why was it big? Would it be painful or humiliating, mild or serious?

Would Dr. Robotnik glance down at Stone with that heated gaze once again, ready to take whatever he wanted from him? Was Stone willing to give his boss whatever he wanted?

Stone glanced at his reflection, only to see a wide, excited smile grace his features. He clamped it down, trying to relax his face into a more normal smile. He was not getting excited about getting punished. This was just the adrenaline talking, or maybe that newly-discovered kink of his. This had nothing to do with his boss.

Robotnik waved his hand frantically in front of Stone's face, making him blink.

"You're doing it again, Stone," Robotnik said.

"I-I'm sorry, sir."

Robotnik stood up from his chair and dramatically took a step forward, closing the distance between their bodies. With his gloved hand, he pulled Stone's face up, forcing him to look into Robotnik's cold, dark eyes. "What's going on in your mind?"

"Nothing," Stone said quickly, even as his eyes glanced down to Robotnik's salt and pepper stubble. He always wondered what that'd feel like on his hand. Would it feel different on his lips?

"It shouldn't be nothing. There should be something to fill that enormous head of yours," Robotnik cradled Stone's head roughly, as if looking through his eyes to see his dark, festering mind. "Perhaps there's something wrong with your head after all. The neurons aren't firing, or perhaps your frontal lobe just isn't responding to stimulus."

A strange thrill grew in Stone's chest as a smile grew on his lips. "Wouldn't it be the parietal lobe that's not working? If I'm not paying attention?"

Robotnik's eyes widened for a second, blinking rapidly as crimson fury crept up his face. Stone was correct, and they both knew it. In an instant, calm and logical Robotnik was unraveling at the seams. It always entertained Stone, seeing his boss lose that carefully crafted veneer of his and the madness and the brilliance peek through.

"You know, I never got to punish you for your insubordination the other day," Robotnik purred, a predator sizing up its prey. "Perhaps I've been a bit too lax with you recently. You should be taught more...discipline."

Stone couldn't stop smiling even if he wanted to. Something about that crazed look in Robotnik's eyes made him feel bold and cocky, as if he was the one in charge and not the man with the army of robots at his disposal. But that was silly to entertain, especially given how tightly Robotnik was holding his face. "How would teaching me discipline help me with my head?"

Robotnik chuckled darkly, exposing a bit more of his throat. They were almost nose to nose, so close he could almost taste the doctor's sweat. This was the moment Stone was all too familiar with, the charged energy building between their bodies, rising and rising, only striking when Robotnik so commanded. This was the moment when Robotnik's breathing increased and his pupils dilated and his cheeks went a gorgeous rosy pink. It made him look ridiculous. Human.

Gorgeous.

Stone sharply inhaled. Oh god, he didn't think that, did he? Not about his boss. Not about Ivo Robotnik.

"Stone," Robotnik said.

He couldn't stop staring at Robotnik's pink lips. Were they always so kissable?

"Get down on your hands and knees," Robotnik ordered.

To his credit, Stone did it all without shaking. Whether he would hypothetically shake from fear or excitement, Stone didn't know anymore.

"Stay there, and don't move an inch.," Robotnik said, disappearing for a short while to grab something from his desk. That act alone limited the possible punishments he might be given. What did Robotnik have planned?

He heard Robotnik's steps approach him. "You can move your head up now."

Stone did, taking his time to let his eyes trail up Robotnik's legs, torso, neck,before finally resting on Robotnik’s devilish face. In his hand was something circular but thick, wires and electronics sticking out of the fabric interior. It resembled a dog collar, but it was much thicker and wider than a normal one, with strange wires surrounding it. But Stone didn’t remember Robotnik owning a dog.

Stone gulped. It couldn’t be…that wasn’t for him?

“Don’t move a muscle,” Robotnik commanded.

“Sir, this is unconventional.”

“Oh, but you’re an unconventional man, Agent. I thought I was dealing with a government lapdog with a modicum of intelligence. But you’re so much more than that, aren’t you?”

Stone went silent, keeping his face neutral. Robotnik chuckled darkly as he undid Stone's tie, letting it drop to the floor. His lithe, leather-bound fingers traced the sensitive skin of his neck before clamping the collar on. It wasn't tight, but it wasn't loose, as if it was made for him.

"I must admit, you keep stumping me. There's no records about you. Nothing about the man you were before you became Agent Stone, what school you went to, your parents' names, whether your mommy tucked you into bed or not. Even I couldn't find anything." Robotnik leaned forward. "I find that very strange, Stone. Or whatever your real name is."

"Ben," Stone said quietly.

"Huh?"

"Ben Stone. My name," Stone swallowed tightly. "And as for everything else, I graduated the academy top of my class, I kept getting transferred to too many schools when I was a kid, my parents' names are Ali and Mary, and my mom tucked me into bed every night until I was 12."

"I've read your file—or should I say, I've read Stone's file. I know all about your cover identity. You're supposed to be an obedient little dog with a gun. And you know what happens to dogs that don't do what they're supposed to do?"

Robotnik pressed his thumb to a button on his gloves.

"They get a little shock."

An electric current rippled through Stone's neck, making him gasp, more in surprise than actual pain. It only lasted a second, but it was enough for all the muscles on his back to firm up in attention.

"Does it hurt?" Robotnik grinned.

Stone let out a chuckle. "You'll never hurt me, doctor. We both know you can't."

"Wrong answer," Robotnik said.

An another electrical current at a slightly higher voltage. Enough to make Stone wince, but still far from painful. It all but proved Stone's point. The doctor could take the air out of his lungs, but he was always careful never to harm him.

Robotnik crouched down so he was face to face with Stone. His smile was condescending, but not completely malicious. The doctor was far too excited to be that cruel. "You're going to be wearing this collar all day. If you slip up even a little bit, I press a little button on my glove and you'll get shocked. The more times you slip up, the longer the electric shock lasts. I'll take it off when the shift ends. No earlier, no later. Understand?"

Stone stared at Robotnik for a few seconds, taking in those flushed cheeks and eager grin. This was a test, Stone realised, and he was the sole participant. Was the doctor's plan to reduce his will? To make him beg? Robotnik would love to see that, it'd stroke his massive ego even more, but Stone would never give him that satisfaction. He'd do many things, but not everything. It'd take away the fun.

Another chuckle escaped from Stone. Robotnik's lips thinned into a line. "What are you laughing about?"

"Don't I get a reward for this?" Stone smiled devilishly. "If I'm a dog, I deserve a treat for behaving, don't I?"

Robotnik smirked. "And why should I give you anything?"

"To reinforce behaviour. After all, isn't that why you put a collar on me?"

Instead of laughing, Robotnik scoffed sharply, the corner of his lips pulling up against his will. "Perhaps." He stood up suddenly and went to his chair. It spun approximately 70 degrees before Robotnik placed his feet down, grinding to a halt. "You know, Stone, all this talking and moving has made me thoroughly parched. A nice latte with steamed Austrian goat milk sounds like it'll do just the trick."

They both knew that the coffee machine was in the breakroom for the other guards, on the opposite side of the compound where the mobile lab sat. The chances that Stone would be seen wearing what was very clearly a BDSM collar were fairly high, but there was just as high a chance that the person who caught him would report it to both their superiors, and Robotnik wouldn't have that. This was just another one of those games of 'Simon says' that they played. A dare to see how far Stone could be pushed.

Stone slowly stood up, stuffed his tie into his suit pocket, and gave his most award-winning smile. He always liked a challenge. "Of course, sir," he purred.

Robotnik's cheeks seemed to get redder, but if he had something to say Stone didn't hear it as he opened the door and strolled outside.

Whether it was Stone's luck or some other supernatural force, the base was surprisingly empty given the time of day. Not that there weren't people, but the few he did pass seemed far too engrossed in conversation to notice him walking past. All the better for him. Less questions asked, less answers he needed to give.

In the breakroom were two coffee machines: one that was used fairly often and one that wasn't. Stone went to the latter, preparing the coffee beans (a special blend of his own creation based on a South American recipe) and steaming the goat milk and making the foam. The resulting latte is rather sweet, with a chocolate-y aftertaste. Not everyone's cup of coffee, but Stone liked it, and Robotnik loved it. It definitely earned him a few brownie points when he first came into the doctor's services.

Stone had just finished making a latte for the doctor (and of course one for himself because why not?) when he heard someone call out his name. "Stone?"

He turned his head, letting out a breath when he realised it was Agent Jared Aird: low-level government agent and high-level weirdo. In other words, the closest thing to a friend Stone had outside of Robotnik.

"What's up?" Stone asked.

"Someone's looking for y—" Stone winced suddenly as an electric shock hit him. Aird's eyes flickered between the collar and Stone’s expression, the dots connecting slowly but surely in his mind. "I, uh…OK then. I'll just talk to you later."

Stone stifled the need to explain himself. He didn't need to make this more embarrassing. “You said someone's looking for me. Not the doctor?"

"No, they're looking for you specifically. Or at least…it sounded like they were talking about you. Described you to a T."

"Name?"

"Called themselves Lara Stein." Before Stone could comment, Aird said, "Obviously a pseudonym. We’re pulling ID checks on her though. Should take at least an hour." Aird glanced at the collar and coughed loudly into his fist. "I'll just…tell her to come back later."

Stone didn’t know a Lara, or anyone that could be looking for him specifically. Not many people knew of Agent Stone, as part of the whole cover identity business. He shook his head. "Tell her to come after my shift's done, please. And, uh…don’t tell anyone about this.”

“I won’t, I won’t, we all know the doctor is a freak. But a shock collar? Bit kinky for his tastes.”

Stone let a frown slip. The doctor was strange, but certainly not a freak. He was a genius with limitless knowledge, unburdened by the expectations of society, but no one else saw him like that. Everybody thought he was dangerous. Everybody thought he was crazy. Not Stone though. Stone knew the doctor was just a drama kid with a need to please. Dangerous men weren’t capable of such innocent, child-like smiles when they tinkered away with their machines. Crazy men didn’t see the world with such fascination and awe.

Times like these reminded Stone that he might literally be the only person in the world who liked Robotnik, let alone tolerated him.

Stone forced a chuckle. “He’s certainly gotten some weird ideas lately. But I’ll manage.”

“I hope so,” Aird muttered with concern.

The trip back was equally uneventful, with even fewer potential witnesses. By the time he got back to the mobile lab, Robotnik was sneering at him, stamping his foot for dramatic effect.

"You're seven minutes late." Robotnik snatched the latte out of Stone's hand and took a sip. His face, as it often did when he drank Stone's coffee, softened considerably. "At least the coffee is the correct temperature this time. Nearly scalded my tongue yesterday."

Stone smiled warmly. The only compliments he ever got from Robotnik was for his coffee. Not that he minded. He made some damn good coffee, and any compliment from Robotnik was worth its weight in gold. "You're welcome, sir."

The rest of the day went surprisingly normally, give or take a few electric shocks here and there when Stone looked like he was daydreaming again. Robotnik did little to hide how much he enjoyed the way Stone twitched in surprise, catching him off guard. Even when Robotnik left to get a quick snack, his presence could still be felt on Stone' throat. The collar tethered him to the doctor, a physical mark of his servitude. It was sobering, realising how far he let himself get subjugated by Robotnik's whims, to the point of humiliation and shame. This was just the start, and if Robotnik got any more crazy ideas from BDSM, this might not be the last time he'd be punished like this. No more 'pin yourself to the wall'. It'd be 'get down on all fours and bark like a dog' or 'lick my shoes'.

He saw his wide grin in the reflective walls and forced himself to stop smiling.

When Robotnik came back, he continued his usual work on his computer, stopping every now and then to quiz Stone on the collar and how it was working. After Stone answered, he would then ask him to write it down anyway. The first two times, Stone did it without question. The third time, Stone felt brave enough to ask Robotnik why he wasn’t taking the notes himself if he was so much smarter. He glanced over his shoulder, ready to ask, only to realise that the doctor was already behind him.

"Sir?"

Robotnik was silent as he turned Stone's chair to face him, his normally expressive face toned down into something that almost looked soft. He clicked a few buttons on his gloves, and then fiddled with a strap on the collar. It opened up easily, sliding down and off of Stone's neck, before gently being dropped on the nearby table.

Stone rolled his head slowly, frowning at the stiffness. The cool air felt so much colder on his now-sensitive neck, which was in stark contrast to the hungry flames in Robotnik's eyes. He felt like those women in those B-tier horror films, waiting on bated breath for the vampire to sink their teeth into his neck and make him feel the most writhing ecstasy.

"Does it hurt now?" Robotnik asked, his voice suddenly quiet. Unsure.

Stone glanced at the clock. "Is it time already?"

"Clearly you need to get your eyes checked as well," Robotnik huffed. He grabbed Stone by the jaw, twisting and turning his head to observe his neck. He let out a small tut. "There's a few spots of redness on your neck. Was it from the collar?"

"It didn't hurt," Stone said. Which was partially true. He was aware of a faint itchiness but they weren't painful. He got shot with a blank to the stomach once. No pain could compare to that.

"You should have told me. Or written it in your report. You have seen me work, you should know by now the importance of writing down every single observable detail for data collection."

Robotnik slowly tugged at the tips of his gloves, pulling them off his hand one by one. It was a simple act, done without show or boast, and yet somehow it was the most erotic thing Stone's ever seen Robotnik do. Stripping away his gloves felt no different from watching him strip away his clothes. The way he folded up his gloves so neatly, those dexterous yet thick fingers moving so freely now that they weren't bound to their cloth prisons. And the way they moved, gently tucking the folded gloves into one pocket before retrieving a small jar from another, was an act that was far too intimate for a scientist and his agent. And yet Stone stared at Robotnik, his neck exposed and his cheeks flushed, wondering if this was a dream.

The cool sensation of Robotnik's lotion-covered fingers on his neck quickly told him it was very much real.

"Doctor?" Stone breathed.

"Let me work," Robotnik replied, sounding out of breath himself.

"What is this?"

"It's just lotion from the supermarket. Won't cure the redness right away, but at least it shouldn't distract you any more than you've already distracted yourself."

This felt wrong, just as much as it felt right. There had to be a reason Robotnik was being so nice as to rub lotion on his neck. There had to be a reason why those dark eyes seemed so warm and brilliant. There had to be a reason why he was leaning in, drawn in to the dark fire.

"I'll ask this for the final time. Is there anything else about the collar that was uncomfortable? The fabric, the voltage, the tightness. Anything at all?" Robotnik dabbed his fingers and let his fingers dip lower, near Stone's nape.

It took all his willpower not to sigh or gasp. This didn't just feel good. It felt great. It felt amazing. How could one man's touch feel so amazing? "Why are you so concerned about whether the collar hurts or not?" Stone asked quietly.

"I'm going to be making improvements for next time. Obviously, I don't want it to harm my best agent."

Stone chuckled, if only to disguise the warmth creeping up his chest and dipping to his limbs. His smile must have been big and wide, but Robotnik was still applying the lotion with the kind of careful touch he usually only reserved for his robots. Best agent. The doctor thought he was the best. He was getting excessively giddy from those two words alone.

"Everything's good, doctor. Perfect as always." He smiled. "Have I been a good boy then?"

The question didn't register for Robotnik for several seconds, applying the lotion before stopping, his fingers paused near the tight ball of Stone's throat. He blinked rapidly, glanced up into Stone's eyes, then turned his head away abruptly. "You have, for once." He cleared his throat loudly. "You're lucky I didn't punish you firmer. I was hoping the collar would have more…observable results."

What was this energy floating between them? What was this urge to get closer? Their noses were almost touching and their breaths were fusing and it was making Stone dizzy. Despite his position, despite the creative punishments Robotnik could dole, he felt powerful. Like he could lean in and purse his lips and do whatever he wanted without consequence.

"So does that mean I get a reward?" Stone breathed.

Robotnik smirked. "You're not getting any more sick days from me."

"I wasn't thinking sick days, doctor."

"Oh? So what were you thinking? What's going on in that microscopic mind of yours?"

Stone pretend to think before grinning. "I'll let you decide, doctor. You're the genius."

Robotnik had stopped massaging the lotion, putting it back in his pocket and wiping his hands on Stone's jacket. His eyes were unfocused as he continued to stare at Stone's neck, as if scanning him for his blueprints, looking for weaknesses. It was so uncharacteristic and so firm that Stone wasn't sure he'd refuse any command Robotnik would give him. If he was asked to strip, he'd do it. If Robotnik bit his neck like a vampire, he wouldn't refuse. He'd do anything if it meant Robotnik stared at him like this, like he mattered, like only he mattered.

Was this really a punishment kink, or was there something more to what he felt? Did his feelings for the doctor perhaps run deeper?

Did Robotnik perhaps feel the same?

A knock on the door took both of them by surprise. Robotnik had stood up, quickly snapped his gloves back on, and pressed a couple of buttons. The security feed for outside flickered on, the edge of a white skirt flapping in the wind near the entrance. A woman in a white business jacket and skirt came in holding a file. Her eyes flickered around the room before narrowing on Stone.

"You must be Tariq," she said. "My employer has been looking for you."

For a second, time stopped, a bevy of uncomfortable, horrific memories surfacing. Then, in a flash, Stone had rushed forward with superhuman speed and punched her square in the face. She went out cold in an instant, her nose ruined and bloody, bruises already forming near her cheek where his knuckles had connected with the facial bone.

"Stone?!" Robotnik yelled. "What in tarnation is going on?"

He didn't react, instead searching the woman's jacket for something, anything. A file, a USB, an incriminating something or other. But nothing. Just her ID, and a card at maximum clearance level, the same level as Robotnik's and Stone's. The mysterious Lara Stein. Robotnik's legs seemed like jelly as he wobbled over to his desk and hurriedly typed away. Lara Stein's name was compared through hundreds of databases, but there was no one high enough to have maximum clearance. He tried to go through every filter, every database, too fast for Stone to comprehend, but even he knew that there'd be nothing.

There was another knock on the door. Robotnik grabbed Stone by the shoulder and said, "Don't do it," but Stone shrugged it off and readied his handgun. The door opened, and Stone pointed his gun at the person who opened the door.

Behind that person was a swarm of G.U.N agents, all pointing their weapons at Stone. He recognised a few of them. Sarah, Flores, Jacobs, they were all here, and they were all blank and emotionless like dolls, or mannequins. A pity he couldn't reacquaint with them under better circumstances.

The person at the door shook his head casually. His military-buzz cut had now gotten a bit longer, and his face was sagging, but Stone knew this man all too well.

"Still shoot first, ask questions later, huh, Tariq? Or should I say, Agent Ben Stone?"

Stone flicked his gun off safety. "My primary job is to protect my current charge, Commander. If you do anything to him—"

"Didn't you hear? We want to talk to you. Or, well…you would've heard it if you haven't bashed that poor girl's head in." He glared at Robotnik. "We only want to talk to Tariq."

Robotnik's eye twitched. "I am Dr. Ivo Robotnik. I've caused more wars than you’ve sired fatherless children. If you think I will—"

"Who do you think has been giving you those orders?" The Commander interrupted.

Robotnik's eyes widened. "You can't be…b-but the Commander is just some stupid character from a John Wick movie. "

"Doctor…" Stone warned.

"You are not touching my agent without my express permission,” Robitnik continued. “And since you've been so nice as to introduce me to your inferior weaponry, I shall introduce you to my means of destruction."

Stone grabbed Robotnik by the wrist, just as the turrets and sentires activated. He squeezed hard, hoping to the heavens themselves that Robotnik realised how serious this was. The Commander wasn't just any man. The Commander was a dangerous man who knew thousands of ways to kill and torture people. The Commander had a hand in every major war operation from the US since 9-11. The Commander had informants all over the globe, and was considered utterly untouchable.

The Commander was the man who taught everything Stone knew. And if someone was on his bad side, hell hath no fury.

Stone pressed a few buttons on Robotnik's gloves and the turrets and sentries deactivated. "I'll be back shortly," Stone said as he flipped the safety of his gun back on and holstered it.

"Stone?"

"Wait for me," he said.

"Don't you dare go," Robotnik's voice warbled. "T-that is an order, Stone. You won't like me when you disobey me, so don't—"

But Stone stepped out of the mobile lab and toward the Commander. Neither of them said a word, because there was no need for them. Stone knew the Commander too well to not know what he wanted to do, and he was not going to disobey the Commander. As he followed the Commander and the G.U.N agents out of the compound, the man known as Agent Stone disappeared, and a different man emerged—identical and yet different—to take his place.

Actions have consequences. That was the first thing Stone was taught back in school, long before he was given the identity of Stone. When the headmistress initiated a slam campaign after Mr Khoury left, slandering him as a pedophile who liked young boys, nobody expected it to go viral on the internet and get him taken to court on criminal charges. She was a white lady with a respectable career and numerous connections, whereas Mr Khoury was a relatively young teacher who had yet to make his mark on the world. His family wanted nothing to do with him. His husband could only provide moral support. Legally, he was on his own.

No one would imagine a little kid like him to have that much pure anger and rage, to punch and kick and win in a fight against an adult. It didn't matter that she had started the fight by slapping him on the face for providing evidence to refute her lies. It didn't matter that he was trying to protect himself. It didn't matter that his parents whole-heartedly supported him, and even helped him retrieve the evidence. In the end, he was expelled, and his school record was completely tarnished. Mr Khoury was declared innocent solely due to lack of evidence, but no one would ever hire him again.

It'd be many years before people took interest in Stone. Until then, Stone kept his head down and his ears peeled, learning as much as he could about the world and the evil that festered within it.

#Stobotnik #Ivo Robotnik #Dr Robotnik #Agent Stone #Sonic movie #sonic 2020 #Well he's not exactly 'agent stone' in this fic is he? XD #Any support you guys can give me will really help me out in these trying times

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Exclusive Excerpt: The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen

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Check out this exclusive sneak peek from Lauren Shippen's The Infinite Noise, a queer superhero coming-of-age story.

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Mainstream superhero storytelling tends to do better when depicting physical powers than emotional/mental ones, which is one of the many reasons why the premise of Lauren Shippen's upcoming young adult novel, The Infinite Noise, so intrigues me...

Based on Shippen's award-winning podcast, The Bright Sessions, The Infinite Noise follows 16-year-old running back Caleb Michaels who has the supernatural ability to feel other people's emotions. High school is a hard place to have the power of extreme empathy, and classmate Adam is an emotional calm in the storm. Told from both boys points-of-view, The Infinite Noise is a coming-of-age story with a supernatural twist (not to mention a queer love story!), and I can't wait to read it.

Check out this exclusive excerpt from The Infinite Noise...

CALEB

“School starts tomorrow, correct?” Dr. Bright asks after a few moments of silence. “Yep,” I say. More silence. I’m getting used to these standoffs. I just wish I was better at winning them. But Dr. Bright pins me with a stare and I eventually give in, every time. “I don’t wanna go back,” I mumble, face heating. “Why not?” she asks, like the answer isn’t obvious. “Because being in high school when you can feel everyone’s feelings is a complete nightmare?” I answer dryly. “You’ve made some good strides since November, Caleb,” she soothes. I sense it more in her emotions than her voice, and it grates. I don’t want to be soothed right now. “Yeah, whatever,” I bite. “Caleb”—there’s that stare again and the soothing hardens— “what have we talked about?” “Don’t deflect emotion with being an asshole,” I recite, and there’s a small, quick glow within the perfectly even Therapist Mode that Dr. Bright’s emotions operate in. “I don’t remember putting it quite that way,” she smirks, “but yes. When you’re overwhelmed or refusing the input from your ability, you respond with anger. And we don’t want a repeat of what happened with Tyler.” “Yeah, I know,” I sigh. “It’s just easier, you know?” “What’s easier?” “Feeling annoyed or mad at stuff,” I say. “It might be an easy way to push away the other feelings,” she tells me, “but it won’t help you process them.” We sit in silence again but this time Dr. Bright is the one to break it. “How was it being with your family the past few weeks?” she asks. “Um, it was good, I guess,” I say. “I mean, I feel like I’ve gotten used to their feelings, you know? So, like, I’m able to balance them a bit. But it’s not like that in school.” “What helps you balance your family’s emotions?” “Well, there’s only three of them, so that helps. And even when their feelings are annoying or whatever, I can kinda tell who they belong to. They’re familiar.” “Has the color system proved useful?” she asks. “Yeah, I guess so,” I say, thinking about how Dr. Bright feels warm and yellow right now. “Like, it doesn’t always make things easier, but it’s definitely something.” “Do you think that could help at school?” “I don’t know,” I admit. “There’s just so much. There’s too much, you know . . .” “Input?” she suggests. “Yeah, exactly. And so I can’t process, like, any of it, and that’s when I get overwhelmed.” She purses her lips and I feel the itchiness that I’ve come to know as Dr. Bright working through stuff in her head. It feels like I’m trying to solve a math problem I don’t understand. “The familiarity of your family’s emotions makes it easier for you to balance your ability,” she repeats. “Is there anyone at school who could do the same thing?” “What?” “Is there someone—a teammate or friend—who you feel comfortable around? Someone whose emotions you could focus on when you get overwhelmed?” The itchiness settles as she says this, like this is really a solution to my Problem. “Um, no, not really,” I admit. “I have friends and stuff but no one . . .” I find myself thinking of the last day of school, going into the library and knowing, just knowing, that Adam Hayes was there. And then he was so startled and his feelings were all over the place, but there was something— “No one . . . ?” Dr. Bright prompts. “No one whose feelings fit,” I finish. “I don’t know that focusing on anybody at school is actually going to help.” “Well,” she says, “something to think about?” “Yeah.” I nod. “Something to think about.”

But I don’t have time to think about it, because the first few days of school are lost in a haze of other people’s bullshit. I got to English early today so that I’d have time to settle in before the onslaught of emotions, and it’s not exactly working. I have to close my eyes as the other students start coming into the room. I try to sift through the feelings; focus on the colors and try to figure out what I’m going to be up against for the next hour. Red. Anger. That one’s pretty obvious. And it’s an emotion that I’m super familiar with. Black sludge. I think that one is disappointment. But this is worse—this is dripping sludge. Hot and cold all at once. Ugh, I hate this one. I feel it all the time but I can’t figure out what’s different about it. And it makes me want to jump off a bridge. Soft blue. It settles behind my eyes and makes my head heavy. Exhaustion. Dr. Bright tells me that being tired isn’t a real emo- tion, but I don’t buy it. There’s a certain kind of tired—a bone-deep weariness—that definitely qualifies as an emotion. Off-white. Soft. Suffocating. Sadness. Red again. Black sludge. Black sludge. Black sludge. God, it’s literally the first week of the semester, can’t people just chill? Pins and needles under my skin. My breathing picks up. Traffic- cone orange. Stress. Oof, a lot of stress. And then. Quiet. Blue-green. Not sharp like red and orange, but deep. Endless. It fills me up, empties me out. Clears out the sludge, the pins and needles, but makes me tense. Restless. I open my eyes. Find his. Adam.

ADAM

Caleb.

Why is it that, for the past week, every time I walk into a room, he’s staring at me? It’s like he has some sort of radar—he catches my eye wherever I go. If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume that some dark, omniscient power was out to make my life miserable. Not that I am particularly bereft in the misery department. But this just seems especially cruel. His eyes. His fucking eyes. Sad and curious and beautiful and angry; like he’s angry that I’m there. Like he resents my existence. Part of me wonders if he’s still upset about the stupid library encounter last semester—the staring started just after that—but Caleb doesn’t seem like the type to hold a grudge. And yet here we are, a new semester, and his eyes are always on me. So who’s going to turn away first? Every time I want it to be him—I want to stare him down until he gets scared and has to look away. There’s something about him that makes me want to fight. But every time his eyes find mine, they look straight into me and make mincemeat of my insides. So I don’t fight; I cave. I’m always the one to look away first. Even if I wanted to fight, I couldn’t hold my own against Caleb Michaels. Not many people could. Tyler has been significantly subdued since the fight, and that’s Tyler—I thought the guy was fearless. I take one more quick glance at Caleb and try, for the thousandth time, to imagine him breaking a guy’s nose. I know it happened, but there’s something about it that just doesn’t compute. I don’t feel threatened when I catch him looking at me. I feel . . . Never mind. Not a productive train of thought. I walk toward the back of the room to my desk—conveniently and purposefully located behind Caleb so I don’t have to look at his face. The back of his neck is still visible and provides its own unique brand of torture, but it’s an easy battle compared to his eyes. Enough about him. What are we doing today? I squint at the board. We’re still on Macbeth. Good. No romance in that, not really. Just murder and politics, the best distractions. “I can’t believe he said yes! That’s amazing.” “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Caitlin.” Perfect. Jessica and Caitlin have settled into the desks behind me and seem particularly excited about the day’s gossip. Yay, hooray. “Sorry, you know what I mean,” Caitlin says, trying to soothe her. “It’s just that taking the quarterback to Sadie Hawkins is kind of a big deal.” “I know!” I can hear the smile on Jessica’s face. I guess she asked Ryan to the dance, then. Even I have to admit that they’ll make a nice-looking couple—with their shiny hair, tan skin, and perfect Colgate smiles. It’s exhausting. “Now it’s your turn,” Jessica says. “You need to grow a pair and ask him!” “Ugh, I know,” Caitlin says, “and I will. I promise. Just . . . let me get through this week. I need to nail this Macbeth project and then I’ll ask him. Seriously.” “Okay, okay,” Jessica concedes, “but you need to stop stressing about this paper. You already have an A.” “And I’d like to keep it that way, thank you very much.” I can’t see her, but I just know Caitlin is preening while she says this. I find her early-morning chatter irritating beyond belief, but the girl is smart. And she never lets you forget it. “Fair enough. Just don’t wait too long.” Jessica’s voice drops to a whisper. “Caleb’s one of the cutest guys in our class. Someone is gonna snatch. Him. Up.” I freeze. Mr. Collins has turned to us and started speaking, but all I hear is blood rushing in my ears. I should have expected this—I know I should have—but it still catches me by surprise. Caleb is the cutest guy in our class, even if I would be the last person to admit it (though the first one to think it). But he’s never dated anyone. I’ve never seen him so much as check out a cheerleader. For a while, I thought maybe I’d gotten crazy lucky, maybe Caleb didn’t want to chase girls like the rest of the football team, but now I’m not sure. He doesn’t check out anyone. Since the beginning of the school year, he’s gotten quiet and kept to himself and goddammit if that doesn’t make him even more appealing.

The Infinite Noise will hit bookshelves on September 24th. You can read another excerpt from the book on the Tor Teen Blog. The book is available for preorder now.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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joyffree · 6 years

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RELEASE BOOST Title: Oscar SJ McCoy @authorsjmccoy Genre: Contemporary Romance @givemebooksblog Series: The Davenports #1 Release Date: March 27, 2018

BLURB

Oscar Davenport always wins. Always. He doesn’t come second, and he sure as hell doesn’t lose. He’s founded and sold three tech companies, netting him almost a billion dollars. He ran a hedge fund worth hundreds of billions—until he got bored. His latest project, Six, a nightclub in LA is another winner. It’s both a successful business and a playground full of playmates.

He’s never met an obstacle he couldn’t overcome or a woman he couldn’t have. Until now.

Grace Evans is the kind of girl you’d find curled up with a good book on a Saturday night—at least, usually. This Saturday night is different. This Saturday night she’s gotten all done up, in a dress she can barely breathe in and heels she can barely walk in. She had to. She had to venture into the lair of the enemy.

The enemy is Oscar Davenport, and his lair is his swanky nightclub. When she lays eyes on him, she’s ready to believe he’s the devil incarnate. His wicked smile, his beautiful eyes—everything about him is an invitation to sin. He moves with the grace and arrogance of a big cat about to pounce. Unfortunately, he’s moving straight toward her. He’s singled her out as his prey. He’s moving in for the kill.

Little does he know that she isn’t about to surrender; in fact, he’s in for the fight of his life.

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38450937-oscar

PURCHASE LINKS

US: http://amzn.to/2G38QaX UK: http://amzn.to/2IccFen CA: http://amzn.to/2G3y7BP AU: http://amzn.to/2HbjR9t B&N: http://bit.ly/2FjepVA Kobo: http://bit.ly/2G1jezP iBooks: https://apple.co/2I9XrGZ Google Play: http://bit.ly/2G4SRcn

EXCERPT

Once she was inside the elevator, she jabbed at the button again, this time trying to make the doors close. She really was shit out of luck this morning. Just as they began to slide together, a set of long, strong fingers slipped between them, and they slid open again. And there he was. He stepped inside with a smile and a nod, then pressed to go to the eighteenth floor. Shit. That was her floor. He couldn’t go there. “What do you need?” She stared at him blankly. “Need?” Could he somehow see inside her mind, see all the months of a dry spell that had gone on way too long? Or could he see the images floating inside her head? Images of what the two of them could do if the elevator somehow got stuck. The corners of his lips curved upward again. That just might be the sexiest smile she’d ever seen. “Which floor?” “Oh!” Well, wasn’t she an idiot? Her mind raced. She couldn’t get off the elevator with him. He might think she was following him. “Seventeen.” He hit the button, but before they started to move, the doors slid open again. Thank God for that! Two men and two women came in and turned to face the doors, leaving Grace and the Big Cat alone in the silent space behind them. Grace gripped the tray with her two coffee cups and stared determinedly at the numbers above the door. She’d always suspected this was the world’s slowest elevator, but this morning’s ride confirmed it. Every second was torture. She could smell him—all citrus and man. She’d swear he was looking at her, but she refused to allow herself to sneak a peek. He’d catch her. She tried looking down at the coffee cups, but that just made a strand of her hair fall across her face. She wrinkled her nose and tried to blow it away, then she froze. There were those long, strong fingers again. They brushed her cheek as they took the errant strand and tucked it behind her ear. If the heat had surged through her when he held the door open, then her blood was boiling in her veins right now. All the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up and sent shivers racing down her spine. Even her scalp tingled. She turned. How could she not? Those big brown eyes were twinkling with amusement. “I hope I didn’t overstep? You looked uncomfortable.” She shook her head mutely. What could she say, even if she could find the breath to speak? The elevator stopped, and she silently begged the people in front of her not to get out. They couldn’t leave her alone in here with this guy—she would not be responsible for her actions. To her relief, they didn’t. Instead, two more got in, and that was quite a crowd. Everyone shuffled back a little. She had no clue how it happened, but somehow, she ended up face to face with Big Cat. She was in the corner, and he was right there in front of her, staring down into her eyes, that quirky little smile playing on his face again. She’d had a laugh with Spider the other night when one of the customers had tried hitting on her in the coffee shop. She’d told Spider that her sexual desires were dormant. Hell, had she been wrong about that. Standing here, face-to-face with this guy, she discovered that her sexual desires weren’t just active—oh, no, they were rampant. She was grateful for the tray of coffee she was gripping. It gave her hands something to do that kept them from reaching up to touch his face, maybe sinking into his hair or even sliding around his waist. “Are you okay?” She nodded rapidly, meeting his gaze briefly. Even she heard the gasp she made when he rested his hand on her hip. What was he doing? You didn’t just do that to a stranger in a crowded elevator. “Are you sure?” He looked worried now. She looked down to where his hand rested on her hip. Except it wasn’t his hand—it was the purse the woman in front of her had slung over her shoulder. Grace couldn’t help it. She laughed. Wow, she needed to get laid. Okay, the guy was attractive, but he shouldn’t affect her this badly. “I’m fine, thanks. Have a great day.” She edged her way to the front and squeezed out through the doors before they had a chance to open fully on the seventeenth floor. She couldn’t help it. She had to look back before they closed. He’d made his way to the front, too. He met her gaze with a smile. Bye, Big Cat. She bid him a sad farewell. At least, in the real world, the world where she’d never see him again. She had a feeling her imagination would be seeing a lot more of him in the nights to come. She smiled back at him; there was no harm now. And he winked! The arrogant prick actually winked at her. She stood there staring as the doors slid shut, and then he was gone.

AUTHOR BIO

I'm SJ, a coffee addict, lover of chocolate and drinker of good red wines. I'm a lost soul and a hopeless romantic. Reading and writing are necessary parts of who I am. Though perhaps not as necessary as coffee! I can drink coffee without writing, but I can't write without coffee.

I grew up loving romance novels, my first boyfriends were book boyfriends, but life intervened, as it tends to do, and I wandered down the paths of non fiction for many years. My life changed completely a couple of years ago and I returned to Romance to find my escape.

I write 'Sweet n Steamy' stories because to me there is enough angst and darkness in real life. My favorite romances are happy escapes with a focus on fun, friendships and happily-ever-afters, just like the ones I write.

These days I live in beautiful Montana, the last best place. If I'm not reading or writing, you'll find me just down the road in the park - Yellowstone. I have deer, eagles and the occasional bear for company, and I like it that way :0)

AUTHOR LINKS

Website: http://www.sjmccoy.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authorsjmccoy Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/authorsjmccoy Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/therealsjmccoy Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7236373.S_J_McCoy

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lifebooksloves · 7 years

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FIGHTING ATTRACTION by Sarah Castille

Life, Books, & Loves: FIGHTING ATTRACTION by Sarah Castille

FIGHTING ATTRACTION Coming April 4, 2017!

Five sexy MMA fighters who will fight hard to win their girl. Fans of Fifty Shades of Grey, Mine, and Worth the Fight will love this standalone addition to the Redemption series by New York Times Bestselling author, Sarah Castille.

Pre-order FIGHTING ATTRACTION and add it to your TBR pile on Goodreads! Then keep reading to get a sneak peek at FIGHTING ATTRACTION and to enter the giveaway for the first three books in the Redemption series!

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

My sweet, sexy Penny has a dark side. Just like me. I will have her. And then I will lose her, and suffer a lifetime of regret.

Rampage. Everyone loves him. He is Redemption’s top heavyweight fighter and the biggest gossip in the gym. But he isn’t the teddy bear everyone thinks he is. He’s hiding a dark secret-and he hates himself for it.

Twice a week, Rampage transforms into Master Jack, a notorious dom only the most hard-core submissives will play with. How can he-a Southern gentleman, bred to respect and protect women-want to dominate them?

But Penny Worthington wants him. Beneath her pearls, kitten heels, and prim British exterior beats a tortured heart…Master Jack is the only one who can set her free.

PRE-ORDER LINKS:

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2jvBTuD Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2kOcmOB  B&N: http://bit.ly/2j5qgYa iTunes: http://apple.co/2iKwXkv  Google Books: http://bit.ly/2jsS5NG  BAM: http://bit.ly/2j5oB4J

Redemption Series: Against the Ropes (On sale for $1.99!) In Your Corner Full Contact Fighting Attraction Strong Hold (Coming soon!)

Spread the news about FIGHTING ATTRACTION with a GIVEAWAY!

Grand Prize: One (1) lucky winner will receive paperback copies of the first three books in the Redemption series (AGAINST THE ROPES, IN YOUR CORNER, AND FULL CONTACT).

Enter at: http://ift.tt/2kVpu4t?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Exclusive sneak peek at FIGHTING ATTRACTION!

Jack “Rampage” Caldwell is the first MMA fighter I created for the Redemption series, and even when I first brought this Southern gentleman to life, I knew he had a secret. But Penny has a dark secret, too. After Jack discovers what she hides from the world, he makes her promise to come to him if she needs him. But trust doesn’t come easily for Penny. She breaks her promise, never expecting that Jack will find out. But, of course, he does…and crossing a sadist is never a good idea!

“I’ll call you back. Jack is here.”

Cora sucks in a sharp breath. “I’ll see you at class tonight. I can hardly wait to hear all about it.”

I end the call and swallow past the lump in my throat. It’s only been three days, and yet it feels like I haven’t seen Jack in forever. He’s wearing a white T-shirt that clings to his taut, muscle-ridged abdomen, and worn jeans that ride low on his narrow hips.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, trying to keep my gaze above his belt.

He pins me with a direct stare, his eyes fierce and hard. I feel like he’s trying to see into my soul, but my heart is pounding so hard I’m not sure enough oxygen is getting to my brain to make any sense of what’s going on.

“Jack?”

His gaze rakes over my body, lingering on my thighs as if he can see beneath my skirt. He tenses, and his eyes narrow. If I didn’t know X-ray vision was impossible, I would swear he knows I broke my promise.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.” My pulse kicks up a notch. “Everyone’s out for the rest of the afternoon.”

He takes a step toward me, and the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

“Lock the door.”

A thrill of fear shoots through me, and sweat beads on my forehead. What if he knows? Or suspects? What will he do?

“Now.” His deep, commanding Dom voice ripples through me, fanning the flames of my desire. Do I trust Jack enough to lock myself in the office with him, especially when I know what is coming? Do I trust myself?

I brush past him and lock the front door.

“Your office,” he snaps after I return.

I jump at his sharp tone and scramble out of his way as he brushes past me and through my office door, a lithe and powerful animal herding its prey.

“What’s going on?”

“Stand in front of the desk.” He gestures to the big oak desk Amanda and I refinished when we first moved into the building.

Puzzled, I do as he asks, my breath catching in my throat when he closes and locks the door behind him.

“Jack?”

He gives me his back as he draws the curtains at the side of my office. “Don’t move.”

A sting of disappointment hits me in the chest. Has he come to reject me all over again? Does he want to make sure I understand there is nothing between us? It shouldn’t bother me because I got the message the other night. I’m nothing. Nothing special. Nothing extraordinary. Not worth his time, especially since he’s on the cusp of fame. I’m just his pal. Plain old quirky Pen. But he doesn’t have to be so cold.

Worthless, no-good piece of shit.

No. No. No. My fingers tighten on the lip of the desk. I haven’t even started to heal from last night. I don’t need the past intruding on the present.

Jack leans against the door across from me, thick arms folded over his massive chest. “Lift your skirt.”

Shock steals my breath away, and all I can do is stare.

“What?”

“You heard me. Lift your skirt. Now.”

Bang. Bang. Bang. My heart thuds frantically against my ribs. Adrenaline pounds through my veins, and I feel a rush of heat between my legs. He knows. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice…

“Why?” I whisper, stalling. And why is this turning me on?

“You know why,” he snaps. “You didn’t keep your promise.”

I smooth my hands over my cream skirt, silky underneath with a cotton macramé overlay, pressing it tight against my thighs. “It doesn’t matter if I kept it or not. We’re not in the club. There’s nothing between us. You made that clear the other night.”

“I fucked up the other night.” He shifts his stance. “I’m not good for you, Pen. You need to be with someone normal. A nice guy who’s going to treat you right and doesn’t want to hurt you.”

My hand fists on my thigh. “I don’t like nice guys. They don’t understand me. They’re too gentle. My life is about pain. Emotional and physical pain. It’s what I know, what I understand, what I need.”

“So you hurt yourself?”

“I didn’t—”

He cuts me off with a scowl. “Don’t lie to me.” He pauses, and his voice takes on a deeper, cutting edge. “Show me.”

My mouth goes dry at his abrupt command, and I fiddle with the edge of my skirt, at once indignant that he would try to boss me around and aroused that he did.

“What if I did?” I say defiantly. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

His corded throat tightens when he swallows, and he fixes me with a level stare. “I’ll give you what you need.”

All the air leaves my lungs in a rush, and I feel a disconcerting wetness between my thighs. “You wouldn’t dare. I’m at work.”

“Try me.”

Electricity sparks in the air between us, and a curious mix of fear and arousal courses through my veins. Stiffening my spine, I curl my fingers under the edge of my skirt and draw it slowly, painfully slowly up my thighs. Jack stills. His eyes flick down and then back up again. He licks his lips, and his eyes darken.

I have awakened the beast.

PRAISE for Sarah Castille’s Redemption series:

“Powerful. Gritty. And sexy beyond belief. Sarah is a true master!”– Opal Carew, New York Times bestselling author of HIS TO CLAIM

“Hilarious, hot and occasionally heartbreaking. I loved it! “– Maryse’s Book Blog on AGAINST THE ROPES

“Castille’s follow-up to the excellent Against the Ropes doesn’t pull its punches.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review for IN YOUR CORNER

“Emotionally charged, amazingly sexy, and flat out fantastic.”– Fresh Fiction on FULL CONTACT

Other Books in the Redempton Series

AGAINST THE ROPES (Redemption #1)

Download the series starter for $1.99!

Order Paperback: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Books-A-Million | IndieBound | Indigo

IN YOUR CORNER (Redemption #2)

Order Paperback: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Book Depository | Books-A-Million | IndieBound

FULL CONTACT (Redemption #3)

Order Paperback: Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble

Chapters Indigo | Book Depository | Books-A-Million | IndieBound

Order Ebook: Kindle | Nook | iTunes | Kobo | Google Play

ABOUT Sarah Castille:

Sarah Castille is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Redemption Series, Ruin & Revenge Series, Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club series, Legal Heat series and the Club Excelsior series. A recovering lawyer with a fondness for dirty-talking alpha males, she now is a full-time writer, who lives on Vancouver Island.

Sarah loves to connect with readers. Visit her website and sign up for her newsletter to hear about new releases: http://bit.ly/LgFZlb

Connect with her at: TWITTER: https://twitter.com/sarah_castille FACEBOOK: http://ift.tt/1OmaySi INSTAGRAM: http://ift.tt/2kkWeAV AMAZON AUTHOR:http://ift.tt/1mySsAh GOODREADS: http://ift.tt/1mySsA9 PINTEREST: http://ift.tt/1mLcNCp YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnP8FQqxprb7iggEDKfA1mw BOOKBUB: http://ift.tt/2kkZIDM

Disclosure: This information was provided by Barclay Promotions and Sarah Castille. This is NOT a compensated post.

The post FIGHTING ATTRACTION by Sarah Castille appeared first on Life Books & Loves.

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Exclusive Excerpt: Null Set by S.L. Huang

http://bit.ly/2IuDTzL

We return to the near-future world of mercenary Cas Russell in Null Set, S.L. Huang's follow-up to Zero Sum Game.

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Feature Kayti Burt

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Apr 15, 2019

S.L. Huang

Cas Russell is back! Following the world-changing events of Zero Sum Game, the mathematically-minded mercenary is working to keep her city from erupting into violence in Null Set following the fall of the secret international organization of murderous telepaths known as Pithica.

We're excited to present the first two chapters from Null Set, which picks up roughly a year following the events of Zero Sum Game, and sees Cas continuing to reel from the personal revelations that came out of her encounter with Dawna Polk.

read more: An Interview with Author S.L. Huang

Null Set is out in July, but here is a sneak peek...

One

My name is Cas Russell.

Except a little over a year ago, I found out it isn’t.

That night a woman named Dawna Polk stood over me and melted my brain, filling it with scenes from a mislaid life, flashes of a past I’d forgotten to miss. She’d cracked the window into shredded fragments I’d only glimpsed in dreams, negative spaces where I’d never noticed the blank emptiness of what was gone. In the scattered time since then, I’d been shocked to discover that everyone else had memories of a coherent existence. Memories of being a child, of growing up. Of a life before becoming a supernaturally mathematical retrieval specialist who drank her way from one job to the next.

Yeah. That would be me. Cas Russell.

Right now, however, I was unfortunately not drunk. Right now I was crouched on top of a metal shipping container in the Port of Los Angeles with a high-powered rifle in my hands. Five people stared up at me from a rough semicircle on the ground, all clad in black to match the moonless night, and all more than ready to kill me if I took my eyes off them for the least split second. They were the first break we’d had in finding their shitstain of a boss, and I was going to make them tell me.

Even if I had to do it without torturing them. Because torture would piss off the tall black man who’d decided to become my conscience, and who was currently forcing a sixth trafficker up alongside the rest with the business end of his Glock.

“Okay?” I called to him.

“Okay,” Arthur called back. He started roughly patting down his prisoner.

“Here’s how it’s going to go,” I addressed our standoff. “The first one of you who tells me how to find Pourdry gets to live. The rest get to see how well their organs can withstand the hydrostatic shock of a .308 round. Clear?”

“Fuck off,” snarled the guy whose hands Arthur was zip-tying, which was stupid, because I twitched the rifle over and pulled the trigger. The shot whizzed by and buried itself in the ground behind him, so close it grazed his neck. A dark line of blood welled up, and the guy froze.

From less than a foot away, on the other side of him, Arthur glared at me. He didn’t like when I was cavalier with guns, even though he knew I could predict exactly where I would hit, probability one. Whatever had Swiss-cheesed my memory had left enough skill at instantaneous mathematics to hit a penny falling behind a wall from a mile away through a windy hailstorm.

The dudes below me, however, did not know I breathed superhuman knowledge of velocities and forces. They only saw me fire a shot that would have killed a man if it had been an inch over—and all a foot from my own backup like a goddamned maniac.

“Hey, that was lucky,” I said. “Next time my aim might not be so great.”

Everyone stayed very still, except for Arthur, who finished securing the guy he’d brought over and moved on to the rest. His eyes kept flicking up to me with just a little irritation. Okay, more like a lot.

I ignored him and very obviously adjusted my rifle to the next person in line. Quickly rising to the ignominious title of largest human trafficker on the West Coast, their boss was the scum of the earth, but somehow he inspired devoted allegiance in his rank and file. Which meant I had to make these people more afraid of me than they were loyal to Jacob Pourdry. “I’ll ask one more time, and then this gets violent,” I said. “Tell me where—”

The back of the guy’s head shattered, and a rifle report rang out just as his body slumped to the ground.

“Russell!” yelled Arthur.

“Not me!”

The other goons scattered and started clawing for weapons. A second one went down, jerking as if on a marionette string before he hit the dirt almost right next to Arthur. I tracked the kinematics of the trajectories back, measuring against speed of sound, the math blasting clarion in my head, and dove off the shipping container.

I protected my rifle in a perfect shoulder roll to come up by Arthur’s side and grabbed the back of his leather jacket. “This way. We need cover!”

One of the traffickers tried to track us with his sidearm as we ran. My rifle took him out before the sniper could. We dashed around the corner, out of their line of sight.

But handgun rounds would punch right through the shipping containers like they were made of butter, let alone the rifle rounds the sniper was using. I sprinted through the maze, skidding into sharp turns and putting as many layers of 14-gauge steel as possible between us and anyone with a gun. Arthur followed without question. He knew to trust my math.

I slapped at my earpiece as we ran. “Pilar! Surveillance, now!”

“On it,” chirped a perpetually cheerful voice in my ear. “Checker says he doesn’t have eyes on who’s shooting at you yet. Four of the goons are down though.”

“We gotta get to the kids,” said Arthur.

Right. The whole reason we were here in the first place—to rescue the shipment of children these assholes had been trying to smuggle into the city for the worst of purposes. Arthur had wanted to get them out first, but I’d insisted we take the chance to try for intel on the man behind it all. We’d been after Pourdry for months, but he was a fucking ghost.

No matter how many kids we pulled from the trafficking ring’s clutches, it wouldn’t make a difference if we couldn’t behead the operation. And now our best chance had exploded in front of us. My hands tightened on my rifle.

“Hang tight where you are,” Pilar said in my ear. “Checker’s taken some of the drones up to see if he can get a—Oh. Whoever it was just shot one of them down.”

“Okay, now I’m mad,” came the voice of Arthur’s business partner and LA’s top computer-expert-slash-hacker. “Who would shoot a perfectly nice robot like that? No manners.”

“Pilar, tell Checker to shut up unless he has something useful to say,” I said, so harshly I practically heard Pilar wince.

“Pilar, please tell Cas this is not the time for her little grudge against me,” Checker said back with perfect cattiness.

“Shove it up /dev/null, you dick,” I shot back.

“Both of you, stop it. And remember, I used to work for a tech company, so I speak geek.” Pilar was a recent hire of Arthur and Checker’s, though her usual job was admin in their private investigations office. Since being hired she’d also taken it upon herself to pressure me into teaching her to shoot a gun, which may have endeared her to me slightly, and tonight she’d been recruited as dispatch. A good thing, too, because I didn’t know how much longer I could keep being professional.

“You said you’d pegged the kids down near the water?” Arthur said into his own earpiece, ignoring our byplay.

“We did get a thermal read—” Pilar paused, then spoke like she was reading off the numbers. “Cas, it’s bearing three hundred and forty-one degrees, a hundred and ninety-four meters from you. But we still don’t have eyes on whoever that sniper is, so stand by—”

“Forget it,” I interrupted her, and took off, not waiting to see if Arthur agreed. I did take us on a roundabout route that would at least keep us hidden from the sniper’s last known position—I wasn’t totally reckless.

�� We hurried under a line of cranes, their struts rising in looming silhouettes against the starless night sky. The water spread inky and black to our left. I kept us at a jog, Pilar’s bearing fixed in my head along with a constantly updating map of how far the sniper or the goons could have gotten on foot. Unfortunately, both those numbers had intersected with our position long before we got there.

We crouched among the struts of the last crane. The number Pilar had given led straight to a lone shipping container just at the water’s edge. No confirmation yet that it had people inside, but if it had lit up the thermals, it probably did.

Fucking Pourdry. I was going to get those kids out of there if it was the last thing I did tonight.

I turned to grab Arthur and make a dash for the shipping container, and for the barest instant I couldn’t find him. Instead, another man was next to me, a bronze-skinned man with wavy hair, and I was yelling to him, I’m going to get those kids out if it’s the last thing I do—

“Russell?” said Arthur.

I shook off the vision. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

We edged out along the water, at an angle to each other so as to cover more of the surrounding darkness. I was acutely aware of how much height the Port of Los Angeles had. Cranes, scaffolding, shipping containers stacked four or five high—plenty of places for a mystery sniper to hide. Who might it be? One of Pourdry’s rivals? Then they’d definitely want us dead, too. Law enforcement? Not exactly their MO, but if so, that was even worse for us than an enemy. Of course, they could always be dirty vigilantes like us, but Arthur was right that most people didn’t shoot that close to someone if they cared about the person staying alive.

We crept closer. Only a few meters out, I glanced back toward our destination—and immediately held up a hand.

Arthur stopped behind me. “What is it?”

“The lock’s busted. Someone beat us here.”

Arthur cursed softly.

A dark blade of a shadow appeared around the edge of the shipping container, at the minuscule strip of dock before the drop-off into the water. A shadow holding a rifle.

“Well, hey there, Russell,” he drawled.

The silhouette of a long coat, and a tall Asian man who moved fluidly across the young brunette in front of me. The spray of blood smacked my cheeks as her eyes went glazed and vacant. The man stepped back.

“Hello, Cas,” he said.

“She wasn’t going to hurt me,” I said through stiff lips. I was holding a handgun, but it dangled at my side.

“What she knew could have,” said the shadow.

“Rio,” I whispered.

Pain blossomed in my bicep. Arthur had unobtrusively grabbed my arm, so deep bruises were forming, but I’d needed it. My hands had gone slick on the rifle.

“What did you say?” asked the man in front of us. The man who wasn’t Rio, wasn’t part of my swamp of a past, and who currently had his own rifle raised and pointed directly at the center of my face.

I’d just lost it in the middle of a job. I couldn’t lose it while in the middle of a job.

I didn’t lose it while in the middle of a job.

And why Rio? He was off somewhere on the other side of the world, reveling in blood while he brought the Lord’s justice down on those he deemed deserving. Lately, however, he wouldn’t stop bringing his massacres into my dreams . . . and now my waking life as well.

Rio was my oldest friend, but even I didn’t like dwelling on what he was capable of.

“You going to point that thing somewhere else?” Arthur called across to the sniper. I had the distinct impression he was covering for me.

“That depends,” the man answered. “Are you?”

“Malcolm,” I growled, my mind finally dredging up the correct name. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Malcolm said lazily. “Would’ve expected you to be on the other side of this. Aren’t you the gal who’ll take any job for the right price?”

“They’re children,” I said with disgust.

“Glad to know you have a line somewhere.”

Malcolm was one of the best snipers I knew—like most people in LA’s criminal underground, we’d both worked together and tried to kill each other a few times before, which put us on reasonably friendly terms. The minus side was that he worked for the LA Mafia, who I didn’t currently have the greatest relationship with. On the plus side, his appearance here probably showed his bosses’ demented protectiveness over their city if they were this keen to stop human trafficking.

“What does the Madre want with all this?” I demanded. “Madame Lorenzo’s in the business of rescuing children now?”

“Somebody’s got to,” Malcolm said.

An all-too-familiar guilt stabbed. Arthur and I had been doing our best to wrench up Pourdry’s operations the last few months, but we kept running face-first into brick walls. The powerlessness had been suffocating. But if the Mafia was getting involved . . . I revised my initial reaction that their brand of protection could be a positive. If they took over here, it would either lead to all of LA getting burnt to the ground or the whole city under mob control.

I had flexible morals when it came to criminal enterprises. But the idea of them taking over completely . . . maybe it was Arthur’s influence that made the bile rise in my throat. Or maybe the fact that I felt responsible for it all.

I’d chosen this future, after all.

Malcolm seemed to make a sudden decision and slung up his rifle. “You two can head. This situation’s been handled.”

“You shot the guys who were going to lead us to Pourdry,” I said, even as I reluctantly lowered my weapon too. “Fuck you very much for that.”

“They weren’t going to give anything away,” Malcolm said. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

“What’s going to happen to the kids?” Arthur asked.

“We’ll call the police, of course, like good citizens, and get them taken care of.” Malcolm gave us the grin of a Cheshire cat as he lit up, the flame lighting the hard planes of his face. The Mob owned good portions of the Los Angeles Police Department, I remembered.

We own you, whispered a voice in my head.

“Come on, Russell,” someone said in my ear. Arthur. “We’re done here.”

We weren’t even close to done. We had to make sure the port was clear of any more of Pourdry’s people—and search whatever ship they’d used; I was a shit investigator but Arthur was a goddamned PI. Not to mention that I wanted to stay horned in on this long enough to ensure that the Mafia kept their fucking word, and they actually did get the kids we’d been trying to rescue to safety. . . .

Rio splashed someone’s blood across my brain again, and the world schismed in front of me for just long enough that I lost my bearings.

What the fuck.

“Give my regards to the Madre,” I managed in Malcolm’s direction, and followed Arthur away into the night.

Two

Arthur said something quietly to Pilar and Checker and stopped the call. I’d stuffed my earpiece in a pocket without telling them we were out and okay, which probably broke some kind of team etiquette. I hated working with people anyway.

“Well, that was fubared from start to finish,” I said, kicking back in the passenger seat of Arthur’s SUV. The thing was built like a tank—he’d splurged after his last few cars had gotten blown up or shot at. Arthur’s friendship with me hadn’t been good for his car insurance bill.

“We’re still alive. Kids are too,” Arthur said, nosing carefully down the predawn streets toward the freeway. “Not as bad as it could have been.”

“Pourdry’s making LA into his own little fiefdom. And what, the LA Mob is going to sort him out? The last thing this city needs is the crime syndicates warring for control.”

“You almost sound like you approve of law and order,” Arthur said.

“I’ll give you some law and order. I’m going to find Pourdry and put him in the ground.”

That shut him up for a minute.

“I’m surprised you’ve been so willing to go all vigilante lately,” I said, maybe just to needle him. Arthur was usually the one lecturing me—call the cops in, stop carrying so many illegal weapons, stop stealing, stop killing so many people. But the past few months, he’d been the one bringing in most of the intel on Pourdry and looping me in on the rescues.

“Sometimes you gotta make exceptions,” Arthur mumbled. “Seems like it’s more and more necessary these days.”

“You mean because it’s our fault?”

“Maybe some of that, too.”

Guilt spiked in me again. Just over a year ago we’d been jointly responsible for hamstringing the organization known as Pithica, an international conspiracy bent on making the world a better place—though run by literal telepaths who accomplished their good deeds through murder and brainwashing. And as we’d dreaded, without their influence, crime had been burgeoning slowly ever since.

I’d sat with Checker, staring at a computer screen that held the key to defeating them, and we’d wrestled with ourselves over whether we should push that button. Take down Dawna Polk and her gang of psychics and let the world spin on as it would, free of their puppetmastery, or let them be and let the results of their machinations make most people’s lives . . . better. Even if those people didn’t know why.

I’d self-righteously taken on that decision for the entire global population.

Now I was seeing what I had wrought. Over the past year and change, criminal activity had gone from a slow ramp-up to an exponential explosion. Los Angeles had never been a particularly friendly city, but now it was becoming a nerve center for gang violence, for organized crime, for kids OD’ing in squalor and drive-by shootings in neighborhoods that had so recently bragged of safety and revitalization. Los Angeles wasn’t the only place, either. But in LA, we saw it up close and personal.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t second-guessing the decision we’d made. And I was pretty sure it was even harder on Arthur than it was on me. He’d cared a lot more to begin with.

The night was late enough for even Los Angeles’s preternaturally frustrating traffic to have died down, and Arthur sped up the freeway toward the Valley. Instead of heading to drop me at my current hidey-hole in Santa Clarita, however, he swung off onto the streets to pull up in front of a dim dive bar that was still open despite having zero other customers.

“What are we doing here?” I said.

“Gonna buy you a drink.”

I suppressed a sigh. Arthur had an annoying tendency to go all worried-parent routine on me. But with the job over I wasn’t about to turn down hard alcohol.

Arthur ensconced me in a booth at the opposite side of the room from the bar and then came back a minute later with a beer for himself and a glass of something stronger that he set in front of me. I knocked it back all at once. The burn felt cleansing.

“Sounds like you and Checker are still fighting,” Arthur said after a minute. He hadn’t taken a sip of his beer yet.

That was a subject I definitely didn’t want to discuss. “If Checker wants to be friends again, he can stay the hell out of my past. I told him I don’t want to know, end of story. He has no right to get all hacker-y and try to dig it up anyway.”

“He’s stubborn. And he’s worried about you. He cares.” After a pause, Arthur added, “He’s not the only one, either.”

“I’m fine,” I snapped.

Arthur studied me, his expression unreadable.

“What?”

“What happened today?”

“What do you mean, what happened?” I said it too loud. Rio murdering someone in front of me. The darkness shifting and changing to places and times I didn’t know.

Arthur spoke slowly, picking out his phrasing. “Never seen you get . . . distracted like that before. Scared me.”

I tried to tell him it had been nothing, but the lie stuck on my tongue. I pushed up out of the booth instead. “I’m getting another drink.”

I persuaded the grubby bartender to give me the whole bottle, mostly by waving a C-note at her for a fourteen-dollar bottle of whiskey. When I came back, I slid onto the booth’s bench and chugged from it. Arthur watched me with what was probably disapproval, but he didn’t try to stop me.

“You and me are supposed to be watching each other,” he said instead. “Remember? Making sure Dawna didn’t do anything permanent?”

Right. Watching each other’s brains. I wasn’t the only one Dawna Polk had psychically attacked in a last-ditch effort to save her global string-pullers. Arthur hadn’t had an easy time of it either, but he also didn’t seem to be suffering any residual effects. Whereas I . . .

Dawna had almost ended me that night. The whole onslaught was still a prickly jumble, parts of it intermittently remembered and forgotten, other parts only the shapes of a memory. But since then, my nightmares had begun slowly bleeding into my waking life.

At least I was pretty sure she wasn’t still influencing me, though. She’d just scarred me badly enough for my brain to start chewing on itself.

I’m doing very little, said the echo of power. Picking at threads, as it were. Your brain has the most inventive ways of trying to destroy you.

I gulped some more whiskey, grateful for the slight edge it took off my senses, and then leaned my elbows on the table so I could press my head against my hands, conveniently burying my face behind my forearms and avoiding Arthur’s gaze.

If I was screwing him over in the field . . .

I had to tell him. Shit. Shit.

“I saw things.” I tried to spit it out in one go, without hearing the meaning behind the words. I’d never planned to say it aloud, even as more and more of Dawna’s attack resurfaced, haunting me—

I forced myself on. “When she was in my head. I saw . . . things from my past, I think. And this.”

I reached into a pocket with a hand that felt like it was pushing through molasses and drew out a folded piece of paper. It had crumpled and gone ratty around the edges from being carried with me. I put it on the table and slid it to the middle, slowly, as if it were dangerous.

I thought it might be.

Arthur reached for the paper and unfolded it. Read it. Glanced up at me. “This is your handwriting.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t remember writing it?”

“Nope,” I said. “Dawna played that note for me in a vision. And then I found my own grave.”

“Show me,” said Arthur.

***

We pulled up outside the cemetery just as the sun rose, washing out the city in pale dawn light as the day figured out whether it wanted to stay chilly or turn scorching. We were just moving out of Los Angeles’s version of winter, which meant it was still jacket weather but now mixed with increasingly frequent ninety-degree heat waves.

The note was back in my pocket. Do not try to remember under any circumstances, it read, the precise math of the handwriting analysis leaving no doubt I had penned it.

And my signature underneath. Cas Russell.

I saw my own hands folding the note, the paper crisp and white—

“Just in case,” a male voice said. “We won’t need it.”

I turned to pass it to him—

“Russell?” Arthur touched my shoulder.

I shook myself. “This way.”

The smooth asphalt of the paths shimmered in the morning sun. We headed down between the soldiering lines of headstones and well-manicured lawns.

I remembered exactly where the columbarium was. Dawna had shown me the location of the note in my own head, and somehow my hindbrain had grabbed on to it and yanked, pulling me to drive, drive, drive here one night and then push inside the door until I stood here, in this building, surrounded by the soaring slant of wall plaques, each a human life burned down to a few pounds of ash—

I was panting slightly. Arthur waited next to me, a steady presence.

“There.” I pointed.

Arthur moved over to the wall. I joined him. “Cassandra Russell” read the carved marble. The hand of death felt like it crawled up the back of my neck.

Arthur ran his fingers over the cover stone and found the fine cracks in it. “Your doing?”

“I broke it,” I said. “To get the note. I guess they repaired it.”

“You knew it was here,” said Arthur. It wasn’t a question.

I swallowed. I didn’t know why I wanted to cling so hard to not saying anything, to not admitting the mounting trouble I was having with my own goddamn brain. But a good part of me—most of me—wanted to run. Hide. Ignore. Bury myself elsewhere, somewhere I’d never have to face anyone who might guess how much I was teetering.

I pressed my hand flat against the marble wall as if it would anchor me here. “Today, at the port,” I made myself say. “You asked what happened. I saw—I think it was a memory.”

Arthur straightened toward me. “You saw something?”

“It was—I don’t know. Some guy. I was talking to him.” I didn’t mention the other memory, the one with Rio. Arthur already didn’t like Rio. He didn’t need to know I was hallucinating the man’s murders. “It was . . . I was there, for just a second, and then I was back.”

The door to the columbarium pushed open. I spun away from the wall like I was guilty of something.

Arthur, who was a lot better at undercover work than I was, merely turned toward the noise as if it were the most natural thing in the world. An elderly caretaker with a full beard and a haircut that rivaled Einstein’s had come in carrying some gardening and cleaning tools.

“Morning,” Arthur said.

“Good morning,” the man answered genially, and moved to cross past us, going about his duties.

“Excuse me,” Arthur called. “This wall niche, any way I can contact the next of kin?”

“Oh. Oh.” The man patted down his coverall with his free hand, as if he were looking for a phone number to pull out and give to Arthur but had forgotten where it was. “You’ll have to ask in at the office about that. They open at nine today.”

“Thank you, I’ll do that,” Arthur said.

“That’s the one that got vandalized, isn’t it?” The man squinted past us. “Yes, I know they called the family about it. Such a shame, what kids will do these days. . . .”

Called the family?

My senses dulled, the world closing in on me. Who the hell—

“Hey, Russell. Russell.”

Arthur had a hand on my shoulder. The caretaker had shuffled off.

“What the fuck did he mean by that?” I ground out.

“I take it you didn’t get a call,” Arthur said.

I moved my head in a stilted shake. I’d put that note in the wall. I had; I was sure of it. And the cemetery had called someone else.

“This is so fucked up,” I said through a hoarse laugh. “Dawna pulled some batshit scrap of something out of my head and then I go to find it and the fucking thing tells me not to remember. . . .”

My hands twitched, my fingers recalling the tactile memory of dragging a pen into the shape of words. Do not try to remember . . .

The ballpoint snagged against an irregularity beneath the paper, making the r turn topologically inequivalent.

“I’m telling myself not to,” I said with an effort. “That’s the core of it, right? I need to trust myself. I need to stop.”

“Sounds to me like you might not have a choice,” Arthur said quietly. “If this is happening . . . you can’t erase the memories of your life at will, right? Lord knows I’ve tried.”

“It’s not my life, though,” I said. “It’s someone else. Someone not me. I don’t care, I don’t want it, I fucking warned myself not to—”

I stopped.

“What is it?” said Arthur.

My breath hitched in my throat. “I just—something Dawna—”

You might have a chance at fighting me. If you weren’t already fighting yourself.

“Russell? What’d she do?”

“Dawna—she—” How had I forgotten? How? Dawna’s words reverberating through every corner of my mind as she’d taken me apart . . . “I thought she just left some sort of—some sort of injury, or mental scarring, but that’s not it. That’s not it.” My voice sounded hoarse, as if I’d been screaming. “She’s the one who told me. She told me to . . .”

“Told you to do what? Russell?”

“She said—she said remember.” I swallowed. Uncontrolled nightmares made real, invading my waking consciousness. Dawna had made it so. She hadn’t stabbed me in the psyche; she’d merely opened a door and ordered me to look.

That was all. That was everything.

“She told me to remember,” I whispered. “And now . . . I think I am.”

Null Set is available for pre-order now. Zero Sum Game can be purchased via Amazon or your local independent bookstore.

SL Huang is an Amazon-bestselling author whose debut novel, Zero Sum Game, is upcoming from Tor. Her short fiction has sold to Strange Horizons, Analog, and The Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016. She is also an MIT graduate, stuntwoman, and firearms expert. Follow her at www.slhuang.com or @sl_huang.

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alphawave-writes · 4 years

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Experimental Design chapter 3: Dominant

Synopsis: Robotnik and Stone must go on a mission to find the mysterious 'Black Dragon', but a few sexy encounters might give Robotnik a whole new perspective on 'torture'.

Read it here on or AO3. You guys can also find me on twitter @alphawave13.

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I now have a discord server for the fanfic here! Check it out here for sneak peeks and insight into the creative process and more.

Robotnik said he'd have a punishment for Stone, but he didn't. Not for lack of trying. He had an entire list of potential punishments that he’d been stockpiling in encrypted documents, waiting for the day that Stone did something to warrant their use, but what punishment was suitable for ‘too much wriggling’? He tried to think of something, but Stone’s wriggling had seemed to seep his brilliant mind, distracting him from his work even when Stone was not physically present. This wasn’t the first time Robotnik’s thoughts had drifted to Stone. The agent had a way of getting into Robotnik’s head, but there was something almost insidious about the way Stone controlled his thoughts now, reminding him of that gentle smile and the strength of his impossibly warm hand as it gripped Robotnik’s shoulder.

He should've made better notes. As a scientist he prided himself above all else for his extensive note-taking, but it seemed the variables had increased. Robotnik didn't remember Stone ever smelling so good, but the faint musky scent of dollar-store perfume was enough to make his mind blank for just a moment. Robotnik had taken a sample from the air and traced the perfume to a cosmetics store in the nearby downtown area, but when he went to smell it for himself, it didn't smell nearly as good. In fact, it smelled exactly like how Robotnik expected dollar-store perfume to smell like.

He still bought it and tested it on himself, knowing enough about aromatic chemistry that the oils from his skin could alter the scent, but it still didn't smell nice. He should throw it away, but there was something about the scent signature that reminded him of Stone. With every inhale, memories of Stone's pouting lips and almond-shaped eyes resurrected, and those memories sent another spark of longing in his gut. Robotnik kept the bottle in his perfume cabinet next to all the expensive ones that he used on occasion. Just in case he got a spark of inspiration.

Luckily for Stone, Robotnik had no time to dole out his punishment. Today he had a task to perform, and he was certainly going to get it done now before it took any more precious time out of his busy, important life. Robotnik was only given vague instructions of where he needed to go and what he needed to find, but he was a genius with technology at his side. Finding people in this day and age was easy. In fact, it was so idiotically easy that he relegated Stone to find the address, who of course took his sweet time. At least he eventually found it before the end of the day, and he seemed to have fun with his little assignment judging from that massive grin that cut beautifully across his perfectly trimmed face.

"I've already put in the GPS coordinates in, and it will be a fifteen minute drive, doctor." He handed Robotnik a latte. "I also made you a drink. Your usual latte."

Robotnik huffed, though he couldn't help the smile that peeked out from underneath his moustache. Before he might go and say something remotely sentimental, he snatched the coffee out of Stone's hand and took a sip. As always, it was perfect. "This coffee is the one thing that has not disappointed me today." He pressed some buttons on his gloves and a tiny little chime could be heard, signaling that the mobile lab was now in motion.

Robotnik had just settled back to his computer when he felt Stone's presence behind him. Stone was wearing a different perfume, Robotnik realised, and this one smelled even nicer than yesterday's. It was muskier, with an hint of something woody, like sandalwood or cedar. It reminded him of Stone's gyrating hips yesterday, and the day before when Stone was on all fours in front of him, and then every other time he had forced Stone into an awkward or humiliating position.

A brief mental image flashed before his eyes, of grabbing Stone by the lapel of his jacket and pressing his nose down to his throat so he could finally, finally know the secret to that intoxicating scent of his. It was going to drive him crazy, threatening to undo the lines of logic that kept his mind running.

"Sir?"

Robotnik stirred, blinking away the image. He only just realised that his breathing rate and heart rate had increased slightly. He took another long sip of coffee to calm himself down. He made a mental note to add 'scent' to his list of variables for future experiments. "J-just annoyed about this task that buffoon Senator Walkie-Talkie put me on."

"You did insult his mother four times," Stone commented. "And his sister three times."

"His mother is a forest hag that eats children for breakfast, and his sister is a vacuous princess stuck on her fairy tale tower."

"Five and four," Stone smiled.

Robotnik rolled his eyes. "This is the first and last time I do that man's bidding. He may be providing me with some of my funding, but I refuse to be his dog. I'll do his silly little recon mission, but if he puts me on another task after today, I'm using the blackmail file." A sardonic chuckle escaped his lips. "When I'm through with him, the Panama papers will seem like a sticky note on a fridge."

"Or the Paradise papers," Stone added.

"I worked really hard on those two," Robotnik grumbled. "Uncovering all that dirt wasn't easy, even for a genius like me. Let's hope this next one actually does some serious damage."

Stone opened his mouth, no doubt ready to acknowledge his genius with that amazed face of his, or perhaps express his surprise at Robotnik’s involvement in these two world events, but then the mobile lab had rolled to the stop. Another chime. They’ve arrived at their destination.

The door rolled down, and Robotnik tip toed his way down, his polished brogues making an unpleasant crackle as they stepped on gravel. Stone was behind him as always, staring up at a neon sign for a nightclub called 'The Manor'. At least, it was a nightclub officially, but according to Senator Moby Dick, 'The Manor' had links to the seedy underbelly of the city, with a basement floor that was only accessible to those with the correct password. What occurred in the basement floor, the Senator did not say, but it was obvious that it offended his delicate sensibilities. Whatever it was, that was exactly where he needed to go. After all, the basement was where Robotnik could find the Black Dragon.

Just outside the entrance was a small line of guests in big coats and even bigger boots, waiting for their turn to be checked by the security guards. The line was progressing at an incredibly slow pace. At this rate, it'd take a good half hour before they'd get to the front.

Not if I have anything to say about it, Robotnik thought.

"Come on, Stone," Robotnik grumbled, pulling Stone by the arm all the way to the front of the line. He pretended not to see that look of soft surprise on Stone's face, lest he feel another way of confusing, ugly, human emotions.

The two guards at the entrance didn't look too pleased. They were bigger than Stone, with bigger muscles and even bigger sneers.

"Name?" The first asked.

"Why do you need my name?" Robotnik asked.

"Security," the second guard gruffly responded.

"Have you imbeciles been living under a rock your whole life? I'm Dr. Ivo R—" He was interrupted by Stone putting his hand in front of his mouth, stifling him.

Stone gave a polite smile as he said, "Stone and Reznik. We've got an appointment with the Black Dragon."

The first guard gave a quizzical look while the other one coughed nervously into his hand. Robotnik used the distraction to move Stone's distracting fingers away from his lips.

"We don't have all day," Robotnik snapped.

"Takes all sorts," the first guard mumbled as they checked them over for weapons before letting them pass.

Robotnik huffed, deciding at the last second not to scold these guards for their incompetence, and stormed on through to the reception. He was forced to pay an entry fee for both himself and Stone, and then had to suffer the absolutely humiliation of giving them his coat for safe-keeping. He liked his coats. Would've preferred to have them on his person, but at least he still had access to his most important gadgetry; namely the spy camera on his glasses and a few mini-badniks in his pocket, ready for deployment.

Stone gave his own suit jacket to the receptionist, revealing his surprisingly tight black shirt. It made sense that Stone would be muscular given his occupation. Not needlessly muscular like the oafs at the entrance. No, Stone's muscles were form and function, a well-rounded mix of type I and type II muscle fibres. Robotnik wondered what those muscles would look like in the flesh, without a pesky shirt to obscure them from the world.

Stone looked at Robotnik for a second before approaching suddenly, his face inches from Robotnik's nape.

Robotnik stiffened. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you blend in." Stone popped the first two buttons of Robotnik's shirt before taking a few steps back to admire his handiwork.

Robotnik didn't see how a few buttons could change his appearance, but at least Stone wasn't so close to him anymore. It wasn't the same when Stone was the one entering Robotnik's personal space. If this wasn't a public setting, Robotnik might punish Stone here and now. Given his way, he’d strip Stone down to just his underpants and have him parade himself throughout the club. But it was, and though many of his contemporaries claimed he lacked basic social understanding, even Robotnik knew his limits.

Judging from that small little smirk, Stone knew he was safe as well. "You look better like this, doctor."

Robonik's lips twitched, trying his hardest not to smile at the unwarranted compliment. "Of course I do. Now, let's get this over and done with, Stone."

They stepped through the curtained door to find themselves in the main area of the nightclub. Once upon a time, the nightclub used to be a factory, judging by its crude brick interior and vast open space, but at least they've done something to make it look more professional. There were bright lights, and a neon lit bar, and a dance floor with a DJ playing some atrocious modern club music.

It all looked like an ordinary club on first glance, but Robotnik prided himself on his observation skills and his tremendous IQ to spot things no common idiot would notice. The clientele was made up mostly of men, and some of these men made some dubious fashion choices, what with their leather garters and their gigantic boots. There was also a door at the end with a second set of bodyguards, asking for a code. Most people got turned away. That was where he needed to go.

Robotnik was about to tell Stone this, but the agent stared wide-eyed at the scene, as if transfixed by an unseen entity. Robotnik snapped his fingers, and Stone seemed to come to.

"You do remember what we're here to do, right?"

Stone's brows furrowed. "Sir, do you know what this place is?"

"Just answer the question."

Stone seemed ready to protest, but then he let out a quiet breath and seemed to regain his sensibilities. "We have to find the Black Dragon, and deal with them accordingly. The senator said it will become obvious what we need to do once we find them. Or it," he quickly added.

"I'm assuming you're not so much of an idiot that you couldn't sneak some fire power in."

Stone smirked as he pretended to check his shoes. He lifted his pant leg just enough for the end of a military-grade handgun to peek out. Stone glanced up at Robotnik, which reminded Robotnik of Stone on all fours and the strange mix of emotions that filled his chest and took ahold of his mind.

He had to say something. Anything. Robotnik knew this was going into some uncharted territory, and he was not going to explore it without a data pad to record results. "Why Reznik?"

Stone stood up properly. "Hmm? Oh, that. I just thought it sounds close enough to Robotnik."

"But you used your own surname," Robotnik pointed out.

Stone tilted his head. "You didn't actually think Stone was my real name, did you?"

"O-of course I know it's not your real name," Robotnik lied, because of course he never considered the idea that 'Stone' was a cover name. Agent Stone was just Agent Stone. He wasn't worth the neurons spent memorising his real name.

So then why was Robotnik now so insanely curious about Stone’s real name? What could fit this man better than Agent Stone?

Stone laughed his quiet, melodic laugh. "Maybe I'll tell you my real name some other day, Ivo."

Robotnik bristled. "I did not give you permission to call me Ivo."

"You can punish me some other time," Stone patted him condescendingly on the shoulder before pushing past the throngs of people.

Robotnik ignored the heat creeping up his chest as he followed Stone, shoving past half-naked men with leather straps on their chests to make his way to the bar.

The lone bartender was polishing empty beer glasses when Stone sat down at one of the stools. Robotnik grumbled to himself as he took the seat next to Stone, surveying the options of alcoholic beverages on display. He never liked alcohol personally. He claimed it was because it killed his brain cells, but the real reason was that he never liked the taste. That, and he refused to associate with those frat dudes from college who insisted that a keg stand was a true judge of mental and physical fortitude.

"Any drinks, gentlemen?"

"Water," Robotnik said.

"I'll have the same, thanks," Stone smiled, gracing the world with his pearly whites.

The bartender flitted about, filling two glasses with water from the tap before dropping them on two of the bar's coasters, the logo of the club printed in bold red. Stone was about to open his wallet, but Robotnik had already slapped a ten dollar bill on the counter and said, "I'm paying for both. And keep the change."

The bartender shrugged, while Stone stared at Robotnik. He tried not to glance back as he took a long gulp from his glass, wincing at the metallic aftertaste. He didn't see what the big fuss was. It was just money.

"I don't remember you lot," the bartender said. "You two new?"

"We are new," Stone said. "You wouldn't happen to know how we can get downstairs, would you?"

The bartender's brilliant blue eyes narrowed. "Why you asking?"

Stone paused for a few seconds, his tiny mind struggling to compute a reason as to why they wanted to go downstairs. Of course Stone would blow their cover already. He was strong and capable and a bit smarter than the average person, but he was still an idiot compared to Robotnik.

Robotnik was about ready to throw him a bone when Stone said, "We're a couple."

In Robotnik's defense, he did not spit his drink out. Even if he thought about doing it.

"A couple?" The bartender asked.

"Y-yeah." Stone found Robotnik's hand and entangled their fingers together, lifting them up so the bartender could see. It took all of Robotnik's willpower to not slap the hand away. He was starting to feel some funny things again. "It's our first time here, but our friends recommended we come here," Stone continued. "Said we should try the Black Dragon."

"The Black Dragon?" The bartender looked Robotnik up and down, not unlike how a judge would appraise a dog for a grooming competition. "I'm assuming you're the top."

"Of course I am the top. I'm always at the top," Robotnik replied.

The bartender stifled a laugh, while Stone looked away in embarrassment. What was wrong with what he said? It was a perfectly true statement.

"You two are some weirdos, but then again this place kinda caters to your bunch." The bartender shook his head. "If you've got an appointment, I guess you must be alright. Just head to the door on the opposite side over there and tell Terry that Matt approves."

“Thanks,” Stone said.

Robotnik downed his glass of water in one fell swoop and stood up, not bothering to wait for Stone. He heard Stone scramble to finish his drink before jumping out of his seat.

“Hey, wait up, sir.”

"Enough of these games," Robotnik growled.

"You're making a scene," Stone said.

Robotnik stopped, swiveling sharply on his heel. “Me? You've been subjecting me to ridicule ever since we got here. Pretending we’re a couple? Unbuttoning the top two buttons of my shirt? Why not just kiss me right on the lips like this is some trashy yaoi manga from the late 90s? That'll really seal the deal, wouldn't it?”

A strange look flickered through Stone's eyes, a flash of lightning before the horrendous thunder. Robotnik only realised he had made a mistake when the thunder hit, and Stone's expression turned dark and cold, a storm brewing behind pitch black irises. “Sir, if I may, this is supposed to be a espionage mission.” He gestured at their surroundings. “Do you know what this place is?”

“Do you think I’m an imbecile? I know very well this is a nightclub.”

“A gay nightclub,” Stone pointed out.

Robotnik went silent for several seconds. His face betrayed no emotion, even as his racing mind struggled to conjure up a response. Looking now at the other clubgoers, it explained most of the peculiarities. It should have been obvious. In hindsight, it was very obvious. Clearly, Stone was distracting him. That had to be it.

Stone smirked knowingly. “You didn’t even consider that possibility.”

“W-why should I?” Robotnik spat.

Stone let out a small sigh. “Doctor, if I may, you are a genius, but I have more experience with this line of work. If we want to go through this mission without incident, we need a cover identity.” He took Robotnik's hand in his own. "We're just blending in. No one will bother us, and no one will ask questions."

Robotnik bit back a frown. He never really liked people touching him. People that did touch him were usually out to harm him in some way. At least, it was true when he was just a child. Stone, however, would not hurt a fly. Robotnik had often wondered why Agent Stone was so highly commended when he was such a pacifist. The main reason why he chose Stone as his assistant was because all his superiors feared the man. But why would they fear such a simple, well-meaning idiot?

He stared at their conjoined hands, then at Stone's expectant face. It was such a stupid expression that he couldn't help but smile a little bit. "If this goes badly, I'm blaming you."

"It won't," Stone smiled. "Trust me."

Despite what little he knew about Stone, Robotnik did trust him. Not that he'd ever say it out loud.

They walked hand-in-hand to the door leading downstairs. The people who used to stare at him had now turned their head away, unconsciously confirming Stone's theory. Robotnik had to admit, it seemed to work, and he didn't have to shove his way through sweaty simpletons either.

The two bodyguards were somehow even bigger than the ones at the entrance, their muscles so big and bulging that Robotnik was sure they were both abusing anabolic steroids.

They glanced Robotnik and Stone over. "Password?"

"Which one of you is Terry?" Stone asked dumbly, even though it was clear by the name tags that the first one was Terry.

"It's our first time here, we've got an appointment with the Black Dragon, yada yada. Matt at the bar said he approves."

The first bodyguard—Terry—blinked rapidly, but stepped outside, having at least enough common courtesy to pull the curtain back for the doorway so they could pass through. Robotnik and Stone followed down the narrow stairs lined with lush red velvet, taking the stairs one step at a time. It was dark, with barely enough light from the lightbulbs above their heads. On one side was a hand-rail, while the other had a variety of different posters talking about different acts. It was a lot of men dressed in various leather gear, holding something. What that something was, Robotnik couldn't tell with the low lighting, but he felt that familiar heat creep up his chest, a feeling he now associated with Stone and experiments and punishments.

It took Robotnik a few seconds to realise he was still holding Stone's hand, and wretched it out of the man's grasp. He made a show of wiping his glove on Stone's shirt before sticking his hands into his pockets. Another strange look passed over Stone's face.

"Do you know what the Black Dragon is?" Robotnik asked.

"No. I thought you did, sir."

"Senator Will-they-won't-they didn't tell me anything, and obviously by that statement, I assume you've also found nothing. I would've thought I'd see some hint or trail about this elusive Black Dragon by now, but there's nothing. Just cryptic garbage that means nothing to us. No poster, no gossip. Nothing." Robotnik felt his eyes narrow, his fingers twitching inside his pockets, as they often did when he was frustrated.

Stone turned to Robotnik. "I know that look, sir. There's something on your mind."

"This isn't right, Stone," Robotnik said. "The circuit is incomplete. There's a missing connector preventing the current from running through my massive mind."

"I'm sorry?"

"We're either missing something, or there's something more nefarious at work. Much as I despise the illogical expression, I have a gut feeling it is the latter." Robotnik glanced at the bottom of the staircase, the sound of murmured chatter echoing. "Keep what little wits you have about you. We could be entering danger."

Stone smiled. "I think we can handle it, sir."

At the bottom of the staircase was a final door. A sign that simply said 'the basement' hung in front. The door was slightly ajar, letting in a slip of noise and light. There was no music, but there was laughter and chatter, and the whooshing sound of a thin object travelling at high velocity. Stone offered to open the door, but Robotnik shoved past and opened the door for himself, letting it swing open.

Of all the things he expected, an almost-naked man getting whipped on their bare ass by a man in a latex bodysuit was not one of them.

Robotnik walked forward slowly, trying to take in the menagerie of leather-bound men participating in what looked like a convention of sorts. There were stalls, and exhibitions, with almost-naked performers tied up in elaborate ways with crimson rope, or strapped to devices and left in vulnerable positions, all but exposing their most sensitive parts to the world. People chatted mindlessly while tugging on the enlarged pet collars of men on all fours, or leading others with blindfolds and ball gags up and down the strips between the stalls like it was a parade. There were handcuffs, and leg cuffs, and ankle cuffs, and a variety of clothing that restricted limbs.

This wasn’t just a gay nightclub, Robotnik realised. It was a BDSM nightclub. A festival of torture for the delight of others. A place of limitless punishment, with the tools of the trade up for sale.

“Uh, sir?”

Robotnik could easily imagine using these implements for his own methods of punishment. Stone had been quite disrespectful of late, and these people were so obedient even in the face of humiliation. He could chain him up, or cuff him up, or tie him up, or strap him down. For once, Robotnik had to admit defeat. His punishments seemed almost laughable compared to these artisans and their gadgets. His ideas were so narrow-minded, so childish, but this scene before him had introduced him to a whole new world of torture.

A swell of excitement filled his bones. His mind was suddenly swimming with ideas. There were so many ways he could punish Stone, and they were right there, hidden beneath the veneer of public decency.

“S-sir,” Stone repeated.

Robotnik shook his head. “C-come on, don’t just gawp like a fish out of water,” Robotnik said, acutely aware that his excitement was creeping into his voice.

They surveyed the stalls and the products they had on offer. Smack dab in the middle, strangely enough, was an information booth, where a bored-looking young woman in a leather bikini and spiked thigh-high boots sat. When they approached, she perked up, the picture of customer service friendliness.

“How may I help you gentlemen?”

“The Black Dragon,” Robotnik huffed. “Do you know where it is?”

The lady smiled pleasantly, although there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. “Got a group appointment?”

“Of course we do, otherwise we wouldn’t be asking. Just tell us who the Black Dragon is, and where we can find them.”

The lady giggled into her fist. “Oh darlin’, it’s not a person, it’s…you know what, I’ll let y’all see it for yourselves.” She pointed toward the back. “Right at the end, you can’t miss it. Oh, and enjoy the ride for me, will ya?” She winked.

They followed the woman's instructions, heading deeper to the back. The further they went, the more serious it got. Where people were dressed provocatively near the front, at the back they were all but naked. Genitals and private parts were on full display, alongside more hardcore BDSM gear like chastity gear and clamps. Robotnik tried to avert his eyes but it was getting increasingly difficult. Suddenly he was glad his jacket was back at the entrance, because he was sure he'd be sweating. Even calm and collected Stone looked a bit hot under the collar, glancing furtively between the different implements, keeping his head turned away from Robotnik's direction. Robotnik was kinda glad he wasn't the only one feeling awkward here, even if he felt a little disappointed that Stone wasn't looking at him.

At the literal back was a small crowd observing what looked to be a performance. A proprietor in what could only be described as a sexy ringmaster costume was manipulating what appeared to be a robot in the shape of a limbless mannequin. It would've looked identical to any mannequin in a store, except for the jelly-like material it was made of, and the fact that it was sporting a gigantic cock, complete with fake veins. With the click of a button, the robot moved, repeating a motion like a trinket in a music box. There was something attached to the mannequin, Robotnik realised, near its bottom. Something long and thick and dark as ebony.

He pushed past the crowd, coming close enough to read the sign. The show was for a store that sold sex toys. There were dildos at various price ranges, each with their own length and circumference measurement to the side, as well as a 'performance' price for if people felt brave enough to try them out in front of an audience. Their biggest and most intimidating one? A dildo by the name of the Black Dragon.

Amidst the cacophony Robotnik heard a click. On the opposite side of the stall, just barely in sight, a man had his phone up. By his side Stone tensed suddenly. A second passed as Robotnik's gaze connected with the stranger.

Then, the stranger ran.

"After him!" Robotnik ordered.

Stone didn't need to be told twice. He shoved through the throngs of people, Robotnik following shortly behind him. A few clicks of the buttons on his gloves, and the mini-badniks spilled from his pockets, hovering near the ceiling, tracking the stranger down. Robotnik was never a fast runner, but he didn't think he was a clumsy runner either. And yet he was like a newborn baby compared to Stone with his perfect form, the likes of which an olympic athlete would be jealous of. And those eyes, normally so soft, now sharp like blades and dark as the night. Dangerous.

Stone had almost lost track of the man as they darted through stalls, but Robotnik could see him through his scouting badniks. "2 o'clock, red door," he called out.

They sped forward, nearly colliding with a man in a full latex suit, as the stranger shoved the door open, Stone and Robotnik following shortly behind. It was clearly supposed to be a private room of sorts, with two naked men making out on a very plush bed. They screamed, but a single glance at the badniks made them pile their clothes up and hurry out. As soon as they were out of the room, Stone closed the door behind him and locked it shut.

The stranger pressed a finger to their ear. "Code Orange, I repeat, code oran—gaagh!" Robotnik pressed a few buttons on his gloves and the little speaker in their ear buzzed and fizzed, making them scream in pain.

A wicked grin spread across Robotnik's face. "Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, Little Red Riding hood," Robotnik said, his face pleasant even as his words dripped with venom. "Senator Thickhead couldn't bother to lift his pinky toe off the floor for one second, so he got you to do the job? What was it, blackmail? Murder?"

Instead of answering, the man pulled out a gun. A second later and Stone pulled out his own gun with military efficiency. They both flicked the safety off at the same time.

"John Stevenson," Robotnik uttered. He knew he had the man when their eyes widened in horror. "Think I don't know who you are? A minute ago, you would've been right, but from that itty bitty little spider in your ear, I've now got your whole life in front of me. Two kids and a wife? I wonder if they know what you do."

John grimaced, pressing his free hand to his ear. "Code Orange, I repeat, code orange!"

"Don't bother, no one can hear you. And any incriminating images on that phone are gone already. That's what you get for trying to go against a genius like myself." The phone made a whining sound, and then what sounded like a cackle. It was completely unnecessary to do, but it was worth it for the look of horror that flashed in John's pitiful, ugly eyes.

John's gaze flickered between his gun and Stone. Slowly, he moved his gun, training his aim at Robotnik instead. His hand was shaking, but from this distance there was still a 70% of getting shot. Robotnik's moustache twitched slightly, the only tell he would show as his heartbeat raced and his breathing quickened.

Unfortunately for Robotnik, he was still human. Despite the near limitless knowledge at his disposal, despite the fact that he had the upper hand, even he feared death.

"H-he told me he wanted to get rid of you," John stammered. "And I will. So stand down!"

"You shoot me, and I'll make sure your life is so miserable you'll make Bridge to Terabithia seem like a comedy. From the grave or the hospital, my robots will destroy you so completely and utterly that there won't even be enough of you for your family to cremate into a bottle cap. You are nothing, and you will be nothing in life and death when I'm finished with you."

John's eyes suddenly went dark, and the air shifted. It reminded Robotnik of when the music cut out when playing a visual novel, the world drowning out until there was only himself, and John. The mini-badniks weren't cut out for combat. He didn't have any weaponry that was faster than a bullet. His options dwindled by the microsecond.

Robotnik could count on one hand the mistakes he'd made that he could say were completely and utterly his own. Unlike the very, very few he had made in his life, he would pay the ultimate price for this one.

"I'll take the risk," John said emotionlessly.

Robotnik closed his eyes as he heard the sound of a single gunshot. For what felt like an eternity, he waited for the searing heat and the merciless pain and the cynical laughter of the Devil, but instead he felt a draft as a shadow blocked the soft lights above. He opened his eyes, and Stone was in front of him, smoke billowing from his gun. John collapsed onto the ground, blood oozing from his shoulder to the floor. Reality flooded back as Robotnik heard the commotion outside, people screaming in fear as they raced up the stairs.

He should care about how they get out of here, of the bleeding body on the floor, but instead all he cared about was his own reflection glittering in Stone's soft eyes, frazzled and vulnerable. The last time he remembered looked like this was back at the Orphange decades ago. He never thought he'd resemble that brat ever again, in a gay BDSM club of all places.

"Are you alright, doctor?" Stone asked softly.

He wanted to say yes, because obviously he had not sustained any damage, and obviously this wasn't his first time seeing a dead body. He should say it, and get the hell out of here. But instead he was quiet, staring into the eyes of a man he thought he knew, but didn't. After all, Stone never looked so intense before, with that dark, unyielding stare. Those were the eyes of a merciless killer. A man who has no doubts or hesitation. And that man saved Robotnik's life.

Robotnik jerked his head away. "D-d-don't just stand there and play with your moisturized thumbs. Let's get out of here."

A small, relieved smile played on Stone's lips as he flipped the safety back on. "Right away, sir."

As they joined the crowd and blended in with the sea of black, being jostled and shoved as people scrambled for the entrance, Stone reached for Robotnik's hand, gripping tightly. Robotnik decided not to punish Stone for touching his hand without express permission. Not this time.

Senator Willingham woke up in a sterile room he did not recognise. Tiled white walls and tiled white floors surrounded him. As he tried to move, he suddenly realised that he couldn't. His hands and his legs were strapped to a chair.

When he got used to the light and opened his eyes, Robotnik was before him, a vicious sneer on his cruel, uncaring face. He expected some childish insult, some boast about his intelligence. Instead, Robotnik silently put his hand out to Agent Stone, who produced a folder from his jacket. Robotnik's eyes did not leave Willingham as his fingers skimmed through the folder, taking out a single sheet of paper. He pulled it out with a flourish, and spun it around for Willingham to see.

A cold sweat dripped down his forehead. His face was pale.

"Do you know what this is?"

Willingham let his lips dip, but said nothing.

"That is you, just last week at the nightclub, getting pissed on by two well-known male escorts." His lips curled up into a sinister smile. "Always thought the only subject you ever passed in school was urine."

"What do you want?" He spat.

Robotnik put the picture back in the folder and got dangerously close. "I'll say this so simply, even an utter idiot like you could understand. You'll increase your funding by exactly 50%; that's a 50% increase. You'll let me do my job without your thoughtless intervention. Most importantly, you'll never try a stunt like last night on me, or my agent, ever again. I find out you attempt to blackmail me, or murder me, or do anything that affects me in a negative way, and I will leak this, as well as every sordid, detestable thing you've ever done. You'll be ruined in an instant." Robotnik leaned back upright. "Do you understand me? Or do I need Stone to dumb it even further down to you?"

"You are a maniac," Willingham rasped.

Robotnik straightened up, a darkness that threatened to block out all light. His smile shifted into something that seemed almost pleasant. Something that looked a lot like excitement.

"You know, I must give you credit, you did introduce me to such a lovely place. After all, it opened me up to a whole new world of punishment." A small swarm of egg-shaped robots appeared behind him, pointing their at Willingham's chest. "And you're the lucky man that gets to be my first guinea pig."

Senator Willingham may not have been smart or observant, or anything special in the brain department, but he saw the slightest shift in Stone's eyes as he stared at his boss with admiration, and something much more intense. He'd seen that look before, back at The Manor on the most willing and obedient of submissives. It was the look of a hungry predator masking themselves as prey, thinking about all the different ways it can consume or get consumed. And that look was directed at Robotnik, while the doctor was too busy fiddling with his robots.

I always wondered why he stuck with that vile man, Senator Willingham thought. Perhaps there really is something more going on with those two.

#Stobotnik #Agent Stone #ivo robotnik #dr robotnik #sonic 2020 #sonic movie #Love exploring dark Stone.#I mean he IS with Dr Robotnik for a reason. He's very well aware of what the guy does and yet he goes along with it anyway #Exploring underutilised characters seems to be a kink for me XD

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joyffree · 6 years

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RELEASE BLITZ Title: Oscar Series: The Davenports #1 Author: SJ McCoy Genre: Contemporary Romance Release Date: March 27, 2018

BLURB

He’s never met an obstacle he couldn’t overcome or a woman he couldn’t have. Until now.

Little does he know that she isn’t about to surrender; in fact, he’s in for the fight of his life.

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38450937-oscar

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