Project_S1R3N

What was it that Mother Maria had told her once? Fear not the fight, but fear your enemy for their evil ways! Almost as if in resonance with her words Almatia's frustration rose higher than ever before. Instead of trying to remove her and the other activists, the corpo's simply ignored them.

For three days now had they protested in front of the Arcana Future Industries Building, they had done almost everything Signs, chants, one girl, seemingly a young shaman, had even called for a spirit to do a motivating dance. That one went sideways pretty quickly, when the spirit crossed the property's boundaries and turned back into dust. Not wanting to give up, Alma once more raised her voice into a chant.

"Stop the pollution! Down with the corpos! Stop the pollution! Down with the corpos!"

Soon enough the others around her started to join in. Swelling up and down, their voices were more than audible, but still the people around simply ignored them and carried on with their days. Turning around to one of the other protesters Alma's eyes turned into angry little slits.

"Yotshe, why do they ignore us like this?" The young man of Asian descent only shrugged his shoulders.

"Bad crowd I guess? It is unlikely that one of these drones will listen. Most likely they got a memmo about us. Nothing we can do here today."

"We can't just give up; we need to make them listen!" Jumping up in trying to reach his megaphone, she barely even reached up to his raised elbow.

"Okay, that's enough shrimp, I'm telling you, our effort is wasted" Laughingly he lowered his arm just so that she barely could reach the megaphone.

Glaring at him she corrected her glasses and once more began shouting, this time her voice many times louder. Yotshe only shook his head and walked off, some of the others following him.

. . .

The hours went by, and soon enough it was only Almatia still standing in protest. The night had already descended over Amsterdam and with the rain had come. Most of the corpo's too had already gone home. Her voice sore from screaming she once more started to yell into her megaphone.

"Stop, ignoring me you blasted, fuckwarts!!!" Letting her anger and frustration out, she noticed a young man in a pricey suit come closer.

"So, are you done for the day?"

Alma’s eyes went wide, intimidated by his good looks, and painfully aware of her drenched shabby exterior she could only stammer an answer.

"We, wha, I, eh, yes!" With a warm smile, the man took his coat and draped it around the shivering woman.

"You must be terribly cold, what do you say wish to go somewhere warmer? They have a very decent bar right around the corner?"

It was hard for her to remember the last time someone had asked her out, she was by definition very plain. Instead of questioning this out of the blue offer, her cheeks turned even redder than before. Finally a very flustered responds made it across her lips.

"O-Okay."

For the first time she actually got a good look at his face, his eyes were large but stern, with a green tint to them.  His face had strong, fair features complimented by his accurately styled dark brown hair. The so called bar turned out to be a way to classy restaurant with a beautiful porch. Panicking she tugged on the man's sleeve.

"Ah, ähm, this is a little to expensive for me." Once again he displayed this warm smile, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"It's fine, dear, this one is on me, drenched as you are I wouldn't want you to worry. I'm Karto by the way, and you are?"

"Almatia, but my friends call me Alma." He laughed heartily as he held the door open for her.

"Well, I do hope we will be friends than, Alma."

. . .

While the day had not gone the way she had expected, this was a nice deviation from her normal days. Despite him being a corpo and even from the same Corporation she just had protested in front of, he listened carefully to everything she had to say, he even bought her drinks.

"So, you're protesting because you are scared what the pollution might do to the ecosystem?"

"Yesh, magical corupshun is a serioush problem. We musht shtop it!"

"Hmm, interesting, yes, but Alma say, you don't look so good?" Karto came closer his warm smile all the while unchanged.

She tried getting up, but quickly her legs gave away from underneath, before she could hit the ground, he was by her side, smiling. Unintelligible words was the only thing Alma managed to form.

"You, drudged mesh!" Less a question, more a statement, Karto didn't even bother answering it.

"All is fine, Alma, do go to sleep now, yes?" The last thing she felt this night was a needle penetrating her aorta.

Flashes of light.

The smell of bleach.

Voices talking in hushed tones, than cold steel on her skin.

The sound of machines.

Flashes of pain.

She awoke in a cold sweat; this nightmare had felt far to terrifyingly real for her taste. The room was pitch-black when she opens her eyes, but after a short while her eyes seemed to adjust and she could make out the soft glow of city lights behind the closed blinders. A minute later it dawned on her, that she didn't recognize the room, where was she! Horrible tales of organ-farms and forced prostitution shot through her head, her paranoia, that by all means were justified, almost catapulted her out of the bed.

As soon as she was by the window she tried pushing the blinder open, with an audible crunch the mechanism broke and the night skyline of the Amsterdam-Megacomplex spread out in front of her. She was way too high up for her taste, repressing the nausea she stumbled away from the window. Alma made a several steps backwards before the collision with a wall startled her almost enough that she would have hit her head, had she not seen what it was.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

With the blinders broken and gone, it was easy to figure out where she was, the cleanliness and lack of personalized in the room made more than clear that this was a hotel room, a high class one with that too. Most of the interior was furnished way above her pay grade. Oddly enough lying on the side table was a small white envelope. Inside of it was an equally white letter addressed to her.

"Dear Alma,

I am sorry for leaving you so quickly, during our wonderful night out I sadly had to notice you becoming drowsy. Not wanting to disturbed your sleep, nor to simply leave you to a random cab driver, I paid a room for you. I truly a sorry for abandoning you, and hope you had fun none the less.

Sincerely,

 Karto de Roush"

Scrawled underneath was a contact number. Despite her better judgment she took out her phone and swiped it over the number

"Would you like to add Karto de Roush to your contacts?"

"Yes?" Unsure what to write, she simply typed:

"Hey, thnx for the help, appreciate it, really. Don't remember much to be honest." Within barely a second the reply came.

"That is okay, I will tell you what we talked about next time. There is food with in the fridge if you are hungry, you can also call Zimmer service, I'll pay. :-)"

Now that the initial confusion had faded, Alma noticed her being not merely hungry but actually famished. Her stomach hurt in hunger pangs and she felt as if she could eat an entire soy factory. A growl from her stomach was enough to make her look frantically for any sort of food, when a surprisingly good smell wafted over from the fridge.

It was filled too the brim with different foods all of them in identical containers. She opened up a few, some had vegetables raw or cooked in them, others blocks of soy or synthmeat. Though the meats looked delicious there was a mouth watering smell coming from the back of the pile overshadowing all.

The box in question was filled with a beautifully marbled lean cut of raw meat, it almost beckoned her too bite into it. Okay, what the heck was wrong with her? This thing looked nothing like synthmeat, and yet this smell. Maybe it was okay to at least lick it? The meat itself was wet and cold, when she squeezed it red juice dripped out almost blood like, she shouldn't, should she? Bringing it up to her mouth resulted in a drip of saliva falling into her naked lap, hell she was drooling! Her tongue barely touched it, only slightly caressed the flesh, but the sensation was overwhelming, almost ecstasy. As soon as the meat had made contact with her tongue she began to wolf it down. The other boxes soon followed, be it raw or cooked everything went down into her stomach, she felt like a pig, but she could not stop!

Half an hour later the fridge was empty and her stomach almost full, yet her teeth hurt like hell. Looking down at her naked body, with the end of the hunger came the shame. Almost as if to prove all those that had called her a pig, a swine or a fatso, she had devoured the contents of an entire fridge. She was so fucking disgusting. On the way to the bathroom several crumbs of food fell from her lap. Still disgusted by her own act, she jammed a finger down her throat, hoping to stimulate her puke reflex. Nothing, too often had she done this, that now it seemed all most impossible to vomit?

Several minutes she had squatted over the toilet, the pain in her teeth slowly getting worse, when finally she managed to make her stomach revolt, she yanked out her finger. A slimy yellowish liquid came out together with several white clumps. Nothing but bile and something else? She picked up on of those white clumps and with a piercing shriek she dropped it again, it was a tooth, all of the clumps where teeth! Rushing to the mirror her fear was validated, what once was a white smile was now filled with holes and gaps.

Not believing her own eyes she grabbed her last remaining incisor and with merely a touch it too fell into her hand. She had cancer! That was the only logical explanation, she must have gotten a very quickly spreading tumour! But wait, didn't the teeth only fall out after a cheap archaic chemotherapy? Her eyes began to fill with tears, as she sat on the ground pondering why she had lost her teeth. All the while more kept falling too the ground.A short while later she finally managed to find the will to leave, she gathered up what of her teeth was on the ground and in the toilet, overall she had lost about 21 of her them by now, only the molars in the back had remained still, and looked around for her clothes.

The inside of the elevator was awfully gaudy even for this hotel and the only other person inside was an office worker, who all the while nervously glanced over to the scrawny girl, grimacing at him in her oversized pilot jacked with a scarf over her mouth. Though she had looked all over the room she hadn't been able to find her glasses, but more importantly her underwear, thus she was going command, making her genitals sensitive like crazy. Each time she moved in a futile attempt to dislodge the fabric out of any sort of crevice, the man began to look more panicked. Confused by the entire situation she finally spoke up.

"Ssscarrred offf me, arre you?" Sadly due to her missing teeth it came out more as a menacing snarl, than a friendly question.

Reaching the ground level, the corpo quickly rushed out of the lift, leaving Alma to go for through the foyer on her own. On her way to the reception area she took the time to look around. Most of the decoration here was as gaudy as the elevator, it seemed like they truly had no style or was there a reason for all the embroidery? Mulling over the question in her mind, she approached the receptionist, an elven woman maybe only a couple years older than Alma herself, with a quite beautiful androgynous face but heavy dark rings under her eyes.

"Hallo, revered customer, how can I help you?" The question held as much emotion as her face, none. 

"Ah, I wasss sssleeping in thisss room."

"Miss, is everything all right? It is hard to understand you."

"Oh." In an effort to be more audible she pulled the scarf from her mouth.

"Yess, everythhing isss . . ." It was in this moment that she felt her last front theeth losen from her gums. It fell out of her open mouth, bounced of the scarf and landed right on the receptionist's desk. Two pairs of eyes stared at the small white clump for what seemed like an eternity, when finally the woman began to speak again, with a now very forced smile and one of her pointy ears twitching.

“Äh, Miss, what exactly is this thing?"

One of fingers was slowly approaching the tooth, but Alma was quicker, that was her tooth after all and she needed all of them! Her hand slapped onto the counter and now she realised why her hands had begun to hurt a while ago. Her fingernails were almost pitch black and the flesh around them red and inflamed, almost as if her body itself rejected the nails. Much to Alma's dismay the receptionist in front of her too had seen her hand and was now looking at the young woman with a mixture of disgust and horror.

"I can . . ." Alma began but was quickly interrupted.

"No! I can, will and do not care what the actual fuck is wrong with you! Go and take your tooth with you or I will call the security!"

"Pleasssse, I . . ." She leant forward on the counter trying to make her predicament clearer but the receptionist only jerked her hand away.

"Nope, big fucking nope!"

All of a sudden a clear glass panel slammed down between her and the receptionist and the trampling of several boots could be heard. With big unbelieving eyes Alma looked for several seconds as armed security guards were making their way towards her, before finally a small voice in the back of her head told her to run.

And run she did, as fast as her legs could carry her she bolted for the door, ignoring any cry or order shouted in her direction. She managed to get about halfway to the doors, when a sharp pain in the right arm made her wince. Looking over she saw a taser-bullet sticking out of her underarm. With almost inhuman speed her good arm reached for it and ripped the projectile out, dropping it together with two of her fingernails und the ground. In next moment she had already rushed out of the door and disappeared into the crowd.

The security guards could only look dumbfounded at the tiny girl that had just, almost casually, shrugged of the entire charge of a Taser designed to take down a grown man. From behind than a good looking and well dressed man came forward. As he picked up the fingernails and put them inside a plastic bag he turned around to address them.

"Stand down men; we have enough data for now. Let’s go.”

With a small mirthless smile he went back to the corridor he had came from, the security following on behind him.

All the while the young receptionist had stared at the scene unfolding in front of her with an incredulous expression. As the shock slowly waned she took of her employee badge and slowly walked out of the building.

“Fuck nope! I quit!”