16. Dharma

The Deus tasted like the salt of the sea. I caressed his buttocks, parting his thighs wider and running my finger tips gently over his two orifices. Both sets of genitalia were damp with secretions. I opened my mouth and took his male part inside. Mercury moaned deliciously, wrapping his tongue simultaneously against the head of my penis. He was taller than me, and had to arch his back like a strung bow to suck at my cock. His fingers darted into both my openings. I gasped around his dick, scraping him a little with my teeth. He did the same to mine in response, the hurt was intensely erotic, sending tingles of hot fire through my bowels. I grasped the base of his tool with both hands, holding him just above my lips. My tongue caressed the tip of his penis, licking at the clear drops of precum that oozed from the slit. I blew on him gently, making him squirm and try to thrust back into my mouth. He took his index finger out of my cunt and pushed it into my asshole, where his middle finger was already busily exploring. I tossed at the pain and the pleasure, stifling my cries by stuffing my face full of his cock.

"Neuro!" He murmured, "Your mouth...!" I grunted in response, grabbing his hair and guiding him back down into my crotch. He sucked me delicately, like a babe on his mother's teat. One hand spreading my legs, the other finger teasing my insides. I poked at his anus, it was a tight and moist ring. When I pressed inward he let out a low rumble deep in his throat, making my dick jump with the vibrations of his vocal cords. He burned, incredibly tight. I wondered if he would mind terribly if I told him I wanted to stick it up there. The thought made me blush. He was a Deus after all, it seemed terribly obscene to do such a thing to him.

"Neuro..." My dick was slick with his saliva, he caught the head gingerly and massaged it with his lips. I squealed at the wonderful sensation of it, shooting a tentative stream into his mouth, then followed it up with the uncontrollable orgasmic bursts that rose up with the sudden pressure upon my prostate. Mercury had three fingers inside me rectum, buried to the last knuckle. I squirmed around them, pumping more of my jizzm up into the air and down his throat. He ate me up willingly, his own cock doing acrobatics in my mouth. His cum filled my mouth and spilled down my chin, I slurped as much of it down as I could. He tasted so good, I...

"Is this why you don't want me to hurt him?" Blitz asked coldly, framed against the breach at the door. Mercury jumped off of me, scrabbling at the sheets to cover his nakedness. "Because you're fucking him?"

"He's..." Mercury was at a loss, it was the first time I saw him without composure. He looked at me guiltily, then looked at Blitz with the same face. "I... I had to convince him, some how. And it just seemed like the way at the time. I..."

"I thought the convincing was over with." Blitz said. "I thought he was convinced. Anything else on your part would be in excess, don't you think? No need to work too hard, Deus."

Flustered, Mercury thought to say something else. But Blitz wasn't paying attention to him anymore, he had turned on me instead. "Slut." He sneered, "That's another name I can add to my list to call you, isn't it?"

"Go away." I said softly, crawling to the edge of the bed to take Mercury's hand.

He stared at me for a long time, I looked back at him just as defiantly. At last he withdrew, trying to smile but failing. "You win, beauty. You always do." Blitz saluted mockingly at Mercury, "You will learn the hard way then, Deus, just as I have learned. Invite a poisonous viper into your bed, you're just asking to be bitten."

"I'm not a snake!" I said angrily, "I'm not Cerulean! I'm Neuro!"

"Whatever you say." He didn't even look back as he walked away. I felt my eyes mist over and wiped at them furiously, how dare he make me feel like this! It wasn't as if... It wasn't as if I...

"You don't owe him anything." Mercury said, squeezing my hand in his. "It's over now, Neuro."

I struggled to smile at him but I couldn't. Suddenly chilled, I gathered the off-white Chinese silk sheets to my chest. We were in another room, the furnishings weren't so sparse here. The cot floated three feet above ground, trimmed with cherry wood lattice work and carvings of wingless dragons. The walls were screened with starched rice paper, lighted from within. "Are we in Hadas? Is that where we are? Really?" I asked. He stroked my head as if I was a little child, I pressed my cheek against his navel. The screens slid aside for a second, and a vacuum full of tiny spots of light winked at me through the transparent hull of the ship. We weren't in Endo-space anymore, the constellations were unfamiliar, circled by strange moons. "This is near the Edge of the Rehan system, isn't it?" I said, "Why so far away?"

"He doesn't like it out here. He keeps close to the earth, the Milk Seas. That's why He only pinged Neo Eden, didn't show up in the flesh." Mercury chewed on a lock of his own hair. I wrapped my arms around his skinny waist, his hips bones jutted sexily. "He want you, you know. He want you badly."

"But why?" I asked. "What's so special about me? There are other Guardians out there, like Blitz... So many of us to choose from, why does he want me?"

"I don't know." He pulled me up until I knelt on the bed, kissing me gently. His lips were like the wings of butterflies. "She didn't tell me."

"Did she tell you to take me to Rehan in Hadas?"

"No. That was my idea. I wanted to get you away from Him." His fingers traced the outline of my jaws. "I wanted you to smile for me again, Neuro. Blitz was right, I am doing more than my job. I didn't mean to become attached, but..."

"Don't." I kissed his knuckles, brushing my lips across the smooth back of his hand. "You don't have to say anything. I understand. I was being unreasonable. But I realize that now. I remember everything. I know my place. Won't you take us back? Back to Eden? Back to Terra? I miss Shanti."

"I can't." He said, "Not until..."

My head snapped up. "Not until what?"

He couldn't meet my eyes. "Not until He has been subdued."

I tried to restrain myself, but the tremors seized me and I fell down on the bed with a strangled cry. "Neuro! Let it go!" Mercury wrapped his arms around me and hugged me to his chest. "He doesn't have any power over you anymore! We flushed your system, whatever power he had over you is all gone. You are your own man, you don't have to serve him!"

"But..." I convulsed uncontrollably. "But I... He's... It's..." I looked up at him pleadingly. "Please, Mercury, please don't let them kill him! He's... Whatever he is, he's done nothing wrong! I won't go to him, I promise! Just please, please, leave him alone!"

"It's not my choice to make." Mercury said. I wept, unreasonably. He held me tighter. "Don't do this, Neuro! You're making it hard for me to... Blitz wanted to tag you, or to keep you locked up, but I told him it was unnecessary. I told them you are perfectly well, that you can be responsible for yourself. Are you, Neuro? Are you?"

"Yes..." I gasped, struggled to keep my voice from cracking. "Yes! I'm good. I... I can fight it. I'll stay here, with you. I can do that, can't I? Stay here?"

"Of course." He smiled. "Of course you can."

I left him asleep, curled up sweetly by my empty pillow. He looked so innocent, his bare chest heaving gently with each exhalation. I touched his cheek briefly with my lips. "Forgive me, Deus." I whispered, bushing a piece of hair gently from his face. "Because I can't - I can't stay. No matter how much I want to. And I want to, I really do. But this is something stronger than want, stronger than my desires. It's my destiny, Mercury, my duty. I hope you understand. I hope..."

I crept out of the room silently, the doors whooshing shut behind me. The halls did not utilize faux-gravity and I floated, feeling the queasiness that came with the sudden transition. Handholds along the walls propelled me forward. Hadas was an old ship, famous for its service during the War as an off-planet prison. It was gigantic, but the section we occupied was the only functional part left. The rest of the ship was sealed off, I wasn't sure if anyone else was aboard or not. Blitz and Mercury were the only ones I saw.

The emergency shuttle deck is usually near the head of the ship. I called up a map just to be sure. Hadas was built strange, warped by the novelty of the first Synthetic minds. I followed blinking arrows that hovered in midair, wounding through the twisted intestine-like passages. The body of Hadas was like a mushroom with an elongated stem. I've see simulacrums of it back at the Academy. The head was like a flat, spread cap, crawling with fiber optic relays. The stem was where the cells were, able to be separated from the head if the need arose. The shuttle decks were scattered along the rim of the cap, many of them added after Hadas' reinstatement as an historic relic and sometimes freighter.

The first hatch I reached was a new one, still fresh with yellow paint and metallic trimmings. The lock was secured, it took me ten minutes to run a crack on it with my limited resources. I hesitated for a brief second when the light flickered green, but the doubt did not linger. I was certain.

There were three shuttles, wasp-like with pinched waists, and a dozen escape pods glistening like gray pearls in hardened gel-foam. I got close enough to touch the latch of the first pod, but that was as close as I got.

"I can't wait to tell him 'I told you so.'" Blitz purred behind my ear. I whirled, he slammed me against the ridged shell of the pod. He was wearing a textured skin , black and wrinkled like the hide of some creature that never existed. He grasped my neck with both hands and I felt the tip of a needle slide into my jugular, extended from his wrist. It was much worse than knockout, whatever it was that he injected into me. I struggled meekly, my limbs grew numb. "So predictable, silly bitch..." I heard him say as my eyelids rolled back, and I passed out.

Déjà vu. I woke again to the glaring metal walls, strapped down to the table. It was even more uncomfortable than the first time, and I noted with dismay the changes in my method of bondage. My wrists were secured above my head with leather straps, and my ankles bound to stirrups that raised my legs above my head. I squirmed, my lower belly was abnormally full. I raised my head with difficulty and saw that a tube of some kind was dangling between my legs, one end obviously inserted up my rectum. I could feel it vibrating slightly against my intestinal walls. A smaller tube was inside my vagina, and a third one circled my penis with its tight rubber lips.

"Mmph!" I found that I could only grunt. A gag that tasted like menthol stifled my speech. Helpless, that was the way they wanted me. Mercury floated into my eye like an unavoidable mote, silhouetted between my legs.

"...moru..." He was saying, but not to me. His lips barely moved on a face frozen into a strange, hardened mask. "Sonah, janai." Cold fingers caressed the inside of my thighs, rubbing the junction between the tubes and me. "You break my heart, little one."

"Mmm! Nrrm! Mmmph!" I cried, even though it was useless, my appeal would not work a second time. The Deus turned away in disgust. "Do what you want with him. I'm finished."

Blitz smiled oddly, his lips pressed into a thin line. I watched in despair as Mercury left through a sliding panel, and I was left alone, alone with the one I feared the most.

He touched my face and I shuddered. His hand left a burning impression against my cheek. "So much, so much could have been yours, Cerulean. But you threw it all away. Not a very smart move, you know, getting on Mercury's bad side. You don't know him like I do, not all of him."

"I don't care! I..." I said. His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath on my skin. I forced my eyes closed, but his visage floated inside my eyelids, beautiful like the winter meadow. He took the gag out of my mouth and I gulped in mouthfuls of fresh air. He touched my lips, caressing them with his fingers. "Do you remember, Cerulean? You used to..."

"Damn you!" I croaked. "You bastard! Why don't you just kill me?"

"That would be too easy." He said. "I want you to suffer, first. Do you know what it feels like, Ceru? Do you know what it's like to hurt, on the inside?"

"You... Fucking shit!" I couldn't summon enough energy to make the words sound convincing. "Damn... Mmmpph!"

His lips were swimming with static. I was reminded of the first time we kissed, the shock of his low current running through my body like liquid ecstasy. But we were lovers then, and now... now... He forced his tongue into my mouth, taking me prisoner with his teeth. I protested wordlessly. How familiar he tasted, like warm pools of sunlight on a rainy day.

Blitz pulled away after a moment, his expression unreadable. Reaching between my legs, he yanked the tubes out of me roughly. I moaned and writhed on the table, feeling utterly helpless and violated as the plastic scraped against my tender insides. He cupped my genitals, squeezing them lightly and extending a finger to feel my swollen openings. "You little whore, how could you?" He sounded mournful, not furious like he was before. "You were mine, your pussy was mine, how could you let anyone else take them? It belongs to me! It...

"Get your hands off of me!" I yelled, even as two of his fingers crept up my already stretched out hole. "I'm not yours! No! Blitz, please, don't! What do you think you're doing...ugh!"

"I think I'm going to rape you." He said, tilting his head oddly like a little bird. "That is, of course, unless you are willing..."

"No! No!" I bucked against the table, against the ridiculousness of it all. "You hate me! Remember? Why would you want to fuck me? Please! Oh, shit! Just kill me! No!"

"You liked it..." He pried my trembling anus apart, studying the redness that was affected by the enema tube. "You always liked it when I took you forcefully, Cerulean. Always the unwilling bottom boy, the protesting victim of pleasure. We could have done it a different way if we mated, I could have taken your girl-part..."

"Don't you dare!" I screamed, "Don't you dare touch me there! The Laws... The Council... They would have your head in a second!"

"So you want it... up the ass?" His hand fluttered lightly over his crotch, "Or should I cram it into your mouth? But you were never really good at giving head, Ceru, you choked too much."

"Oh, no! No! Don't!" I begged, struggling to get away from him, but the restraints held me in place. He unzipped his pants and took out his penis. It was pierced with three rings around the slit, a stigma of the masochist warrior. I squirmed, the thing horrified and aroused me at the same time. I remembered the countless orgasms it had given me, though this time... this time I didn't think he would intend it that way.

"Cerulean." Blitz said as he mounted me. I screamed at the top of my lungs as he made his entrance. He was dry, the friction of his cock against my rectum was unbearable. It must have torn me in several places. I cried for him to stop. The pain sent hot flashes ricocheting through my veins. I could feel the metal of his rings rubbing against my insides, they made me feel faint with the recollection of intimacy.

"Cerulean, lover." His eyes were glazed, rolling back into his head. "Lover, betrayer. Guardian, heretic. Cerulean, Neuro. Cerulean..."

"Blitz!" My voice was super-charged with panic, hoarse from him squeezing my windpipe closed. "Blitz! Please stop! No! What are you talking about! Oh god! Oh god it hurts! It hurts! Please stop... Please... Oh..." I gasped and shuddered, heaving with hysteria. He was inside me so completely his balls crushed against my crack, and still he tried to stuff more of it in.

"Feel it!" Blitz said through clenched teeth. His high, fine forehead was covered in a thin film of sweat. For as long as I remembered, he had always shaven his eyebrows off. His brow bones protruded slightly, making his eyes seem deep-set. His genes chiseled him in a Germanic fashion. He had been a commissioned for creation as a fighting toy for an old aristocracy when Dresden was not the toxic wasteland it is now. But when the First Dark came, they gave him up reluctantly to the Resistance.

"It hurts." He bared the sharp fang-like points of his canines, they were reinforced with diamond points. "Doesn't it? You were right about death, Cerulean. It matters, yes, it matters very much. It hurts, lover. Can you feel the hurt? Can you feel anything?"

"Yes! Yes, I can feel! You monster! Stop it... Ahhhhh! Stop doing this to me! Ah! Mmmph! No! Blitz... Oh please, don't do this anymore. I'm sorry, I am! I can feel it, it hurts, it hurts so bad! Mmmph... Ahhh! Oh god..."

"You don't have a god, you have nothing!" He hissed. His fingers dug into my sides, cutting me with his nails. "You abandoned your god, you stupid whore! You've demonstrated your treacherous self again and again, even when you knew... you knew..." His eyes swarmed briefly with tears, but he blinked them furiously away. "You knew! But you still went ahead and did it! You knew I loved you! You knew Mercury wanted you! You knew..."

"Blitz! Take it out!" I didn't want to hear it, whatever he had to say. I didn't want to think about it. To think was to go astray, and I've already been thwarted enough times in my attempts to follow my true callings. "Please take it out of my butt! I learned my lesson! I was a horrible person, I still am a horrible person! Please, please, stop hurting me!"

"You don't know what hurt is like." He said. "You think this is pain? It is nothing like the hell you sent me into. I would rather be fucked by barbed wire than feel that again. Physical wounds heal, but mental ones... they stay open and bleed. They bleed, Cerulean." He wiped dampness on my cheek, it smelled like copper. My blood, from my rectum and from the various other cuts he's inflicted with his razor tipped fingers.

"Let me show you... the art of pain."

Another kiss. His tongue wet and spongy, tasting of lust and hate and many other ingredients I could not name. I moaned, unable to prevent myself from responding to his touch. He tangled his hands in my hair, his own were buzzed close to his scalp. The kiss was desperate, sentimental, vengeful and unkind. Our teeth clicked together. I called out his name, muffled by his mouth. His rod moved inside me, carefully prodding the right buttons and making my flaccid cock sprang straight up. He always knew how to make me squirm, make me sob for him to take me, make me beg for my release. He was my lover. My...

"Shi'ii kah!" Blitz snarled, barely under his breath. My eyes widened in shock, the suddenness of the attack took me by surprise. One minute we were kissing and the next...

He balled his fist. The scalding white energy of his kah nearly blinded me. I cried out, expecting to be shot through with its searing intensity. But Blitz did not let it go at me, instead it seemed to retreat deep into his body, filling up every part of him with a sizzling aura of light. Every part of him was tingling with the destructive force of the kah, every part, including the sexual organ lodged inside of me.

I couldn't even scream. The pain was nothing human, it enveloped my body in thick ice. Sort of like an electric shock, I suppose, that was the property of his kah - splitting lightning. But something beyond even the worst of feelings, it was enough to send my mind careening wildly out of my body. It traveled through my anus into my spine, a crackling sensation, like the wrinkling of tinfoil. I smelled the ends of my hair blistering.

Blitz laughed madly, panting from the exertion of his exercise. "Did you like that, Ceru? Did you like it? I picked that little trick up from Mercury, believe it or not. That bitch can do some incredible shit with his powers, when he's not trying to be prudent about using them! And he's been oh-so careful with you, haven't he? Treated you like a little princess, didn't he? Must have bit down on his own tongue when he's fucking you, 'cause he likes to fuck mean, real mean."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My heart was slowed to a slug's pace, struggling to make it past each thud. The feedback rushed through my mind, fast and furious. I gasped loudly when at last my throat loosened, and the residual pain raked my body with needles, gradually dissipating.

He was moving on top of me. Fucking me, I think, raping me like he said he would. But it was nothing compared to the pain he just put me through. I was numb, my body shuddered with each thrust of his hips. He drove it as deep as he could each time. If it gave him pleasure, he did not let it show on his face. It was an exercise in revenge, and he was merely going through the motions. He wept when he came, spilling his semen and tears on my face and chest.

"Cerulean..." I felt strangely content, as if a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Things were as they should be, I've paid my price. I tried to smile, to tell him that it was all right, that the past was behind us now. He had purged me of my sins. But he ran from me, his body wrecked with sobs and his eyes wide with confusion.

"Neuro." Someone whispered. My eyes snapped open. It was dark in the room, completely dark. I blinked several times, my limbs were tingling, numb with the position I was tied up in. "Blitz?" I croaked tentatively. "Is that you?"

"No." A hand brushed against my arm and I shivered. "No, Blitz is gone."

"Gone? Where has he gone to?"

"I don't know." Fingers worked at undoing my restraints. I still couldn't see anything. "He took off in a shuttle. Disappeared. Mercury's looking for him."

My heart skipped a beat, "Mercury? You mean... You're not Mercury?"

"No." My hands snapped free. I touched my wrists gingerly, they were rubbed raw by the leather strips. He took my hands and touched them to his face, "Neuro, its Veya."

"Ve...Veya?" I stuttered, "What... What are you doing here?"

He was silent, moving away to undo the straps around my ankles. "What have they been doing to you?" He broke the silence when his hand grazed my thighs and I shuddered.

"Nothing that I don't deserve." I said, not meaning to sound bitter. "Veya, tell me why you're here. I don't understand. I'm still in Hadas, aren't I? How..."

"Neuro..." He sounded pained. I eased my legs down to the floor as they were freed, wincing at the sudden circulation of blood and the way it stretched my ass muscles. Veya helped me stand, my arms thrown across his shoulders. He was wearing a soldier uniform, I could smell the leather against his skin. I tried to take a step and failed miserably, my legs giving out from under me. He picked me up easily, as if I weighed nothing more than a feather. I wrapped my arms around his neck. It felt good, to have some one holding me that didn't hate me.

"Oh... Neuro!" He choked as carried me out into the lighted hallway, the light played on my unhealed bruises, glowing purple and blue. " That bastard! What... What's he done to you? How could he!"

"It's not his fault!" I tried to keep my voice from cracking. Veya bit his lips and looked away resolutely down the passage. We floated silently for a moment. I buried my face against his chest, inhaling his familiar scent. "But it's over. Isn't it, Veya? Blitz... If he's gone..."

"Yes. It's over." Veya said, not looking at me. He sounded odd. I peered at him from the crook of my arm, he wasn't quite like himself. Not the Veya I knew, anyway. It was as if someone had sharpened the picture, I saw his face in dizzying clearness. Not the spoiled third-generation Academy brat I've come to know, but a Soldier. A fairly high-ranking one too, judging by the amount of metal on his skin. "I'm taking you back to Calcutta."

"Veya..." I squeezed his arm. "Tell me why you are here. Why are you in uniform? I... I heard you were gone. What about Mercury, does he know you're here?"

"I'm sorry, Neuro." He said. His voice trembling. "I didn't know he as going to do this to you. I thought... I don't know what I thought. But I... I had to do what he asked me to. I tried to warn you, I tried to tell you what was happening back in Calcutta. But it wouldn't have done any good, you wouldn't have believed me. And then I thought maybe it would be all right if you went back to Eden. But I didn't count on you being so stubborn, I didn't know how attached you were. And I didn't know that Blitz was... Blitz was..."

"Blitz was what?"

"Blitz was still in love with you!" Veya said through gritted teeth. "Even after all this time, even after how much suffering you've caused him! He told me, you know, before I came to Calcutta to watch over you. He told me the story only once, when he was strung out on MDMA. I never forgot a word of it. I was jealous, at first. Then I was curious. I had to be close to you, to find out why... why he loved you so much. Then I had to... I had to take you, to try you for myself. And after that, I wanted to be close to you. It was what I was sent for anyway, to make sure that you don't step out of line, to make sure that a power surge doesn't sprang up and overwhelm you like it did in the past. I thought that perhaps it would be better if we became... you know. But you never let me get close. But then that... that Thing came and screwed everything up. They had to recall you back to Eden. I didn't want them to, Neuro! I wanted you for myself!" He laughed. "But I'm a fool for thinking that I could. Too many people are after you already, pretty boy, I had no chance at all."

"You..." I was lost, the plot twisted and turned out of my grasp. I concentrated on the thing that bothered me the most. "How... How did you know Blitz?"

Veya pursed his lips and would not meet my eyes. "He's... my mate."

I don't know how many more shocks like this I could take. I laughed softly, hugging myself. "His mate..." Jealousy was like an acrid river, flowing and ebbing through my mind. "His mate..." I shook my head, trying to sound nonchalant. "Then... Why aren't you out there looking for him? Why are you here with me? Where are you taking me, anyway? To Calcutta? Why would you do that?"

"Because, it is Her will." He put me down gently. I gripped a hand rail and righted myself. Veya smiled sadly, touching my cheek. "She's in Calcutta now. It is Her city, named for Her glory. You are to go back, Neuro. She trusts you to do the right thing. I trust you, too. Though you may not believe Her, nor me."

"Veya..." I said. He hushed me with his lips. They were soft and caressing, a brief moment of innocent affection. "You're right, I should probably go find Blitz." He said, drawing back. "He's been having a rough time of it, ever since they put me on this job and he's been left home by himself. I'm sorry for the things he did to you, I'll kick his ass for you, if you want."

I forced a smile. He leaned over and punched in the correct sequence to unlock the hatch door. "Take the red one." Veya said. "I've programmed it to set a course for Valigha X-99. It'll take a couple days, the drives on these babies are upgraded to make the jump to hyper space yet. Oh I've left a skin for you in the sleep compartment, it's not very flattering but..."

"Veya." I interrupted. "Do you... Do you love him?"

He regarded me in silence for a long moment. I felt my breath catch in my throat, "I mean. I..."

"Yes." Veya said. "Yes, I love him. I've loved him since the first day we met. He nearly killed me in the ring, and I was his ever since."

I nodded. He mussed my hair a little, "I'll take care of Blitz. You do whatever you have to. Good bye, Neuro. I hope I'll never see you again."

"Wait!" I cried even as the hatch slid shut between us. "Veya..." The deck echoed hollowly with my voice. I've never felt so utterly alone.