THE ADJUSTERS

58

Intermezzo: Eve Shawbank

Eve Shawbank sat at table in the back of the restaurant, away from the few other patrons, savoring what she considered the best gulyás in the city, thick and meaty, the csipetke perfectly cooked. Gulyás, of all things, was what reminded her of home the most, for better or for worse.

She pressed her thighs together. She was aroused. It had been building up for the past few hours, and she was looking forward to later in the evening, when she could give free reign to her lust. It had been a while.

The restaurant was quiet this evening, the way it often was in the middle of the way, and the way she liked it. The owner, an older Hungarian man called Bognár, barely spoke English and spent most of his days—when he was not cooking—sitting in a corner of the restaurant with equally ancient friends and watching European football games on a flat-screen television against the wall, the only concession to modernity in the small rustic Hungarian restaurant.

She loved the food, but she felt that tinge of anxiety that always bit at her conscious mind whenever she was here. The answer, should Shawbank have chosen to think about it for more than a second, would have been obvious to her. Between the gulyás and the atmosphere, this place was a bubble that held the essence of her youth, the essence of her home, and it was her home, even though she had not been there for a long time, that she bore no desire to return, that as far as she was concerned it was earth she had scorched when Davenham had found her so long ago and brought her back with him.

But it was home—her roots. And roots ran deep. And while the conscious mind may hate something with a burning passion, the subconscious may long for that same something with a searing ache.

Shawbank count not put words to her feelings, but part of her wished she could take Magenta, her trusty hunting knife, and hack that part of her to shreds.

She would laugh doing so.

Laugh and laugh, the way her father used to.

She stopped herself when she realized she was clenching her spoon hard enough to hurt her fingers.

Relax, she told herself. It’s all good.

“What THE FUCK is this SZAR?”

The angry outburst came from the front of the restaurant. Shawbank was pulled out of her reverie, and looked over. The other patrons looked as well, but soon turned their attention back to their meals, nervously. Shawbank was not alarmed. She knew she was not the target—her work for Investigation and Enforcement Division tended to leave precious few people with grudges. And no one from her old life knew her here.

So when she turned to the source of the outburst, it was out of curiosity. And growing annoyance at being rudely bothered.

There was a young man at the register of the restaurant facing Mister Bognár. the owner. The young man was pointing at a bunch of carry out packages on the counter, one of them open.

Papa Bognár—as everyone called him—said something that Shawbank did not hear, but he did not seem particularly worried. She was surprised to realize that she liked Bognár, and did not want anything to happen to him. She stood, and slipped on her leather duster.

Shawbank did not hear Bognár’s answer, but the young man did not seem to like it.

“I don’t give a flying FUCK, boss. I said this tasted like shit, and if you serve people shit then you deserve whatever the FUCK happens to you!”

He wore a too tight leather jacket and blue jeans. His hair was short, almost shaved but for a fringe on the left side. A single earring. A chain belt.

The boy—for now that she neared the front of the restaurant she could see that he must not have been much older than seventeen, full of the swagger and arrogance of youth—was almost stomping in place, and Shawbank could see that he was about to lose it. Alcohol? Drugs? Poor upbringing?

“Please, Gyuri, don’t—” the girl standing next to the boy said, her voice soft and high pitched.

Gyuri exploded, and Shawbank expecting him to slap the girl. She was sure he thought of it. “You don’t open your mouth, okay?” he snapped at the girl, who shut up promptly. She seemed even younger than he was.

Shawbank looked at her—petite, thin, with a leather jacket, a long flowing skirt, and black army boots. But her facial expression belied the vaguely rebellious attire she wore. She looked young, too young, her features elfin, small, fragile, hanging on to her boyfriend’s arm, trying to calm him down.

The boy was still yelling at the Papa Bognár when she reached the front of the restaurant, and the old man gave her a side glance. He did not seem afraid. Maybe he could have handled the boy himself, maybe not. For all she knew, this was a regular occurrence, one that she never witnessed because she was not a regular. But tonight she was here, and she was tense, and perhaps a confrontation would do wonders for her nerves.

“Is there a problem here?” she asked in Hungarian, the words flowing from her mouth with the strength of long habit.

The boy and the girl turned to her, the boy with a “What the fuck do you want?” look, the girl with wide eyes, looking like the whole world was a scary place and Shawbank was the scariest part of it.

“Stay out of this, you hülye kurva,” the boy said.

Pointedly ignoring the boy, she looked at Papa Bognár. “Problem?”

He did not answer, but he looked at her meaningfully. Papa Bognár did not know what she did, did not know how dangerous she was, but he was not stupid. He could tell that she was not someone to be trifled with. She had that aura, she knew—she cultivated it on purpose.

He had never asked her about her life or where she came from. He had always respected her privacy. When they talked, it was about Hungarian recipes.

But in that look, Papa Bognár told her a lot: he told her that it was all under control, that she should not escalate the situation, that he knew what boys were like, that they were good boys, just misguided.

She did not know what he saw in her eyes, but she could guess—an excuse to unleash a simmering rage, to vent frustration.

“I said what the fuck do you want, you bitch? Yeah, I did.” he said, in English.

“Gyuri,” said the girl next to him, and there was fear in her voice. She knew her boyfriend. She could smell trouble.

Shawbank wondered for a second whether she was worried about her, or whether she was worried about him. Who did the girl think would get hurt?

The thought amused her, and she smiled—knowingly, strategically—and the boy did not like that smile, did not like it one little bit.

“What the fuck you laughing at you bitch?”

He took a step toward her, but Shawbank did not move. She did not pull back, did not move away. Her hand was in the inner sheath of her duster where Magenta waited to be pulled out and used—she knew exactly how long it would take her to draw her hunting knife and slash it across the boy’s wrists or face or neck, depending on how aggressively he begged to be hurt.

She was not looking forward to it, nor was she dreading it. It was his choice. She was merely happy to oblige him.

The girl must have have known something was up, must have seen something in her eyes, because she gasped and pulled on the boy’s arm and when he turned to her to tell her to back off she pulled herself up and kissed him and then whispered something in his ear, her eyes never leaving Shawbank.

The boy’s eyes widened and for a second he had forgotten everything. He stared at the girl, who was looking down bashfully—a good act, Shawbank thought, relaxing slightly.

“You would?” he asked the girl, a note of doubt mixed with wonder in his voice, revelatory of just how young he actually was. “Tonight?”

The girl nodded, and Shawbank admired how she managed to blush on command, looking coy and innocent. “Please, Gyuri,” she added with a hint of something in her voice.

Gyuri gave one last venomous glance toward Shawbank, then turned on his heels and left, taking his food, dropping bills on the counter. “So long losers” he snickered as he flipped them the finger.

Shawbank relaxed fully, her hand dropping to her side.

Papa Bognár was looking at her, and she raised an eyebrow in his direction, a silent question.

“Lucky boy,” Papa Bognár said, and Shawbank wondered whether he was thinking about what the girl had undoubtedly offered to do to Gyuri to get him to leave, or about how close the boy had come to getting hurt without even realizing it.

Shawbank looked at the clock on the wall. It was getting late. And she had the first of two appointments to keep that evening.

“Go,” Papa Bognár told her. “You don’t pay tonight. A gift of gratitude. Of friendship.”

Shawbank stared at him for a long time—he was old, old enough to have been her grandfather in another life, but still sparkling with vitality, a zest for life that she could not help but admire. She nodded to him, once, less curtly than she would have otherwise.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No, gyerek. Thank you. For not hurting him.”

She pondered that last statement as she left the restaurant.

* * *

Davenham’s estate was close, 30 miles from Washington, near Leesburg, in Virginia, centered around a large colonial-style mansion that Davenham had designed himself. It was a short half-hour drive away.

She usually drove in silence, and when she did not feel like silence she listened to talk radio, the nonpolitical kind. Sports, generally. It was the sort of mindless chatter that kept her from thinking but still did not require any sort of attention. Tonight, though, she was still under the effects of the nostalgia that had plagued her at Bognár’s restaurant. It had been an easy matter to connect her phone to the car stereo system and stream Hungarian folk music.

She was glad not to have to trek all the way up to Headquarters. Davenham had recently started to meet her at his estate instead of ADCorp. In fact, he rarely went up north anymore, and she feared he was getting worse.

Were Shawbank at all prone to introspection, she would have noted that the upcoming meeting was making her nervous.

She did not fear Davenham, unlike many at ADCorp. He was her boss, and he could be difficult, but he was also the one who had taken her in when she was in no shape to be good to anyone, an angry young woman hell bent on destroying herself and others, unfocused, uninhibited, unable to do anything but wallow in her wrath. Davenham had saved her from herself.

Davenham and Control—those two men had shaped her. The first found her, all those years ago, and brought her back to this country and gave her a chance to redeem herself. The second had taken her under his wing and turned her into the agent she was today. Control, the head of Investigation and Enforcement Division, had been a mentor. Davenham had been a shepherd, and her a lost sheep.

The music succeeded in keeping her nervousness at bay. Half an hour later, when Eve Shawbank buzzed the intercom at the gate of Davenham’s mansion, the gates swung open without any response from the other end.

Shawbank eschewed the main driveway that lead to the mansion barely visible in the background—it was extensive but low on the ground, with only a partial second story. She turned onto a smaller path forking off to the side. There were no guards to be seen, but Shawbank knew that security was high—cameras were trained on her and they fed into the larger ADCorp security grid. A small strike team from Investigation and Enforcement Division lived on the estate, and were ready to deploy at the first sign of trouble. Shawbank knew, because she had trained them.

Shawbank drove to a small pavilion by the side of the mansion, hexagonal in shape with a slanted roof, three of its east-facing sides covered with large plates of tempered glass which, according to Davenham, gave an incredible view of the rising sun.

She stopped the car by the pavilion, and stood in the night for a minute. The darkness was deep, and the silence almost oppressive. The estate was isolated enough that the night sky was filled with stars. Orion stood above the pavilion, as if on guard duty.

Shawbank walked up to the pavilion entrance. She put her hand on the handle of the door, and waited for the automated security system to recognize her. It did, and the deadbolt slid out with a subtle clang.

The internal sensors recognized her presence, and a subdued light greeted her, giving an odd eerie glow to the large room. Bookshelves lined the non-glass walls, reading chairs, a large desk. Davenham had an office at ADCorp, of course, and one in his mansion, but he liked spending time in this pavilion, which he called his Refuge. He read here, and he wrote. (“My memoirs,” he had told her with a dry chuckle, and Shawbank did not know whether he was serious.) And he often held meetings here. Meetings like the one tonight.

Davenham was not there yet. She was early.

She looked around, taking in the scene, observing. Out of habit, her mind analyzed the layout of the room—even though she knew it well—for potential security risks. Nothing had changed since last time. She still did not like the large windows. (“Too easy for a sniper to shoot through.” — “They’re bulletproof.” — “Fine. A rocket launcher then.” — “Even a wall wouldn’t help then.” — “Exactly my point.”)

She looked at the books, seeing them but not interested in them particularly. She read online when she read, often light entertainment—murder mysteries, crime novels, thrillers—ridiculous things that did not require philosophy or deep thoughts. Nothing good ever came out of thinking too much was the lesson she had learned over too many years of life. At least, out of the kind of thinking that made you look at the world more carefully.

As far as she knew, there was no light reading in the pavilion. Here, it was economics, world affairs, and the classics.

It took only three minutes for her to recognize what was different in the room, the one thing that had changed since the last time she had been here—since the last four times she had been here.

There was no hesitation when she took two steps toward Davenham’s desk to look at the framed photograph that now stood in one of the corners.

The photograph looked to be twenty years old, judging from the clothing worn by the three men in the picture. They were standing around a patch of sand, on a sports ground somewhere. Someone had raked a sigil of some sort in the sand, three strokes defining a capital A, inscribed within a circle. Two of the men looked to be about thirty, while the third on the right, shorter than the first two, looked to be forty. The two younger men were grinning madly. The shorter older man was Davenham—he had changed little—and he already wore that seriousness and intensity that rarely left him. She did not recognize the two happy younger men. She did not recognize the buildings in the background either, but it looked like a university campus. She made a mental note to look it up when she had time.

She felt Davenham appear behind her before she heard him. She did not try to hide what she was doing. Davenham knew her well enough to predict that she would have noticed the addition. If it was there, it was for her to see.

He walked up to stand next to her, his breathing more labored than she remembered from the last time she talked to him. She kept looking at the picture.

He answered her unspoken question. “I guess I’m feeling nostalgic.” His voice was slightly raspy.

That was when she turned her head to look at him. Adonai Davenham was shorter than Shawbank was, and he looked frail now. In his early sixties, he looked years older, his face drawn and tired, his eyes too red. His face bore a strange calm, though, an equanimity that would have been foreign on the man she had met years before, the one that saved her life and adopted her almost as his own daughter, though neither of them would have dared admit it. That man had fire in his eyes, a purpose, a drive to achieve something. Utopia, he called it.

“Nostalgic, sir?”

Davenham smiled sweetly, and picked up the framed photograph from his desk. He stared at it a long time. “It’s all about context, Eva.”

He was the only one who called her with her birth name, one of the few who in fact knew it. He even put the accent in the right place.

“You get old enough, and you start to understand that every action, every fact, every thought occurs in a context, and that context can be interpreted in so many ways that it blows a hole in any theory you might have about anything approaching objective truth. It blasts away at any notion of certainty, it wipes out any sense of ground. Every action impacts life, either in the future or in the past, every thought is a pale reflection of a more imposing abstraction. You can’t escape it. Everything is political, if you will, even if you do not ascribe to a political theology.” He paused to catch his breath. He stared at the photograph a time longer. “I miss those days where I was not aware of the context, where an action could be done merely because it was the right thing to do, without second thoughts, without counterpoint. A more… innocent time.” He sighed.

Shawbank looked at him. He was sick. Had been for the past two years. Cancer, she guessed. Davenham did not talk about it, but also did not try to hide his degenerating state from her. He merely treated it as a fact—she wondered whether he might consider that objective reality, his illness, but decided not to bother getting into a debate that she had no interest in.

“Are you okay, sir?”

Davenham put the photograph down and wheezed softly, a small laugh. “Sorry, I forget myself sometimes. I know how much you hate these philosophical discussions.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Yes you do. But you’re too kind to admit it. And I appreciate it.”

He walked to one of the windows, and stared outside at the dark night. In the grass in front of the pavilion, in the distance, a shape could be seen moving, an animal. A fox, thought Shawbank.

“Anything to report, Eva?” Davenham asked her without turning around, his hands behind his back. His voice was softer than it used to be, but it still had the steel that she remembered.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Really?”

Shawbank stiffened at the question. “I would not lie to you, sir. As near as I can tell, the Internal Affairs investigation into Cargyle was conducted appropriately. I have gone over everything, questioned everyone involved, and I found no evidence that Cargyle had any associates helping him steal a vial of the Serum and escape. It looks like he acted alone, and for no other reason than his frustration at the termination of Project Perennial. He was obsessed, sir.”

When Doctor Thaddeus Cargyle, a research in the Advanced Research Division at ADCorp disappeared with a small vial of Serum, Control had dispatched a team to recover him and the precious liquid, the cornerstone of the whole adjustment process.

The Serum was the reason why the process took, why neural pathways were permanently and methodically reforged. Without it, all the attendant neuro-linguistic programming technology did little more than any other form of brainwashing. Recovering the Serum had been the team’s top priority.

Her own orders had been to eliminate Cargyle once the Serum had been recovered. She had not understood why—Cargyle was still an asset, and understood the adjustment process more deeply than almost anyone. He was also the most likely person to figure out how to implement permanent adjustments—Project Perennial, which Davenham had terminated a few years earlier.

Permanent adjustments—a concept which often made Shawbank shiver with an odd repulsion and not a little bit of fascination. To be permanently rewritten—not just with subroutines added in that could be activated for short periods of time, but rewritten from scratch—a death of a sort.

After the Serum had been recovered, and Cargyle had been eliminated, Davenham took her aside and gave her a special assignment, to be kept secret at all costs: find out who had helped Cargyle to steal the Serum and disappear, and why. No one knew of it, not Control, not Brisecoeur, no one.

Davenham hummed, but said nothing.

“Sir?”

“Yes, Eva?”

“Why did you ask me to reinvestigate what IA had already looked at?”

“Why do you think you were not put in charge of the investigation?”

Shawbank did not know. “I was transferred back to Investigation and Enforcement to help train Daniel Malcolm.” She kept her voice carefully neutral.

“Convenient,” Davenham said.

“Sir?”

“Tell me, why would one transfer our best IA agent right before an important investigation?”

“Someone must have had a good reason.”

“Indeed.”

Shawbank paused to process what Davenham was saying. “Are you implying my transfer was part of a cover up? To what end?”

“To what end indeed?” asked Davenham.

But Shawbank was frowning, and continuing to think out loud. “Is that why you asked me to keep this assignment a secret? You don’t trust IA’s investigation? But I went over their work, and found nothing amiss. They did a good job.”

Davenham turned and looked at her and there was something in his eyes that she could not understand. “You went over their work, yes, but it’s all about context, Eva. The investigation had been done before, and you naturally and subconsciously followed in the tracks that they had taken. What they examined, they examined accurately, I have no doubt. But they probably did not examine all the things that had you been put in charge of the investigation in the first place you would have examined.”

Shawbank was still working through the consequences of what Davenham was saying. “But, sir. Control was the one who authorized my transfer…”

Davenham nodded. “I know.”

Control had been Shawbank’s mentor for fifteen years, ever since Davenham brought her back from Eastern Europe. And he had helped turn her around.

“Eva,” Davenham said, and his voice was both stern but oddly compassionate. “I believe that there are elements within the company trying to steal our technology and take it in a direction that I have refused to follow. Trying to weaponize the technology, to turn it into a nightmare. Undoing everything that I’ve tried to do all of these years. That’s where Project Perennial was headed, and why I cut it off. And I believe that Doctor Cargyle was in league with those elements. I want to find them, and I want them eliminated.”

Shawbank was still under the shock. “And you believe that Control—?”

Davenham shook his head. “I can’t rule out anything. You’re the only one I trust, Eva. I want you to continue with this assignment. Again, no one knows about this. No one. I want you to expand your investigation into Cargyle, and anyone in the company that may have had something to do with it, or him. Investigate Project Perennial, and anything related. Anything weird, anything odd, I want you to examine and decorticate. I want you to find the cancer within ADCorp and root it out!”

Davenham took a few deep wheezing breath before resuming. “Your authorization codes have been cleared. You’ll have access to everything. Please, Eva.”

Shawbank looked at Davenham, nodding, but feeling the ground beneath her feet less firm than it was an hour earlier.

Davenham took a step toward her. “I know you must be conflicted, Eva. I know how you feel about George.” George Clayton, better known as Control. “I don’t know if he’s involved. I hope not. I dearly hope not. I’ve known him for twenty years, he was there with me almost from the beginning. But you’ll have to work through that conflict, and resolve it somehow. This is important. More important than anything else.”

Shawbank remained silent, Davenham in front of her. He did not look sick any longer, did not look older than he was. For a second, he was the Davenham that she had always known, the one that had pulled her back from the brink. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“Jesus never promised that we wouldn’t suffer, Eva. He only ever promised that we would not suffer alone.”

Shawbank nodded, and guessed that Davenham was saying that he would be there for her, and she felt a surge of emotion that she fought to keep under control. “Is that why I received the order to eliminate Cargyle? Also part of the cover up?”

“That would make sense. Someone was worried he might talk. Though it’s not against protocol either.”

There was something else against protocol, though. The girls adjusted by Cargyle had not been eliminated. And Control had refused to tell her why. Shawbank felt her jaw tighten.

“Understood. I will let you know what I find out, sir.”

Davenham seemed to relax at her statement—she had not even noticed that he was tense, possibly unsure of what her reaction would be. She was not sure either. “Thank you, Eva. It means more to me than you can know. Keep me informed.”

He walked back to his desk, picking up a book from the shelf along the way, a large tome with red leather binding.

“Sir,” Shawbank said, not having moved from her spot, watching this man to whom she owed her life walk slowly, back to looking old and sick. “One last question: why Malcolm?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was told that the order to recruit Malcolm into Investigation and Enforcement came from you. Is that true? Why him?”

Davenham looked at her, and his face was unreadable. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to keep the reason to myself for a while longer,” he said eventually.

Shawbank bit her tongue.

“I do trust you, Eva,” Davenham said, reading her mind. “But this secret you will learn in good time. I do not want anything to distract you from your investigation.”

“So Malcolm has nothing to do with it?”

“Nothing.”

“Very well.” She felt tired, all of a sudden. “If there’s nothing else, sir, I’ll go then. I’ve got lots of work, suddenly.”

Davenham had the good grace of smiling at what from Shawbank he knew was practically a joke.

“Godspeed, Eva. Godspeed.”

* * *

When Eve Shawbank returned to her flat in Washington, D.C., it was an hour later, and she was still thinking about the conversation with Davenham.

She did not understand him. Now less than ever. He had always been secretive, but he had been so a lot more recently. She did her best to ignore all the rumors floating about the company, that Davenham was losing it, that he was driving the company into the ground, that he was preventing expansion, and she always ardently defended him whenever she decided to involve herself, but perhaps they had a point.

He had seemed tired, more tired than she had ever remembered seeing him. He had looked as ill as he was.

Perhaps he was losing it.

She shook her head as she unlocked her front door. She could not afford to think that way. It was dangerous, dangerous for her job, dangerous for her mental equilibrium. If Davenham was not who he had always been, she did not know how she could cope.

It would be her father all over again. Except worse.

She stayed with the thought for a while longer, her hand on the lock of her door, taking it all in.

A dog barked in the background, jerking her out of her funk. She unlocked the door and entered.

She owned the top two floors of the small Victorian house in this residential section of D.C. that was fast gentrifying—the lower floor’s owner was an artist that spent most of her time on the West Coast aside from three months in the summer, the only time when she said she could stomach the weather.

That meant that most of the time, Shawbank was alone in the big house, a situation she most enjoyed. She did not mind her neighbor at all—she was actually quite friendly, delicious looking to boot, and liked to talk about art and did not seem to care that Shawbank never contributed much to the conversation. Shawbank was often on the road herself, policing ADCorp’s other agents and employees, sometimes enforcing ADCorp contracts with customers and preventing or punishing abuse of privileges. Of course, she grunted at the thought, these days she was not only back to chasing Freaks, but also babysitting Malcolm, for reasons that Davenham did not want to reveal.

Her good mood was threatening to evaporate, and she pushed those thoughts away. Davenham had given his orders, and she was nothing but obedient, at least in that context. She trusted him. She had to.

The house was shrouded in darkness, the air still. She smiled at the buzzing she could hear in the background, only sound marring the perfect silence. She took her time to take off her leather duster and hang it on its hook against the wall. She pulled off her boots, savoring the anticipation.

She debated putting on some water to boil and make tea, but the temptation was too strong. She had waited long enough.

She went up the stairs, her feet barely making a sound on the steps. The top floor had three rooms, mostly unused except for the master bedroom at the back. Its door was open, the light off, and the buzzing sound was getting louder. Now that she was closer, she could hear the low moans.

She stepped forward into the room, and found the room as she had left it several hours ago for Bognár’s restaurant.

On the bed, Elizabeth Parkinson—Betty, she liked to be called—was naked, her wonderful body exposed and covered in a film of sweat, tied up with ropes at the four posts of Shawbank’s queen-sized bed. She was rocking slightly, her eyes closed, a ball gag out of which a large rubber dildo stuck out pressed tightly into her mouth and preventing any sound but indistinct moans to escape.

The source of the buzzing was immediately clear: a vibrator was pressed deep inside Betty’s ass. Shawbank had slipped in there before leaving, and set it low enough to be maddening but high enough that Betty could not ignore it.

The whole room smelled of Betty’s pussy—a smell that Shawbank knew well. Betty had drenched the towel that Shawbank had slipped beneath her on the bed for exactly that eventuality, and there was no doubt that she was riding high right at the edge of orgasm but unable to crest it.

Shawbank knew all of that, because it was the adjustment she had chosen to activate. One of the favorite adjustments for a certain class of dominant customers, one of those adjustments that had started as a custom request but had proved so popular that it was added to the default adjustments programmed into every woman adjusted through the ADCorp process: sexually reluctant, easily aroused, and unable to achieve orgasm unless verbally allowed.

Shawbank looked at Betty, writhing on the bed as much as the tight ropes allowed her to, her hips helplessly fucking upward seeking something that would let her get herself off, unable to find release, the moans and groans escaping the tight gag a testament to how aroused she was, the trembling of her limbs to how exhausted she must have been. She was blindfolded, and it was not clear at all she knew that she was not alone in the room any longer. Shawbank had put earplugs in Betty’s ears to increase the sensory depravation.

Shawbank looked at Betty, and felt herself get wet in response. It was exactly as she had hoped when she had dropped by Betty’s home earlier that day.

Shawbank knew Betty’s husband was away—a business trip to Portland, Oregon, three days gone, she had confirmed with the hotel there. She had used her connections to learn about the man’s schedule, and knew of his trips, and she took advantage of that information whenever convenient. This was one of those times.

Betty answered the door when Shawbank rang, and if she was surprised by the presence of the Investigation and Enforcement Division agent, that surprise dissipated when Shawbank uttered the well-worn “Betty, adjustment code C018, override authorization 9010787.” Betty blinked out of existence, or at least her consciousness did—at the same time conveniently whipping away any memory of Shawbank’s appearance since an activation scrambled a subject’s short-term memory—and after her customary shiver and low moan she looked at Shawbank with disbelief as the agent took a decisive step into her home.

Closing the door behind her, Shawbank slammed Betty against the wall and kissed her, hard, pressing her body into the blonde’s, pinning her arms to the wall above her head, and Betty resisted, while at the same time moaning into Shawbank’s mouth even as her tongue responded to the agent’s.

“Hello my little slut,” Shawbank said, practically purring.

Betty stiffened against her, and ineffectually tried to push Shawbank away. “Get off me,” she said, trying to pull back only to bang her head against the wall behind her. “I’m not a slut.”

Shawbank grinned, and pressed her hand between the blonde’s legs, cupping her crotch through the thin sweat pants she usually wore around the house. Betty could not help but close her eyes and let out a little groan, her hips shifting of their own volition into the hand cupping her pussy. Shawbank could feel the heat through the material. “Is that so?” she said softly.

Betty tried to squirm away. “I’m… I’m not… Leave me alone…”

Shawbank knew that there was no real fight in Betty—she was adjusted so that she would be reluctant, but not actually able to escape her fate, aroused despite her wishes, craving Shawbank’s touch despite everything in her head screaming “no.”

It was exhilarating.

“You feel good, you little slut.” Shawbank’s hand was more forceful, pressing and rubbing hard between Betty’s thighs. The blonde was almost unwillingly spreading her legs wider, offering better access, while at the same time pushing Shawbank away.

“Please don’t,” she said, and Shawbank could so easily imagine her crying. “Please go… leave me alone… leave me ALONE!”

Shawbank took a step back only to slap the blonde with a lightning fast strike that made the younger girl’s legs wobble. She stared at Shawbank with a shocked look on her face, the imprint of Shawbank’s palm on her cheek outlined faintly against her pale skin.

There was no movement and no sound for several seconds before Shawbank, all of her senses awash with lust, took a step forward and grabbed Betty by her short hair—the bob haircut gave her a mischievous look that Shawbank found simply precious. She pulled Betty’s hair back.

As Betty groaned in surprise and pain, Shawbank dove in and kissed her again, more insistently this time, pressing her whole body into Betty’s, feeling the other woman’s breasts and belly against her, savoring the warmth, the softness. Betty pressed back against Shawbank and their tongues dueled, Betty unable to control her arousal.

When Shawbank let her go, Betty was shaky and out of breath and the look in her eyes was a delicious mixture of fear and lust.

“You’re coming with me,” Shawbank said, her voice allowing no argument. Betty cast her a glance, unsure what to do, and Shawbank knew her enough—she had played this same game with the blonde often enough—to guess what she was thinking. “No need to change. You’re fine as is. Beside, you’re not going to keep those clothes on for very long, my little slut.”

There was a flash of rebellion in Betty’s eyes, but Shawbank merely added. “The more you linger, the more you get punished.” And she stared at her the way she typically reserved for the Specials she ran across, and it was just as effective with Betty.

And so Shawbank had driven Betty back to her place, and told her to strip for her and to get on the bed and fuck herself with the dildo now in her ass, and she had needed only the merest hint of violence.

And now, four hours later, Betty was broken on the bed, having been roused to the heights of desire with no chance of release, a shivering maddened ball of lust ready to surrender to anyone willing to give her a chance to come.

Shawbank stripped out of her clothes slowly, savoring the moment, the anticipation, enjoying the sounds and smells and the heat of the room. Her body was lean and tight, a testament to the many hours she spent in the gym training, working out, making sure she was in the best shape possible in her role as enforcer for Davenham and ADCorp. She worked on her body not to be attractive, but to turn it into a machine that would do her bidding.

She knew she was attractive, of course, and she used that fact whenever it suited her purpose. Let men ogle her and fantasize about her. She cared about them not one bit. None had ever had her, and none ever would. She had had lovers over the years: when she was younger, there had been Adira, of course—and she worked hard to push her image away as soon as it arose lest the pain and rage come back with it—and later one-night stands and prostitutes here in the States once Davenham had brought her back with him.

And then she started partaking in the subjects at ADCorp—those perks of the job as he called them—once Control had understood exactly where her proclivities lay.

As far as Shawbank was concerned, this was so much simpler: no muss, no fuss, and especially no pain. At least not for her.

Betty was the perfect example. Here she was, on Shawbank’s bed, ready to be used and abused, the perfect partner, playing her role to a T because as far as she was concerned it was not a role but her life, and no matter how rough Shawbank might get, no matter how mean, no matter how terrifying, after Betty was restored and was sent back to her normal life, she would remember none of it. And the next time Shawbank came calling, it would be as if nothing had ever happened, as if every experience was new and fresh, an endless repetition of new feelings.

Shawbank ran a hand between her legs, delighting in the dripping wetness there, the shock of excitement when she touched herself.

She was a live wire, her body tense from lack of action, from lack of focus. Now that Davenham had given her something to do, she could move forward, although she still had Malcolm to babysit, and he could not share in her assignment. He may have been personally sponsored by Davenham himself for reasons unknown, but she had no intention of bucking protocol—if Davenham wanted her to involve Malcolm, he would have to tell her explicitly.

Betty groaned on the bed, perhaps finally sensing that there was another presence in the room with her, that she was no longer alone, that someone was there to possibly—hopefully—take care of her and snatch her away from her ordeal, and perhaps finally get her to come.

It was dangerous to have her here, Shawbank knew, but she also needed release, or she would do something even more dangerous. One did whatever one could to assuage those dark thoughts that penetrated the mind in the wee hours of the morning.

Moving lightly, she walked to the side of the bed, and after one long last look at Betty’s sweaty and tied-up body, she placed a hand on Betty’s thigh, feeling it tense underneath her palm, the moan of pleasure escaping from Betty’s lips arousing all of its own. Shawbank appreciated how Betty tilted her hips in a vain attempt to get some sort of more intimate contact with her hand.

Shawbank ran that hand upward, up Betty’s thigh, steering clear of her drenched pussy—to Betty’s disappointed groan of frustration)—up her abdomen and onto her heaving breasts. She grasped one of the hard swollen nipples between her fingers and turned and twisted it until Betty started shaking uncontrollably. Part of Shawbank wanted to just rip out those small nubs.

But she did not. She climbed on the bed and straddled the blonde, loving the heat of that body between her legs, rubbing her own trimmed pussy against the scorching skin of the Human Resources manager.

She reached down to take off Betty’s blindfold off. Betty’s eyes were crazed with desire and frustration. She had difficulty focusing on anything, her pupils distended, her eyes darting back and forth.

Shawbank leaned over, and licked the side of the pretty blonde’s face, who moaned in response.

“Did you miss me?” Shawbank whispered harshly into Betty’s ear. The blonde might have tried to say something, but the sound was muffled by the gag in her mouth.

Shawbank pulled back, taking an appraising look at the body of the blonde squirming beneath her, a body she knew well, with her generous breast that she hid away at work beneath a flattering blouse and a pretty bra chosen by her husband now given free reign.

She loved to abuse those breasts—watch them jiggle and bounce as she slapped them around, knowing how sensitive they were, how the nipples grew taut and eminently graspable.

She slapped them, once, twice, and enjoyed the whimper of pain—or was it arousal?—from Betty, the way she shut her eyes and shivered, the way drool dripped from the corners of her mouth. The dildo sticking out of the her gag wobbled with her movements.

Shawbank wondered for a second whether any of the men who played with Betty—she was popular, for all the obvious reasons—liked to slap her breasts too. She had never noticed bruises on them, and she herself tried never to leave marks, however much it cost her to repress her instincts, but that meant nothing.

She rubbed her pussy against the warm yet shivering body, feeling the gently buzzing of the vibrator through Betty’s abdomen, grasping the girl’s tits as she slipped up and down, leaving a trail of her own juices on the light skin.

When the time was right, she scooted up Betty’s body, and the blonde finally focused on her with her eyes open wide, unsure what Shawbank was about to do, having forgotten all the other times before this one where a similar scenario had been enacted, her mind fuzzy from having spent so long being edged.

Shawbank grabbed the headboard—wooden with intricate carvings that came from a place near where she grew up and that she had found on eBay for a laughably low price—and pulled up to straddle Betty’s head, the rubber cock sticking out of the end of Betty’s gag lined up perfectly with her pussy.

Betty seemed to realize what Shawbank was about to do, for she tried to twist her head away and protest, but Shawbank disregarded all those feeble attempts at escaping her and grabbed the blonde’s head roughly by the hair, and as Betty stiffened under the pain Shawbank sank down onto the rubber cock, slowly, savoring the sensations of getting opened up by this artificial shaft, the only kind to breach her pussy.

She sank down to the hilt until the cock was fully shoved inside her, her crotch pressing down on Betty’s face, earning a smothered groan this time. Betty could not move out of the way. Shawbank sat there, impaled on the cock gag, loving how it filled her, something she had looked forward to the whole day, that desire burning in the back of her mind like a constant murmur, blissful at the thought of Betty powerless with Shawbank’s crotch right on top of her mouth, pussy juices leaking all over her face, drenching her in fragrant sticky perfume.

Shawbank rose, holding on to the headboard, and sank back down, fucking herself on the cock gag, up and down, slowly, her eyes closed, her thighs straining under the strain of her position. She loved every second of it, strain and all. She felt good, she felt in power.

Up and down she went, her juices running down the rubber cock, pooling on Betty’s face, who had stopped fighting—she always did, always accepted the inevitable, her eyes closed, trying to endure the ordeal even as part of her craved it, craved the humiliation, craved the constant reminder that she was but a sex toy with a vibrator stuck deep in her ass, craved for someone—something, anything—to invade her cunt and fuck her within an inch of her life and make her come harder than ever.

Something in Betty’s face triggered a memory in Shawbank, a memory of Adira that she did not fight back because she was too distracted by riding Betty’s face. And that memory of Adira, that lovely mulatto girl from her father’s stock back home, her first love, merged with memories of another girl, more recent those, and undoubtedly prompted by both her nostalgia of the past and her recent conversation with Davenham.

As the rubber cock pushed into her with controlled regularity, she thought back to that girl she had seen during her long stakeouts at Darnell University on her hunt for Thaddeus Cargyle, as she kept eyes on all the subjects that Cargyle and the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity had programmed, who had been a friend of Daniel Malcolm. Serena Banks was her name—beautiful, with big breasts, long legs, and dark chocolate skin.

She had reminded her of Adira even then, and not just because of her dark skin. The Banks girl had an attitude that just called for someone to bring her down, the same thing that had attracted her to Adira in the first place, that had made Shawbank hungry to take down her prey and devour it.

Back in North Alexandria, on assignment, Shawbank had not acted on her impulses. It would not have been professional, and Shawbank was nothing but a professional, through and through. But the girl had clearly stuck in her mind, and the conversation with Davenham had reminded her that Serena Banks had been taken by ADCorp and dispatched somewhere.

It did not take long for Shawbank, her mind filled with images of Serena Banks and memories of Adira, her eyes filled with the vision of Betty beneath her drowned in her juices, to build toward a loud climax, and she came hard with a long wail, pressing herself down as hard as she could onto the rubber cock and squeezing her thighs together, completely smothering the blonde girl underneath her, body shaking wildly by the strength of her orgasm.

A full minute later, when she had recovered, happy to have gotten her first orgasm out of the way, she pulled up and let the cock gag slip out of her pussy—the sensation sending pleasure aftershocks up her spine—and slid down to rest her head onto Betty’s breasts.

Betty still had her eyes closed, and her lower face was shiny with Shawbank’s juices. She was breathing hard herself.

Shawbank stared for long seconds, catching her own breath, savoring the moment, waiting for the inevitable swell of arousal to come back once more—she was rarely satisfied with only a single round, not when she felt the way she did, not these days.

She reached down behind Betty’s head, and unclipped the cock gag, which made the blonde open her eyes and look at Shawbank with wild hope.

Shawbank pulled off the cock gag, which had a smaller cock pushing into Betty’s mouth to complement the larger cock sticking out. Betty coughed as her throat was liberated, and Shawbank smirked as she watched the blonde try to swallow the saliva and snot that had accumulated.

She gave Betty a moment, and then Shawbank slapped the blonde, hard. Betty was still tied up and could not defend herself.

“You’re going to lick me,” Shawbank said, her voice stern.

Betty opened her mouth as if to say something, her eyes flashing with anger mixed with lust, a mixture reflecting the confusion that must have reigned in the poor girl’s mind. Shawbank drank it up like fine wine.

And just before Shawbank felt that Betty was gathering up the courage to say something, she said, “Lick me and I’ll let you come.” And reveled in the way Betty looked at her, the desire to send Shawbank to hell fighting it out with the overwhelming desire to quench that thirst that was making her body move without her even noticing.

Without waiting for a response, Shawbank straddled Betty’s head once again and pressed her crotch back down on the blonde’s face, rubbing it up and down on nose and lips, smearing the juices that were already present and copiously more. The contact revived her arousal, and she pressed her pussy lips over Betty’s mouth, and waited. She could feel the blonde’s breath inside her.

The first lick was tentative—it always was—the tongue carefully pressing against her slit, the reward of release battling it out with the repulsion that undoubtedly she was feeling. Betty scored low on the homosexual scale, Shawbank knew—she had seen the file—and that was one reason why she liked the Human Resource manager so much.

Shawbank wondered where Serena Banks scored on that same scale, whether she would happily lap at her pussy or do so reluctantly, a victory won by force.

The mental image of Serena, tied up underneath her, perhaps squirming to try to get free, her body betraying her with screams of rapture, made Shawbank twitch, and she pressed her body down on Betty’s tongue harder.

Betty had no choice but to lick, and even though she was not doing a good job, Shawbank did not care. She alternately pressed down and rubbed her crotch on Betty’s face, holding on sometimes to the headboard sometimes to the blonde’s head, often pulling her up by the hair to gain more leverage.

Shawbank’s second orgasm came fast and was a continuation of the first one. She smothered Betty as she shook with pleasure, clutching her own breasts in the attempt. She knew that by the end of her session, she would have Betty broken and willing suck on her nipples, slobbering over them to please her mistress, all in the vain hope to earn a release from the raging fire that burned deep in her pussy, courtesy of Adjustment Code C018.

“Not bad,” Shawbank said, catching her breath, watching Betty try to swallow the juices that were overflowing her mouth. She was still wriggling on the bed, her hips twitching, aroused against her will by her actions, her adjustment seeing to that. “We’ll make a carpetmuncher out of you yet.” She made it a point to be crude, to play up whatever intrinsic dislikes Betty might have had.

Shawbank reached down and dipped a hand in the juices covering the blonde’s face and fed it to her. “Time for your reward.”

The light in Betty’s eyes was a pleasure to see, the craving for release, the hope that perhaps her ordeal was over, that she would soon be allowed to come, that perhaps all of this might have been worth it. Shawbank knew all of that, for they had danced this dance before, many times. Just as she knew that Betty would eventually be on the floor, crawling like a slug, begging to be allowed to service her, ready to forego her own pleasure just for a chance to lick Shawbank’s pussy yet again.

Shawbank turned around, going into the classical sixty-nine position, keeping her crotch over Betty’s face and pressing it down, while reaching for the discarded cock gag and lining the largest rubber cock, still damp with her own juices, with the blonde’s drenched pussy.

Without warning, she pushed the dildo inside Betty, her pussy lips parting like the Red Sea before Moses, and Betty let out a long wail that she clearly was trying to contain but could not, and Shawbank pressed her crotch down on Betty’s wide open mouth, smothering her once more, feeling a thrill that rippled over her like a wave.

It was a tight fit, for Betty still had the vibrator humming softly in her ass, yet the large rubber cock went in without any difficulty, and Shawbank wondered how often Betty had been doubly-penetrated, whether it was something she and her husband indulged in, or whether it was something that only happened with ADCorp’s employees or Platinum Plan members that took advantage of her—the wreathed ring tattoo on her finger clearly visible to anyone that cared to look.

In and out went the rubber cock, the straps of the gag dangling and banging against Betty’s thighs, and Shawbank watched from up close, fascinated by how Betty’s pussy lips gripped the hard shaft, as if they were unwilling to let it go on the way out, the wet sounds a horny symphony to be appreciated for what it was, an indication that Betty was loving every second it, or that at least the animal part of her did. Betty must have been going out of her mind with lust, for her tongue attacked Shawbank’s own pussy with a renewed energy.

Shawbank wondered idly whether Serena Banks’s pussy would make similar squishy sounds when a thick rubber cock pumped in and out of her, whether her own tongue would be skilled at pleasuring a women, the image of the black girl begging to be allowed to come as she sucked on Shawbank’s pussy and lapping up all of her juices making the agent squirm and press her crotch down against Betty’s tongue.

Shawbank was getting close again, and she pumped the rubber cock harder and faster, and still Betty’s lust rose and still she could not come.

“Please…!” Betty said in a desperate voice when Shawbank lifted her ass up for a moment, and the begging was music to Shawbank’s ear. How she loved when they begged! She wondered whether Serena would beg with as much desperation, with as much hunger, with as much hate for what she was doing.

Shawbank pushed the rubber cock in as far as it would go and bowed her head and bit down on Betty’s clitoris, and the pain for the blonde mixed with the pleasure and she screamed in Shawbank’s pussy and the ADCorp agent ground her crotch against Betty’s face and came for the third time, this climax a long shattering one that sent waves of heat and cold throughout her body and pulled a choked stretched groan from her lungs.

She collapsed next to the blonde, her face pressed against Betty’s thigh, luxuriating in the softness of her skin, its heat. She could already feel sleep coming over her, and the sweet lullaby of Betty’s pleading moans rocked her to sleep—she would nap for an hour, the way she usually did during these games—and then they would continue playing until Betty was ready to abase herself of her own will in exchange for a moment of pleasure from her mistress.

Eventually, Shawbank might allow her to come, and if she did then Betty would do so by humping her leg like a bitch, all the while screaming out loud that she was nothing but a dirty dike slut good only to wipe one’s feet on, or spat on, or pissed on.

And then late at night Shawbank would bring Betty back to her home, where she would go to sleep and the next day she would wake up as if nothing had happened, as if she had not spend the previous day tortured into unwilling submission, as if she had never been activated. Her adjustment would ensure that she remembered something likely that she might have done that evening, and would also ensure that she would not be too curious about any potential discrepancies that might arise.

Shawbank, meanwhile, would start quietly trying to find out where exactly ADCorp had sent Serena Banks after her abduction from Delta Iota Kappa during the raid at the fraternity house.

Shawbank had no doubt she would find her, and was already fantasizing about what she would get the pretty black girl to do to her.

* * *

ADCORP CONFIDENTIAL MEMO to Adonai Davenham.

SUBJECT: Response to Inquiry

MEMO: In response to inquiry about the exact inventory of Serum currently in storage, a careful accounting and review of available reserves indicates a discrepancy of one hundred and twenty-three (123) units of Serum from facilities and HQ, as follows: 61 units unaccounted for at Facility Alpha, 24 units unaccounted for at Facility Bravo, and 26 units unaccounted for at Facility Charlie. The remaining unaccounted 12 units are from HQ (Advanced Research laboratories).

Two visual assessments by independent teams have confirmed the numbers. No explanation have been found for the discrepancies. Centralized inventory tables and backup databases all give same expected numbers, one hundred and twenty-three units above existing counts.

As further requested, and against protocol, Internal Affairs has not been contacted, and non-disclosure has been imposed on relevant employees. All evidence of inventory verification has been erased from the records. Please advise on next steps, as we are out of step with protocol.

We’re very sorry. We don’t know what happened.

THE END of BOOK V