Android Alien Apocalypse Harem - Arc 1 Box Set Read online

  "This is strictly forbidden as you well know, Curtis! Ugh, we knew as soon as you were born that this sort of thing would become a problem eventually. Young men just can't be trusted!" Janice scolded.

  "I told, you, she wanted me to, look, I'm fucking restrained, don't you think I'd have put my goddamn dick away if I could use my fucking hands?" he said, his teeth gritted in frustration at the idiocy around him.

  Madeleine winced at the blasphemy.

  "This will be decided at a trial. I will be doing the whole community a disservice if I don't push for the strictest punishment within our laws for this," Janice said decisively.

  Sophie pulled out of her arms, uncomfortable.

  "Wait, I mean, it's not that serious is it? What is the strictest punishment?"

  She looked uneasy.

  Oh, fuck. So she thought this was just going to be some fucking hilarious prank to get me put on some kind of shitty duty for a week or something, and it turns out they take breaking their biggest rule a bit more fucking seriously than that. Brilliant, Sophie, just fucking brilliant.

  "Well, nobody has broken the rules about fraternization since they were brought in, but naturally, we did conceive of potential solutions for if it ever did happen when we passed the laws. I believe the way that we decided we'd ensure it wouldn't happen twice was chemical castration for the male perpetrator."

  Sophie had turned pale, and her eyes met his with a terrified mixture of pleading and pity. He felt all the color drain from his own face.

  "You can't! I had no say in any of this, she tricked me! Tell them, Sophie! Tell them it was a fucking prank or whatever it was you and Fliss thought you were fucking doing!"

  Sophie's lips parted as if she was about to speak, but she hesitated.

  Come on, for fuck's sake, do something decent for once!

  His tingling hands were clenched into tight fists behind his back.

  "Prank or not, you cannot deny that the... fraternization occurred, can you, now? And if it occurred, then the rule was broken and the punishment needs to be effected."

  Sophie looked a little relieved that there was no real arguing with that - nothing she said would get Curtis off the hook, so she may as well keep quiet, lest anybody decide that she and Fliss might need to face some sort of negative consequences too.

  "The Lord does teach us to forgive, Mrs Miles..." Madeleine said, fidgeting with her silver cross and avoiding eye contact with anybody

  "I don't know what you mean, Maddy, it's scarcely a punishment at all - the boy will be much happier after the procedure, anyway, given he won't have to fight such urges anymore," Janice said haughtily.

  Boy? Patronizing cunt. I'm a man. That's the whole fucking point...

  He said nothing though, afraid he might make things worse for himself, either by letting out his rage in some kind of tirade he wasn't in the best position to be coming out with, or by embarrassing himself further by bursting into tears of frustration and fear.

  "Well, if you have nothing more to say on the matter, we will hold the trial tomorrow. Now, Pete, Maddy, we should find his father and tell him what has happened here."

  "Are you just going to leave them alone in here together, after that?" Pete asked his wife, with the air of a man who knew he was probably about to be scolded.

  "Oh! Yes, please don't leave me here alone with him!" Sophie said dramatically, pulling on her shorts under her towel and reaching for her shirt.

  Janice looked irritated for a moment, then made up her mind.

  "I had thought he wouldn't be in the mood for any more shenanigans now, but you're probably right Sophie, he won't be able to be trusted until after the procedure. You come with us. Maddy, perhaps you could stay with him, and tell him the Lord's view on his behavior. Plus... Someone will need to untie him."

  She fucking knows I'm tied up! What kind of fucked up logic do these people operate under? Still, I'd rather Madeleine than Sophie for company right now, considering I want to wring Sophie's neck... Ugh, I know what dad will think, too. That they're a bunch of fucking morons. But he won't have the guts to do anything about it, and he'll probably just give me some bullshit pity speech about how we have to go along with whatever the assholes in charge want because of the community or whatever weak-assed shit... I am so fucking over this place.

  Chapter 3

  As soon as Pete, Janice and Sophie had left the room, Curtis noted with surprise that Madeleine was acting differently. She stalked over to his chair, and picked up a utility knife from Fliss' belongings on a metal shelf by her bed. Standing behind him, he could feel the heat of her breath close to his neck as she nicked open the cable ties binding his hands. She moved in front of him as he flexed his fingers to try and bring the sensation back into them, before hastily tucking his sticky cock back in his clothes, looking away from her uncomfortably.

  And yet, she had a serious look on her face that was more urgent than stern.

  "I'll do your ankles in just a second, but first I need to talk to you about something," she said in a conspiratorial tone.

  "If it's about the Lord then --"

  "It's not. It's about getting you out of this mess."

  She had his attention. Actually, she often had his attention, she was one of the only women in Sanctuary other than the two girls close to his age (who he now hated with the passion of a thousand suns, whatever a sun looked like) who was remotely fuckable - a young looking 37 with a pretty smile, long dark hair and a nice curvy body. Plus the whole minister thing made her hot in an out of bounds kind of way. Even though all women were technically out of bounds for him, she was more out of bounds than anyone else because she was supposed to be everybody's moral guidance or some shit.

  "Is there a way to do that? Like, to literally do it, not some metaphorical thing involving God's forgiveness or whatever?"

  She smiled.

  "There's a real way to save you, body and soul, if you are worried I'm teasing you with some Christian stuff. But it does come at a price, and when you hear what you'll have to do, well, you may decide it isn't worth it, that you'd rather just live out your days with no desire..."

  "No, no, whatever I have to do, if it lets me keep on being myself, then I'm in."

  "Like I said, you may not feel that way when I tell you the plan."

  "So tell me the plan! Please, Madeleine, I need this!" he said, almost tearing up with the hope she'd given him in the face of such an unthinkable future.

  "I'll tell you everything - including what I want in return for helping you - but I can't do it now, they could come back at any minute. Wait until this evening at, say, 9, when they're all having their after dinner rec time, and come to the chapel. If anyone asks, say that you want to pray alone with me for forgiveness for your sins, so you can face your trial with a clean conscience, or something like that - the more pious sounding the better, we do not want to be interrupted."

  "I'm, not in the most trusting mood today, as you can probably imagine. You saw how they set me up. Can you reassure me that this isn't some other awful bullshit?"

  "Look, I wouldn't be helping you if I didn't believe you that you were set up... or, maybe I would, I don't know," she said somewhat wistfully, confusing him a little, "you have my word as a servant of God that I wouldn't do anything so crass, although, God has nothing to do with that really, it's more just, you know, not being an asshole... Now, I can't stress enough that you may not like the solution I offer, you may reject it. But it is indeed a true solution that at least gives you an option. So, will you trust me?"

  She looked very grave, and while Curtis had never been entirely sure whether she was half as religious as she made out, he didn't think she'd do anything outright evil while bringing her God's name into it. Besides, even if this was yet another trap, what worse thing could he possibly be sentenced to? What could she do to make his situation any more shit? Nothing. And so he chose to hang on to the hope. At the very least, it would make the rest of today more bearable, even if i
t did come to nothing.

  He nodded.

  She smiled a smile of solidarity, and cut the ties on his ankles.

  "I have some preparations to make, so I'll go now - you probably want to head back to your own room, too... But 9, yeah? Knock five times on the door so I know it's you."

  He spent the rest of the day in agitation, avoiding people where he could. It was irritating enough that he was the main topic of gossip in the small community now, but he had the added hardship of trying to act like he wasn't hoping for a way out. His father came to see him, apologetic and as weak as he'd been expecting, but he got rid of him just by acting angry and sullen and like he wanted to be left alone. He'd outgrown teenage sulking years ago, but it was good mood to channel when he wanted people to leave him the fuck alone, and his dad bought it easily.

  Alone on his bed, his mind was racing. What was Madeleine going to suggest? Some kind of bargain? Did she have some meaty blackmail material on Janice or something, that could get her to change her mind? Or was it a loophole in the rules of Sanctuary that she knew about, that he could invoke at the trial? No, that didn't seem like it would carry any particularly high cost. Fuck, was she going to suggest murdering Janice? Was that why she'd been so hung up on him possibly not being down for doing it?

  Would I? Could I kill someone like that to save myself? I mean, when push comes to shove, Janice is a horrible person, but wouldn't killing her just put someone else annoying in charge? Would I have to kill a load of people? Or maybe she thinks I should violently overthrow Sanctuary, and become the mayor myself... Change the rules... Could that work? Fuck, I don't know...

  He was of no mind to eat dinner, whether by going to the dining hall where everyone else would be, or by going to the kitchen and getting some of his rations to eat in his room. He had no appetite at all, with all of the anxiety gnawing away in his abdomen. But it was 8 now, so he just took a long time over showering and getting dressed again, before slipping out to go to the chapel, which was adjacent to Madeleine's bedroom on the second floor down from the surface.

  Mercifully, nobody saw him on his way there, so he didn't have to lie about praying or any of that stuff - pious wasn't really something he felt like he could pull off, today or any other day. Alone in the bare gray hallway, he took a deep breath, and rapped five times on the door.

  Chapter 4

  Madeleine's pale face appeared in the crack where she opened the door. The chapel behind her seemed to be lit only by candles, with a faint orange glow showing in the dimness, in contrast to the uniform brightness of everywhere else in Sanctuary.

  "Did anyone see you on the way here?" she asked in a low voice.

  "No," he replied, before being hurriedly beckoned inside.

  The chapel was small, and bare. He'd hardly ever been inside before, as neither he nor his father were particularly religious, but the few times he'd been in there there had been artificial lighting and other people. Now, in the soft glow of the candles, with nobody there but himself and the minister, the woman who might just be his only chance of escaping castration, it felt like the most silent, still place he'd ever seen - and considering he'd only ever seen places that were part of an underground bunker formed from a cave network, that was saying a lot.

  There was a big metallic cross pinned to the end wall, opposite the door, and a couple of rows of dark wood benches, as well as a simple lectern with a bible on it, open. Off to the left was a door which he assumed was another entrance to Madeleine's quarters, in the next room. Why had she wanted to meet him here, instead of in her room?

  "You don't like it here, do you?" she said.

  Taking it to mean 'here' as in, the chapel, he replied that it was fine, he just wasn't really into church stuff.

  "I'm going to tell you a story, Curtis. I know you probably want me to get straight to the point, that you're desperate for the answers, but first I have to tell you a bit about me, so you will understand how I came to know of this solution, why I want what I want in return for giving it to you, and more than anything else, why you can trust me. Sit down."

  He nodded dumbly - he didn't like how it felt to break the silence in here by speaking, and she'd already addressed anything he might have said about making with the answers. He took a seat on one of the wooden benches at the back of the small room, and to his surprise, she sat beside him, rather than standing at the lectern to deliver her story as he'd for some reason expected she would. Her thigh, still in the same black dress as earlier, was pressed against his.

  "When you were born, and they couldn't save your mother, a decision was made in Sanctuary that didn't just condemn you to this frustrating life, but also me. I was 17 at the time, you see. I wasn't old enough to vote on the decision to ban sex between men and women of childbearing age, not that it would have made a difference if I had been, given that people outside of that age range who were in favor of it - given it didn't affect them - outnumbered us younger people four to one. Every generation in Sanctuary has been much smaller than the one before, as I'm sure you know. Yours was to be the last one. And with that decision, the things I'd been expecting might start to happen for me soon - sex, love, maybe even children some day - they were all replaced with a future where I'd be seen as a ticking timebomb, tempting men just by existing, fighting my own urges, being watched all the time to make sure I didn't fuck up and... well, fuck anyone. Just like you."

  He honestly hadn't considered it, what it had been like for her generation when he'd been born and ruined things for everyone. There were maybe 20 people in her age range, he guessed - not many at all, but more than in his. Had they all suddenly discovered that they wouldn't be allowed to lose their virginity or pair off and fall in love, that they'd better hope they could start finding their own gender attractive (if they didn't already) because otherwise, no sex until they were like, 50?

  "I am sorry, I guess you put up with it all these years and me, I couldn't even make it past 21 without being caught with my pants down..."

  "When I was 17, I hadn't yet taken on a role in Sanctuary. But in light of the fact things were changing in this new, more puritanical direction, I realized that I would have a much easier life if I chose this. The minister at the time was preparing to retire, and so, I decided that by becoming his replacement, I could not only have one of the easiest jobs in the community, but also avoid a lot of the prying and spying of the older people. A minister is respected, even if they are young, and so they wouldn't dare to make any insinuations about me being one of those troublesome young people with their urges. I could also avoid having to do one of the harder jobs, in terms of the studying or the labor involved. Plus, people would tell me their secrets, which sounded interesting - don't tell me you didn't choose to work on the archive system at least partly to know what everybody else looks at!"

  "You know I can do that? I always figured people didn't realize I can see what material they've been viewing, otherwise some might find it hard to look me in the eye..."

  You know that I know you like dirty gangbang scenes, and tentacle hentai?

  "Yes, I know you can do that. Sometimes I felt like you were the only person who actually had a clue what I was really like, in fact. I would intentionally keep my archive searches interesting, as if to sort of communicate with you. I'm not sure why, I guess I just wanted to be honest with someone about something..."

  "So, because you couldn't have sex anyway, the one downside of the minister's role, traditionally - the chastity - wasn't an issue, and so you took it. That's pretty smart, really. I always knew you weren't really all holy..."

  "I am a believer, don't get me wrong. I believe in the Lord, and I believe that Christian values are probably the only thing that can make a small community like this survive in a civilized way, without everyone losing their shit and it being anarchy. So, I do think what I do has a meaning. It's not all fake. But do I think things like sexual desire are sins? No, and even if they are, it is for God to decide who has sinned, who shoul
d be punished and who should be forgiven, not a bunch of old assholes like Janice."

  "OK, so this does go a long way toward explaining why you want to help me, and why I can trust you, but you haven't told me what I have to do yet..."

  Madeleine took a deep breath. The candles flickered as she steeled herself to tell him.

  "The minister before me, and the minister before him and so on, they had access to important information which is passed down with the job. Information about Sanctuary. Information that I have, and Janice, as the mayor, also has, but nobody else is allowed access to. Among that information is a way for you to escape and be free."

  "How? What is it? A law or a secret or..."

  "Escape and be free. Listen to the words, Curtis. The information I have is the code that unlocks the main doors to Sanctuary. The solution I'm offering is that. Leave Sanctuary and go up into the old world."

  Curtis's eyes widened and his heart felt like it might pound right out of his chest.

  "I... I'm sorry, I was not expecting that. I thought I'd thought of everything, up to and including murdering half of Sanctuary, but leaving? I mean, there's no life out there, is there? The invasion... They were killing everyone, that's why our ancestors came down here..."

  "It was generations ago. This bunker was designed to help people survive if there was a nuclear war. In the end, that wasn't what happened - the aliens came. But we don't really know what happened that day, do we? Our ancestors made it down here so fast and immediately cut themselves off from the outside. None of them even saw the aliens themselves, and we don't know what the rest of humanity did, because we only have copies of what was on their networks up to that day in our archives. We have no information at all about the invasion, really, only the speculations passed down by Sanctuary residents. Maybe other humans, the military or whoever, fought and won, and out there are people. Maybe the aliens left after a while to conquer someplace else, and out there is wilderness. Maybe the aliens are there, and hostile, and you'll have to turn tail and come straight back down here and hope nobody noticed you left, or... maybe you'll be killed. We don't know at all. But if you stay, we know Janice will see to it that you are chemically castrated tomorrow, and then you'll live here for maybe 70 years while everyone slowly dies off around you, and then that will be the story of you, and of Sanctuary."