KASS
The pen shakes in my hand. Not fear—rage makes my fingers tremble against the cheap plastic. Twenty-three boxes stare up at me from the contract, each one another way to sign my life away. Each initial another acknowledgment that my brother dies if I don't let aliens fuck me.
“Ms. Wykoff.” The intake coordinator's voice cuts through recycled air that tastes like bleach and desperation. She doesn't look up from her tablet. “You need to initial all the boxes.”
The underground facility used to be a shopping mall. Through the layers of industrial paint, I can still make out the old Forever 21 sign. Now it processes human women like inventory. Send us through. Collect the credits. Keep Earth's lights on.
Tommy's execution date sits in my mind: forty-eight hours if I walk out now. The government's leverage, perfectly calculated. Frame the hacker who exposed their black-market organ trade, threaten the only family she has left.
“I'm reading.”
Not a lie. I am reading. Every word of this garbage contract that tries to make sexual slavery sound consensual. My eyes scan the legal terminology while my brain translates the actualmeaning. I've read enough code to recognize when language is trying to hide something ugly.
Initial here to confirm you understand serpentine species possess unique reproductive anatomy designed for extended mating sessions.
Unique. Extended. I don't need the details. Whatever aliens do to breed, I'll find out if they catch me. The briefing video plays on loop on the waiting room screens but I keep my eyes on the contract. Thirty-foot snake bodies with humanoid torsos is all I need to know. The rest? My anger doesn't have room for those nightmares yet.
I write my initials. K.W.
Initial here to acknowledge the preparation tonic will cause permanent physiological changes including but not limited to: heightened sensitivity, increased production of natural lubricants, and persistent reproductive readiness.
Persistent. Permanent. Forever wet and wanting, even if I make it back. Even if I survive thirty days being hunted through an alien swamp. My body will never stop craving what it's been programmed to need.
K.W.
The coordinator shifts her weight, bored. We're just credits to her. Resources being traded to aliens for medical technology and fuel cells. Everyone pretends it's voluntary. Cultural exchange. Not desperation wearing a diplomatic mask.
“The serpentine species are particularly effective hunters,” she drones, still staring at her screen. “Ninety-four percent claiming rate.”
“Just say they're good at raping humans.”
That makes her look up. Dead eyes in a face that's processed too many women to care about one more angry hacker. “The contract specifies that surrender is always a choice.”
“Right. Choose to surrender or choose to die. Very generous.”
She returns to her tablet. “Initial box seventeen.”
Initial here to confirm you understand that refusal to mate after capture may result in increased aggression from pursuing hunters.
I laugh. Sharp and bitter. “So they get violent if you don't fuck them willingly. How is that different from Earth?”
“Box seventeen, Ms. Wykoff.”
K.W.
I've hacked enough government databases to know how this really works. The women who don't come back—the ninety-four percent—some choose to stay. Some die. Some disappear into breeding programs. The reports get sanitized, the families get credits, and Earth keeps getting alien tech.
But Tommy needs me to do this. My baby brother who trusted his sister to expose the truth, who got arrested for my crimes when they couldn't find me fast enough. Twenty years old and facing execution because I thought I could change the world with leaked documents.
Initial here to acknowledge that serpentine mating practices include... technical terms I don't bother reading.
My eyes glaze over the details. Something about anatomy, something about duration. I don't care. The pen moves on autopilot now, anger driving it forward. They could write anything in these boxes—I still have to sign them to save Tommy.
K.W.
“Five more boxes,” the coordinator says.
Initial here to confirm you understand the neurological implant will provide basic translation but cannot convey full cultural context.
