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dommmu

Governor
Abstract

Ashley has messed up. She listened to the wrong friends, got busted for a felony and is now facing a long time in prison. But out of nowhere, suddenly there is hope for an early release. That is, if she plays the guinea pig in a government-funded experiment: A simulated medieval torture chamber! Ashley does rather well at the beginning, but the sessions in the simulation become more and more brutal, leading up to a horrible crucifixion of her digital self. And the abuses do not remain in the virtual world, either.

About

It has been over a year since I published my last story "The Crucifixion Society" here on CF. Why did it take me so long writing a new one? Well, besides me being a lazy fuck and sometimes letting the writing rest for weeks or even months, I wanted to create a more character-driven story this time. My previous stories were quite straight forward regarding the "action" (don't worry, there is plenty of "action" in this one, too!) and this time I wanted to give the main characters a little more personality. Furthermore, while being set in today's time, this story has some science fiction elements (regarding science and technology, not space ships and light sabers!) and it took me a while to figure out and establish the rules for the virtual world our characters will enter.

At the time of this post, the first draft of the story is about 95% finished. It is going to be my longest story yet. There will be a prologue and probably 20 chapters. I am going to post the individual chapters over the next days after each has gone through a final refinement.

And now I hope that you will have just as much fun reading the story as I had writing it!

Disclaimer

This story is a work of fantasy. All characters and places are fictional. Any relation to actual persons or places is unintentional und coincidental. In real life, I do not endorse acts of non-consensual sex, torture and murder!
 
Prologue

The colors were drained from Ashley's world as the police car passed through the massive metal gate of the penitentiary. The yellow flourishing corn fields and the green patches of forest that they had passed just moments ago seemed eternities away when the car stopped in the windowless arrival hall of the prison. White brick walls and a dark grey concrete floor where ilumninated by the cold beams that came from the spotlights on the ceiling.

This was her world now. And it would be for the next seven years. The sentence in Ashley's trial for armed robbery had been spoken less than three hours ago. They had immediately pushed her into a police car and driven her here, without giving her the chance to say goodbye to her parents and her friends who had accompanied and supported her during her trial.

It was her own fault, Ashley had to admit that. She should have never listened to Eli who had drawn her into this. Or she should not have lived above her own means in the first place. Her job as a cashier and the financial support her parents could offer where hardly enough just to cover the tuition of the university she visited. But the standard of living she had tried to maintain through the last two years of her studies was far beyond what her finances allowed. The well located apartment she had chosen over the dorms of the university, her premium membership at the gym and her frequent online shopping sprees had driven her deep into debts. Both of her credit cards had already been blocked. And judging her financial score, no one would be silly enough to give her a loan.

"Get out of the car!", the officer commanded, ripping her out of her trance. Ashley complied, although it proved difficult with her hands and feet cuffed. Two male prison guards and a stern looking woman, all of them wearing flawless dark blue uniforms, expected her.

"Ashley Connor!", the woman barked in a cold voice. "You have arrived at the penitentiary where you will spend the prison sentence that has been awarded to you. "

Her fall from grace had started when she met Eli on that fateful Friday night after spending the whole evening with her best friend Chloe at a bar, drowning her frustration about the latest crazy requirement one of her professors had stated for a term paper. After hanging out together for a few weeks, the trio soon noticed one particular thing they had in common: money problems.

Eli had suggested to rob a jewlery store and sell the loot on the black market. What had been a joke at first had developed into a plan. And all of the sudden, Ashley found herself standing inside a local jewlerey store, wearing a grey overall and a ski mask, keeping the personell and the customers at bay with a fake machine gun while watching Eli and Chloe empty the display cases into a bag.

They would have almost gotten away with it if it had not been for the security guard who suddenly pulled his (real and loaded) gun on Ashley. Noticing this, Eli had immediately kicked the guard into his side, sending him tumbling into the front window of the store, crashing through it. Ashley still remembered the glass shard as big as her hand sticking out of the poor guy's throat and his blood seeping all over the place. The shock had paralyzed her back then, muting the deperate calls from her two friends who had already arrived at the escape vehicle. She had only found her way back into reality when she saw her partners in crime drive off without her into one direction and heard police sirens coming out of the other direction.

That had been eight months ago. And now Ashley found herself in a small room, bent over a steel table with her hands cuffed behind her back, completely naked. While the prison doctor performed an excessive cavity search on her, looking for drugs, weapons or other forbidden objects inside her mouth, anus and vagina, Ashley tried to focus on something else in an attempt to ignore the humiliating procedure. But the only thing she could find was the cardbox at the other end of the table. She had been forced to put everything she wore into that box. How long would it be before she got those items back?

After probing her orifices for several minutes, the prison doctor was finally done and concluded that she was clean.

"I told you so" was all Ashley got to say before the two guards who had followed the recent events with greatest interest grabbed her arms, one each, and pushed her out of the room.

Naked as she was, Ashley was led along a corridor that was open on one side. Thick iron bars separated the corridor from a larger hall where some other female inmates in orange prison jump suits sat on tables. They seemed to be bored, just sitting around and doing nothing in particular. That was at least until one of them looked up and saw Ashley being pushed past.

"Fresh meat, girls!", the woman shouted and leaped up towards the bars, using the table like a jump-off platform. The other women chased after her and joined her, grabbing and banging the bars, stretching their hands through them, trying to fondle the new girl while shouting all kinds of obsceneties.

The guards even stopped for a moment and turned Ashley around, holding her in place so that the other prisoners could get a good look at her exposed body, just out of reach for their hands. Ashley sunk her head in shame and did her best not to cry at this latest humiliation of being presented naked to these strange, possibly violent group of criminals.

It was not that she was ashamed of her body, on the contrary in fact. After all, she had kept working out to retain her athletic form. But she was far away from being an exhibitionist. She always chose one of the single shower cabins at the gym and although Chloe and her other female friends had invited her several times, she had never been comfortable with the idea of visiting a nudist sauna.

"It is important to make new friends here fast", one of the guards whispered to her while Ashley was led through the door at the other end of the corridor. "Always keep out of trouble and never show weakness. If you fail to do so, your time here can become very unpleasant. And we won't be around all the time to protect you."

There was another small room with a steel table inside. Her prison uniform was waiting on it. Ashley hurried to put it on. It was just a simple orange jump suit, like the ones the women from her recent encounter had worn. It was made out of cheap, thin fabric that felt weird on the skin, almost like wearing a plastic bag. There was no slip and no bra. That was due to safety reasons, the guards explained. Apparently, one of the inmates had recently tried to strangulate a guard with her slip and another one had used the clip of her bra as a makeshift blade and almost cut a rival inmate's throat with it. That had led the prison director to the decision to suspend every inmate from wearing underwear indefinitely. Ashley also got no shoes, only a pair of rubber slippers that produced a nasty squeaking sound on the floor as she walked.

They entered the cell block and stopped in front of one of the many identical steel doors. The guards unlocked the cell door and pushed Ashley into the small room. Before she could fully grasp her surroundings, the door was slammed shut and locked behind her again. Only now Ashley realized that there was someone else in the cell. Another inmate, a woman probably in her late 40s or early 50s, sitting on one of the two bunk beds, focussing on her new cell mate. The first thing Ashley did was to sink to her knees and sob uncontrollably.
 
Chapter 1

"What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Morpheus in "The Matrix" (1999).

Climbing down the narrow wooden staircase, the first thing Nathan noticed was the smell of the oil that fueled the torches down there. The second thing was the heat that rose with every step he took downwards into the dungeon. He was about halfway there when he started to hear the agonized cries of the unfortunate soul that was being interrogated in the torture chamber at the moment.

That was what he had come for. Nathan wondered how many times he had visited this place in the last few months. He had lost count somewhere. But all the effort would pay off in the end, he kept telling himself as he walked the familiar path past the holding cells and towards the torture chamber. When he finally arrived at the heavy oak door, he found it partially opened. Like he was already being expected. Nathan opened it completely and entered the room behind it. For a moment, he took his time to admire the scene he had stepped into.

In the center of the large room, there was a girl. Old enough to be called a woman already, but she had maintained her youth and innocent look. The girl, naked except for a loin cloth, was strung up, suspended from the ceiling with a thick rope hauling her up by her tied wrists. A heavy stone was attached to her feet, pulling her back down mercilessly. She was very lean, like most of the girls and young women living in the villages around the castle would probably be, Nathan guessed. Stretched out as she was, her ribs and the bones of her hips were clearly showing under her bright, sweaty skin.

The girl was in discomfort. Nathan could tell that by the look on her agonized face that was framed by her long red curly hair. But the greatest source of her pain was not the stretched position she was secured in. Despite her slender form, she had two generously sized breasts. With a thin cord tighly wrapped around the base of each, they had been tied into little balls, about the size of a large orange, slowly changing their color from the missing bloodflow. The even purple shade was however interrupted by a number of dark red welts. That was due to the third person in the room, the torturer, who was working the cane on her. With each blow, the thin rod penetrated the soft flesh of the girl's breasts, sometimes even breaking the skin and drawing a little blood.

When the torturer realized that he wasn't alone with his victim anymore, her immediately stopped the abuse and took a few humble steps back, bowing his head in submission. Nathan smiled and stepped forward. He laid a hand on the flat stomach of the whimpering girl and felt her muscles shaking under her wet skin. Sliding his hand upwards on her stressed body, he found the tied breasts and gave each of them a quick squeeze, which was answered by short and desperate yelps.

Nathan liked what he saw and could not help but to show a wide mean grin. The girl answered with pleading eyes. It was obvious to her that he alone had the power to put an end to her ordeal.

"Please...", she pressed out with a hoarse, labored voice. But Nathan raised his hand and gently put a finger on her lips.

"Shhh, don't!", he said softly while his finger played with her cute snub nose. "Remember, nothing of this is real. It is all happening in your head!"

Indeed, Nathan thought, this simulation was all too real. The programmers and technicians had worked wonders. Through countless iterations, they had almost driven this project to perfection. It was all to easy to forget that he and his assisant Jessica, who was hanging in front of him, practically naked, where in fact safe at a military base, attached to a computer.

Nathan stepped back and looked at the torturer who was obediently waiting at his side. Just like the torture chamber and the entire castle around, he too was not real. But he seemed very real as he gave Nathan a greedy look of expectancy. Nathan nodded towards him and the torturer's unshaven face turned into a wide smile, showing several missing teeth. Nathan could even smell his foul breath.

The torturer went back to work, but he had put the cane down. He had decided that another part of Jessica's body deserved his attention. With a single tug, he removed the her loin cloth, exposing her bare crotch. The view wasn't new to Nathan. He had been in there before. More than once.

"No, don't!", Jessica hissed with suddenly regained strength. "Nathan, tell him to stop! Don't let him touch me anymore!"

Nathan marvelled the view of his assistant struggling in her restraints, presenting every feature of her lovely body. Maybe, Nathan thought, I should tie her up in bed again?

"No! Nooo!", Jessica screamed. The torturer had turned back to her, holding up a menacing pair of pliers, just inches away from the soft skin of her her crotch.

"Alright, leave her alone!", Nathan waved his hand. The torturer complied, although with clear signs of disappointment. "Abort simulation!", Nathan said with a monotone voice, seemingly to no one in particular.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a bright and clean room, laying on a more or less comfortable examination table. He waited until their lab assistant Ava had unbuckled the straps that had held him in place and prevented him from falling off the table in case of any sudden jerks while logged into the simulation. He took the liberty of removing the cables from his face and his chest by himself before standing up and closing his shirt.

Nathan recognized the two technichians operating the simulation computers. Roy and Martin, two typical nerds, stereotypes like taken straight out of a geek sitcom. However, although being nitwits in face-to-face interactions, the two were brilliant with computers. They sat in a separate room behind a large glass window and watched with open mouths as Jessica rearranged her blouse before buttoning it up. She was furious as she noticed her two spectators.

"The replay of this session is classified on the highest level!", she shouted loud enough that it could be heard behind the glass. With her acurately arranged business clothes and her red hair tied to a bun behind her head, she had almost nothing in common with the frightened girl in the torture chamber she had been just moments ago. Only the little twitches of her cute nose remained.

"If I find anyone of you fapping to this, I will get you fired immediately!", Jessica continued her rant.

Nathan could not hold back his giggling anymore. Of course, everyone in the room knew that Nathan alone had the authority to fire people from the project and to classify any data retrieved from the sessions. Judging that he was the only one in the building at the moment that could touch Jessica without getting instantly punched in the face or having some fingers broken, he carefully approached her and gently laid is hands on her shoulders, slowly leading her out of the room.

"So, what do you think about the simulation?", Nathan asked after the two had returned to his office.

"It is very... convincing", his assistant replied. She had calmed down a bit on their walk across the military compound. The fresh air had done well to both of them after spending the last six hours in the underground laboratoy.

"Do you think that we can report the results already?", Jessica asked after gulping down an entire bottle of water.

"I think the simulation is perfect, but the desk jockeys will demand more data and a case study."

"I will not let these perverts gaze at my naked tits again, even if it is only in virtual reality", Jessica concluded immediately.

"I know", Nathan smirked. "But that was not what I had in mind anyway. Perhaps, if the simulation would help solve an actual crime..."

"Like what? Do you want to strap down a pickpocket in there and torture him until he tells you how pany purses he has stolen this month?"

"No, we need something more relevant than this", Nathan answered. "And as I told you before, I would prefer the term 'advanced interrogation methods' instead of 'torture'."

Jessica answered with an indefinable look.

"After all...", he carefully unbuttoned his assistant's blouse and pushed her bra up, exposing her milk white and flawless breasts. Not a single cut or bruise could be seen on them. "...it is all happening in your head!"

To be continued.
 
Chapter 2

"Miss Connor, you have been with us for three months now. How are you doing?"

Ashley was still trying to adjust her eyes to the bright sunlight that fell through the windows into her face. She knew that the prison director, Ethan Norris, liked to call inmates into his office for a talk only in the early morning. And now she understood why. Having them look into the deep standing morning sun was irritating and remembered Ashley once more of the power these people had over her.

"Miss Connor, are you with me?", Norris inquired. "I asked you a question: How are you doing?"

Good question, Ashley thought. How was she doing? Should she tell them that she felt like an animal locked in a cage? That she missed her friends and family? That she did not know if her two accomplices she had taken the fall for would keep their part of the bargain and have her share ready once she got out of here?

At least she had not been attacked by any of these crazy bitches that spent their time in this prison together with her. It was her luck that the other woman from her cell, Catherine, liked Ashley and everyone else was scared of her. Catherine would spend the rest of her live behind bars for killing her husband and two other women. Her story varied, depending on who told it. But it always started with young and pregnant Catherine finding out that her husband had been cheating her with both of the other women at the same time. And the story would always end with the discovery of three mutilated bodies and Catherine admitting killing all three of them. Later, she had lost her unborn child due to the stress of the trial and the confinement. Ashley sometimes had the feeling that Catherine saw in her something like a substitute daughter, since her child, had it ever been born, would have about the same age as Ashley. She felt a little weird about it, but she was willing to play the role if it meant being spared from getting beaten up and/or gang raped by the other inmates when the guards were not looking.

"Alright, I guess", Ashley finally answered the question of the prison director. He was visibly starting to get impatient.

"Miss Connor, I hope you have made yourself comfortable", someone else suddenly spoke from another corner of the office.

Ashley immediately remembered that nasal smug voice. She hadn't noticed that there was someone else in the room until just now. It was that greasy prosecuting attorney who she had to thank for her current situation. Anthony Johnson, 59 years old and a notorious character in the courthouses of the country. Ashley had disliked him from the first minute. He had always given her the feeling that her sentence had already been written. During her trial, he had even dared to interrupt the judge on several occasions.

"Your current stay in this facility will only be the start", Johnson said, walking towards Ashley. He stepped between her and the prison director and stood, legs wide, arms crossed in front, directly before her. The situation tempted Ashley to give him a well deserved kick into his privates, but she fought to resist the urge, knowing that it might probably earn her a stay in solitary confinement.

Ashley had given her best to avoid that until now. And she had no interest in trying it out, because what she had heard about it was already bad enough. A barren windowless room, 10 by 10 feet, with the only furniture being a toilet and a sink. The prisoners who stayed in there were not allowed to wear any clothes during the time, officially due to safety reasons. There was a single light on the ceiling, automatically turning on or off every few hours in a random pattern to disturb the prisoner's sense of time and mess up their sleep schedule. Other than that, there was nothing happening, except for a meal and a cold shower once a day. The prison staff used the isolation cells on a regular basis to discipline unruly inmates. By national law, they were forbidden to apply solitary confinement for more than 5 consecutive days, but Ashley had witnessed more than once in the past that this was already enough to make even the worst troublemakers a lot more compliant, albeit only for a while.

"I won't say another word without a lawyer as long as this prick is in the room!", Ashley clarified instead of crunching some attorney jewels.

"Mind your words, young lady!", Johnson said, giving her a menacing glimpse from above. "This 'prick' is currently preparing another trial for you. And this one will be for manslaughter."

Ashley stared at him with her mouth open in disbelief.

"You heard right!" Johnson gave her a mean smile. "We still have the case of Mr. Kevin Davidson, the security guard who was lethally injured during the robbery. Sadly, the incident happened out of the surveillance camera's scope. But whe have three witnesses who have confirmed that Mr. Davidson whas kicked into the window by one of the masked robbers. And since you failed to name your accomplices during your initial trial, I have all reason to believe that it was you who administered the fatal kick."

Ashley drew a long breath, preparing to counter the accusations with a row of indecencies. But the attorney lifted his hand and demanded her silence.

"Do not give me the argument that a person of your size couldn't possibly knock a trained 6'2" 200 lbs man from his feet. A background check I did on you has revealed that you had an active gym membership until it was cancelled four months ago due to failed payments. You took not only classes in spinning and dancing there, but also in kickboxing and karate. Believe me, you were very capable of dealing that kick. You will spend the rest of your useless life in prison!"

"Mr. Johnson", Norris interrupted the attorney's tirade. "The purpose of this meeting is not to scare Miss Connor but to ask for her collaboration. And may I remind you, that the judge, and not you, decides if and how long someone goes to prison. Now, may I ask you to take a seat, too?"

Johnson's triumphant smile turned into an annoyed frown. The cheeks on his haggard face were twitching with swallowed anger. This and an obviously bad skin condition on the right side of his face almost gave him a zombie-like appearance, Ashley thought. The attorney sat down in a second chair in front of the prison director's desk, but not before pulling it a few feet away from her and spinning it 90 degrees around so that he would not have to sit directly next to her.

"Miss Connor", Norris opened his speech. "I think you are special."

Ashley was confused. Norris made a dramatic pause. Although she still could not clearly see his face against the sun, she had the feeling that his glimpse went away from her face for a moment, downwards. She was well aware, that with the underwear ban still in effect, the outlines of her breasts (and her nipples) were sharply recognizable under the thin fabric of her prison uniform.

"There is something that sets you apart from most of the other women in here", Norris continued. "You are in excellent health, both physical and psychological. You have no recorded drug history and do not rely on any medication. And you used to be matriculated at the university, which proofs a certain level of education. In other words, Miss Connor, keeping you behind bars would be a waste."

Not knowing how to react, Ashley looked back and forth between Norris and Johnson. Were these two playing games with her? Good asshole, bad asshole?

"I have a very good friend in the military", Norris went on. "In fact, he is an former student of mine, since I used to work in the military, too. Military intelligence, to be precise. My friend is looking for someone like you to volunteer for an experiment."

"What kind of experiment?", Ashley asked. She usually would have had no interest in working for the authorities, especially the military. Maybe it was just a prejudice, but she always had a feeling that civilians like her never came out as winners from those kind of collaborations. But she sensed a chance to get out of the mess she made, even if it meant doing the state a favor or two.

"A psychological experiment", Norris shrugged his shoulders. "He would not tell me too much, only that it was some new kind of a virtual reality simulation. He wants someone from outside his organization, who is not biased, to test it."

"But why me? What should qualify me for this? And why should I do this in the first place?" It was time to put the cards on the table, Ashley thought.

"Because", he leaned forward and gave Johnson a short smile before turning back to her. "You will be the most motivated person to find. Mr. Johnson, would you be so kind to explain our offer?"

"Miss Connor", Johnson opened with obvious reluctance. "If you should agree to participate in this experiment and if your collaboration pleases our colleagues from intelligence, I will be ready to drop any further accusations against you. There will be no other trial. I also spoke to the judge. The remaining time of your prison sentence will be turned into a probation, effective immediately after the conclusion of the experiment. Please be aware, that I will not repeat the offer. Should you decline, we will be happy to find someone else."

Norris continued to smile and leaned forward even more. "So, Ashley, what do you say?"

To be continued.
 
Chapter 3

"There is no certainty, only opportunity." - V in "V for Vendetta".

"Nooo! Please, have mercy!", the girl screamed while Brutus approached with the glowing iron rod.

Nathan stood at the side unmoved and watched the torturer continuing his work. The latest update had given him a name, Brutus, a voice and a few minor AI upgrades. The young, beautiful woman who was at his mercy also had a name: Lara. Just like Brutus, she was a digitally created character that only existed inside the simulation. She was designed after a famous video game character who had lent her not only her name but also her appearance.

It was the final test session before the start of the case study that would be the culmination of the last five years of hard work. Brutus' creativity at inflicting pain was being put to the test in this session. And Brutus had pleased his master and his creators. Over the course of the last hours, poor Lara had run a merciless gauntlet of uninterruped tortures. Brutus had broken her fingers and her toes with pliers and a hammer. He had shredded the flesh of her back, her breasts and her butt with whips and canes. He had shoved various bulky wooden and metal objects in all three of her orifices, mangling them badly in the process. And now the girl hung from a parrot perch, uttering hysteric screams as Brutus left burn marks on the soles of her feet. He would cut open her flat tummy next, slowly tearing out her intestines until the last spark of life had finally left Lara. Or at least this iteration of her.

Nathan felt his manhood stiffening and looking down, he saw the bulge in his pants growing. Not for the first time in this session. He had to admit, watching beautiful young women suffer turned him on. And if the suffering was involuntary, it was even better. Although he was curious, he would have never dared to take one of the digital women in the simulation and so he wondered, if it would feel just the same as in the real world. Or of it was even better? Would it be possible to simulate an uninterrupted erection that would not flatten after its owner's orgasm and balls that did not need recharging time after the cumshot?

His daydreams were interrupted by the reality of the laboratory forming around him. Angrily, he demanded to know why the simulation had been stopped although it had not been finished.

"You have been logged in for the last six hours now. The protocol demands us not to exceed this time", Ava, the lab assitant replied objectively as she unbuckled Nathan's security straps and helped him to remove the cables. "And we received a phone call some minutes ago: The test subject is on her way and will arrive in about thirty minutes. We figured that you wanted to welcome her in person."

After taking a quick shower and changing from the casual outfit he usually wore during the sessions into his uniform, Nathan waited outside in the shadow of the building they ran the tests in, together with Jessica and two armed guards. Ava was not with them. Although she had precisely followed the instructions, Nathan was still mad at her for depriving him of the sensation of seeing Lara cut open and enjoying her digital screams. So he had instruced her to clean up the laboratory and prepare it for the afternoon session.

His mood lightened when the unsuspicious dark blue van (which was a military vehicle disguised as civilian vehicle) stopped in front of the group and a young woman in a prison jump suit, handcuffs on her wrists and a hood over her head was helped out by the two soldiers who had picked her up at the prison.

"I think, we don't need these for now", he pointed at the hood and the handcuffs. The soldiers obeyed immediaetly and removed them.

Nathan was very happy to see that the test subject his old mentor Ethan had provided him with was neither a skinny crack whore nor a fat whale, but in fact a slender, athletic girl. The mug shot he had seen in her files had not deceived him. Although the jump suit was fluttery and definitely one or two sizes too large for her, he could still make out the fine forms of her bust, perfectly shaped like two juicy apples, and her crisp butt. For a woman, she was rather tall, probably 5'9" or 5'10", Nathan guessed.

---

Ashley was glad to be freed from the hood. It was terribly warm under it and the tight leather gave her difficulties to breathe. She always had thought, hooding someone so they wouldn't know were they were being taken was something that happened only in cheesy spy movies movies, but she knew now that she had been wrong.

It took her a moment to get adjusted to the bright sunlight. While she rubbed her wrists, which were sore from the handcuffs, she attentively grasped her sorroundings. She stood amidst a row of identical looking brick houses, each covering a surface of about 15 by 30 yards and 4 stories high. The houses almost looked like the dorms at her university, but she figured that she was in some kind of military base, which was evident from the armored vehicles and soldiers that were present. Most of them were minding their own business, but there was one small group of people in front of her that seemed to expect her. Two soldiers (seeing them holding SMGs made Ashley instantly feel uneasy), a red haired woman in a lab coat, and another soldier, someone high ranking, judging from the batches on his flawless uniform. It was him who first stepped out of the cooling shadow the houses cast at this sunny morning and moved towards Ashley, followed by the rest of his group.

"Ashley Connor, I presume? My name is Nathan Ward. I am in charge of the experiment that you are about to participate in. And this is my first assistant, Miss Jessica Turner", the decorated soldier said. Ashley guessed him to be in his mid-30s, his assistant significantly younger, probably about her own age. Hands were shaken and formal greetings were exchanged. The other two soldiers apparently needed no further introduction.

"Now, Ashley", Nathan continued. "We are going to spend a lot of time together in the next few days. So I suggest we immediately switch to the first name basis. Are you alright with that?"

Ashley smiled and nodded. Not that she thought it had been actually a question, but being allowed to disregard forms of adress and titles made her feel a bit more comfortable around the people she had just met.

"Great!", Nathan smiled back. "Please give me your right hand."

Ashley complied without questioning the command. Nathan took out a plastic bracelet and looped it around her extened wrist in a single practiced move. For a short moment, Ashley felt an intense heat where the two ends of the wristband met. Just as the heat started to get uncomfortable, the temperature slowly started to sink again.

"This is your identification", Nathan explained. "Do not try to take off the bracelet by yourself. You won't get rid of it without tools anyways, since the seal is fused. Whenever someone asks you to identify yourself, just let them scan the bracelet".

Nathan produced a small device from his pocket, about the size of a smartphone, only a little thicker. He pointed one end of it towards Ashley's wrist, which made the device emit a loud beep, and showed her the screen. Ashley saw her own mugshot that had been taken almost a year ago on the day of her arrest. She had worn her hair dyed red back then, but the color had been washed out over time and her hair had now returned to its natural dark blonde. She was so preoccupied with analyzing her old style that she had no time to read the rest of the information that was displayed along with her picture before Nathan put the scanner away.

"Of course, I do not have to tell you that you are obliged to follow any order given by me, my team or anyone else here at the facility.", Nathan clarified. "After all, this is a military area and you are a civilian. I am aware, that you agreed to participate in your experiment because you were promised a significant reduction of your existing prison sentence. And I want to remind you that the condition for that is your uncomprimised obedience. If I get the feeling that you are not properly collaborating with us, I am entitled to cancel this experiment at any time which will render any agreement considering your pardon ineffective. Do you understand that?"

Ashley agreed, although she clearly felt the thick lump in her throat as she nodded. She realized that she had to be obedient and careful at all times, or her freedom would slip out of her reach quicker than she could hold on to it.

The group entered the house. Nathan stepped into an elevator, indicating Ashley, Jessica and their escort to stay behind. Pushing the button for the basement, he told Jessica to take Ashley to her room while he would make the last preparations for the first test session this afternoon. Jessica smiled and nodded while the elevator doors closed. She then directed Ashley towards the stairwell. Together, they climbed it up all the way to the fourth and highest floor. Although the time in prison (which had no gym) had taken a toll on her usual workout routine, Ashley was still quite fit and walked up the many stairs with ease. However, she still found it weird that a group of four had to take the stairs up so that a single man could ride the elevator down. Probably Nathan just wanted to show off the power his rank granted him.

When they finally arrived at the room that was reserved for Ashley, her mood lightened again. The room was neither larger nor more comfortable than the average hotel room, equipped with a desk, a chair, a cabinet and a bed. But this was so much better than the prison cell she had gotten used to. And there was a separate bathroom (instead of the toilet hanging from the wall right next to the bunk beds of her cell) with an own shower (instead of the group showers she had to use in prison). The room was probably usually used for important people who visited the facility.

"This is were you will stay between the test sessions", Jessica explained. Ashley had immediately found her to be likable as they had spend their walk up here with small talk. "The first session of our experiment will begin this afternoon at 4 pm. It is 1:45 pm now, so you might want to take the chance to get yourself washed up." Jessica pointed at the bathroom. "I guess you did not have lunch yet. I could grab you something from the cafeteria, if you like. Today, you may choose between spaghetti carbonara or sausage stew. My advice: Go for the noodles, no one knows what exactly is in the stew..." She made a mocking grimace of disgust. Ashley chuckled and opted for the Italian cuisine.

"By the way", Jessica added while she left the room. "There are some papers on the desk we need you to sign. This is important. Unless you agree on all of them, we cannot tell you anything more about our experiment and therefore cannot begin with it. See you later!"

To be continued.
 
Painting a good detailed background for Ashley, with tantalizing snippets of the virtual Brutus and Lara. Ashley is in for an interesting time.
 
Chapter 4

Once alone, Ashley wasted no time stripping off her prison uniform and stepping into the shower. The long car ride with the hood over her head had made her sweaty and had messed up her hair. She had never imagined how relieving it could be to stand under the shower and close her eyes, just letting the warm water clean her face. Without the fear of being attacked from behind by a wayward fellow inmate, and be it just for a prank.

By looking through the cabinet next to the shower, she not only found a shampoo bottle, but also a sealed package of disposable razors. If they had been placed there on purpose or if the previous guest had forgotten them, did not matter to Ashley. She was too happy to finally shave the scratchy stubbles of her slowly regrowing pubic hair as well as her armpits and legs. Ever since she had been introduced to the joys of sex, she had kept her body, and especially her pussy, shaved. But in prison, razors had been prohibited, of course.

Ashley did not leave the bathroom until it was completely filled with the mist from the hot shower. Wrapped in a large towel that someone had courteously placed next to the sink, she decided to give her room a closer inspection. Ignoring the papers on the desk, she walked towards the cabinet and pushed its sliding doors open. Inside there was a small TV and a fridge. The fridge was filled with water and a selection of juices, all in small and handy plastic bottles. Again, Ashley felt remembered of a hotel room. She grabbed a bottle of water that was so cold that little condesation drops formed on its surface just moments after it had left the fridge. The rest of the shelves in the cabinet were empty, probably reserved for personal items that she did not have here.

Yearning for the latest information from the outside world, Ashley turned on the TV. There had been a TV in the common hall of the prison, but it had always been tuned in to some trash TV station. She tuned in just at the right moment for the news. The drunk escapades of a game show host during yesterday's live episode seemed to be the hot topic of the day. Not exactly what she considered to be relevant news. So she switched from channel to channel until she had found one that was broadcasting music shows. Even better, a music video from her favourite group was on!

"...getting high on a Saturday night!", the front man screamed over the guitars and drums. Ashley stood in the middle of the room, eyes closed, dancing naked. She was aware that her moves had made her loose the towel, but she did not care. In her mind, she already pictured herself at the next best club, celebrating her release, dancing in a tight and sexy top and a short skirt that she would treat herself with once her sentence had been suspended. A knock on the door wooke her up from her daydreams. Startled, she hastily muted the TV and wrapped herself into the towel again before stumbeling to the door.

"Am I interrupting something?", Jessica laughed, holding up a thermobox with Ashley's lunch. "May I come in?"

Ashley, still dumbfounded from the surprising visit, stepped aside and let Jessica enter. She was accompanied by a soldier again, who luckily had the courtesy to wait in the corridor after he had seen Ashley was not dressed.

"Ashley, I must insist on you signing this!", Jessica reminded her politely but determined after she had placed the food on the desk and noticed the papers, still untouched. "You have a once in a lifetime chance to redeem yourself. Do not throw it away by stressing the wrong peoples' patience!"

Ashley nodded guiltily and promised to do so. Jessica seemed pleased, since she smiled and told Ashley that she would come back to pick her up in an hour.

Forced back into reality, Ashley sat down at the desk an began reading the papers while she ate her lunch. Remembering the bland food in prison, the spaghetti almost tasted like a gourmet meal, although under normal circumstances she would have found them to be average at best.

She browsed through the forms that mostly consisted of long and windy paragraphs. There was barely anything she would not have expected. A self-declaration of her mental and physical health, a confirmation that she was not dependend on any drugs or medication (and neither had consumed any in the last six weeks) and a non disclosure agreement that forbid her to tell any outsider about what would happen during the experiment. A bite of her food got briefly stuck in her throat when she read that breaking the agreement would result in a life sentence for her. But wasn't she gambling with her freedom anyways?

After finishing her lunch, Ashley finally grabbed the pen that had been placed on the desk and signed all documents. Then she gulped down the rest of the cold water she had taken from the fridge. Leaning back in the chair, feeling saturated and refreshed, Ashley was confident that she would encounter whatever the following days had in store for her with ease. And that she would be a free person in no time. They had told her that the experiment involved some kind of virtual reality simulation. She would get out of prison by playing a video game! For the first time in so many months, Ashley felt happy again.

---

Happiness was not the right word to describe what Nathan was feeling at this moment, waiting for his assistant and their lab rat to join him in the basement laboratory. He was confident that the experiment would be a success and after that, everything else would be just a matter of time and formalities. But he dreaded the long way he would have to go until the result of his project would finally revolutionize the work of his organization. There would be a board meeting next Monday where he was expetected to present the results of the final test run. If he would not be able to convince the board, they were just as likely to cut the funds of his project completely, regardless how good the aquired data were. The thought of this made him feel uneasy and nervous.

But that was forgotten for a short moment when Jessica and Ashley entered. Nathan looked at them with a smile. It was not a fake smile, since at the sight of two beautiful women, each of them stunning in their own ways, it was hard to resist the gladness. Jessica, his lovely assistant, elegant als always in her meticolously arranged uniform. And Ashley in her full natural beauty, her hair still a little wet from the shower she had taken and her orange prison jump suit that could not hide her fine female features. The two were a stark contrast to his other assistant Ava, who was also in the room. Not that Ava was ugly, but her thick glasses, her tousled hair and the oversized and worn out sweatshirts she always wore gave the young scientist the charm of a wallflower.

"Alright, Ashley, this is where the magic happens", Nathan said, spreading his arms and demonstratively looking around in the laboratory. He only did this for the show, of course. He himself knew probably about the use of every single item in the room. And he did not miss Ashley's sudden reluctance when she spotted the two metal tables with the straps attached to them.

"Oh, do not worry about this", Nathan explained calmly. "This is for you own safety. You are about to enter a virtual world. Your mind will be completely occupied by that, but not your subconscious. In previous sessions, we have experienced that those who are logged into that world still tend to move and twitch in the real world from time to time. And of course, you do not want to fall off the table if that happens to you, do you?"

Ashley shook her head.

"You probably wonder how the whole thing will work", Nathan continued. "When you heard that you were participating in a VR simulation, you probably thought that you would have to wear one of these chunky VR headsets? You won't. Our equipment is a lot more refined. Behind this wall there is another room, about the same size of the one we are in right now. But the other room is filled with very powerful computers. They render a complete virtual world in real time. And we are going to send you there like this..."

Nathan took a remote from a table and turned on a TV that hung on the wall. The screen showed a picture of Jessica's face with several sticky electrodes placed on her temples and her forehead.

"The electrodes are attached to the computers in the other room. They are controlled by Roy and Martin, the two nerds over there", Nathan explained, pointing at the window that offered a view into the tiny control room. "Through the cables, the computers will send small electrical impulses that your brain will interpret as the simulated world you are going to enter. The simulation includes everything you are going to perceive there. Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting."

"You want to shock my head with electricity?", Ashley protested.

"Electrical impulses, not shocks. We are working with very low volt and ampere settings. When we start the simulation, your eyes will flicker for a moment. This might feel weird, but it won't be painful. Once you are logged in, you won't feel anything of it."

"What is going to happen in the simulation? What am I supposed to do?", Ashley asked after a moment of consideration.

"You will find out when you are logged in", Nathan replied. "I cannot tell you too much in advance, since I want to ensure your experience is unprejudiced. The target of today's session is to confirm the credibility of the simulation on all levels. Of course we have tested the simulation ourselves..." The short smirk that Nathan threw towards Jessica while saying this went unnoticed by Ashley. "...but in the end we have to admit that we are biased since we are the ones who created it."

While Ava prepared the two tables by folding back the leather belts, Nathan took off the shirt of his unform and the tank top he wore underneath and laid down on one of the tables.

"You won't be going alone. I will be joining you, although I will do my best not to interfere with your experience", he informed Ashley while Ava closed the buckles around his chest, his hips and his legs and began placing the electrodes according to the picture on the screen.

"Oh, I almost forgot to mention this", Nathan added as Ava continued to place further electrodes on his exposed torso. "We have to monitor your vital signs during the session, so I have to ask you to remove the upper part of your jump suit. Calm down, you can keep your bra on."

Nathan tried to say the last sentence als neutral as possible. He was well aware that Ashley was not wearing a bra. That was evident from the way the thin fabric of the jump suit fell over her breasts. And her nipples poking through under it. Ashley hesitated for a moment, but finally decided that exposing herself in front of these strangers was the smaller evil. She opened the zipper and slipped out the upper part of her jump suit.

Nathan liked what he saw. Two young and round breasts standing up on the a lean frame of her torso, topped by small and bright nipples. Now knowing the direct comparison, Nathan found that Ashley's breasts were not as big as Jessica's, but just as beautiful. He also liked the hints of the muscles forming under the skin of Ashley's flat belly. This girl was athletic indeed.

No one in the room said a word as Ashley knotted the empty sleeves in front of her hips so that the rest of the jump suit would not slide down. But Nathan did not have to look to know the two weirdos in the control room were staring at the scene with eyes and mouths wide open. Ashley laid down on the other table and waited in anxiety while Ava strapped her down and then placed the electrodes, carefully avoiding to brush Ashley's bare breasts. Nathan observed how a shiver went through his guinea pig's body, giving her goose bumps and making her perky nipples stand up. Was that due to the cold metal of the examination table or due to the unease the girl was experiencing? Or both? He recognized that he would not be doing her a favor by making her wait any longer.

"Start the simulation", he commanded.

"Initiating simulation session, test scenario number M034", Martin's nasal voice replied through the loudspekers over the window to the control room. A moment later, both Nathan and Ashley felt their eyes flicker and a tension, spreading like a wave over their faces. Ashley uttered a short gasp of surprise, then she fell silent. An unknowing observant of the event would have concluded that she had fallen asleep with the snap of a finger.

To be continued.
 
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So is Brutus a totally simulated image, not a person interacting like Nathan?
 
So is Brutus a totally simulated image, not a person interacting like Nathan?

Yes, Brutus does only exist in the simulation. He is controlled by the computer through AI (artificial intelligence).

And now let's follow Ashley meeting some more digital characters in her first simulation session...
 
Chapter 5

"Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?" - Morpheus in "The Matrix" (1999).

The beating of the carriage rumbling over the bumpy road woke Ashley up. As the darkness around her faded, she slowly became aware of her sorroundings. She was on an open carriage, drawn by two horses along a forest road. Two soldiers in heavy armor, armed with swords and pikes, followed them on horses. She spotted several thatched roofs in the distance, just before they disappeared behind the dense forest.

"Oh, you are finally awake", a man who sat on the bench across her spoke in a hoarse voice. His hands were shackled. A chain was running from the man's shackles down to the bottom of the carriage where it ended in a metal ring that was attached there. Another chain ran up from that ring towards Ashley and ended around the manacles that held her own wrists in a firm grip. Ashley was startled. Why were her hands tied? Where was she? Why was everyone around, including herself, dressed like they were headed straight to a medieval LARP meeting?

"Where are we going?", she asked after she finally had decided which of the questions in her head had the most relevance.

"Castle Despair. Although that is not the real name, but the name the people made up for it. It is the largest prison within fifty leagues", the man replied. "My name is Rulf by the way. I should not even be here! I am innocent! They say I ravaged a girl. Truth is, she offered her body to me by herself. I lost my wife to the plague two years ago, but I still have needs, right? That little whore took my money and tried to run off. But I caught her the next day. And when she did not want to give the money back, I only took what I had already paid for!"

"Shut up back there or we will take a break and teach you some manners!", the fat coachman growled from the front. Rulf fell silent immediately. Ashley kept examining the carriage, instinctively looking for a chance to escape. She did not know what this infamous Castle Despair was going be like, but she certainly had no desire to see it from the inside. And she still had no idea why she was being taken there, but her shackled hands were an unmistakable proof that this was not a field trip.

Only now Ashley saw the person on the floor of the carriage, quite small and skinny. A boy maybe? Unlike Rulf and herself, the boy was not shackled, but secured with ropes, tied in a tight hogtie. Ashley's and Rulf's clothes were ragged and dirty, but the robe the boy wore was beyond any repair. A bag had been pulled over his head, rendering him practically blind. Laying face down on his front, tied and blindfolded, he had no chance to brace himself for the potholes and roots the wagon ran over. There was a shriek or a moan everytime he got another hit from the uneven road, muffled, since some kind of gag had been apparently placed in his mouth.

"Poor boy", Rulf said, quietly now so the coachman couldn't hear it. "It may look bad for us, but at least we might still get out of this alive. This lad won't, I am afraid. He was already on the waggon when I got in. I heard the guards say that the escort came in from the barracks. I guess, he is a deserter who got caught and is now being executed."

Ashley was shocked. "They are going to kill him?", she whispered back, so that neither the coachman nor the boy could hear it.

"Yes", Rulf nodded sadly. "Usually they would do this directly at the barracks. A rope around the neck or a sword between the shoulder blades. But at Castle Despair, they have a lot more possibilities to take a life. Slow and painful ones. Whatever he has done, he must have really pissed off someone."

The road, which had made a steep climb for the last league or so, took a sharp turn along the mountainside and left the forest behind. The path offered now an unobstructed view over a small fortress. There was a stone wall with battlements on top. It enclosed the bailey on three sides. The fourth side was the mountain itself. There was a keep, that was build against the cliff, almost seeming to be merged with it. The thatched roofs of two smaller buildings protruded over the wall, stables probably. And there was a crooked and rotten wooden watchtower where Ashley suspected the gate to be.

"Does not look like much, right?", Rulf mumbled from the side. "At least not like a prison that holds more than 1,000 doomed souls. This used to be a mine. I was told, my great-grandfather worked there when they were still extracting ores. And now that they have drained the montain, they have turned the tunnels into cells."

Ashley did not know what to say. The sight of the fortress alone frightened her, let alone the unspeakable things that were likely happening behind its walls at this very moment. Images of diabolical torture devices from one of her old history text books flashed through her thoughts. Racks, spiked chairs, iron maidens. She felt like in a horror flick.

As the escort apporached the gate and they got close enough that Ashley could almost make out the faces of the sentinels on the wall and the watch tower, a true scene of terror unfolded in front of their eyes. On the roadside, there were two long stakes standing out from the ground. Each was occupied by a person, a man and a woman, who had been impaled on them. Although both of them were stark naked (and terribly battered), Ashley could not clearly see how had they been mounted so precisely on the pole. But she guessed that the pointy end on top had been pushed into their buttholes until it had exited their mouth, leaving their faces as atrociously distorted grimaces with their mouths and murky eyes wide open. The hefty winds that blew through the glade had already dried out the blood that coated their tighs and mouths. Only the woman's long hair and the man's flaccid penis were still fluttering in the wind.

"So that is what happened to them", Rulf coughed, resisting the urge to throw up at sight if the grotesque scene. "I recognize them. They were travelling entertainers. I saw them at the marketplace when I visited the town the other day. Some days later, I heard rumors that they were arrested for stealing a bag of potatoes. Looks like the rumors were true."

They finally arrived at the gate. While the coachman and the guards on top of the gatehouse made jokes about the latest delivery of 'freash meat', Ashley was frightened again by another terrible view. On each side of the gate, a gibbet cage hung from the wall. One contained a body that had already decayed so much that the identy of its former owner could not possibly be determined anymore. But in the other one, there was a young women, maybe a little older than Ashley. She looked at the people waiting in front of the gate with blood-shot eyes and her dried-out ruptured lips formed silent words that Ashley could not make out before the gate was opened and the wagon moved inside.

The last part of the rise was short and the carriage made its final stop in the center of the courtyard. The chains that had kept Ashley and Rulf fixed to the wagon where loosened and the two were rushed to climb off and take position between the guards who had dismounted their horses. They also took the boy down, but they let him brutally slump onto the dusty cobblestone floor before cutting the ropes that secured his feet and pulled im into a standing position, his hands still tied behind his back and the hood still over his head.

A man exited the keep and came towards the new arrivals. He appeared to be someone high ranking around here, the commander of the fortress maybe? His appearance certainly differed from everyone else in visibility, as he wore clean and flawless clothes.

"What have you brought me today, Peyton?", he asked, giving the coachman a matey handshake. The fatso replied by handing him over three rolled up letters he had taken out of his satchel.

"Ah, Rulf the rapist", the commander said after unrolling the first letter and reading it.

"No, that's a lie!", Rulf protested. "I did not rape the girl! She sold herself to me."

"Silence!", the commander interrupted the desparate man. "In the letter it says, that you raped the tailor's daughter after he had sent her to collect a due payment for a coat. He also filed the contract papers to prove the order."

"I never got that coat. Everyone knows that the tailor is broke and has no money to buy new materials. So he sells his daughter! I have seen her visiting every second house in the village, including the house of the provost."

"Shut up, or I will have your tongue for this defamation! As far as I know, the tailor is an honorable citizen. He would never expose his daughter to this fornication you claim. My job is to make you confess, because the judge cannot pass a sentence on you without a confession. When this is done, you may probably choose between loosing your cock or being send to the coal mines on the other side of the mountain, where you will have about a year to live before the dust kills you. Either way, you will never fuck a woman again."

Rulf fell silent and started sobbing. His cries were drowned out by a bloodcurdling scream coming out of the keep's open gate. Ashley and Rulf, roused by the inhuman noise, stared into the direction it had came from.

"Oh, don't mind that", the commander said casually as he took the next letter and started to read it. "That was just the herbalist. She has been on the rack since dawn. I guess, one of her shoulders finally popped. Now to you! You are Ashley, I presume?"

Ashley just nodded, still unable to fully grasp the whole situation. Being in this place, standing shackled between a rapist and a (suspected) deserter, could only mean that she was in big trouble.

"Strange. The letter says that you are scheduled for interrogation, but not what you are charged with. What have you done, wench?"

A good question. What could she have possibly done to be deported to a place like this? The events of the past hour had occupied Ashley's mind so much that she had completely forgotten to contemplate her own fate. Actually, she could not remember anything that had happened before awakening in chains on her way here.

"I... I don't know", she replied.

"Are you a dimwit or something?", the commander challenged. "I am quite sure you know why you are here. And you will tell me, sooner or later. Everyone who comes here talks eventually. At the very latest when they have enjoyed some of our devices."

At the same moment, another scream was heard form the keep, a little hoarser but definately not quieter or less terrifying than the first one.

"The other shoulder", the commander nodded and moved on to the boy. "Take the hood off."

One of the soldiers from the escort pulled the bag off the small creature's head. Now that the face was visible, Ashley started to doubt that the third prisoner was a boy. The soft lineaments suggested a female face. The tousled hair, botchetly cut short like a boy from a lower social level would wear it, could not hide this.

"Oh, this is something new!", the commander bawled after having read the third letter. "Here we have Farfelee, daughter of Merek the weaver. You all do remember the king's draft call to all working class families to send their family head or their eldest son to the barracks, because he needed men to fortify the borders? Our little warrior princess here went in her father's stead, because her poor old daddy was sick and had no son. The thing is, women are prohibited from joining the military. Of course, the general in charge found out what was going on when she refused to strip during the initial inspection."

The girl, Farfelee, offered a miserable sight. Judging from her bowed posture and her black eye, it was obvious that she had been beaten not so long ago. She was shaking. The tears rolling over her bruised face were soaked up by the rag that she had been gagged with. But the commander showed no sign of pity.

"Farfelee, you are 18, which is old enough to become a soldier. But as a woman, you know that you are not allowed to. By trying to deceive the general, you have mocked the military and the king. And that is why you are scheduled for immediate execution!"

Farfelee sunk to her knees. Her cries were muted by the gag. Three soldiers, who had sat around a small table nearby, heard their cue and came forth to sorround her. One of them pulled a knife from his belt and cut open her tattered robe and threw it away, leaving her completely naked. No wonder that it was so easy to mistake this girl for a boy, Ashley thought. Farfelee was not only spindly, but had also almost no noteworthy female curves. Regarding the bruises, the rest of her body did not look any better than her face.

"What shall we do with her, Sir?", the one with the knife said.

"It is a slow day", the commander replied. "Take your time. Before we start with the execution, she should be taught a lesson to understand once and for all that she is not a man. Show her something that a man cannot do... like taking three cocks in three differnt holes at the same time?"

The three soldiers uttered dirty laughs while they quickly removed the parts of their armor that blocked their crotches. The first, who had pulled out his already stiff dick, positioned himself on the ground. The other two lifted up the defenseless Farfelee, one having pushed his hands under her arms, the other holding her knees apart. Ashley could see that Farfelee's labia were reddened and glistening. There was no doubt that other men had forced themselves onto her right before she had been put onto the carriage to damnation.

"Stop!", Ashley heard herself scream. She knew that it would have been the wisest to stay silent and endure the peverted display. But her moral senses urged her to scotch the unbelievable procedure. No one listened to her. Farfelee had no chance to fight back as she was mounted on the shaft of the soldier waiting on the ground. The second soldier knelt down behind her and pulled her tied wrists upwards, forcing Farfelee to bend forward in an effort to take the pressure off her shoulders. Then he shoved his stick into the overwhelmed girl's butt.

The third moved to her front and freed her from the gag. "No... hmpf!", was all Farfelee could say before his manhood filled her mouth.

To be continued.
 
My word, the geeks had fun writing all that background code.

Have we seen Nathan yet?

This story unfolds in a way that is both dark (the subject) and light (the writing) at the same time, thank you.
 
Have we seen Nathan yet?

Do you mean in the session Ashley is currently in? No, he keeps himself in the background. As he said, he does not want to interfere with Ashley's experience in her first session. ;)
 
Chapter 6

Farfelee's cries echoed across the courtyard as she was gang raped by the three men who would later perform her execution. Her ordeal was witnessed by the dark keep and its walls. And everyone who stood by. The sentinels, the commander, Rulf, the coachman (the commander had already dismissed him, but he had insisted to stay and keep watching). And Ashley.

"Leave her alone!", Ashley begged in another desperate attempt to achieve mercy for the poor girl on the ground.

"Shut up, cunt!", the commander hissed. "You had your chance to talk and you chose not to. You there, silence her!"

The soldier from the escort who had received the commander's order, drew his sword and rammed the hilt into Ashley's stomach, twice. The impacts pushed the air out of her lungs and made her cough. Before her breathing had returned to normal, she received a kick from behind into her calves, which made her stumble and fall. The skin on her palms and knees was shaved open when she hit the cobblestone. The soldier placed one of his boots on her back and pressed her down.

His friend picked up the cloth that had served Farfelee as a gag. It was still soaked from the girl's saliva, but now also coated with dirt from the dusty ground. He shoved it deep past Ashley's lips and knotted the ends tightly behind her head. Ashley retched and almost choked on the disgusting rag in her mouth.

"I have to admit that I am very disappointed", the commander said. He stood in front of Ashely. His feet were so close to her face that she could smell the leather of his boots. "For someone who is facing a lot of discomfort in the very near future, you are surprisingly sassy. I don't know if that comes from a lack of respect or if you are just stupid. However, I see the need to discipline you even before your actual interrogation begins. You do not like how we are treating your friend over there? Maybe you would like to have some cock, too?"

Ashley protested and struggled to get back on her feet, but the soldier who held her down must have had twice her weight in his armor. Her struggles were futile. She was unaware that she had brought herself in a position that made her butt stick up.

"Hey, rapist. Do you want to plough this one?", the commander asked Rulf.

"Please", the man begged. "Please don't make me do this!"

"If you don't, we will squeeze your balls with glowing pliers! Come on, this will be your last ever chance to stick your cock into a woman."

Ashley heard Rulf's sobbing while he knelt down behind her and undid first his own pants, then hers. Fueled by panic, she intensified her struggles, but it was to no use. Rulf grabbed her tighs and pushed them apart. A jolt of dismay and nausea ran through Ashley's body as she felt the tip of his stiff shaft invading her vulva. She groaned from the pain of being penetrated against her will.

"I... I can't", Rulf stuttered. "She's too dry. I cannot get inside her like this."

"I bet, that did not stop you from ploughing the tailor's daughter", the commander mocked. "Come on, you can find a way!"

And Rulf did. He spat into his hand and rubbed it over his throbbing dick. That was enough lubrication to resume the ordered ravaging of his co-inmate. Carefully moving his hips back and forth, he drove his erection deeper and deeper into Ashley until she could feel his scrubby pubic hair brushing against her butt cheeks and his balls slapping against her labia. Her cries mixed with those from Farfelee. Either girl could only utter muzzled noises, since they were both gagged, Ashley with the dirty rag and Farfelee with her defiler's cock, constantly being driven down her throat. Both of them surrendered to their humiliation, understanding that any attempt to fight back would only result in more pain.

Knowing she wasn't going anywhere now, the soldier lifted his foot from Ashley's back and got ready to replace the first of the executioners, who had just spurted his load over Farfelee's face. The weight being lifted from her back gave her a chance to breathe better, but it did not improve Ashley's situation. Rulf, raturous from his humping, pulled Ashley up by tugging on the collar of her blouse. Then he ripped its front open, making her bare breasts spring out. Rulf grabbed them heedlessly and started to knead them, not caring how much it would hurt her.

The only option Ashley had left was groaning out the pain and enduring her defilement. Rulf's shackles were long enough to allow him digging both of his heands into her breasts from behind and holding her in a firm grip like this while he continued his thrusting. Ashley had already lost her sense of time when she finally felt his dick pulsing inside her, pumping the semen into her tunnel.

Rulf had driven his sex beast out for now. He quickly withdrew and sat down on the floor, sobbing and babbling incoherent apologies to Ashley. With shaking hands, Ashley pulled her pants back up. Then she tried to undo her gag, but the knot was too tight. So she did her best to wrap her naked breasts in her torn blouse and rolled herself up on the ground, bracing for any further attacks.

"What shall we do with them, Sir?", the first executioner asked. He had completely redressed in the meantime. The other two had just finished with Farfelee, and were already re-arranging their armor, too. The trio had been replaced by the two guards from the escort and the coachman. They were not granting Farfelee a break.

"Put the rapist in the cell with the three mutineers who tried to take over their boat. Tell them why he is here. This night is going to be interesting for him. The forgetful damsel gets a solitary cell. I want her to have a quiet place where she can revise her attitude."

"And the other girl? How should we execute her?"

"Not so hasty. Her lesson is not finished yet. When the three over there are done with her, lock her in the pillory. Hang a sign around her neck saying that everyone is invited to make a deposit. I will let the night shift know, too. When your shift begins in the morning, you will give her a whipping. The standard set of 30 strokes with the cane and 20 lashes with the single tail will be enough. Be careful not to overdo it. She is not supposed to die under the whip. That would make it too easy for her. I understand that one of our gibbet cages is free? Replace the dead one with her. Let her rot dangling there."

Two of the soldiers grabbed Ashley and lifted her up. They pushed her through the door of the keep, while the third stayed behind to guard Rulf and oversee Farfelee's ongoing ordeal. The inside of the keep was dark and the air was foul. Ashley's eyes took some time to get used to the dim light coming from the few torches on the wall. The two soldiers urged her past the heavy wooden doors leading to the rooms of the ground floor until they arrived at a steep wooden staircase. Ashley almost slipped and fell when she hurried to climb down after one of her captors had pulled his sword again and threatened to give her another blow with the hilt.

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, Ashley looked into a seemingly endless tunnel. This had to be the old mine Rulf had told her about. The torches that hung in an irregular pattern on the rotten wooden beams supporting the tunnel only allowed a rough imagination of the cave system's dimensions.

The trio walked through the labyrinth of the tunnels, passing countless cells inhabited by prisoners. On one occasion, they had to take a detour, since the tunnel that suggested the direct way had already collapsed and was buried under a pile of rubble. Ashley quickly drove the thought out of her mind, how many poor souls had found their grave in this tunnel.

They finally stopped walking when the tunnel ended in a doorless wall. But Ashley's confusion was quickly replaced by horror when she discovered the metal trap door in the ground. One of the soldiers stepped forward and opened it.

"Strip and get in there!", the other commanded while he undid the bolts that kept the shackles around Ashley's wrists locked. He also pulled a knife from his belt and cut open the gag, allowing her to spit it out.

Ashley could not believe what she had just heard. She was to be locked in there? Naked? Not that she would have needed clothes to keep herself warm here. In fact, the damp air in the tunnels and the heat from the torches made her sweat like a pig. But the thought of climbing into this dark hole, without the comfort or protection of clothing, was too much for her. Tears ran over her face as she trembled and wept in humiliation.

A thrust with the hilt into her unprotected side made her obey eventually. She took off everything she wore, her shoes, her torn blouse and her pants, and dropped it on the ground next to the trapdoor, hoping the jailers would leave it there so she could redress when she was allowed out again.

Other than the darkness suggested, the cell was not a bottomless pit. Ashley felt the straw on the ground scratching her feet when she was in up to her belly button. The sole of a boot landed on her front and squeezed one of her breasts, indicating that she did not move fast enough. Ashley quickly bent her knees and sunk beyond the trap door, just in time to avoid another kick that would have hit her face.

Before Ashley even had a chance to do anything else, the heavy door was slammed shut with a loud bang. The bolts made the door resonate nasty screeches as they were pulled over the metal from the outside, sealing the cell. She heard footsteps, getting ever quieter in the distance. Then she was alone in the silent darkness.

To be continued.
 
Chapter 7

"And it was so real, just how everything happens, you know?" - Alex Browning in "Final Destination".

"What the fuck? Let me out! Let me out!", Ashley squirmed in the belts that held her down on the examination table, striving to slip out. Nathan, who had left the simulation a few minutes before Ashley had been woken up, stood next to her, already fully redressed in his uniform.

"Ashley, please lay still", Jessica tried to calm her, without success. Ashley rocked around on the table like a fury. Nathan had no time to enjoy the sight of the topless girl struggeling against her bonds, making the muscles under her skin tense and her fine breasts quiver. He feared that if he did not stop her immediately, she would sooner or later injure herself or damage some of the expensive lab equipment. Both would result in even more dreaded paperwork.

"Ashley!", he shouted as loud as he could. "If you do not calm down, we will have to sedate you!"

That was no empty threat. There were a tazer and a syringe box with several doses of a mild anesthetic hidden in a drawer nearby. But they did not have to use them, since Ashley finally lay still and waited restively while Ava and Jessica removed the electrodes and unbuckled her straps.

"I know that what you have just experienced was probably very disturbing", Nathan appeased.

"You could have warned me before I joined your sick game!", Ashley protested. She hurried to stand up and put the top of her jump suit back on, closing the zipper as high as it went.

"That would have biased your experience. By the way, one of the papers you signed said that you were going to be subjected to psychological extreme situations."

"Psychological?", Ashley's voice cracked. "I got beaten up! I was raped! That was a very physical experience!"

"Was it? You are free to check yourself later when you are back in your room. I guarantee you, that you won't find any signs of abuse on your body. Everything that you have encountered in the past hours was your brain interpreting electrical impulses from the computer. It was not more real than a dream."

"Nightmare would be the better word", Ashley snapped back. Although Nathan had definately seen her more relaxed before, he judged that she had calmed down enough to lead a constructive conversation now. Consequently, he invited her to join him in the meeting room.

Moments later, they sat around the small table in a room next to the laboratory. Ashley devoured the box of cookies that waited on the table and gulped down the cold water from the carafe in one go. It was obvious that the merely psychological events had draughted her physical energy reserves as well. Nathan nodded towards Jessica who immediately wrote something down on her notepad. Two projectors threw the test log on the bare wall. The numbers and codes would have looked like hieroglyphs to someone wo did not understand their context to the simulation. Someone like Ashley for example.

"I should have bet money on you", Nathan joked after he had waited for Ashley to finish her snack. "I knew you would step up for poor Farfelee."

"You knew that is would happen?"

"It was a possible outcome. The scenario that you went through today was heavily scripted. And that was necessary. Although we have some of the best procedures for artificial intelligence that exist, you still have to make sure your characters act logical. And so you have to work with certain key events in the simulation were you anticipate several possible inputs, or better said, decisions from the participant. While the men attacked Farfelee, you could have stayed quiet, which would have saved you from the punishment and you would have been taken to a normal cell. If you had tried to intervene by actually attacking the executioners, your punishment would have been a lot harsher. On top of being defiled by Rulf, you would have received a whipping. You chose the middle of the two. If it makes you feel better, stopping Farfelee's ordeal was never a possible outcome."

"Is Rulf really a rapist?", Ashley asked after thinking about it for a moment.

"He is a digital character. He cannot commit any crimes. In fact, he does not even exist outside the simulation. Everything he remembered, or claimed to remember, never happened. The same applies to everything you think to remember from the past hours. But it seemed to be so real, didn't it?"

"Yes", Ashley said quietly. "Yes, everything seemed very real, like I was actually there."

"Good. As I told you, that was the objective of today's session. To prove the virtual world feels just as real as you remember the real world."

"Talking about remembering", Ashley tried to change the topic. "While I was logged into the simulation, I had no memory of reality. I mean, I did not know it was a simulation."

"That is common for someone's first session. But it will change when you get used to the simulation. Most of the people who tested it knew it after the second or third login. Imagine buying new leather shoes: You have to wear them a couple of times before they fit perfectly. It is the same with our simulation. Repeated logins will strengthen the bond between you and your avatar."

"My avatar?" Ashley seemed confused.

"Yes. You probably think about that cheesy movie with the blue aliens right now", Nathan smiled. "And you're not that wrong. In the movie, the people take over the control of alien bodies by connecting with them over a computer. It works pretty much the same in our case, just that your avatar only exists inside the computer. Before your first login, it was just an abstract object in the code, an empty hull. With your login, a new instance of this object was created. It was initialized by your most recent memory of yourself, which was mostly limited to your appearance, including your shaved pussy an the butterfly tattoo on your thigh. Not quite historically accurate if you think about the period our little game is set in, right?"

Ashley looked baffledly at Nathan, her mouth open in silent outrage. Jessica also gave him a stern look, indicating that his last comment had been inapproptiate.

"You said that you were also in the simulation", Ashley finally found her words again, her face still glowing with embarrasment. "Did you control an avatar, too?"

"Yes, but none that you encountered. My avatar was set to be invisible and untouchable, so that I could be sure to oversee everything first hand without the risk of interfering, albeit only by accident. You could say, I was the castle ghost."

Nathan smiled, but none of the two women were in the mood to smile back.

"However", he continued after taking a look at his watch. "It is past 9 pm already. Jessica will take you back to your room now. Take your time to recover. We have removed the TV and provided you with some literature instead. But do not forget to get your sleep. I want you to be rested for the second session tomorrow."

"I have to go into the simulaton again?", Ashley protested. It was obvious that she was not looking forward to it.

"Of course! Our experiment is not concluded. As I told you before, several logins are usually necessary before your avatar can access your memories from outside the simulation. The next target of our test will be to confirm our previous results. That is the thing with empirical studies: The more corresponding data you have, the better."

Ashley sat there, tensed. Nathan knew she wanted to say something, but did not dare to.

"Don't you think of abandoning the experiment!", he answered her unspoken question. "You have your 'get out of jail free card' dangling in front of your nose. Do not make the mistake to let it slip. It won't come back."

Nathan stood up and waited until Jessica had put all of her notes back into the paper folder she had taken them from. Then he accepted the folder and opened the door, indicating Jessica and Ashley to leave the room. There was nothing left to be said for now.

---

Back in her room, Ashley noticed with disappointment that the TV was in fact gone. At least the fridge had been restocked with fresh drinks and there was also a small basket with fruits on her desk now. But the most spectacular change were the publications that had been added to the shelf. Regardless if text book, novel or magazine, they all dealed with the same topic: Ancient and medieval torture.

After eating a banana for supper and enjoying a bottle of ice cold orange juice, Ashley took one of the magazines and started flipping through its pages. She doubted that it had been created for educational purposes, since it mostly contained glossy photos of women, wearing either little or no clothes, in various dungeon scenes. There was a picture of a woman who was stretched over a replica of a torture rack, her lean body glistening with sweat (or rather some oily lotion that she had applied before the photo had been taken).

There was a picture of a women who was locked in a pillory, receiving a whipping from a man wearing a leather mask, her butt cheeks and tighs bearing dark red stripes. Was this how Farfelee's morning would look like?, Ashley wondered. But then she remembered that there was no naive young girl named Farfelee who had only wanted to save her father and would now go through hell for her bravery.

And then there was a picture that made Ashley's heart stop for a moment, beacause it reminded her of a very familiar situation. The picture showed naked woman kneeling on the floor, her body bent forward and her butt sticking up high. The photographer had focused the image on her tied hands that she leaned on, but the man taking her from behind could still be seen clearly.

That was enough with the explicit images for now, Ashley concluded and grabbed one of the books. It was a novel about a young nun who was accused of being a strumpet to the devil. The book was so monotonous and depressing that it landed back in the shelf before the protagonist even made it to the torture chamber.

The work that finally managed to keep her interest was a book that dealt with ancient and medieval torture and execution devices. Despite knowing how barbaric and unfair the proceedings had been back in time, she developed a morbid curiosity for the inhuman tools that had been used to enforce a twisted justice. Breaking on the wheel, burning at the stake, crucifixions...

After reading, Ashley had troubles falling asleep. She dreaded the next session in the morning like it was a dentist appointment, only worse. Reading all that literature had been a mistake, since now she could think about nothing else but the unknown inhumanities she would have to endure the next time she entered the simulation.

When the sleep had finally found her, the night was almost over. Ashley was woken up by Jessica knocking on the door, bringing her breakfast and a some underwear she had taken from her own wardrobe. Ashley was tempted to hug her for this rare display of altruism, but then she remembered that this could be misinterpreted as an attempted attack by the soldier who accompanied the assistant. Hence, she accepted the gift with a simple "Thank you!". The slip fitted perfectly, since Ashley and Jessica had almost the same waist. The bra however was a number or two too large. No wonder, Ashley thought, thinking about the way the blouse of Jessica's uniform tightened over her bust. A little to large for the standard size.

An hour later, Ashley and Jessica walked down the stairs to the ground floor where they entered the elevator taking them down to the basement. Ashley had figured out by now that the reason she had to take the stairs on the first part of the trip was, that the elevator only connected the ground floor with the basement. It was housed in an annex that had probably been added long after the house was built. The elevator did not only serve as transport for people and cargo, but also as airlock and access control for the laboratory. Its doors would only open, if a key card was held in front of a small terminal.

Nathan already awaited them im the laboratory. When Ashley saw the flawlessly clean surfaces of the furniture and the stainless steel of the two examination tables, she was again remembered of a dental practice.

"Welcome back to your second test session", Nathan opened. "Today, we will try to find out how many login attempts it will take until you can access your memories over your avatar. This is going to go the following way: You, or better said your avatar, will be taken from the cell and brought into an interrogation chamber. There you will meet Brutus. He is a really charming guy. But he is completely digital, so do not get your hopes high of getting a real life date with him."

The way Nathan described the events of the near future made Ashley feel uneasy. There was no question that he was greatly exaggerating with euphenisms.

"However", he continued. "Brutus will have great interest in you. He would be happy to obtain some personal information. And that is how we will be able to determine if our test was successful: Tell him something personal, the date of your birthday maybe? That will satisfy both him and us."

The target was set and there was nothing left to discuss. Ashley knew that there was no way she could delay or avoid the unevitabale. She took off the top of her prison jump suit and laid down on the examination table, waiting for Jessica and Ava to put the restraints and the electrodes on her. She did not miss the disappointment of Nathan and the two nerds in the control room when they saw that Ashley was wearing a bra now.

"This time, you will go in alone", Nathan explained. "I will be monitoring the session from here."

Ashley did not like the fact that this time she would be completely on her own indeed. But before she could utter any words of protest, she felt the electric pulses hitting her temples. And then, there was darkness again.

To be continued.
 
Chapter 8

Impenetrable darkness surrounded her. And silence. The only sound Ashley heard was her own panting. How could an enclosed place like this feel so eternal?

Ashley had woken up in the underground cell the jailers had shoved her into, crammed in an awkward position. The chamber they had locked her in was cubic, extending about three feet in each direction. It was impossible to find a comfortable position, or even sit up straight. Her body ached and her joints hurt. When moving, she had to take care not to cut herself on the sharp rocks sticking out of the walls.

The struggle had taken its toll on her. Her body was sweaty and her wet hair stuck to her face. Her eyes burned from the perspiration dripping off her brows and running into them. But it was not only her body that cried from anxiety. Ashley felt a wave of terror creeping up her spine, making her shiver with fear. What if they would leave her here forever until she died? How long had it been since she had been left here? Minutes, hours, days?

Ashley wanted to scream to release the panic, but everytime she tried to take a deep breath, she felt an immense pressure on her chest, denying her lungs to draw enough breath even for a whimper. She got nauseous and the room around her seemed to slowly turn over, making her loose her balance, sending her into one of the walls.

When she had recovered from the short faint, she felt a strange moistness between her tighs. It could not possible be the rest of Rulf's semen oozing out of her, since it already had formed an itchy crust on her labia long ago. The stench that hit her nose gave her certainty: Her panic attack had made her piss herself! She rolled up in a fetal position, weeping in humiliation.

"Get out!"

Ashley had been sunken so deep into her misery that she had not heard the trapdoor being unlocked and opened. Two soldiers looked into the pit from above. She needed no second invitation, and although every move made her body hurt, she hurried to climb out of the cell. Her movements were clumsy after having been forced to endure the packed posture for so long, but apparently she moved fast enough that the two soldiers saw no need in rushing her with kicks or punches like their friends had done before.

"Wait, where are my clothes?", Ashley burst out in anger and dismay alike when she saw the empty spot on the ground where she had last seen the remains of her torn blouse, her pants and her shoes. The answer came in the form of a slap across her face, cracking open one of her lips and making it bleed.

"Shut up, you!", the soldier who had hit her hissed. "We do not want you to wear fancy clothes here. We want you to confess. That is why we are taking you to one of our interrogation rooms. Unless you want to go back into your cosy hole?"

Instead of waiting for an answer, he turned Ashley around, grabbed her wrists and held them firmly behind her back. His companion put tight shackles on them. The chain connecting the irons was very short, allowing amost no movement.

One on each side, they grabbed Ashley by her upper arms and led her through the tunnels. The humiliation of being led naked past the cells with the other imnates watching her felt hauntingliy familiar, like she had experienced a situation like this before. In another life maybe? She didn't even remember her own wrongdoing that had brought her to this awful dungeon in the first place.

The group stopped in front of a wooden door that looked like all the others they had passed before. But this time, they opened the door and pushed Ashley through it, into a rather large chamber. Large at least in comparison to the cell in the ground. The dim light of the torches gave only a rough imagination of the room's full dimensions, but she could see enough to understand its purpose: This was a torture chamber! There were all kinds of unspeakable devices scattered across the place and their obvious purpose was to inflict pain to whoever was put on them.

But for now, Ashley was not mounted on any scary apparatus, but forced to stand against a broad wooden upright beam on the wall, with her back and her cuffed hands pressing against the rough wood. An iron ring that was embedded in the pillar was closed thightly around her neck. Then she was left alone. Ashley worriedly eyed up the opposite wall that held countless bestial instruments. Dangling from hooks in the wall, Bludgeons, whips, pliers and various other gadgets with sharp and pointy edges waited to be used on their next victim.

Watching the torture instruments in the chamber while hearing howls and cries for mercy coming from nearby, certainly from another chamber like this, the waiting felt like hours. When the screams from the other chamber finally died with a gargeling noise, it did not take long until the door to the room Ashley was kept in was opened.

"Look at you!", the creature entering through the portal exclaimed in joy.

Ashley could not think of another word to describe the man in front of her than 'creature'. He was rather skinny, walking with a constantly stooped posture that gave him an alienlike appearance. His head seemed to be too large for the rest of his body, with wide open eyes gouging out more than it seemed natural. The abnormally broad grin he presented as he eyed up Ashley, exposed naked and tied to the beam, only added to his creepy aura. And he reeked. It was impossible to determine if the stench came from his mouth or the dirty clothes he wore. Sweat, feces, onions, garlic and basically any other nasty smell Ashley could imagine. And she got more repulsed with every step the man took towards her.

"You are so young and pretty!", he said, quickly extending his hand and rudely grabbing Ashley's left nipple, pinching and tugging it.

"Don't touch me!", she revolted, trying to fend him off by kicking at him, but without success. Her legs were weary and stiff from the wait in the stressfull position and he dodged too quickly to be hit by her clumsy attempts of resistance. In a perfectly timed move, he stomped on both of Ashley's feet at the same time, holding them pinned to the floor. Not wanting the creep to have his triumph, she surpressed the scream that craved to escape her mouth. But she could not stop the tears from rolling down her face.

"There is passion in you! I like that!", he responded as he used both hands now to fondle her breasts. Ashley turned her face away is disgust and shame, but that only invited her defiler to lick over her cheek with his tounge. When he finally got bored, he stepped back. The weight of his boot being lifted off her crushed feet was just as bad as having them stepped on. Ashley drew a sharp breath, fighting not to reveal her pain.

"How can it be that your skin is so soft?", the creep asked as he walked over towards the wall with the tools. "Are you some noble brat that has fallen from grace? You know what? Why don't we get to know each other a little better?"

He grabbed one of the tools from the wall and turned back towards Ashley, hiding the item behind his back.

"I am Brutus", he smiled and hinted a little bow. "And what is your name?"

"I'm Ashley."

"Ashley", he repeated. "Do you know what? We will play a little game. My favourite game, actually. I invented it myself. I call it 'Talk or get hit'. Let's try it out!"

With a quick move of his arm, Brutus revealed the flogger he held in his hand. Ashley had no chance to grasp the situation before the leather struck across her belly, leaving behind bright red welts on her skin. This time, she actually let out a quick cry.

"It stings, doesn't it? This one is my own creation. The executioners always smile at it, because the strands only have little knots on the end instead of the little steel bullets their flogger has. But the truth is, their flogger breaks the skin too fast and they can only use it a limited number of times until they have shredded their victim's flesh off the bone. It is a tool of destruction that any moron can handle. My flogger however is a tool that requires skill!"

A second blow landed across Ashley's thighs. And a third between her breasts.

"It will not break the skin. At least if it is not used too many times on the same spot. But the pain is still considerable, don't you agree?"

Ashley's approval came in the form of quick yelps as a series of lashes rained over her breasts, her waist and her crotch. The bondage made it impossible for her to escape or protect herself from the blows.

"Please!", she begged as Brutus finally took a short break to catch his breath. "I do not know what you want me to say. This must be a misunderstanding! Please let me go. I..."

"Ah, ah, ah! Shhh!", Brutus interrupted her by putting his finger over her lips. "You will do anything I want? You are innocent? I have heard so many people say this. They always try to negotiate. Let me tell you this: There are no misunderstandings here. Everyone who is brought here is guilty. Some of them just don't know it in the beginning. But they all confess in the end."

He took an intense look at the work he had done on her. Then he focused on her breasts, tapping their outer sides with the handle of the whip.

"The skin is so soft at this spot. That's why it hurts so much when you get hit there!"

He took a few steps back again started whipping Ashley's breasts, hitting them exactly on the spot where the handle had touched them before. Ashley writhed in her bonds and howled in agony while Brutus altered his lashes between her left and her right breast.

"Round 1 of the game is over! Let's continue with round 2...", Brutus announced, walking over to the wall, swapping the flogger with a wooden bludgeon. "Can you already think of anything that you want to tell me?"

"Please, you have to believe me! I haven't done anything wrong!"

An explosion of little stars flickered in front of Ashley's eyes as the tip of the club hit her left shin. The pain seemed to last for ages and spread from the spot where she had been hit into the lower part of her left leg. Her right leg underwent the same experience shortly after.

"Stop, stop!", Ashley pleaded through her tears. But Brutus showed no pity. After repeatedly striking her shins for several times, he moved on to her feet, letting the end of his club smash down on them. The wooden stick bounced back with a clonking sound everytime it hit a bone under the skin. Ashley shifted from one side to the other, as far as the iron around her neck allowed her, in desperate attempts to escape the impacts.

"Thats right!", Brutus laughed, catching his breath. "Dance for me! Or talk! Sooner or later, I will break a bone with my little toy!"

Ashley fought to hold herself upright. The sharp edges of the bludgeon had chafed the skin of her feet and legs open and blood was seeping out, making the cobblestone floor slippery where she stood. A hit from the side against her knees made her loose balance and slide down. The iron ring stopped her fall, choking her. Ashley had troubles to breathe with her own weight pulling her down, making her strangulate herself. Brutus did not care for her peril and kept beating her, now also moving up to her tighs and her butt.

"You can stop this! Just tell me what you have to tell me!"

But the only reply Brutus got from his victim was a rasping croak. Ashley felt her lungs burning, revolting for air. She knew that she had to push herself up, but her legs, wildly jerking around, did not obey her. The pain from the beating did not reach her consciousness anymore, her only target was to survive now. And that was the point were she felt her body going limp and the darkness crawling over her again.

To be continued.
 
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Chapter 9

The brightness of the artifical light in the laboratory hurt Ashley's eyes when she woke up. A violent nausea hit her and she had the feeling that the room aound her was spinning. It got worse by the the second and when she became unable to withstand the urge any longer, she puked her soul out. Luckily, she managed to throw herself around as far as the restrains allowed and turned her head to the side, so that the better part of her slimy stomach contents landed on the floor instead of her face.

"I am sorry", she mumbled in shame as she looked at the mess she had made and smelt the sour stench rising up from the ground.

"Don't worry", Jessica answered, putting her hand on Ashley's shoulder in an attempt to soothe her. "This is not the first time we have seen this. We are prepared."

And indeed, Ava was already approaching with a mop and a bucket of water and cleaned the floor while Jessica carefully wiped the remaining puke off Ashley's mouth with a wet cloth.

"What happened?", Ashley wanted to know, still not fully understanding the sudden stop of the simulation.

"Your avatar died", Nathan explained. "That made the system pull the emergency brakes on the simulation. It works pretty much the same way as a dead man's switch. The system constatly pings your avatar for vital signs and if there is no reply, it will automatically follow its programmed security measures. Brutus made you choke your avatar to death. He was not supposed to do that, of course. But don't worry, we have already added this as a defect to the backlog."

"That means it will not happen again", Jessica translated Nathan's last sentence.

"We have reset your avatar and are ready to continue", Nathan announced. Ashley doubted he would grant her a break to recover. "Remember, we want to determine if you can access your memories from your avatar. Tell Brutus your birthday and we will know that our test was successfull."

Ashley felt dead tired and still a little dizzy. But before she could protest, the electric pulses from the cables sent her back into the simulation.

---

"There you are! Good to have you back, I thought I had lost you", Brutus greeted her, still holding the bludgeon in his hands.

Ashley found herself back in the torture chamber, still locked to the pillar with the iron ring around her neck and her hands chained behind her back, offering no defence against the brutal attacks she had epxerienced from the man in front of her. She looked down on her naked body that still bore the signs of the violations it had experienced from the flogger and the battering with the club. Her head told her that her body was hurting, but she understood now that it was not acutally her body, but a hull that was formed after it from her mind. Her avatar.

"November 22nd!", she shouted at her torturer, hoping that it would instantly allow her to escape from this nightmare. "My birthday is November 22nd and I am 23 years old. My Name is Ashley Connor and this is not real. I am in a simulation."

Brutus remained motionless, staring at Ashley with empty eyes. The awkward silence in the dungeon was broken by a slow clapping that came from outside. Out of nothing, the door of the chamber opened and Nathan entered, still clapping. Apparently, he had entered the simulation, too. This time however, he was no invisible ghost, but stood in the chamber like he had stood in the laboratory moments ago. His uniform however had been replaced by clothes similar to those the commander had worn in the yard the day before.

"Master!", Brutus bowed and took a step back so that Nathan's view on the tied up Ashley was unobstructed.

"Nathan!", Ashley exclaimed. "I can access my memories! Can we please stop now? I do not feel well."

"No", he smiled. "I think you are doing just fine, right where you are."

"Nathan, I am not joking. I want you to stop the simulation right now!"

"I can stop the simulation at any time. That is, if you answer me another question."

"Anything", Ashley blabbered in relief. "What do you want to know?"

"What are the names of your accomplices from the robbery in the jewlery store earlier this year?"

"What?" Ashley was confused. Out of all possible questions, this had been the last one she would have had expected.

"You heard me. There were three people involved in the robbery, but you were the only one who was caught. I am pretty sure that you know the identity and possibly also the whereabouts of the other two."

"This is impossible. You cannot ask me that!"

"Then I am afraid, that we have no other choice but to try out some more of these items on you. Brutus, the beating has shown great effect on her body, but it did not make her talk yet. Why don't you try the breast squeezer on her?"

"An excellent idea, master!", Brutus agreed and fetched another instrument from the wall. It was a contraption with an unambiguous porpuse: Two flat iron bars, mounted on a threaded rod on each end and being held in place by large butterfly nuts. Twisting the nuts would make the bars move closer together, until they crushed whatever was placed between them.

Bruts wasted no time placing the squeezer on Ashley's chest. He held the deivce pressed against her breastbone with one hand while he pulled her teats through the gap between the bars by tugging them on her nipples with his other hand. Ashley's protests and curses did nothing to stop him as he tightened the bars by turning the nuts. He stopped when the pressure was high enough to prevent the squeezer from falling off.

Ashley clenched her teeth and was careful to breathe flatly. Every movement of her ripcage made the device move, too. On the inside of the bars, there where little iron thorns. Although they were not sharp enough to pierce the skin, they still dug themselves painfully into the soft tissue of her breasts and scratched it with each little motion that rocked the tool.

"This is only the beginning", Nathan commented as he watched patiently from the side. "When the pressure is increased, the blood flow in your tits will stop. They will turn purple and you will get the feeling that they can burst any minute. Do you want to let it come this far or do you want to answer my question?"

"You have no authority to ask me this question! You do not work for the law. This is outrageous!"

"Actually, Ashley, I do. Come on, did you really think you were randomly chosen for this experiment? The honorable Mr. Johnson gave me his go to make you talk."

Ashley was overrun by disgust as Nathan mentioned the name of the vile prosecuting attorney who had brought her behind bars. What would he say if he saw her like this? He would certainly be delighted while repeatedly insisting that his only interest was finding the truth and bring justice to society.

"This is not right, you cannot torture me like this! And you have to provide me with a lawyer if you want to interrogate me!"

"I am not torturing you. You are undergoing a neurological stimulation that you have explicitly agreed to. And this is less an interrogation, but more a jovial chat."

"Then you can jovially go fuck yourself! I quit. Stop the simulation right now!"

"I am sorry Ashley, but that is not your call. Didn't you read the papers you signed? They clearly stated that it would not be up to you to determine the procedure and the duration of the experiment. And since you still do not want to answer my question... Brutus?"

"Yes Master!", Brutus drooled from the excitement while the kept turning the nuts and squeezed Ashley's breasts further. Ashley grunted as she felt the grip of the metal increasing and the blunt thorns penetrating her skin even more.

A light throbbing started in her chest. Ashley guessed it was the blood flow being impeded by the pressure. Little blue veins became visible under her bright skin. Her breast were unnaturally deformed from the squeezing and her nipples stood out as taut peakes.

"I think you can use some extra motivation", Nathan grinned while he presented Ashley two small metal clamps. The surface of their insides was not flat, but toothed. "Can you guess where these are going?"

Ashley did not need to guess, since she found out moments later when Nathan passed the pegs to Brutus, who immediately went on to place them on her nipples, one on each. She howled and tears flowed over her face as she felt the tight metal jaws biting into the delicate tips of her breasts. Brutus waited a few minutes until the clamps had molded themselves into her aureola, clinging securely on the sensitive tissue. Then he took two small lead weights and fastened them on the clamps, that offered little loops designed for that purpose.

"Again", Ashley heard Nathan pick up the conversation. With the tears flooding her eyes, she could only hear him at the moment. "Who where your accomplices in the robbery? I want to know their names and their last known whereabouts."

"Fuck you! I am not telling you!"

Nathan sighed. Then he nodded toward Brutus, who instantly continued to twist the nuts, increasing the pressure. They had reached a point where the resistance of Ashley's breasts getting mangled by the press made the nuts harder to turn. Brutus groaned in effort as he tightened the squeezer, stressing her breasts even more. By doing so, he wrenched on the device, sending further jolts of pain into Ashley's chest from the sharp bars digging into her flesh and the weighted clamps dancing on her nipples.

"Please, stop it!", Ashley cried, her tears running down her face, mixing with snot and drool. Through her tears she could see her breasts changing their color, slowly becoming purple. And the weird throbbing in them intensified, growing into a heavy pounding. Was that her heart racing or the blood in her udders aching for circulation?

She still could not accept the situation. The whole thing had been a setup to make her betray her friends, Chloe and Eli. They had promised each other to remain silent if one of them got caught. And Ashley had sworn not falter and break her promise. But this was beyond anything she could have anticipated. She was actually getting tortured! This was impossible, she was living in a constitutional state after all!

All of a sudden, the pain ceased and the dark gloom of the torture chamber yielded to the bright light of the laboratory. Ashley was back in the real world.

---

"Why the fuck did you stop the simulation?", Nathan barked that the two operators who where watching them from the control room.

"Because the time limit of six hours was reached for the session", Ava replied in their stead.

"You have to be kidding me!"

"The time limit was established by the neuroscientists as part of the test protocol", Jessica reminded him. "We have to follow it or we are at risk of endagering the participant's mental health. The protocol also demands a break of at least eight hours before re-entering the simulation."

Ashley looked at Nathan. There was no question that he was pissed. She could tell by the way he looked around in the room.

"Fine", Nathan finally groused. "We will continue our conversation tomorrow, Ashley. Ava, call security and tell them to escort Miss Connor back to her room. Jessica, I would like you to join me in my private office for further discussions in an hour."

Despite her messed up situation, Ashley felt a certain satisfication. Nathan had not managed to break her, and she knew things were not exactly going according to his plan. This first battle may not have been a victory for her, but at least it had ended in a draw.

To be continued.
 
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