FSE

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ORIGIN.SYS

J2 had a good life.

Morning:

Wake up in the Batch 3 N/A dorm. Collect and eat breakfast ration. Avoid 0B - he teased a little harsher than J2 liked. Que up for the shower, work the hot cleaning chemicals into his pure white fur. They'd track fur and organic particulates all over the Avonlight if they didn't stay clean.

Await Directives. Maybe hang around 13, she would usually have something funny or thoughtful to say.

Directive 1:

Read the Directives displayed on his face plate, and follow the included map. J2 and his batch-mates from Batch 3 N/A would spill from their dorm into tubular white corridors. J2 usually took one of the hypertubes up.

At least, it always felt like up. Hard to tell. He'd seen a superstructure schematic of the Avonlight once. It was mind-bogglingly huge, and "up" wasn't always a consistent direction. The dorms and commons were actually inside a giant gyro. But going to the Data Missional always felt like "up".

There would always be a queue at the Missional checkpoint. As everyone approached, the screens on their shoulders, hips, and the sides of their heads lit up to display their ID and batches. J2-3 N/A was proud. Not many N/A batch members in the data Missional. Most were INTs - they were made for this stuff. Literally.

He would take his assigned chair in the Missional and get to work. Whatever the computers had a hard time deciding would flash in front of his holo screen. He never worried too much if he was right or not.

Most of it was data corruption handling. Eight versions of the same data would show up, and all but one would be garbled or just wouldn't make sense even skimming it. Text, images, patterns, classifications.

Sometimes the data blocks were interesting. Snippets of facts about species and planets and phenomena recorded by the Avonlight. Beautiful nebulae. Sentient mushroom colonies.

Break:

Receive break-commons assignment, follow map.

Acquire and eat lunch ration.

Visit a library terminal if any were available. He never had much processing allowance, but he would use it to look up more about some of the interesting snippets he'd corrected recently.

Await another Directive.

There would be a higher chance of cleaning duties for the second part of the day. Every N/A cleaned corridors and facilities sometimes, no matter how good they were at other tasks. Follow the map, do the thing, or take a seat in another Missional. Every now and then he would end up in a Lab Missional taking observational notes on simulations.

Dorm time:

Follow the map, return to the dorm.

Play some games. The pilot sims were fun, but he would never be good at it. 0B would make fun of him. J2 preferred the holo sculptors, the reflex games, or the strategy ones. He would only start playing a strategy game if everyone else looked busy. He preferred not to play against his batch-mates.

Acquire dinner ration.

Eat.

Sleep.

Prep for another morning. Follow directives, learn interesting things, relax, sleep again. Repeat.

J2 could honestly say he was happy. What more could anyone want?

SYSTEM INTERRUPT

The Avonlight coasted at a measly ten times the speed of light, surrounding herself in a bubble that gently adjusted local physical constants just right, effectively telling the cosmic speed limit to go **** itself when she was around. This bubble had a secondary effect of unraveling any motes of space dust in her way down to their constituent particles, then flattening those too if they looked like they had any fight left in them.

Generation upon generation of protogens were grown, programmed, and followed Avonlight's directives while living out lives of comfort and security. They lived galaxies away from war and woes that plagued any species knit by evolution. Avonlight's protogens sometimes asked deep questions, and she gave them answers. They were part of a purpose so grandiose their minds could only contain a fraction of it at a time. To learn, to know, to go and to be. Avonlight was still early in her mission, only a few billion years into her great journey through the depths of the myriad spacetimes of the multiverse. She was noble, she was beautiful, and she was mighty. Rarely did anything really present a significant threat to her.

She saw the Labyrinth reaching out from an adjacent brane (a neighboring dimension, if you will). Avonlight could have annihilated the intruder with a touch. But no, she let it through. The Labyrinth was a teacher, too, and had not yet served its full purpose in the grand tapestry of cosmic history. So she let it claw through her, tallied the damage, assessed elements needed for the repairs. The Labyrinth drifted off on its own Brane toward another planetoid and a few more life-forms destined for its story. Later Avonlight would query the Labyrinth to learn what came of Batch 3 N/A, and learn the fate of one protogen who left their mark on the tapestry.

/* Nerd comments: These aren't really relevant to the recorded events, but we felt they were interesting inclusions. Feel free to skimp on these portions.

Avonlight is, in fact, network of every instance of herself across the many-worlds spacetime branches. In other words, infinite Avonlights, acting as a hub-and-spoke network. For adjacent many-worlds branches with essentially no difference, they can divide and conquer. Only the closest hundred thousand or so instances share data however, and this is by design. Avonlight's data lattice can "only" store 2.012 x 10²²? yottabytes of information.

You can't feasibly have duplicate that much data to protect against inevitable file corruption. But evolved species are extremely good at pattern recognition, which can be employed as error correction in ways computers can't easily match. Protogens are especially good for this because they can be programmed. The life support and facilities needed to keep thousands of protogens aboard is a fraction of the mass of a second data lattice. Data storage economy at astronomical scale is counter-intuitive.

Avonlight and her creators did not design the protogen. Some of us are speculating based on Avonlight's age that protogens may not even be the species Avonlight launched with. Perhaps they were a replacement for a previous species that died out? The answer's somewhere in her data lattice. We submitted a search query. Your great-great-grandkids might be alive when the results come in, and that's if Avonlight isn't busy. */

End of Line

It was the middle of a sleep cycle when gravity decided up wasn't up anymore. J2 woke to lurch of weightlessness in his stomach, clutching at his bunk while the walls seemed to unfold around him. A chunk of dorm 3 N/A twisted in some directions that his brain couldn't comprehend, with J2 and many sleeping batch-mates inside. He'd never imagined the walls could flow or snap like that. Shouldn't there be sound with that? Instead there was just dizziness, and he blacked out.

J2's head pounded when he came to. Gravity was back. He was laying on something soft, and it wasn't his bed. Green, thin strands... of grass? He could breathe. It was blue overhead. Was this a planet? Or a dream? He read about dreams a few times.

The dorm - or rather, what looked like a gargantuan bite taken out of it - stood on its side like a piece of half-chewed nutrient block spat out on the floor. He and his his batch-mates were strewn around the grass, many stirring and rolling to their hands and knees. A few didn't move at all.

It had to be a dream, right? There was no way this was real. If something happened to Avonlight - no, that was unthinkable. It was too huge. Even if Avonlight crashed, there would be much, much more of it around... But the dorm was in the giant gyro in her very heart. Or... it was. Yeah, this was physically inconceivable. It was a dream. It had to be.

That meant the strange creatures converging on them weren't real. They were fascinating, no two alike. They had any number of limbs between two and eight, and even more variation in the number of eyes. Most had sharp metal things and made loud noises like they were very, very excited. Or angry. And they were stabbing and bashing his batch-mates. White fur stained red, screens smashed. Real or no, J2's heart raced; he got up and ran. There was another word for a dream like this: Nightmare.

Other things vied for his attention. The seemingly endless flat plains, dotted with hills. Distant spindly towers jutting upward from the landscape, towering above everything else.

He'd never read anything about how to stop a dream, how to get out. He just kept running, and eventually, J2 realized nothing was following him anymore. His legs gave out, and he rolled into a heap, panting for breath. He'd never run so hard.

So this was what a sky looked like?

J2 rolled onto his knees. The dorm was still visible in the distance, but the excited, angry creatures with tools were apparently more interested in picking through the chunk of Avonlight than they were in running down J2.

While he watched, a small silver sphere drifted down into his view. Should he run from this oddity too? A light from the sphere beamed out and washed over J2, scanning him. "Welcome to the Labyrinth," it spouted in a cheery but androgynous voice. "Congratulations on surviving your first minutes! You have already beaten 7-to-1 odds, and you have 0 points. You must have questions!"

He shook his head at the talking ball. "Dreams... do not make sense."

"No more questions? Ok, good luck, newblood!" The sphere shimmered briefly and darted away through the sky.

Nothing else chased him. He could just about hear some of the strange creatures screeching over by what was left of the dorm. Fighting amongst each other for scraps of whatever they figured was valuable. Head spinning, adrenaline crashing, J2 crawled under a bush to hide from the big blue sky and whatever other horrors were out there and might think he was worth something. Exhaustion swept him under.

/* Nerd notes: The designation "J2-3 N/A" is is completely contrived for reasons that will become apparent. Their real unit number was A0, but Avonlight most certainly does not use your Latin alphanumerics. All other designations are 1:1 translations because Avonlight did, in fact, use a base-16 number system, convenient because she produced protogens in batches of 252. */

Could you sleep inside a dream?

An odd question to ask on most days, but suddenly it was of critical importance. If the answer was no, then J2 was not in a dream; this was somehow real. He was struggling for any other means of proving reality itself. At a certain point, he was forced to conclude that he should probably proceed under the assumption that it was.

Proceed... with what?

That sent him back into simmering panic. His routine was gone. His batch-mates were gone. The walls, the corridors, the hypertubes, the Missionals... Oh. And meal dispensers. In one fateful swoop, something had snatched him from seemingly impenetrable security and left him in this world.

J2 made some other observations in the meantime. This was not, in fact, a planet. The ground curved upward ever so slightly, fading into a faint blue haze at mind bending extreme distances. The spires rising to the sky in all directions... well, they punctured the sky. He'd watched things move up them, like they were elevators, and disappear into a ceiling that did a good enough job to fool him into thinking it was a sky. Then again, he'd never seen a real sky, so J2 had no baseline. Also, it was bright with no sun or obvious astral bodies in motion.

So where did that leave him? He was a lone protogen in need of food, water, shelter. There were dangerous things out there.

There wasn't much in the way of cover on the plains, so he kept to the hills and moved from one to the next. But he was noticing a pattern. This was no rolling landscape; the plains were perfectly flat between these astonishingly regular bumps. No two seemed to have quite the same composition of rock and soil types. If he'd been snatched out of the Avonlight with a chunk of his surroundings, were these... scoops of different planets? If they'd come with other beings, then the creatures...

He was still thinking of the others as creatures because he didn't know what they were. But they were using tools; there was a good chance they possessed some level of intelligence. That made them wildly more dangerous, but it also meant maybe he'd find someone half decent? So far, he'd managed to avoid encountering anyone at all.

Several mounds away from the dorm, J2 saw something flying. The sphere thing - or another one just like it. When he struck out towards it, it seemed to sense his intention and raced toward him.

"Hello! You have 0 points. How can I help you today?"

It sounded so... cheerful. It rubbed J2 the wrong way, and his fur stood on end. "What is this place?"

"You are on level one of the Labyrinth."

"How did I get here? Why was I taken? What's the Labyrinth? Put me back!"

The sphere emitted a faint electronic blip for each question, bobbing unphased at the tirade. "Sorry! I can't answer that question at level 1. Sorry! I can't answer that question at level 1. The Labyrinth is a grand test of sentient competence, with an ever-growing number and variety of life forms chosen to participate! Sorry! I can't do that at level 1."

"Well what can you do at level 1?"

"Services include fabricating objects or healing injuries. You have 0 points. You cannot afford services."

J2 wanted to claw the thing apart. Stop being so cheerful. But something told him that was unwise and, more likely than not, impossible. "Okay, assuming higher levels are better, how do I get to the next level? Do I need points?"

A holographic arrow emanated from the bobbing sphere and one of the distant spires illuminated. "Once a day, a victor may ascend."

"A victor... of what?"

"Victory defines itself."

"What does that even mean?"

"Sorry! I can't answer that question at level 1."

That was about all the actual useful information he managed to glean from the overly cheery orb. It had the same singsong "Sorry!" for questions about the lay of the land, what was edible. When J2 finally gave up, the sphere drifted off to... whatever it was doing before.

/* "Labyrinth" was chosen for this translation due to its origin as a mythological prison rather than any maze-like qualities. In just the last 6000 years, the species who designed it were found to have vanished from their home system. The cause is still unclear; preliminary investigations suggest they may have been using the same fundamental principals to build something even more ambitious, only to have it turn on them.*/

Insertion Pointer

Splintered remains of a large wooden structure clung to one of the hill-sized mounds, affirming they were indeed bits of the environment that just so happened to come along with abducted creatures. There were rows upon rows of these mounds across the plains, far as the eye could see. Which was quite far when the ground sloped upward; at a far distance the mounds were just a texture. A fuzz on the endless surface. How many victims did that translate to?

J2 found he wasn't the only one who'd come from a space-faring species, though. In place of a mound ahead was an entire ship, vaguely shaped like an arrowhead. And there were creatures loitering about it... people, J2 reminded himself. They were all different species. Reptilian, mammalian, furred, in anything from rags to jumpsuits - they were talking amongst themselves. They'd already spotted him, and they weren't immediately running him down to murder him, so that was good.

"Look at that clean fur."

"Heh, definitely a newblood."

J2 understood the words. The odds they were all using the same language he'd been born and raised with were basically nil, so there had to be some kind of translation occurring... somewhere, somehow.

"Not even a weapon. What's with the helmet, though?"

"Don't think that's a helmet, Pritz. Looks attached to its face."

"Hey helmet-face! Ya made any points yet?"

"Quiet, Pritz."

That last gravelly voice came from the figure just now ducking out of the ship's wide-open airlock. And he had to duck because he was massive, with horns that curled down and forward alongside his triangular head. His enormous talons dug into well-trodden patch just beyond the doorway. He wore nothing, but his presence and growl stole the entirety of J2's attention; his survival instincts screamed predator. He was frozen in place, fixated on the powerfully built alien.

"Whatcha gonna do with em, boss?"

"I said quiet, Pritz." The boss growled out one side of his mouth. He was idly chewing something, and his tail lashed impatiently. He beckoned with a curved claw. "Well? Get over here, newblood."

Against his impulses screaming for him to run, J2 obeyed. He couldn't help but be awed by the scaled predator's powerful form, drinking in the details; chitinous, spiny armor protected much of his back, head, shoulders, tail, outer limbs; everything else was tough, leathery gray skin.

The beckoning claws snatched J2's faceplate, tipping his head this way and that. "Cybernetics, hrmm? More advanced than most. So you probably already know what the scavs are like. You're either desperate or severely lacking in self-preservation instincts, newblood. Surprised you're still alive."

Scavs. Scavengers? J2 tried to nod, but his head was held fast. "They killed my batch-mates. You don't seem as bad?" He tried to laugh. It came out more like a weak cough.

"Keep telling yourself that. All you're worth is a handful of points. Easy points, though." He gripped the front of J2's breastplate and bodily lifted the protogen two feet off the ground for further inspection.

J2 didn't have any points, but did the boss know that? He put his best amicable smile on his faceplate. Maybe if he played his cards right... "Sure. In exchange for a little food maybe?"

The predator flicked a claw against J2's face. "How do you even eat?"

It took a moment to process the question. Of course, he faceplate looked and acted perfectly solid. J2 opened his mouth and pointed. He didn't talk with the mouth, but the nanites that comprised a protogen faceplate formed one without a second thought. The claw intruding his mouth was unexpected, though. "Uhh..."

Under the razor-toothed grin and spark of the predator's eye, J2 suddenly felt he was a tiny animal who'd just made a fatal wrong move. His feet flailed uselessly for the ground.

"Hehee, boss found a hole..." The others snickered and murmured just out of peripheral.

J2 piped all the confidence he could muster into his tone. "B-Boss found something he wants to trade for?"

"Don't kid yourself. And I'm not your boss. Right now I'm your master, and if I decide to keep you, consider yourself lucky you need to be alive for me to make points off you."

He fell still as it sank in. The boss's two fingers pushed his tongue around for whatever reasons. There was fear, but also a grain of hope; there was at least a chance that he could be considered useful enough to keep alive... Survival had to come first, right?

It was like the boss could read J2's thoughts on his faceplate. "Say it."

"Y-Yes, master."

"Good. Now get to work."

J2's paws hit the ground shortly before his knees. He was pulled by the tongue between the predator's powerful thighs, face to face with a vertical genital slit. The fingers slid out of his maw, only to grip the back of his head and press his shocked maw into the alien anatomy before him.

The predator's body stirred something in J2, something that sent shivers down his spine. The musky, peaty scent overwhelming his senses wasn't helping. He had an inkling what was expected of him. Sexual indulgences weren't unheard of, but not something he or his batch-mates ever engaged in... Supposedly it promoted hormones that reduced work effectiveness.

Boss growled, weight shifting subtly as he pressed forward over J2. This was about survival; he extended his tongue and licked along the slit. Just survival. So why was this... affecting him so strongly? He felt himself stiffen; his own impending hard-on would make itself known shortly. He braced his hands between his knees. Maybe it would go unnoticed.

"You're not impressing me, newblood."

He inhaled sharply, only to get another head-swimming whiff of that musk. He was over-thinking it. A part of him wanted to explore the enticing body, so... why not let it? For survival. So he let his tongue guide him in a new sensory experience; the texture of Master's skin, the way it puffed around the slit. There was a ridge running up the perineum toward the lips as well - felt like a fleshy tube under the skin.

He didn't fully realize the effect he was having until a drop of white liquid rolled down his faceplate. Precum leaked from the pair of points, still soft, just over his head. Master had a hemipenis.

"Pritz," The boss beckoned one of the other, almost forgotten locals. Then his claw came up under J2's chin and lifted his attention to his everted shafts.

Dutifully, he played his tongue over the twin pricks as they stiffened. While he worked, more hands grabbed at his hips and lifted him to his paws, forcing him to bend with his head held in place. J2 whined softly as his legs were pushed apart. What more did they want? How much would they demand of his body and... would he be good enough to keep?

He felt his tail lifted. "Hehehe, hey boss. It's a boy."

J2 did his best to ignore Pritz and focus on the stiffening lengths Master presented. At this point, each was almost as thick as his wrist; they met in a root that protruded just slightly from Master's slit.

A hand groped at J2's semi, and he jerked his hips away. "Aah, stop!" Or he tried to anyway.

"No." Master grabbed his head again and stuffed one point of his hemipenis in his mouth. "You let Pritz do whatever he damn well pleases."

Be what they want. Survive. The slightest touch to his inexperienced penis had J2 quivering from head to toe. He couldn't concentrate, he could barely keep his tongue moving. Every thought in his head was driven out by the sensation. His knees threatened to give out, but he couldn't afford to let them. He had to hold on. Had to fight just to think straight. Be good. He had a cock in his mouth. How was he supposed to...? He could move with his tongue like this, or...

"Is that the best you can do?"

J2 flinched, a spike of fear from his chest. Master wasn't happy with him. "I-I can't with Pritz's..."

"Stop talking with your mouth full and suck on it, you little tat."

His fur stood on end. It was almost like... a Directive. He couldn't see it on his faceplate, but it_felt_ like one. J2 caved. Pritz played with him; he whimpered, he huffed, and he sucked. The musk was really getting to him, making his head spin, and finally his knees gave out. Master's powerful arm kept him from hitting the dirt.

They just threw him over something - he landed face-up on a piece of debris they were using as a table. He was just a rag doll.

Master slid back into his mouth and thrust in repeatedly, face-fucking the protogen and largely blocking his view with his powerful legs and tail. Meanwhile, Pritz coaxed out enough of J2's pre to drench his finger and rubbed it against his virgin tailhole. A moment later, the digit was replaced with something pointed. Je's stomach flipped as Pritz's dick pressed into his body.

The slimy hemipenis, the overbearing scent, being toyed with like... well, a toy. It was humiliating, nasty. And yet it thrilled him. He couldn't fully grasp it, but his body reacted; his erection was rock solid, and he was leaking pre all over himself. Why does it feel good? Just... just survive.

But the more he gave in, the more he liked it. Just sucking while Master rammed his cock into his throat over and over. Pritz was doing the same, but with less tempo, less control. He also had a knot, J2 inferred as the swollen bulge pushed in and out of his sphincter. Every time, it made the protogen's erection twinge.

"Don't tie him."

"No worries, boss!"

"Good boy. Do it."

Something about the exchange taking place above him made J2 yearn. No, it was more than that... Jealousy. He was jealous of the one grabbing his hips and railing his ass. He wasn't even sure he remembered what Pritz looked like, but he'd know that voice... The smug remarks, the groaning while Master egged him on. Warmth blossomed inside his tailhole, and Pritz' motions halted. Pritz had just... 'ejaculated' was the term?

"Nnff!" Pritz huffed when he pulled out. "Look at all that cum."

Cum. It even sounded disgusting. But when he felt it dripping out of him, the thrill, the rush! Animal breeding instincts, he knew. But it made him feel so... desirable.

Master's cock slipped out of his face. He almost panicked. Was he not good enough...? He lifted his head just long enough to see a furry orange back receding toward the onlookers, buttoning his pants, but another individual - this one with scales the color of dull rust - approaching. Rust shoved his head back down and all he saw was a new crotch.

What he felt next was Master's cock pressing into his tailhole. He was much thicker than Pritz, squeezing out more and more of the warm load Pritz left. It stretched him to the point of aching, even burning. Without the cum making it so slick he didn't know if he could even have taken it.

"Sssnap to it, sslut." Rust's raspy voice called his attention back to this new penis drooping in front of his face; a long, narrow, pointed thing with ridges all along its underside. "Where's your mouth?"

Fearful if he should fail to comply in the slightest, J2 formed a maw again and admitted the new member. A new taste, smoky and tangy, and a very different texture from Master's. Almost like it had a cartilaginous structure under the skin. It was... actually kindof fun, in a perverse way, exploring Rust with his tongue, but he remembered to suck too.

Was master going to cum in him too? ...Soon?

It wasn't soon.

At Master's urging, Rust gave him his first taste of cum. It was bitter, a bit sour even, but he didn't have a choice. He had to survive and... be good. "Good sssslut. Sswallow it down and clean me up, ssslut."

Rust left, and there was another penis to service. And another. He had at least four different flavors of cum to contend with, and that wasn't even everyone; he was vaguely aware of others gathering around and just... masturbating. Or grabbing his hands and making him jerk them off. Splatters fell on his chest plate, his thigh screens, his neck. Someone climbed onto him and rubbed off a huge load on his tummy fur. And Master's thrusting was a constant. He could practically sync a clock to it. He didn't even want to know how long it'd been... How many different males had spat their genital fluids all over him.

Master's claws gripped his chin. "Who am I?"

Dazed as he was, the call back to reality made J2 realize nobody else was using his hands or face anymore. "M-Master..."

"And if I decide to keep you, what will you do, hrmm?"

"W-Whatever you please, Master..."

The cock was ripped out of his tailhole. Suddenly empty, gaping, J2 yelped. Was that a bad answer...?

Master flipped him off the surface they'd been using, onto the ground. His massive weight fell on the protogen. J2's tail was shoved out of the way, and one of Master's shafts slid right back in. It felt like it belonged there at this point. "Now beg for it."

J2 whined, clutching grass in his fingers. "P-Please... Use me."

"Use some worthless newblood like you? Why?"

Animal instincts screaming, his legs scrambled, but he didn't move; he was pinned by the maleness buried inside his tailhole. "I'll be good! I'll be y-your... s-slut..." The only word that came to him was the one Rust used.

Master's thrusts before were nothing - now he put his full body into it, from the talons digging into the sod, rippling through his powerful thighs, with the added weight of his thick tail - all of it slammed into the whimpering protogen. "AAH!" Claws circled his neck. Master's breath fogged his faceplate. It very much felt like the end. An inevitability. His life was in Master's hands, and Master chose to use it to sate his carnal needs by fucking J2 into the dirt. Gone was the control Master exerted all this time; now it was abject lust.

With a rush of elation, J2 found himself twitching and spitting his own cum on the ground. Shame washed over him; he should be better than that, but the pleasure overwhelmed him, and so did the wave of relief afterward. I'm... just as nasty as the others. I'm covered in their... yuck... Why does it feel so good? I'm disgusting.

Searing heat shot deep inside him as Master throbbed in his tailhole on one final thrust. J2 clawed the ground as Master pushed him painfully into the ground, feeling more and more heat flow into him. Master's cock throbbed, pumped him full of seed.

As the haze and heat of his own climax lifted from his mind, J2 didn't want to move or think too hard about what just happened. What was still happening. Cum was still drizzling out of his hole and the predator, 'master', the boss, whatever his name was - he finally finished, eased out, and got up. J2 groaned, turning his head to watch.

There was a holographic number floating by the boss' head. A long number, and it ticked upward several digits before disappearing. Did he just... get points for this?

Now it made sense. J2 was worth a handful of points alive because he could be... dominated. Was this the kind of victory the stupid sphere was talking about? You needed enough points to move up and escape? But that number he'd just glimpsed was huge. If that wasn't enough, what chance did J2 have?

None of it would matter if J2 didn't survive. "So am I... worth keeping?"

Boss was already halfway back to the entrance of the downed ship that he called home. He paused, turning to regard the jizz-drenched, muddy protogen laying on his doorstep. "I haven't killed you yet."

J2's heart fluttered with a mix of relief and anxiety. His ears twitched to the sound of idle laughter and chatter from the group that just had their carnal way with him, gathering back around the makeshift table they'd just fucked him on. The protogen covered his faceplate in his hands, wishing he could disappear - wishing he could go home. There was still a tiny chance this was just a nightmare. A very lewd nightmare, and somehow his imagination had conjured all this out of some mix of base instincts, maybe because he neglected them so much...

If he woke up, would he ask a batch-mate to have sex with him? Yes. The thought crept into his mind, but he shoved it back out and decided not to think about that.

/* The exact 'universal translation' mechanism of the Labyrinth is still unclear. It's difficult to study as scientific instruments are virtually unheard of inside, and this appears to be the one Labyrinth-granted ability that does not persist past its walls. Most survivors are reluctant to extensive questions on their experience; suffice to say it's advanced enough not to lose the majority of connotation the way most off-the-shelf translation matrices are prone to. */

Recompiling

At length, J2 got a hold of himself enough to roll over and sit up. He felt sick. Whatever the others were talking about, he lacked context or the desire to infer. He watched them out of his peripheral, trying to remain innocuous. Would any of them stop him if he ran...? Or even just walked off?

Rust was watching him, but he looked bored. A narrow tail curled around his feet. Several sets of eyelids flashed when he blinked. The only thing J2 really knew about him was the texture of his cock and what his cum tasted like. Turned out they were pretty close in height - if anything Rust was lighter, with that willowy frame.

If J2 stuck around, they might feed him. Probably barely enough to keep him alive to be milked for points and pleasure. And maybe... maybe it would still be just as thrilling next time?

What have I gotten myself into? Is surviving worth it if I'm just going to be a cum rag?

Why was Rust still watching him? Their gaze met. "Hey ssslut. Get up, come."

"Yes, Master."

"Jussst 'Sir' for anyone but the boss."

J2 slowly got his feet under him and gingerly followed. They were going to the same airlock as the boss. "Round two?" He tried to keep his voice level.

He didn't get an answer. The inside of the ship was warm, musty, and poorly lit with the odd lamp hung in each cramped room. Gas lamps, from the looks of them. The discolored spots on the floor showed where large equipment and machinery had been stripped out. Panels were missing from walls, and there was nothing but the occasional dangling wire as far as electronics went. Not even any real doors were left; they'd all been replaced by hanging ratty blankets or bead curtains. Rust led him deep into the ship past a number of sparsely furnished crew cabins with meager bunks, finally stopping at a tiny room and shoving J2 through the doorway.

It was a shower. J2 glanced back at Rust, uncertain, but hopeful.

He gave a quick nod, dropping his gaze quickly. "Get yourssself cleaned up." If anything he looked a bit regretful. "Have to put on a show for the others. Look ssstrong, you know? Sssorry."

"Oh... that's fine." His tone trembled. This was the first act of kindness anyone had shown him since he'd been stolen from the Avonlight... and only now he realized how desperately he needed it. He almost broke down. But no. Very undignified of a protogen to cry. He made himself busy figuring out the rusty knobs. The flow came: cold, meager, and uneven. This wasn't the scalding chemical shower he was used to, but... it was something. He got in and tried his best to wash cum out of his fur.

"Name'sss Arkasse. You?"

Arkasse didn't seem to want to watch. It didn't really matter, though; showering with batch-mates was normal for him. "J2."

"That'ss a number, not a name."

"It's what I have."

"What about the word on your ssscreens earlier? Jzena?"

"What?" Had his screens turned on? They would just display- Oh. J2 laughed. However weak, it was genuine. "That was my designation... er, and batch. J2 3 N/A. I guess I could see why that might look like a word."

"Whoopsss." Arkasse smirked, unveiling sharp fangs and a forked tongue. "Better than numbersss, though. Jzena... Jezena?"

"I mean, it sounds cute, but I'm just J2."

"Too late, your name'sss Jezzzena now."

Too tired to argue with the one person who'd been remotely nice to him, maybe - maybe it was okay to survive after all.