Volume 4: Beta-09, Chapter 4.15

A relaxing bath with Eve was definitely what I needed to calm my nerves, but a long talk with her would be more productive.

So

after

the nice long bath, we sat down on the couch, prepared to work through all these new developments together.

The first thing we discussed was the upcoming mission; Eve was as confident as all the Lord Generals Vyrane had been overtaken by a Predazoan, so no doubts there. In her downtime she’d done plenty of research on the Empire and their technologies—trying to learn all she could about the

enemy

, and with her supercomputer brain it was easy to gather all that information and store it away for later. Just as Zyno said, she was sure there was no kind of technology a frontier world could possess that would have that kind of sophisticated brainwashing or corpse revival without being discovered a long time ago.

I asked Eve if she would be nervous fighting a Predazoan contained as she was, but she assured me she could still kill any Gamma or Beta generation Predazoan easily.

“Well, wait, what if an

Alpha

Predazoan took over Vyrane?” I asked.

Eve waved it off easily, “Oh, there’s no way there’s another Alpha on Vyrane.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “How can you be so sure?”

Eve looked at me with a level gaze, “Because the entire planet would’ve already been completely assimilated a long time ago.”

Next I wanted to discuss how she felt about our researcher friends and if we could actually consider them allies since they were all working for the Empire willingly. I shouldn’t have been surprised with how Eve responded; same as always, she said she didn’t care about anyone else in the universe except me, saying she would kill them all if it meant she could be free with me. While I thought that was a little extreme, Eve expounded on that saying she always considered the researchers as part of the enemy belonging to the same group that experimented on and tortured her for years.

I let out a weary sigh, “I guess I just have a hard time separating how you really feel with how you act around them; you put on a friendly face and get along with them surprisingly well. You tell me you don’t hold them accountable for what their predecessors did either, that you don’t hate them or want to get revenge or anything.” I reasoned.

Eve nodded, draping her legs across my lap as usual, “I also tell you

constantly

how their lives don’t matter to me in the slightest; they exist—they’re

there

. That’s about it. You and your attention and affection are all that matter to me. They might as well be dust motes for all I care.”

I shook my head, “I don’t think you’d need to put on that friendly façade for dust motes.”

Eve gave me a flat look, “Darling, I do that for

your

benefit; you want me to get along with your people, so I try to get along with them.”

“Yeah, but now I don’t think they’re my people at all, and that’s the problem.” I grabbed Eve’s hand, “You’re my main priority—my

only

priority now. If you think we should steer clear from the researchers and act cautiously around them—treat them like enemies, then that’s what we’ll do from now on.” I looked into Eve’s beautiful glowing yellow eyes, “I don’t want to make all the decisions for us, this is something we should decide together.”

Eve rubbed the back of my hand with her thumb as she thought over her answer. After a few silent moments, she finally let out a long sigh, “One of your concerns is me losing my humanity, and

my

concern is how it would affect you if I

did

lose my humanity. Part of being human—of being a

person

is connecting with other people and fostering those relationships. If we completely cut ourselves off from other people we would surely lose something in ourselves along the way. I believe we should be cautious around anyone who works for the Empire, but I don’t think we should rule everyone out completely.” Eve shrugged, “Technically a postal worker on Earth is a federal employee, but you wouldn’t really put them on the same level as some shady government agents, right?”

I smiled at that, “Yeah, but postal workers aren’t running clandestine experiments on cloned Outsider gods.”

Eve waved it off, “Some of them had good intentions, I’m sure. Of course, the road to hell is paved with those good intentions, so make of that what you will. We should always be careful who we let around us and guard our secrets well, but I don’t think we should cut anyone off at this point—not yet at least.”

I nodded, “Plus it might be good to gather up some allies working on the inside.”

Eve smiled at me, “

Plus

, I know how sad you’d be without your good friend Zyno.”

I sighed and shook my head, “If he turns on us at some point it would honestly devastate me.”

Eve leaned up to scratch my scalp lightly, “Aw, my poor baby and his shady Imperial nerd friends.”

I rolled my eyes and reached up to move Eve’s hand to a better spot on the top of my head, “Oh please, I’d be surprised if someone like Zyno was up to anything nefarious.” I tilted my head back and forth, “Of course that would make him the perfect spy, hmm…”

Eve trilled a cute little giggle at that, “No, I’m sure you’re right; his mind is busy but rather plain. His interests and intentions are all incredibly easy to read.”

I quirked up an eyebrow at that, “Any researchers we

should

keep an eye on?”

Eve shrugged, “From what I could sense before, no one comes to mind. However now with my senses dulled it will be harder to feel any hostile intentions; we should be cautious now more than ever for multiple reasons, least of which because I can’t read the minds of the enemies who live all around us.”

I nodded at that, “And once more I want to ask, are you sure you don’t harbor any feelings of resentment over—”

Eve reached forward to place a finger against my lips to silence me, “As I’ve told you before, we had our revenge when we destroyed NX-947b, and whatever evils they inflicted upon me led me to you. I should almost like to thank them for my good fortune, but of course they’re all dead.”

“And what if they weren’t? What if you found out a few of the original researchers survived somehow?”

Eve cocked her head to the side as she thought over her answer, “Huh, I guess I never really gave it much thought. I mean, we destroyed an entire

planet

, I don’t see how anyone could’ve escaped or survived that.”

I shrugged, “Just a hypothetical.”

Eve nodded, “I know, but it’s an interesting one.” She paused again as she mused over the question. “Honestly? It feels like that was a different lifetime—a dull existence before I met you. I don’t think I would care enough to want revenge at this point, but maybe just on principle I should kill them if they crossed my path or something.”

I smiled at that, “Oh, just a casual thing? No big production to hunt them down, but if you just so

happen

to run into them, might as well murder them, right?”

Eve smiled at me in response, “And you would

spare

them after they tortured your Evie?”

I held my hands up in surrender, “Never said that, just think it’s funny how nonchalant you are about it.”

Eve’s expression turned a little more serious, “Then what about you? You believe hunting down the Predazoans is a just cause, what about hunting down the doctors who created them?”

“If they were still alive?” I asked, and Eve nodded. I tapped at my chin as I thought it over, but I found the answer surprisingly simple, “Yeah, I think it would be reasonable to hunt them down too honestly, both for revenge and to prevent any further tragedies I suppose.”

Eve nodded, “Something to keep in mind once all the other Predazoans have been contained; how the Empire wants to continue with their research might dictate our response.”

“You mean if they wanted to revive the program, start cloning more Predazoans?”

“Right, do you think we should allow something like that?” Eve asked.

“Like it would be our responsibility to stop it?”

Eve shrugged, “Stop it, direct it, control it, all possibilities, provided we’re free by then.”

I shook my head slowly, “I have a feeling once we get free, that’ll be the end of our relationship with the Empire.”

Eve nodded once, “A very good point.”

Then it was time to bring up something that had been on my mind a lot lately, something I thought was rather important; what I could do to help while we were enslaved by the Empire.

So far it seemed like I relied on Eve and even others around me while flying through life in the Empire; my job as the Predazoan handler was kind of a joke, and for the missions themselves I didn’t really offer much help, and now that Eve and I needed to work together for our freedom, I needed a more active role—something I could do to further our goals.

I told Eve it was high-time I started pulling my own weight, time to make a change and be the one to help her for once.

Eve leaned up more on my lap, pulling my head down into her breasts in a comforting gesture, “I told you before I would take care of you; I can protect you and us. Your role in our relationship is to guide our actions, make the final decisions to keep us both human.”

I pulled away from Eve’s perfect breasts to look into her eyes, “I’m not just talking about our relationship, I’m worried about our future and our freedom. There needs to be something more I can do to help.” I pulled her hands down into my lap, “Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to be part of the decision-making from now on? I think that means both our roles should start evolving.”

Eve nodded along with that, “Very well, what did you have in mind?”

It was something I’d been mulling over recently, but when I really thought about what all I had to offer as a simple human, there honestly wasn’t much; I wasn’t some special agent or trained soldier who was useful on the battlefield or adept at espionage, and even if I was, how would that help against the intergalactic Empire that had us bound with their near endless resources? As a human, there really wasn’t much I could do to help even with all the training in the world.

I thought it was finally time for me to evolve, to become something

more

than human.

“You talked before about how you could change me, make me more than what I am now. You talked about giving me multiple cocks or even making me into a femboy, and while those seemed like ridiculous suggestions at the time, you seemed quite serious.” I reasoned.

Eve’s eyes began shimmering with excitement, “Does this mean you’ll let me turn you into a femboy finally?”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “No…” I crossed my arms and fixed her with a suspicious glare, “And why are you so interested in turning me into one at all? I thought you said I was perfect the way I am.”

Eve waved it off, “You are, and I love everything about you, but I can’t deny how much fun it would be if I changed you into a femboy version of yourself; you’re unbelievably handsome now, but I could make you beautiful, so small and so fucking

cute

. I would change myself into the perfect giant goth-mommy to match, and I’d dote on you and spoil you and dominate the fuck out of you constantly, turn you into my weak little plaything.” She leaned forward to kiss my cheek and then bite my ear, “I’d show you a

real

bully as I pleasure-dommed you to the point I would break your mind, dick and prostate.”

I held my hand up to protest, but I honestly didn’t know how I would even respond to her insane desires. Instead, I just shook my head, trying to get us back on track, “No, forget all that silliness for now, what I’m talking about is serious, a change we should make that will help us fight against the Empire.”

Eve nodded, turning serious with me, “What were you thinking?”

“Well, would it be possible to make me strong and fast like you? Give me superhuman abilities? At least if I had strength to match yours, we could fight—literally

fight

the Empire together. It wouldn’t matter I’m not trained or don’t have the technology to match, if I could punch a hole through steel and run faster than their lasers, none of that would matter.” I reasoned.

“Are you sure? This wouldn’t be like one of your comic books, you wouldn’t be a superhero living in New York or anything. You would be like a

god

to the people around you, and eventually that kind of power would change how you see those people—see them as

lesser

.” Eve warned me.

“You’re saying that would be the start of me losing my humanity.” I surmised.

“Exactly. You ask me why I don’t care about the people around me, and it’s because I see them as insects before my power—dust motes that’ll be dead and forgotten in a few centuries.”

“I’m as weak as any of them, but you don’t see me as an insect, right?” I asked.

Eve shook her head, “You’re my beacon, it’s different; you’re a part of me—something greater than a mere mortal. Plus, your life will be just as endless as mine, so you’ll still be around for all those centuries—alive long after their bones have all turned to dust.”

Eve brought up a good point, I didn’t want to sacrifice my humanity for power, especially not when I was the tether that kept us both human. But I also couldn’t stand being useless—having

no

power at all.

“Maybe there’s a middle-ground? People in the Empire get those cyber-enhancements, right? Those can increase your strength and speed and all that.” I reasoned.

Eve shrugged, “Not to the degree it would help much, nowhere near my abilities. Cyber-technology is limited by a person’s natural musculoskeletal structure; you can’t just graft a bulldozer onto a person’s arm. Most cyber-enhancements are limited around three to five times normal muscular strength, unless they get their entire skeleton replaced, and then we’re back to a person losing their humanity—becoming a full-cyborg rather than just enhancing their body. If I was to increase your body’s natural capabilities to superhuman levels, I would basically have to unmake and then remake your musculoskeletal system.” She explained.

I scratched at my short beard idly, thinking where we should draw the line so I would still be a human—a

superhuman

, “So how exactly would you do it? You injected that immortality enzyme in me before like it was nothing; how would you completely remake my musculoskeletal structure?”

One of Eve’s tentacles opened like a flower to show a small silver needle, but Eve’s eyes grew wide with a sudden realization, “Oh shit, Adam, I can’t make

any

biological alterations in you now, the inhibitor field keeps me bound within myself; I wouldn’t be able to inject any of my biomass into you.”

I slapped my forehead in sudden realization, “Ah, fuck, that’s right.” I rubbed my fist into against my temple in a frustrated gesture, “Shit, shit, come on…” I grumbled, wondering if there was

anything

we could do. I looked up at Eve, still determined to make myself useful somehow, “What if you repurposed the immortality enzyme? Would that be possible?”

Eve shook her head slowly, “It’s too specialized to completely remake your body in the way you want, but I wouldn’t want to risk your safety altering the immortality enzyme now anyways. Plus, if you’re wanting to take a more active role in the future with the intention of fighting alongside me, the immortality enzyme would be more important than ever.”

I let out a frustrated groan, “Dammit, isn’t there anything we can do?”

I’d finally made the decision to

not

be so useless, and here I was, completely helpless once more.

Eve held one delicate finger in the air, “There is

something

.”

I looked over at Eve, suddenly growing hopeful, “Really?”

Eve nodded, “Yes, some biomass I stored away as a contingency measure.”

“What, like spores in the air vents or something?”

“No no, command made sure to purge all those a long time ago.” Eve smiled at me sheepishly, “You’re not going to like where it’s been hidden.”

I narrowed my gaze as I grew suspicious, “Where’d you hide the extra biomass, Evie?”

Eve held my gaze for a few silent seconds, then turned away in a defeated huff, “We’re going to need to see Doctor Tillia.”