LETHAL TOUCH: BREAKING THE PRIME CEO

THE PULSE DEN

"Burn..."

The word detonated from her lips.

Adia let go.

The seal inside her breasts broke, collapsing the dam.

White light erupted from her palm, not fire, not plasma, but a pure, concentrated Joy.

It hit the Hound in the center of his chest.

The Rage Silk in his veins reacted instantly. The volatile chemical hatred meeting the absolute purity of unrefined delight.

The Hound screamed.

It was the sound of a soul being ripped inside out. The red smoke of his rage turned instantly to white steam, hissing his armor, cracking under the thermal shock of a thousand degrees of sudden happiness.

SHIIING.

The hallway vanished in a blinding supernova. The walls groaned, the air pressure spiked, blowing out every window in the tenement block.

TCHRAANK, TCHRAANK,TCHRAANK.

Adia was thrown back, hitting the floor hard.

The light faded.

Smoke curled in the hallway, smelled like a burnt sugar.

The Hound was gone.

Only the scorched outline of a man remained on the concrete floor, a shadow burned into the stone. His armor lay in a heap, empty, smoking. The man inside had been sublimated. Evaporated by the sheer weight of the feeling.

Adia gasped.

Her lungs burned, her skin felt rough, sensitive to the air currents.

She scrambled up.

"Papa?"

Silence from under the table.

She checked. He was there. Eyes wide, clutching the lead blanket. He was shaking, but alive. The lead had shielded him from the blast of emotion.

"Stay here," Adia choked out. "Do not move. Do not feel."

She couldn't stay.

The blast was a beacon now that making every scanner in Sector 4 spiked. The Mint would send a legion.

She needed cover, noise, hideout.

She grabbed her coat, the satchel with the memory spheres, and ran.

The streets were chaos.

The Grief Rain had turned to sleet. Hard pellets of frozen sorrow stinging her face, burning her up.

Her veins were bright gold. The discharge had cracked the reactor inside her, making the glowing golden light leaked.

She pulled her collar up, keeping her head down, then sprint to the alleyways.

Boots splashing in black puddles.

SPLASSH, SPLASSH, SPLASSH.

Breath tearing at her throat.

She needed the loudest place on Earth. A place where the emotional static was so high, so dense, that her own signal would get lost in the noise.

She saw the neon sign flickering ahead, pink and venomous green.

THE PULSE DEN

The bass vibrated the pavement.

DADHUM, DADHUM, DADHUM-DHUM.

It was an amplified and distorted heartbeat.

A line of people waited outside. Shivering. Hollows. Greys. Junkies looking for a hit of envy or lust.

Adia shoved past a man with no eyes, elbowing a woman shaking from withdrawal.

The bouncer was a slab of meat, synthetic muscle grafts, no neck.

He stepped in her way.

"Full up," he grunted.

Adia grabbed his wrist, letting a micro-pulse slip, a spark of Adrenaline.

The bouncer’s eyes rolled back. His muscles twitched. A moan escaped his lips, hitting him like a narcotic in a rush. He stumbled back on the high contact.

Adia slipped past him, pushing through the heavy steel doors, and fell into the madness.

The air was thick that you could even chew it. It tasted of sweat, latex, cheap perfume, and desperation. The club was a cavern, dozens of bodies packed onto a dance floor that pulsed with light.

They were feeding.

The music was a drone with a low-frequency theta wave designed to lower inhibition.

Adia pushed into the crowd.

To her left, a woman was pressed against a pillar of glass. Her dress was torn open. A man was on his knees before her, his face buried between her thighs. "Ahn-yes! Eat me! Mmhhn-more! Yes-mmh… God-yes! More! Oh-hhn!" She moaned in ecstasy, screaming loudly. He was devouring her with starvation. "Mmh-yea…hhmn… right there… faster, you pig! Aahhnn…" The woman’s head was thrown back."Mmhhn… morree…" She pushed her hip up, pressing his head to her p***y. Her eyes were wide, unseeing. She was injecting a syringe of Liquid Lust directly into her carotid artery. The chemical hit the man through the contact, driving him into a frenzy.

SLURP, SLURP, SLURP.

SLAPHH, SLAPHH.

The sound of skin on skin was louder than the music.

Adia turned away.

To her right, a pile of bodies on a velvet sofa. A tangle of limbs. Three men. Two women. They moved with mechanical precision, just friction and heat.

A man with silver hair gripped a woman’s hips. He thrust into her hard and punishing. "More," she screamed. "Harder! Make it hurt! I can't feel it yet!" He obliged. The sound of the impact echoed.

SMACK. SMACK. SMACK.

He bit her shoulder, welling up blood. But she didn't flinch. She laughed a broken, manic sound. "Arhgg! Yes! Oh-hhn… Aaahhh!" She clawed at his back, leaving red welts. They were trying to screw the numbness away.

Adia kept moving.

The heat in the room was oppressive. The friction of dozens of bodies generated a thermal haze. Condensation dripped from the ceiling like sweat from a fevered brow.

She saw a girl, no older than twenty, straddling a stranger on a bar stool. Her skirt was hiked up. Her thigh bounced on him, rhythmically, pounding her p***y to his c**k, her face buried in his neck. The man wasn't even touching her. He was staring at his wrist-comp, checking stock prices, while she used his body as a m**********n aid.

Adia clutched her breasts. The Well inside her ached, calling her, spiking her lust to touch her body.

A hand grabbed her arm.

"Hey, Lightbulb."

A man, shirtless, sweating. His pupils were blown so wide his eyes were black holes.

"You smell... different," he slurred, leaning in. He smelled of synthetic strawberries and rot. "You smell like... real sugar."

He reached for her face.

"Don't," Adia warned.

"Just a taste," he begged, pressing his hard erection against her hip. "I'll pay. I got anger credits. You want anger? I got plenty."

Adia grabbed his finger.

She twisted.

CHTALKK, CRACKK.

The bone snapped.

The man screamed. But then... he smiled.

"Yes!" he gasped. "Pain! Thank you!"

He fell back into the crowd, cradling his broken finger like a gift.

Adia shoved forward.

She needed to get to the VIP sector, where the Broker was.

THE DEN OF THORNS

She reached the back of the club.

A curtain of heavy red velvet blocked the way.

A scanner swept her.

[NO WEAPONS DETECTED]

[HIGH EMOTIONAL READING DETECTED]

[ACCESS GRANTED]

The curtain parted, dropping the noise.

The music here was a screeching, discordant violin.

The room was dark, lit only by red lasers.

This was the expensive section, the High Yield Zone.

Here, they didn't buy Lust. They bought Pain.

Pain was sharper, cutting through the Apathy Snow better than s*x.

Adia walked past the booths.

In one, a man in a tuxedo sat in a chair. A woman in a leather mask was slowly running a scalpel down his arm.

He watched the blood bead up.

"Deeper," he commanded softly. "I'm losing the friction."

She pressed harder, parting the skin.

He sighed a sound of pure relaxation.

"Better."

In another booth, a couple was hooked up to a neural-stimulator. Shocks of electricity jolted their bodies every ten seconds. They held hands, twitching in unison, confusing the electrocution for passion.

Adia found her, at the back booth.

Reva.

She was a small girl, but her breasts are heavy, ass thick, hip round, thigh swelly. She wore a suit made of optical fibers that changed color with her mood. Right now, it was a muddy brown. Greed.

She was eating a rare and bloody steak.

"Adia," She smiled, teeth were filed to points. "You're glowing, darling. Literally. You're ruining the ambiance."

"I need emotions," Adia said, slamming her satchel on the table. "Now."

Reva wiped his mouth. "Trouble?"

"Big trouble. I need a transport. Off-grid. Tonight."

Reva laughed. "Transport is expensive darling, especially with this weather. The grief is thick tonight."

"I can pay."

Adia reached into her satchel., pulling out a sphere, a glass orb the size of a marble. Inside, a swirl of pink and gold gas rotated slowly.

Reva stopped chewing.

Her suit turned a bright, avaricious purple.

"Is that..."

"First Kiss," Adia said. "Genuine. Extracted from two lovers in Sector 7 before the Mint took them. It’s 100% pure awkward, terrifying, electric anticipation."

Reva stared at the orb, licking her lips.

"A First Kiss... that's a Class-A relic darling. Collectors kill for that."

"Does it buy the transport?"

"It buys the transport, the pilot, and a new face if you want it."

Reva reached for the orb.

"Let me test it."

"Careful," Adia warned. "It's volatile."

Reva pulled a tasting needle from her pocket, and tapped the glass.

A tiny wisp of the pink gas escaped.

She inhaled it.

Her eyes widened.

Her hand shook.

For a second, the hardened criminal vanished. She looked sixteen, again, terrified and hopeful. She touched her own lips, remembering a boy from forty years ago.

A single tear leaked from her eye.

"Oh," she whispered. "Oh, damn."

The gas faded, returning the criminal.

She shook her head, clearing the hit.

"Potent," she wheezed. "Very potent."

She tapped her wrist-comp.

"Transferring emotions now. Go to Dock 4. Ask for-"

Adia froze.

The hair on her arms stood up.

Not from the static, nor from the lust in the room.

But from the cold.

The temperature in the club dropped instantly.

The sweat on the dancers' bodies turned to ice.

The condensation on the ceiling froze into frost.

The violin music stopped.

The moans of pleasure on the dance floor died out, replaced by confused murmurs.

Adia turned to the entrance.

She couldn't see the door from here, but she could feel it.

A void, a massive, gaping black hole had just entered the building.

It sucked the heat out of the air, the joy out of the s*x, the sting out of the pain, an Absolute Zero.

Reva shivered. her suit turned grey, turning to Fear.

"What is that?" Reva whispered. "Adia... what did you bring here?"

Adia shoved the orb back in her bag.

"Winter," she whispered.

She looked at the exit, and it was blocked.

She looked at the crowd.

The dancers were stopping. The drugs were wearing off instantly, neutralized by the sheer proximity of the winter.

The man who had been screaming for pain in the booth looked at his cut arm and started screaming for a doctor. The spell was broken.

Reality was crashing in.

Adia backed up.

Deeper into the Den.

There was no way out.

"Hide me," she hissed at Reva.

"Hide you? From that?" Reva pointed a shaking finger at the frost creeping along the floorboards. "Nothing hides from that."

Adia looked around.

The shadows.

She had to become the shadow.

But she was a sun.

She bit her lip hard, drawning blood.

Focus on the pain, Adia, kill the light.

She crouched behind the booth.

The air grew silent.

Dead silent.

The only sound was the crunch of heavy boots on the frozen floor.

DAPP, CRUNCHH, DAPP, CRUNCHH.

The winter was here.

...