Chapter 6: The Interrogation
The taste of Takeo was still on her lips, a phantom salt and warmth, as Alex moved through the silent arteries of the mansion. The gilded mirrors in the halls showed a ghost—platinum hair, dark clothes, a face set in determined lines. The memory of the cold window against her skin, of Takeo’s furious claim, was a coal in her chest, fuelling her. It was a performance, but one with a purpose. Let Frankenstein watch their bodies. She would give his eyes something else to follow.
The route to his private study was a map she’d reconstructed in her mind over two days of careful, seemingly idle walks. She avoided the main corridors, slipping through a service entrance disguised as a linen closet, down a narrow stairwell that smelled of ozone and old stone.
The door to his study was ahead, a slab of darkened oak inlaid with brass filaments that pulsed with a faint blue light. A lock. A scan. A genetic key. She pulled a slim silvery vial from her pocket—a preservative tube containing a single strand of long, violet hair, plucked from Takeo’s brush in the East Wing bathroom. She fitted it into a piezoelectric injector she’d assembled from parts in her own old workshop, its components smuggled in over months of visits.
The device hummed, reading the cellular signature. The brass filaments glowed brighter, then dimmed. The lock clicked with a sound like a falling bone.
She was inside.
The air was cooler, drier. It tasted of chemicals and something else—the sterile scent of suspended decay. The study was vast, a temple to a singular, ageless mind. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held rows of glass jars, each illuminated from within, showcasing biological curiosities: a hovering eye, a network of veins pulsing without a heart, a twisted spine that occasionally twitched. The light came from flickering gas lamps, their flames never still, casting leaping shadows that made the specimens seem to breathe.
Her focus went immediately to the monolithic terminal on the vast obsidian desk. Its surface was a dull matte, dormant. She approached, her boots silent on the rug. She didn’t sit in his chair. She knelt beside it, her fingers finding the manual access port beneath the desk’s lip. She plugged in a decryption drive, its tiny LED blinking amber as it began to brute-force the quantum firewall.
Come on. Come on.
Lines of code cascaded across the screen she’d connected. Union designations. Project files. Logistics for something called “Acheron Gate.” Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was it. The proof, the leverage, the way out for her and Takeo. The download bar crept—20%, 40%.
A soft, rhythmic thump reached her ears. It was mechanical, steady. A hidden alcove behind a curtain of silver chain-link shimmered at the room’s far end. Through the gaps, she could see the outline of a form on a slab, wired with filaments that glowed with the same blue light as the door. His true body. The heart was a regulator, not an organ. The sound was a countdown.
70%.
She forced her eyes back to the screen. The files were transferring, a torrent of secrets. Names, dates, coordinates. Frankenstein’s dealings with the Union, the true extent of his reach. Takeo’s original modification schematics. Her own early psychological profiles.
90%.
The door clicked shut behind her.
The sound was final. A tomb sealing.
Her blood turned to ice in her veins. She didn’t turn. She kept her eyes on the screen, on the 95% complete, her fingers poised to eject the drive.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice the subnet drain?” His voice was a purr, smooth as aged whiskey, coming from the direction of the door. “Or the brute-force attempt on my personal terminal? It’s almost charming, Alex. Like a kitten batting at a tank.”
She slowly turned.
Frankenstein leaned against the closed door, impeccably dressed in a tailored suit the colour of charcoal smoke. He looked young, handsome, a lock of silver hair falling over a brow that suggested amused disappointment. His eyes, however, were ancient and cold, reflecting the lamplight like chips of flint.
“I was just looking for a book,” she said, her voice remarkably steady.
He pushed off the door and glided forward, his steps making no sound. “Liar.” He was before her in moments, looking down at the connected drive, the screen full of his secrets. “You were looking for a key. A rather crude one.” He reached down and plucked the drive from the port. The LED died. He pocketed it. “You have what you came for?”
“Not enough.”
“Pity.” He didn’t sound angry. He sounded intrigued. He circled her, a predator assessing. “You staged quite the distraction in the East Wing. So visceral. So… public. I must admit, I found it compelling viewing. But it did make your sudden interest in my network traffic rather obvious.”
He stopped behind her. She could feel the cool aura of him, a presence like a vacuum. His hands came to rest on her shoulders. She stiffened.
“You chose to leave my world,” he murmured, his lips close to her ear. “A world I offered to share with you. And yet you keep crawling back into its walls, trying to steal pieces of it. Why is that, Alex?”
“Takeo is my world,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Takeo is my creation,” he corrected, his voice hardening a fraction. “A masterpiece of obligation and combat efficiency. You are a variable I did not fully calculate. A delightful, but troublesome, glitch.”
One of his hands slid down from her shoulder, over her arm, tracing a slow, deliberate path to her hip. She tried to pull away, but his other hand clamped on her shoulder, holding her fast.
“Let’s discuss your punishment options,” he whispered, the playful tone returning, laced with something darker. “Option one: I delete the files, return you to your civilian life, and you never see Takeo again. A clean severance.”
His hand moved to the front of her trousers, his fingers deftly undoing the button, the zip.
“Option two,” he continued, his voice a soft breath against her neck as his hand slipped inside, past the waistband of her underwear. His fingers were cool, dry. “You acknowledge your place. You remember the rules of my house.”
His fingertips found her clit. She jerked, a gasp ripped from her throat. It wasn’t arousal; it was violation, sharp and electric. She tried to twist away, but he was immovable, his body a wall at her back.
“Don’t,” she snarled.
“Or what?” he asked, his finger circling slowly, deliberately. “You’ll scream? The walls are quite soundproof. You’ll fight? We both know how that ends.” He applied pressure, a cruel, clinical touch. “You came into my sanctum to steal. There is a price.”
He spun her around roughly to face the desk, bending her over the cold obsidian surface. The jars of specimens watched with lidless eyes. Her cheek was pressed against the stone. He yanked her trousers and underwear down to her knees in one sharp motion. The air was cold on her exposed skin.
“This is the real punishment, Alex,” he said, his voice devoid of all playfulness now, flat and analytical. “Not the taking of data. The reminder of ownership.”
She heard the rustle of fabric, the quiet clink of a belt. Then the broad, blunt head of his cock pressed against her. He wasn’t hard with passion, but with a cold, determined will. He pushed inside without preamble.
She cried out, her nails scraping against the obsidian. He was large, unyielding, and there was no give in him, no warmth. It was an invasion, pure and simple. He sank to the hilt in one slow, inexorable thrust, stretching her brutally.
“Fucking tight,” he observed, a scientist noting data. “All that fire, and such a nervous little cunt.”
He began to move. His rhythm was mechanical, precise, each thrust deep and measured, grinding against her cervix. There was no pleasure in it for her, only a shocking, degrading fullness, the burn of friction where she was dry. The thump-thump-thump of the mechanical heart in the alcove seemed to sync with his movements.
“He can’t save you,” Frankenstein breathed, his body rocking against hers. “My loyal hound is asleep, dreaming of you, no doubt. He doesn’t know his master is fucking his bitch on his own desk.”
Tears of rage and humiliation blurred the jars in front of her. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, refusing to give him another sound.
He grabbed a handful of her hair, winding it around his fist, pulling her head back. “You wanted my secrets?” he hissed, pounding into her with renewed force. “Here’s one. I know every sound you make when you come. I have the audio from every room, every time he’s ever touched you. I know you whimper when he bites your shoulder. I know you scream when you finally break.”
His free hand snaked around her hip, his fingers finding her clit again, rubbing hard, fast, a vicious parody of stimulation. A traitorous spark, born of sheer physiological response, flickered in the pit of her stomach amidst the violation.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, his voice dripping with contemptuous mockery. “Even now, your body betrays you. It’s just a machine, after all. Easier to trick than your mind.”
Shame crashed over her as a harsh, shuddering climax was ripped from her, a convulsion that had nothing to do with desire. He felt her muscles spasm and let out a soft, satisfied grunt.
He followed moments later, his thrusts becoming jagged, losing their precision. He slammed into her one final time, burying himself deep, and she felt the hot, sudden rush of his release fill her. He held there, pulsing, for what felt like an eternity.
Then he withdrew, swiftly. The cold air hit the mess he’d left behind. She heard him refastening his clothes, the sounds crisp and efficient.
He walked around the desk until he was in front of her. He looked pristine, unruffled. He offered her a handkerchief of finest white silk.
She didn’t take it. She pushed herself up, pulling her clothes up with trembling hands, facing him with smudged mascara and defiant, glittering eyes.
He smiled, that charming, empty smile. “Option two, it seems. You may go back to your room now. To my soldier. Remember this lesson the next time you consider touching what is mine.”
He turned and walked toward the alcove, dismissing her. “The files you downloaded are corrupted, by the way. A simple virus. A failsafe. Better luck next time, my dear.”
Alex stood there, shaking, the feel of him still inside her, the taste of blood in her mouth. The mechanical heart thumped its steady rhythm. She looked at the terminal, then at his retreating back, the silver chains shimmering.
He thought he’d punished her. He thought he’d reasserted control.
All he’d done was shown her the monster, bare and unvarnished. And as she turned and walked on unsteady legs back toward the East Wing, one thought solidified in her mind, cold and hard as the obsidian desk.
Monsters can be killed. Even ageless ones.