Chapter 2: The Theft of a Body, The Rise of a Fury
The van’s suspension groaned as Mandy wrenched it into a parking spot marked ‘Dean’s Office - Reserved.’ The 1987 Chevy, a battleship of faded blue paint and mystical engine modifications, looked profoundly out of place among the sleek, solar-powered scooters and hovering student transports.
“He’s not getting away with this,” Felicity muttered, her fingers white-knuckled on the door handle. The post-coital clarity had burned away, leaving pure, focused rage. Mai, beside her in the back seat, was unusually quiet, her gaze fixed on the imposing glass and sandstone spire of the Administration Hall.
“Plan?” Ben asked from the passenger seat, cracking his neck.
“We show the dean the footage. We explain the violation. He gets expelled, I get my authorship back, we all go home and Mai takes a twelve-hour scalding shower,” Felicity said, her voice clipped. It sounded so simple.
They moved through the courtyard, a riot of ancient banyan trees threaded with glowing data-cables where students in augmented-reality cloaks flickered between corporeal and digital forms. The air smelled of salt, hibiscus, and ozone. Felicity didn’t see any of it. She saw the timestamp: 03:17. She saw Mai’s hands, moving under someone else’s command.
Dean Albright’s office was on the top floor. The door, a slab of dark oak inlaid with shifting mother-of-pearl runes, was ajar. Felicity heard a voice from within. A familiar, smug, cadence. She froze.
“...not a breach, Dean. A demonstration. The paper itself is irrelevant. The methodology is what matters.”
Howard Theramore.
Felicity pushed the door open without knocking.
The office was a cavern of knowledge. Holographic ledgers of enchanted research floated in slow orbits around the room, their scripts—Aramaic, Enochian, machine code—bleeding into one another. A solar-powered chandelier made of refractive crystals cast dizzying rainbows over the walls. Behind a vast desk carved from a single piece of petrified mangrove sat Dean Albright, a wiry man with spectacles that constantly displayed scrolling text on their lenses.
And standing before the desk, hands casually in the pockets of his tailored linen trousers, was Howard. He turned at their entrance. His smile was a masterpiece of condescending charm.
“Ah. The research team arrives. Excellent timing.”
Felicity’s prepared speech evaporated. The air left her lungs. He was here. He’d beaten them here.
Mandy stepped forward, her smirk replaced by a flat, dangerous expression. “You’ve got some nerve.”
“I’m glad you’re all here,” Dean Albright said, his voice a dry rustle. “Mr. Theramore was just explaining an unusual academic submission.” He gestured, and one of the floating ledgers drifted down. It displayed Felicity’s paper, Howard’s name glowing atop it.
“He stole it,” Felicity said, finding her voice. It was thinner than she wanted. “He used a parasitic consciousness transferral to inhabit my housemate, Mai Harata, to bypass my digital and mystical wards and upload it from my own terminal. We have video evidence of the physical violation.”
Howard chuckled. It was a light, irritating sound. “Such a dramatic interpretation, Felicity. ‘Parasitic.’ ‘Violation.’ I prefer ‘collaborative field test.’” He turned back to the dean. “As I was saying, Dean. My independent study in Oneiromantic Projection has yielded its first replicable result. The subject—” he gestured vaguely toward Mai, “—was never in danger. She was a vessel. A conduit. The sleep state is the perfect channel; the autonomous nervous system handles all the biology, leaving the projection free to operate. I didn’t ‘steal’ a paper. I demonstrated that the theoretical framework in Professor Winkle’s Dreamwalking Protocols—” he said the title with a barely concealed sneer, “—is fundamentally conservative. Outdated. I went further.”
He was talking about her mother’s work. Dismissing it. Using it as a springboard to violate her daughter’s friend.
Something hot and black uncoiled in Felicity’s chest.
Dean Albright steepled his fingers. “The ethical considerations, Mr. Theramore, are profound. You entered a private residence. You manipulated a non-consenting individual’s form.”
“For academic inquiry!” Howard spread his hands, the picture of reason. “We test spells on inanimate objects, then on volunteers, then on ourselves. Consciousness projection is the next frontier. The university’s charter, Article Seven, supports ‘high-risk, high-reward experimentation’ that pushes the boundaries of human mystical understanding. Was there physical harm? No. Psychological distress?” He glanced at Mai, his gaze lingering for a second too long on her body. “She seems fine. A little flushed, perhaps. The subject’s own… proclivities… likely mitigated any sense of violation.”
Mai’s breath hitched. “You patronizing fuck.”
Howard ignored her, his focus on the dean. “I’m presenting my full methodology at the Arcane Symposium next month. This could put Miami on the map. We’re talking about applications in remote exploration, historical reconstruction, therapy. The paper was just a vehicle to prove it worked. Felicity should be flattered her research was the catalyst.”
That was it. The switch flipped.
Felicity’s usual shyness, the scholarly hesitation, shattered. She took two steps forward, her boots silent on the thick rug. Her voice, when it came, didn’t sound like her own. It was low, icy, and cut through the room’s ambient hum like a scalpel.
“Flattered.”
The word hung in the air. Dean Albright adjusted his glasses. Howard’s confident smile wavered, just for a fraction of a second.
Felicity continued, each word measured and cold. “You piloted my friend’s body like a rental car. You touched her. You used her hands to masturbate in front of a mirror for your own gratification. You uploaded my intellectual property. And you stand here, in this office, and call it a ‘field test.’ You cite my mother’s work to insult her. You look at Mai and reduce her to ‘proclivities.’” She turned her head slowly toward Dean Albright. Her blue eyes were glacial. “If this is the university’s definition of groundbreaking research, then your ethical committee is a joke. If he is not expelled, and my authorship reinstated by sunset, I will not file a complaint with the board. I will release the video evidence to the public. I will tag every news outlet, mundane and mystical. I will explain exactly how the University of Miami protects innovators who are, in any other context, psychic rapists.”
The silence was absolute. One of the floating ledgers flickered. Mandy stared at Felicity, her own anger momentarily eclipsed by awe. Ben stood a little straighter, his body tensed like a spring.
Howard’s face paled. “You can’t be serious. That would destroy your friend’s privacy! It would ruin her!”
Mai’s laugh was a sharp, brittle thing. “Oh, sweetheart. My channel is ‘Mai’s Deep Dives.’ I stream myself hunting for sea monsters in a bikini. Privacy is a currency I spent years ago. You think I give a single, solitary fuck if the world sees a ghost in my machine playing with my tits? They’d just think it’s a weird bit. But they’ll know your name. They’ll know what you did.”
Howard looked from Mai’s defiant face to Felicity’s unwavering glare, to the dean’s increasingly grave expression. The smugness finally drained away, replaced by the raw panic of a gambler who’d just realized the stakes were real.
Dean Albright cleared his throat. “Ms. Winkle… such a release would be… inflammatory.”
“It would be the truth,” Felicity said, not breaking eye contact with Howard. “You have two hours. Expulsion. Retraction. A public apology to Mai. Or I press send. The choice is yours.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She turned on her heel and walked out of the office. Her friends followed, a stunned procession.
They were in the elevator, descending, before anyone spoke.
“Holy shit, Flick,” Mandy breathed. “You were… fucking majestic.”
Felicity was trembling now, the adrenaline bleeding out, leaving her hollow and shaky. “He was going to talk his way out of it. He had the dean considering it.”
“He did,” Ben said. “Until you melted the skin off his bones with your words. That was scary. Hot, but scary.”
Mai leaned against the elevator wall, a slow, genuine smile spreading across her face. “Psychic rapist. That’s going on the stream titles. Not the context, just the phrase. See if anyone asks.” She nudged Felicity. “Thank you.”
Felicity nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. The fury had worked. But it had cost something. She felt raw.
The elevator doors opened to the courtyard. The neon glow of the palm trees felt garish. As they stepped out, a figure detached itself from the shadow of a giant fern.
Bruce.
He was leaning against the van, his steampunk wrench hooked on his belt, his arms crossed over his broad chest. His Scottish accent was a warm rumble in the humid air. “Heard there was a bit of a dust-up. Jeeves sent me an alert summary. All right, Felicity?”
The sound of his voice, the concern in his eyes, undid the last of her composure. Her vision blurred. She walked straight into him, burying her face in the soft cotton of his shirt. He enveloped her, one big hand cradling the back of her head.
“He was in her, Bruce,” she mumbled into his chest. “He was in her and he was laughing about it.”
“I know, love. I know.” He held her tighter, then looked over her head at the others. “So? What’s the verdict?”
“Felicity gave the dean an ultimatum. Two hours,” Mandy said, pulling out her phone. “We should get back. Hunker down. In case Howard decides to get… creative.”
Bruce held her, his hand a solid, warm weight on the back of her neck. “It’s alright now. He can’t touch you here. We’re all here.” His words were a low murmur meant only for her, a barrier against the world.
Felicity nodded into his shirt, breathing in his scent of machine oil and salt air. She heard his voice, but for a fractured second, she also heard the words layered underneath, a faint, echoing whisper in a different cadence. It’s alright now. He can’t touch you.
Her body went rigid. She knew that precise, arrogant rhythm.
She pulled back from Bruce’s chest and turned her head.
Howard Theramore was walking across the courtyard towards them, his hands in his pockets, a leisurely stroll. His lips were moving. And the words coming from Bruce’s mouth, still holding her, were now perfectly in sync with Howard’s.
“It’s alright now,” both men said simultaneously, Bruce’s gentle rumble and Howard’s crisp tenor twisting together into something horrific. “He can’t touch you here.”
Felicity shoved herself away from Bruce with a gasp. He blinked, his expression shifting from concern to blank confusion. He looked down at his own hands, then at the surroundings, his brow furrowed. “How did I… get out here?” he mumbled, voice entirely his own again, but thick with disorientation.
Howard stopped a few yards away, his smirk reappearing, wider and more vindictive than before. They had an audience now; students had stopped to watch, and faculty peered from office windows. He had a crowd.
“A more complex demonstration,” Howard announced, his voice projecting. “Remote projection, sustained for sixty-three seconds, with full motor and vocal control. No prep, no consent. Just will.” He glanced at Bruce, who was shaking his head like a man waking from a deep sleep. “The subject experiences only brief retrograde confusion. No permanent damage. The applications are limitless.”
Ben moved before anyone could stop him. A raw, guttural sound ripped from his throat. “You son of a bitch!”
He lunged, his fist drawn back in a clean, powerful arc aimed straight for Howard’s smiling face. It never connected. Ben’s arm froze, muscles quivering, his knuckles an inch from Howard’s jaw. A violent tremor wracked him. He turned, his movements jerky and wrong, and threw the same punch at Mandy.
He stopped again, his fist trembling just before her nose.
Mandy didn’t flinch. Her eyes, cold and calculating, locked on Ben’s. They were wide with panic and revulsion. “It’s not you,” she said, her voice unnervingly calm.
The control released. Ben staggered back, staring at his own hand as if it were a foreign, venomous thing. “Mandy… God, I’m sorry, I didn’t—he was in my—“
“Self-defense!” Howard called out cheerfully to the gathering crowd, spreading his hands. “You all witnessed the assault. I merely redirected the kinetic energy. A defensive application. The subject’s own aggression was the weapon.”
Dean Albright emerged from the administration spire, his face ashen. “Theramore! This… this is worthy of immediate expulsion! This is an assault!”
Howard just shrugged, his eyes finding Felicity’s. They glittered with triumphant malice. “I’ve learned everything I needed to from this institution, Dean. The theory here is so… pedestrian.” He flicked a glance at the stunned Bruce, the horrified Ben, the furious Felicity. “But the practical data has been invaluable.”
Mandy smirked. It was a thin, dangerous thing. She shook her head slowly, stepping forward to put a hand on Ben’s heaving chest. She looked directly at Howard. “You,” she said, the word quiet but carrying, “are going to regret what you just did.”
Howard laughed, a bright, genuine sound of disbelief. “You? What, you’ll code a nasty virus for me? Hack my bank account? Your little IT solutions can’t touch this.” He tapped his temple.
Mandy didn’t answer. She simply turned, steering a still-apologizing Ben by the arm. “Let’s go. Now.” She gathered them—a furious Felicity, a confused Bruce, a suddenly cocky Mai—and herded them toward the van like a tech-savvy shepherd.
The ride back to Judy’s beach house was silent, heavy with the weight of what had just happened. The van’s old engine growled in the quiet.
Ben kept his head in his hands. “I felt him. It was like ice in my spine, and then my body wasn’t mine. I was gonna hit you, Mandy.”
“You didn’t,” Mandy said from the driver’s seat, her eyes on the road. “He did. There’s nothing for you to apologize for. But I have work to do.”
Back at the house, the tension didn’t break; it just changed shape. Ben paced the living room, trapped in his own guilt. Mandy vanished down the basement stairs without another word, the hum of her servers soon rising in pitch.
Bruce sat on the couch, rubbing his temples. “The last thing I remember clearly is being at the shop. Then I was in the courtyard, holding you. And then I was… empty. Watching from the back of my own skull.” He looked at Felicity, his expression haunted. “I’m so sorry, love.”
Felicity stared at him, then at the hallway. The violation was a spreading stain. It wasn’t just her paper or Mai’s body now. It was Bruce’s arms, Ben’s fists. Howard had proven he could reach into their lives and puppet anyone, anytime. The scholarly fury was gone, burnt away, leaving a cold, desperate need to feel something real, something she owned.
She took Bruce’s hand. “Come with me.”
In her room, with the door closed against the world, she didn’t speak. She pushed him onto the bed and climbed over him, her kisses fierce and hungry. She ripped at his clothes, her hands shaking. He responded, his own movements fueled by a need to reclaim himself as much as to pleasure her.
He flipped them, pinning her down with his weight, a solid, real pressure. “Tell me what you need,” he growled, his Scottish accent rough.
“I need to be fucking here,” she gasped, arching her back. “I need you to make sure I’m in my own skin.”
He entered her in one hard, deep thrust. She cried out, a sharp sound of relief and defiance. He set a relentless pace, each powerful drive of his hips a hammer blow against the ghost of Howard’s control. The bed slammed against the wall. Felicity clawed at his back, her legs locked around his waist, taking all of him, using the sheer physical overwhelming force of it to scour the violation away.
“Is this you?” he gritted out, sweat dripping onto her chest. “Are you here?”
“Yes,” she moaned, her head thrashing side to side. “God, yes, don’t stop, Bruce, please.” She was close, the coil winding tight from deep in her belly, a different heat from the cold fear. “Come inside me. I want to feel it.”
With a final, shuddering thrust, he obeyed, spilling into her as her own orgasm tore through her, a blinding, silent rupture that left her gasping. He collapsed beside her, both of them slick and breathless in the neon glow from the study next door.
Downstairs, Ben’s muted apologies still filtered up. The basement hummed. In the living room, Mai stretched like a cat, listening to it all. She called out, her English accent clear and amused in the tense silence. “If Mandy’s too busy with her work, I’m feeling entirely like myself again. Fully present. Anyone free for the make-up sex?”