Subject Three Ch. 01

He didn't know where he was.

Even before he opened his eyes, he was sure of it. The sound of the place, the smell of the air, the feel of the bed beneath him--all wrong, all unfamiliar. He felt very foggy, nothing seeming to quite line up. A dull ache throbbed behind his eyes. There were voices, he realized, as his brain slowly caught up. People were speaking--no, shouting. Panicking.

"Where the hell am I?"

"What's happening?"

"Who are you people?"

The cacophony of voices piled onto itself, echoing strangely and making it all but impossible to follow what anyone was actually saying. He finally dragged his eyes open, and found himself looking at a plain concrete ceiling, featureless save for the occasional wire-caged lightbulb. The brightness made him want to close his eyes again, but he forced himself to turn his head and look around anyway.

He was in a rectangular concrete room made up like a minimalist hospital ward, with two rows of narrow beds against either wall, five beds to a side. He was in the middle bed on his side, and other people were in or near the others. Most of them, he noticed, were still shouting. None of them seemed to be dressed, which struck him as odd, but then, they were in bed, so wouldn't it be more odd if they were?

He shook his head. His brain was still way too cloudy.

"Quiet! QUIET!" someone bellowed, and the tumult died down. The speaker was a young man--they all were, he realized, everyone in the room was male and looked around twenty--with Asian features, pale skin, a shock of midnight-black hair, and the kind of lean muscularity only found among serious athletes.

"Screaming at each other isn't going to help anything," the young man went on in a more reasonable tone, once silence fell. "Calm down and think. Does anyone know where we are? Does anyone remember how we got here?" The speaker paused, a strange expression passing over his face, like something was on the tip of his tongue but he couldn't quite seize it. "Does anyone remember... anything?"

What a strange question, he thought, in his bed across the room. Why wouldn't we remember...? But he didn't. He didn't remember coming to this strange place. He didn't remember how he got here or why he came. He didn't remember any of these other young men.

He didn't remember anything at all.

Not his home, not his family, not even his own name. Nothing, save the last few seconds in this room, existed in his memory. No wonder the bed and setting were so unfamiliar when he'd awoken; literally anything would have been. The others were coming to the same realization around him, and the shouting and panicking had started up again, whatever the Asian guy tried.

"Hey."

He almost missed the gentle voice in the chaos, but he found himself turning toward it. Another of his fellow... residents? Captives? He didn't know what term applied... walked over and sat on the bed next to his, looking concernedly over at him. This one had a lean swimmer's build and the olive-skinned good looks of the Mediterranean, all wavy black hair and liquid dark eyes.

"I'd ask if you're okay, but, well..." the newcomer said, a touch of humor, of all things, in his voice. "You kind of look like you're losing it."

"Yeah," the first replied, his voice a bit croaky. "How do you tell if you're having an existential crisis or just a panic attack?"

The other guy smiled, eyes twinkling. "Who said you have to choose?" Suddenly he leaned forward, expression turning intent. "What you need is to take some control over your situation. That should help get control of yourself. Names," he decided. "We need names."

"But... we can't remember our names. That's sort of the key to the whole existential crisis and/or panic attack thing."

"Exactly! Which is why claiming new ones for ourselves will help. Me, for example. You can call me Five."

That earned a blink. "Five?"

Five nodded firmly. "I'm Five, and you're Three."

"Why am I Three? Where are these numbers coming from?"

Five tapped himself on the chest. He was clad only in underwear--white boxers, specifically. Everyone, Three--if that was to be his name--realized, wore only identical pairs of white boxers. And they all had one additional thing in common: on the flat of the left pectoral muscle, writ large in blocky, stenciled letters as though painted, was a strange alphanumeric sequence. On Five, it read "5B-05." Glancing down, he saw his own was similar: 5B-03. At least that explained the idea for their names. A quick look around the room showed that all the young men shared the 5B prefix, followed by a number from one to ten. So did the beds, he noticed, each bed had a matching number--presumably where each of them had been deposited. Ten beds, ten people, each numbered... but why?

Three stared at his own chest for a moment, bewildered, then turned back to Five. "What the hell is that?"

Five shrugged. "No idea!" he said cheerfully. "But at least it gives us somewhere to start."

Across the room, the assertive Asian guy--his chest read 5B-07, so Three decided to think of him as Seven--had regained some control of the conversation.

"Clearly we all have had our memories wiped, or at least suppressed. How doesn't matter for now--drugs or something, probably, who knows--but what does matter is getting out of here. Let's find out what's behind those doors; maybe there's a way out." He nodded toward one end of the rectangular room, where three closed doors were visible. One in each wall, left and right, and one in the center.

"Who put you in charge?" demanded one of the others. Three couldn't see his number, as he was facing partially away, but the speaker was blond, pale, and looked like a fashion model, appearing to be primarily composed of abs and cheekbones. He managed to make his plain white boxers--identical to everyone else's--seem like a fashion statement, standing as if trying to strike a pose. He had a sneering, haughty manner, and Three was instantly sure he was going to be a problem.

Seven was unimpressed. "No one. If you'd like to stay here, be my guest." He and several others started toward the far end of the long room, toward the doors, leaving the blond guy spluttering behind him. One of the guys with Seven opened a door on the right wall, sticking his head through to look around.

"It's a gym," he said, turning back toward Seven and the others. "Bunch of exercise equipment. Treadmills, bench press, all sorts of things. No other doors, though." As he returned, Three saw the number on his chest: 5B-02. He--Two, using Five's naming convention--looked to be of mixed African/Caucasian descent, with café au lait skin and hair shorn close to his scalp.

On the other side, Three's left, one of the others had already opened the door there. He was lean and fit--as everyone here was, Three was realizing--and was probably Latino, with bronze skin and shaggy, dark chocolate hair. Three caught a glimpse of his chest, which read 5B-06.

"Bathroom," called Six over his shoulder. "Toilets, sinks, big open shower block like a locker room. No doors."

Nodding thanks to both, Seven himself opened the third door, the one in the middle of the wall at the end of the room. Once he turned to announce his findings, Three could see past him, and spied a long, low table with attached benches.

"It's a cafeteria or something," Seven called out. "Big table, a couple of water fountains straight out of a public school hallway, and a bunch of crates labeled 'MREs.' At least we won't starve. Still no other doors, though. Damn."

"What on earth is an MRE?" demanded the blond guy, still posing dramatically in the middle of the room, apparently oblivious to the fact that no one was paying attention to him.

"It stands for 'meal ready to eat,' I believe," supplied Five from beside Three. "It's military jargon. They can be stored for ages without going bad, and you don't need to cook them or anything, just open and eat, thus the name." The blond whirled to face them, so Three could finally put a name--or rather, a number--to him: 5B-01. Of course he's number one, Three thought sourly.

"How do you know that?" One asked, still in that demanding tone.

"I... I'm not sure," Five said haltingly. "I just... do?"

"Do you have your memories? Are you in on it?" One jabbed an accusatory finger at Five's face, his voice rising into a shriek. "What's going on here? Why did you do this to us?"

Seven, appearing beside One, slapped his jabbing finger down, the sheer audacity of which seemed to astonish One into silence. "First, calm the hell down. Throwing paranoid accusations around isn't going to help. Second, I recognized the acronym too, but I also don't know how I know. That's how amnesia works, you idiot."

One recovered from his shock and started inflating like an aggrieved toad. "If I'm the idiot, why haven't you found the exit yet?"

Seven just snorted. "I have. It's right there," he said, and pointed past One to the far wall, opposite the three doors. Everybody--even One--turned to look. For a moment, Three didn't understand; that end of the room looked like another wall, a featureless expanse of gray concrete. Then something clicked in his brain, and he heard Five's soft gasp as he noticed too.

The far wall was, in fact, a door, but one on a scale that had defied Three's notice. It was a vast slab of concrete that would have given a bank vault an inferiority complex, so huge Three's mind hadn't registered it as anything but another wall. Now that he looked carefully, there were barely visible seams that suggested mobility--though no hinges or controls of any kind were visible.

"What is this place, some kind of bomb shelter? That looks like something the military would build under a mountain," someone said. Three didn't see the speaker, he was still focused on the colossal door.

"Could be," Six replied, moving forward to examine the door with Seven and a few others. "Sometimes, when the military decommissions places like that, they sell them to rich weirdos. Supervillains have to get their lairs somewhere."

Three could feel Seven rolling his eyes from across the room. "This is not a supervillain's lair."

"Oh no? Who else kidnaps a bunch of innocent young men, who were presumably just sitting around being handsome and minding their own business, and imprisons them in underground bunker fortresses?"

"How do you know we're underground?"

"It's a supervillain's lair, of course we're underground. Where else do you put a secret lair?"

"... Sorry I asked. Does anyone see a way to get this thing open?" Seven and the others were going over the door and nearby walls, but they all shook their heads.

"Well of course not," said Six, "What self-respecting supervillain would leave his prisoners an obvious escape route?"

"We can all agree it's not a supervillain's secret lair," Two interjected, before Seven could fire back. He glanced at Six. "Well, most of us can, anyway, but if it's not that--which, again, probably not--what is this? Why are we here?"

"That much," replied Seven, "seems clear enough. We're here to be experimented on."

The tumult that followed that pronouncement took several minutes to die down.

"You're going to need to explain that," said Ten, in a slow, deep voice with a drawling Southern accent. His skin was so dark that his 5B-10 label had been done in white, instead of black like everyone else, and he stood like a pillar, muscular arms folded across his broad chest.

Seven just shrugged. "Like I said, it seems clear enough. Look around. Ten of us, all numbered. I'd say we're all within a year or so in age, and probably all within two inches and ten pounds of each other. We clearly all take fitness seriously--"

"You noticed all the six-packs too, huh?" snickered Six. He wasn't wrong; Three had noticed the same thing. There wasn't enough fat between the ten of them to grease a pan.

"--Which means," Seven went on, clearly resigned to speaking around Six's color commentary, "that we probably all take health in general seriously too. I'll bet we're all free of chronic health issues like diabetes or asthma or anything like that as well. No medications or other issues like drug abuse to complicate their data."

"Data?" Ten asked.

"Whatever they want to do to us, they're controlling variables. That's the first thing you do with experimental research: control as many variables as possible to make sure the only things that change are the things you change on purpose. You want your subjects to be as similar as you can get."

"Say you're right," said Two, slowly. "And this is some kind of experiment. But if that's the case, there aren't enough of us. Ten data points isn't enough for real statistical analysis." He paused, looking surprised at his own knowledge. A lot of that going around, thought Three.

"That part seems obvious too," said Five, joining the conversation. "We're all wearing the proof." He tapped the stenciled number on his chest. "Clearly we're subjects one through ten of group 5B. But if there's a group 5B, then, logically..."

"There's probably a 5A," finished Ten, nodding. "And if there's a group five, there's probably groups one to four, each with subgroups A, B, maybe C and D or more, who knows. There's no telling how big this place is, there could be dozens of groups like us down here. "

"So you admit we're underground!" Six cried triumphantly, thrusting a finger into the air. Everyone ignored him.

"All of this begs another question," said Two, "What kind of experiment is this? What are they going to do to us?"

"Something psychological is possible; wipe our memories, lock us in here and see what happens. See how crazy we go, and how fast. But my guess is pharmaceuticals," said Seven, grimly rejoining the discussion. "Someone wants to do human trials but doesn't have permission, so they decided to make their own."

"Very astute observations!" came a new voice, making them all jump. It hadn't come from any of the young men in the room, but crackled like an intercom, though none of them could see the speakers. "And largely correct. It may interest you all to know that while you were grouped for physiological similarity, as you deduced, you were chosen for your records of academic prowess as well as physical excellence. I wanted the very best and brightest for my program, prime physical specimens who were also intellectually gifted; and it seems clear that I've chosen well!"

It was hard to determine much about the voice, distorted as it was, but it was definitely male, and sounded older. He sounded well-educated--though since he was clearly a scientist of some kind, that much seemed obvious--and his accent was... Northeast, perhaps? Not Boston or New York, exactly, but somewhere in there.

"I demand you release us right now!" One shouted at the ceiling. "You can't just kidnap people and wipe their memories! Undo whatever you've done to us and let us out of here! Open this door!" Several other voices joined him, shouting imprecations at the walls.

"Ah, yes, I suppose I should address the manner in which you were collected. A... regrettable necessity," came the crackling voice, when the yelling died down. "I'd have preferred volunteers, of course, but the quality of the voluntary subjects was just not up to my standards. Dreadful stock, really, hardly useful at all," the voice trailed off in irritated mutters for a moment before returning. "But that's neither here nor there. Regarding your memories... I'm afraid I cannot restore what has been taken from you. Tabula rasa, and all that; a clean slate for what's ahead. The world is about to change, my young friends, change mightily, and you will be at the forefront! A new era of humanity is about to unfold! Can't have you being held back by the baggage of your pasts when you have a whole new future to look forward to, now can we?"

"Still think he's not a supervillain?" Six muttered.

"The mad scientist vibes are strong," Five agreed.

One, meanwhile, had reached the end of his rope. "And what, you think we're just going to lie down and let you experiment on us, you sick freak?" he screamed at the ceiling. "As soon as you open that door, we're going to take you down. Just let us go, and nobody gets hurt!"

"Come now," came the voice of their captor, dripping with condescension so thick it was apparent even through the distortion of the intercom. "Didn't I just say I wanted intelligent subjects? Don't ruin it now. Do you really imagine I'd have left you all unrestrained if I didn't mean to?" A cold feeling shivered up Three's spine. He suspected he knew why they weren't confined, and his fears were confirmed with the next words that crackled into the room. "It's already done. Your treatment was administered while you were all still unconscious. You have all taken your first steps upon the path to ascension already. Do speak up if you start to experience any... symptoms."

With an audible click, the voice went silent, and did not return however they yelled at the walls. No one could determine how they were being observed, though it was obvious they were; there were no visible cameras. Eventually, they gave up trying to either get the attention of their concealed watchers or find out how they were watching. The men of group 5B started drifting away in ones and twos, some trying out the gym to work off their frustration, some heading for the mess hall in search of food, and some just flopping on their beds to talk--or complain--at varying volumes.

Three and Five, laying sideways on Three's bed, amused themselves for a while looking for spaces in the walls and ceiling where surveillance devices might be concealed, but more for something to do than in hopes of actually succeeding. Two and Eight--a tanned guy with curly blond hair who made Three think of surfers--sat on Two's bed next to them, discussing methods of getting the door open with similar futility.

Gradually, Three became more and more aware of Five's close proximity; the heat of his skin, the sound of his steady breathing, the smell of him. That scent in particular started to occupy more and more of Three's attention. The room in general was quite sterile, with a vaguely antiseptic smell hanging over everything, but the clean sweat and warm musk of the man right beside him overpowered the chemical scent more by the minute. Three's head was swimming with it until he could hardly pay attention to their anemic conversation any longer.

It seemed the most natural thing in the world, therefore, when Three reached over the scant few inches between them and lightly ran his fingers up Five's bare thigh. He heard Five's breath catch, but there was no resistance, no objection, so Three kept going. There was a tiny, distant voice in the back of his mind saying something was wrong, that he shouldn't do this, but it was easy to ignore and was rapidly getting drowned out by the roaring in his ears and the pounding of his heart.

Five's answering touch, feather light, had goosebumps rising on Three's arms. Five's fingers wandered up the back of Three's hand, tracing the tendons to his wrist, and then ever so gently skimming up the length of his arm. There was something inexplicably intimate about it, just that barest caress, and Three's heart rate seemed to double as Five moved back down Three's arm until their fingers tangled together.

Moving Three's hand with his own, Five drew them both up his own leg, under the hem of his shapeless white boxers, to the soft skin of his inner thigh. The skin of his outer leg had been relatively cool, but now the heat was intense. Three followed the heat, reaching upward into the warmth, and soon found its source. Five's cock was half hard already, but it stiffened swiftly in Three's hand as he gave it a gentle tug. Five's hand tightened on Three's, his sharp intake of breath not quite a gasp.

A similar sound made Three look to the next bed. He was somehow unsurprised to find Two's back arched, head thrown back, as Eight kissed his neck. As Three watched, Eight slid a hand down Two's muscled stomach until it disappeared beneath the waistband of his boxers. There was already a considerable tent in the fabric, and Eight's hand stretched it even more, making Two gasp again as Eight's hand began to move inside. A loud, low moan came from the open door to the gym, definitely not a grunt of effort from weightlifting.

See? The voice in the back of Three's mind seemed to say. It's not just us! Something is wrong! Why would we all be doing this? True or not, Three couldn't focus on those thoughts, could hardly think of anything at all apart from the smell of Five's skin, the heat rolling off of him, and above all the silken feel of the steely shaft in his hand.

A slow pull dragged a soft groan out of Five, but the angle was awkward and Three couldn't get good traction with the current arrangement. Five seemed to feel the same, and he pulled Three's hand out just long enough to whip down his boxers, lifting his hips to slide them all the way off. Five's cock popped out almost eagerly, now fully erect, and Three immediately reached back in, taking a firmer grip now that the obstruction was gone. His own boxers were showing serious strain but Three hardly noticed, his strangely hyper-focused mind zeroing in on the cock in his hand. He was fascinated by it, entirely transfixed by the feel of the skin sliding up and down the rigid shaft and the spongy texture of the head when he stroked it with his thumb.

From the corner of his eye, Three could see the next bed. Eight's hand was working steadily inside Two's stretched boxers, his mouth now on Two's nipple. Two seemed to undulate with the motion, abs rippling, hips pushing up against Eight's hand, his eyes shut rapturously. No longer did Three think this odd or confusing; it seemed only right, the logical thing to do when one had a hot body and hard cock right there within arm's length. That tiny voice in the back of his mind still wailed, but it grew more distant by the moment, its insistence that something was wrong increasingly smothered by the surging lust that seemed to drown everything inside him.

Three realized he was leaning in, his fascination pulling him down like a magnet. He was inches away from Five's erection, eye to eye as it were, and it therefore was simplicity itself to lean down a bit more and open his mouth. There was a small, pearlescent bead of liquid forming on the tip of Five's cock, growing a bit more with each stroke, and Three had to know. He didn't know anything about himself, his life, how he got there or what would happen to them, but he knew that much: he needed it. Needed to taste it, to feel it with more than just his fingers.

When Three licked the drop away, he was surprised to find it tasted sweet, with just a hint of bitterness. The touch of his tongue made Five shudder, a jolt of electricity seeming to run through him. One of his hands slid over the back of Three's head, tangling in his hair and gently guiding him down further. The skin of Five's cock was shockingly warm on Three's lips, silky and soft like satin wrapping steel, and more of that bittersweet flavor spread across Three's tongue as he took the head of Five's cock into his mouth fully.

Three sucked, sliding lower, and Five groaned. He'd been sitting up but couldn't seem to maintain that level of muscular control anymore and sagged backward onto Three's bed. One hand still on Three's head, Five's hips started to move, pushing upward into Three's mouth as Five's hand pulled him down, and it was all Three could do to take it. Five's cock wasn't huge, objectively, but it seemed plenty large enough now that it was inside Three's mouth. Five seemed determined to choke him as Three desperately tried to accommodate Five's cock--and finally succeeded. Something loosened in his throat and Five slid in deeper, all the way to the root--though Three felt like he was gagging and pulled back.

Five seemed not to notice, his thrusting still gentle if more insistent, and Three rapidly learned to repeat his earlier feat, taking Five to the root in quick swallows that gagged Three less and less each time. Five was gasping now, panting with exertion despite hardly moving, his hand clutching tightly in Three's hair. He writhed with the pleasure of it, body squirming, legs spreading--and Three caught sight of something that arrested his attention just as much as that first drop had.

Three eased back a bit on his rapid suction. Somehow, Three had wound up in control of it, instead of Five the way they'd started. Three collected some of the copious saliva he was slobbering all over Five--there was a lot--on the tip of his finger and reached down. Down to that glimpse of a dark spot he'd had for just a moment as Five squirmed. It was somehow even hotter down there, hotter than Three had thought a human body could get, and the texture of the skin was different too--spongy and stretchy all at once.

Five went rigid as Three's finger found his hole, his body arching up off the bed. Muscles clenched around Three's fingertip, squeezing tight, and both young men groaned. That just set Five off again, feeling the vibration of Three's voice shiver down the length of his erection. Three pulled his finger out, making Five shudder yet again, and collected more spit before resuming his exploration of this new, even more fascinating discovery. He kept up his sucking, but eased back even more, just gently working the top third or so with his mouth while he focused on what his fingers were finding.

For he'd added another finger, Three realized, without even really thinking about it, instinctively stretching and exploring as far as he could. Reaching deeper, Three found something, a small bump that seemed to make Five completely lose control of his limbs, twitching and gasping every time Three touched that spot. When Three looked up, meeting Five's gaze and seeing his eyes as wild with lust as he was sure his own were, he couldn't wait any longer.

Breaking contact with Five for the first time since this had started, Three stood and shucked off his white boxers--now with a sizable wet spot. He absently noticed that Two and Eight were entwined in a furious sixty-nine in the next bed, each desperately devouring the other's erection. They were clearly as overcome by whatever was happening as Three and Five were, their common sense consumed by lust, and they paid him no more attention than Three could pay attention to anything but Five. More specifically, the way Five leaned back, pulling his knees to his chest and fully exposing his spit-slick hole. Three's entire being seemed laser-focused on that one point, that singular puckered ring, and from the way Five grabbed at him, pulling Three closer, Five was feeling the same.

Three slotted himself in between Five's legs, lining himself up. They both shivered when the head of Three's cock contacted Five's hole for the first time. Three's cock was dripping like a leaky faucet, and he used every ounce of self-control he still possessed to smear some around in an effort to lubricate things a bit more, but that brief second was all he could muster. Three pushed forward and Five opened eagerly to receive him, actually grabbing Three's hips to pull him in faster when Three didn't advance quickly enough to suit him.

The slick heat of Five's body was incredible, the paradoxically simultaneous tight grasp and yielding stretch making Three's head spin. He drew back a bit, teasing Five's hole with the ridge of his cockhead, then plunged in deeply, wrenching twin groans from them both. Soon he was moving, thrusting faster as Five gasped wordless encouragement to spur him on. Three didn't speak either--he could barely form coherent thoughts, much less words--but his gaze held on Five's, their eyes locked together as tightly as their bodies. He needed more.

And so he moved.

The world shrank down to only them, the sweat on their skin, the warmth of their breath, the rhythm of body against body. Noises drifted past them unheeded--the wet, muffled moans of Two and Eight behind them, the cries of passion occasionally echoing from the other rooms of this strange prison--but none of it mattered, it was all just the background music to their dance. Three was holding Five's shoulders with Five's arms around his neck, their faces scant inches apart and their eyes never breaking away. They didn't kiss, though they were so close they might as well have, their breaths intermingling in plumes of heat against each other's lips.

Three thrust deep, hips slapping against Five's ass, using his entire length with every thrust. He plunged in to the root, drew almost all the way back, and slammed in again, harder and faster, every muscle contracting with the effort. He couldn't get enough, couldn't push deep enough, couldn't thrust hard enough. He needed more, needed all of it--he didn't even know what, but he needed it--and he couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. Not that he had the capacity to want that at the moment. He was consumed in Five; the feel of him, the smell of him, the heat of him was all that mattered.

Five's cock, rock hard and dripping, was trapped between them, bouncing off Five's abs with the force of Three's thrusts then bobbing back up to rub against Three. It left slender liquid strands stretching between them, an ephemeral web tying them together, being built and broken again and again. Three slipped a hand between their bodies, into the slick sauna that meager space had become, and wrapped his fingers around Five's erection. Five's cries of pleasure went up an octave as Three began to stroke.

A wrenching, guttural groan from behind him suggested that Two or Eight had found release, but Three hardly noticed. Thrusting and stroking, sweating and panting, he couldn't stop. He needed more. Five was clutching onto him for dear life, his breath hot in Three's ear. He was so close. He needed more.

Five's body grew taut, spine arching, legs clenching around Three's waist just as his inner muscles squeezed tight around Three's cock. Five had been quite vocal so far, but abruptly went quiet, mouth open wide but silent as his cock erupted, splattering his load across their chests and over Three's hand. Three just kept thrusting, drilling deeper, as if trying to drive Five's load out. It sort of worked, too, with each thrust seeming to push another shot out of Five as Three pounded into him without pause.

Five's body finally went loose again, relaxing his iron clench around Three, but Three didn't slow down. There was a second, louder cry of ecstasy from behind him--Two and Eight were both now finished, it seemed--and Three was desperate to follow them. His balls were boiling, the blood roaring in his ears, he was so close. He needed more.

But he couldn't take any more.

With a groan from deep in his chest, Three buried himself to the root and let it all go. The inferno roaring in his blood seemed to pour out with his load, Three's body shuddering and jerking as his cock erupted. Whatever little functionality his brain still had completely short-circuited, leaving Three a rigid, twitching wreck as his orgasm raged through him and his load pumped out. Spurt after spurt shot deep into Five, Three's whole body seeming to contract with each pulse as if every muscle in him was contributing.

After an eternal moment, Three was able to uncoil from Five, his body finally relaxing from the furor that had overtaken him. Sliding out of Five's ass, Three just sort of toppled over to sprawl beside him. Both were panting and sweaty, overwhelmed by the intensity of the experience. They shared a look, once both of their brains were fully re-engaged; no words were exchanged, but the sheer amount of mutual "what the fuck was that?" was clear in both their expressions.

Motion in the corner of Three's eye drew his attention, and turning to look was all it took. On the next bed, Eight was on his back with Two astride his face, grinding his ass down onto Eight's mouth. Two's eyes were closed, his face locked in a rapturous expression as he gyrated atop Eight, lightly stroking himself with one hand. Eight's cock was likewise still fully erect, standing tall like a flagpole and glistening with Two's spit and his own leftover load.

Just like that, Three was lost again.

The inferno of lust that had only just begun to quieten roared back to life as Three's gaze locked onto Eight's unattended erection. He needed it. The same consuming fixation that had drawn him to Five in the first place filled him again, Three's body surging with desire out of nowhere. His own erection hadn't begun to droop but seemed nevertheless to stiffen even more. Three hauled his sweaty, exhausted body up from its sprawl, crossed the few steps to the next bed, bent, and gulped down Eight's cock like it was the last drop of water in the desert.

There was a spluttery sort of noise from between Two's legs--neither he nor Eight had noticed Three's approach--but Two didn't move to release Eight. He did, however, open his eyes and look down to investigate. He laughed delightedly at the sight of Three slurping his way up and down the thick erection that had so recently occupied Two's own mouth.

Three hardly noticed. There was more of a bitter undertone to this flavor than the salty-sweet taste he'd had from Five, but he couldn't get enough. He started rolling and toying with Eight's balls with one hand, his other holding the shaft steady so he could go faster, bobbing up and down, half choking himself as he tried to swallow all of Eight's thick shaft. Eight was bigger than Five, thicker, and Three had to stretch his jaw to get down its length. He only made it all the way down once--and that was mostly a fluke--but he never slowed, never stopped. He needed more.

Three did notice when strong, gentle hands seized his ass cheeks, spreading them apart, and something hot and slick slithered across his hole. Three's bent position left his ass practically waving in the air, and at the sight Five had experienced the same craving compulsion as Three had for Eight's cock. Five's tongue set to work on Three's hole with wild abandon, somehow caressing and exploring and plumbing deep all at once. It sent waves of pleasure shivering up Three's spine, making him moan around Eight's cock as he kept sucking, unwilling--perhaps unable--to relinquish his hold on it.

Two was watching avidly, though he was apparently as unable to speak as Three and Five; despite having the only unoccupied mouth of the four, he said nothing after his one surprised chuckle. He just watched, stroking himself, grinding his ass down on Eight's mouth and visibly enjoying the show. Three could barely spare him a glance, his world largely consumed once again by the slick, steely shaft in his mouth, but he could understand Two's delight. Five was giving him the same treatment Two was getting, and Five's tongue in his ass was almost as good as fucking Five had been.

Whatever small fraction of Three's brain that was still functioning locked onto that thought. Could he..? Yes, he could. He had to. He needed more. Three pulled off Eight's cock with a wet pop, and, after gently disengaging himself from Five, Three stood up straight and climbed onto Two's bed. He threw a leg over Eight, reached down and back to line things up, and pushed himself onto Eight's cock without hesitation.

It hurt. He hadn't been prepared for the thickness, and it hurt, but he didn't care. He needed more. Forcing himself to relax, to open, he worked his way down, hearing Eight's groan, Five's gasp and Two's incredulous laughter and ignoring it all. The further he got, the better it felt, the initial pain soon fading into a sort of burning stretch that eventually became raw pleasure as the head of Eight's cock bumped into something inside him that lit him up in all the right ways. Three groaned and rolled his hips, his spine arching and head lolling back in much the same posture Two had been in a moment before.

Wait, where was Two?

Slick warmth engulfed Three's cock once more, and he glanced down to find Two back in his original sixty-nine position... except this time he was sucking Three even as Three started to truly ride Eight. Two's own cock, Three could see, was back in Eight's mouth, thrusting into his throat while Two began to work on Three's unattended erection. It was incredible, the distinct yet mirrored sensations of Eight's cock inside him and Two's mouth on him all at once. Every roll of Three's hips had him fucking himself on Eight and fucking into Two's throat simultaneously.

Five, not to be left out, leapt into the fray. Climbing onto the end of the bed, he planted his knees on either side of Eight's head and brought his undiminished erection into line with Two's ass. Well prepared by Eight's earlier efforts, Five slid right in with little resistance. Two groaned around Three's cock but did not stop sucking as Five sank into him, slowly but unceasingly pushing deeper. With a flex of chiseled abs he drew back and plunged all the way in, Two's eyes rolling up in his head as he was spitroasted and sucked all at once.

Somewhere behind him, from the gym, Three could hear One's voice loudly insisting he was "nobody's bitch," and then, perhaps thirty seconds later, just as loudly demanding someone fuck him harder, before his voice was muffled wetly as if something had filled his mouth. Three couldn't spare any attention for the others, could hardly keep track of everything around himself; his perception was contracting in again but seemed to have trouble deciding what to latch onto. Eight's thick cock, churning inside him, stretching him open and filling him up? Two's hot mouth wrapped around his own erection, slick and tight and exquisite? Five's beautiful body, rippling gracefully with every thrust into Two? It was too much, but he needed more. Five's gaze met Three's over Two's back, those intense dark eyes locking onto Three's. Some distant part of him noted that Three didn't know what color his own eyes were, but the thought was swept away on a tide of sweat and heat and desperate lust.

And so, once again, he simply moved.

This time it was a symphony instead of a duet, four bodies moving together, voices rising together, hands and tongues and skin sliding against one another in perfect synchrony, an effortless harmony that consumed them all and demanded more than they had. They all needed more, and gave what they could, knowing it wasn't enough but unable to stop themselves from trying. Eight was their solid foundation, thrusting up into Three, furiously sucking Two, his wandering hands somehow fondling, exploring, and holding them all up all at once. Three roiled with desperate passion, fucking himself on Eight, thrusting into Two's mouth, trying not to lose whatever scraps of control he still had. Five stood in graceful counterpoint opposite Three, pounding into Two, keeping the rhythm with steady percussion, never wavering. And Two writhed between them all, entangled and entangling, devouring and being devoured.

Perhaps it was fitting, then, that it was Two who broke first. He made a garbled, choking noise around Three's cock, his steady gyrations going erratic and jerky as his eyes rolled up into his head and his load pumped into Eight's throat. Eight took it readily, seeming unfazed as he swallowed a second load from Two, though a trickle escaped down his cheek from the corner of his mouth. Five just thrust harder, driving into Two's ass fast and deep, seeking his own peak even as Two's inner muscles spasmed and clenched around him.

Even as Two began to relax, the crest of the wave passing, Three began to climb his own. His balls were boiling, rolled up tight to his body, the pressure building with every roll of his hips. Eight's cock was hitting just the right spot inside, his every move sending sparks up his spine to detonate in his brain. Two's mouth worked him ceaselessly, bobbing up and down, tongue dancing over Three's cockhead, Two's climax not interrupting his efforts for a moment. He needed more, but he'd had enough. Three's eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in his body clenching as he rammed down onto Eight's thick shaft one final time. The dam broke inside him and his second load all but exploded out of him, his body shuddering in time with every pulse from his cock. It was Two getting a mouthful this time, and he struggled to contain it all, choking a bit as white streaks ran down his chin.

Three's spasmodic clenching must have been the final straw for Eight, as by the time Three's brain was more or less working again, he felt Eight go rigid beneath him. He heard a half-muffled "mmmfffuck!" from under Two as Eight's cock started to pulse inside him, Eight's hips shuddering into jerky half-thrusts as he emptied himself into Three's ass, his load running down his own shaft and sticking their bodies together. Three kept moving, kept squeezing, wringing Eight's twitching cock for every drop he could wrench out as the two of them came down together, with Two still squirming between them.

Five kept up his steady pounding through it all, abs flexing rhythmically, his bronze skin glistening with a sheen of sweat as his hips slapped against Two's taut ass. Each of his hands held a globe of smooth muscle, spreading Two's ass apart so he could plunge in as deeply as possible. A lock of sweaty black hair dangled over his face and he tossed his head to clear it, those bottomless dark eyes of his locking onto Three's again as he did, the wild hunger shining from them a match for the inferno still roiling--unquenched, if dimmed--in Three's blood. Holding Five's gaze, Three dragged his lust-drenched brain into just enough order to silently mouth three words: "Come for me."

Five shuddered, and his eyes rolled up in his head, finally breaking eye contact, body going rigid. He plunged his cock into Two all the way to the root, every muscle standing out as his climax crashed over him and his cock erupted inside Two. A chest-deep groan sounded from between clenched teeth as he jerked his hips with every shot, his hips grinding against Two's ass. Gasping and still shaking, he pulled out and collapsed, his still-hard cock drooling out one last drop across his sweaty abs.

The four of them struggled to extricate themselves, winding up in a sort of half-tangled sprawl that left them all touching each other rather more than was necessary. None of them spoke as their faculties began to return, but the same thought ran through each of their minds.

What the hell was happening to them?

*

The man behind the desk looked up from his work when a knock sounded on his door. "Yes?"

His aide opened the door, looking hesitant. "Sir?"

"What is it, Hawthorne? Has there been a development?"

Of all things, the young man blushed. "You, uh, you might say that, sir. Have you been watching the surveillance feeds?"

The doctor waved a dismissive hand. "Not since a few hours ago when they were first waking up. What's happened?"

"You... might want to see for yourself, sir. I'm not sure I can explain it." Hawthorne walked over to the monitor on the wall, tapped the connected tablet a few times, and stepped back out of the doctor's view. He felt his eyebrows climb at the scene depicted on the screen, which could perhaps best be described as 'frenzied debauchery.' Thankfully, he kept the sound off.

"I... see. How long has this been going on? And which group is this?"

"This is 5B, they were first. They've been at it for a while now. They, uh... they can't seem to stop, sir. Every time it looks like they're done, they start up again."

"First? You mean...?"

"Yes, sir. 5B was first, but over the course of an hour or so, all the other B groups went the same way." Hawthorne tapped the tablet a few more times, causing the screen to cycle through scene after scene in different containment wards, each more furiously libidinous than the last.

"Well. I admit, this is unexpected. But, as I always say, there is no useless data. Make a note, Hawthorne, to remind me to reformulate the Propagation Package. It seems I'll need to tone it down somewhat."

"Right away, sir, but if I may ask... what's the Propagation Package?"

For the first time Hawthorne could remember, the brilliant doctor he idolized looked... shifty. Embarrassed? No, certainly not. "It's... something I concocted at the last minute. An addendum to the primary ascension matrix. You know, of course, that I fund my more... esoteric... research," he gestured at the facility around them, "through fertility work in the private sector?"

"Of course, sir! Your gene therapy techniques are some of the most successful in history! You deserved that Nobel for it, sir, I still say you were robbed!"

"Yes, thank you, Hawthorne, I appreciate that. That body of work is actually the basis for the Propagation Package. What's the point of the work we're doing if it ends here? Humanity will only continue to advance if what we create here will be passed on. And it was quite a trick to get Apex to bind to the subjects' germ line instead of remaining purely somatic, let me tell you... But I digress. I was discussing the need to pass on the ascension matrix from the primary subjects. To that end, I put together some of my more effective gene therapies, designed to foster rapid and successful reproduction, and introduced them to our B subjects. Increased libido, increased sperm production, dramatically increased pheromone secretion.... you get the idea."

"Pheromones, sir? As in, sexual attractants?" Hawthorne glanced at the screen, blushed again, and looked away. "You, uh, you may have overdone it, sir."

"Indeed, Hawthorne, it seems I have."

"Shouldn't we... do something, sir? Intervene?"

"What? Of course not, Hawthorne, we can't interfere just for this. We have to let it play out, and collect as much data as we can. Research is an iterative process for a reason. We can only learn from this and improve for the next time." The doctor let out a breath, looking... old... for the first time Hawthorne could remember. "And besides, if my projections for the incubation period are accurate... well. Let them have fun while they can."

*

Three was not having fun.

There was something wrong with them. All of them. He'd barely managed to disentangle himself from the other three, leaving them sucking each other in a triangle while he dragged his exhausted body--which was still thrumming with apparently bottomless lust, not to mention still hard as a rock--away from them in hopes of clearing his mind.

That had not worked out.

He'd first staggered into the mess hall, hoping some water would help his pounding head. It would at least help replace some of the fluids he'd lost, if nothing else. Upon entering, though, he'd been transfixed by the tableau of Ten bent over the table with Seven pounding his ass like a jackhammer, thrusting so hard the table was rattling and jerking despite being bolted to the floor. Though his gaze was magnetically drawn to the action before him, Three forced his eyes away and made himself get across the room to the water fountains and managed a few gulps of blissfully cool water.

Turning around proved to be a mistake.

He should have kept facing the wall while trying to leave, but Three just turned and was once again struck by that obscene fascination he'd experienced before as he beheld the pair. Now on the far side of the table from where he'd entered, he was facing Ten and Seven, and that made it so much worse somehow. Ten's eyes were shut and his mouth open in the picture of ecstasy, his hands clutching the table to keep him in place. Seven, though, regarded Three with calm, impenetrable eyes from beneath black hair, his flawless skin glistening with a fine sheen of sweat from his exertions.

Three couldn't help it. He needed to get in there, as insane as he knew that was, and soon found himself sliding his apparently eternal erection into Ten's open mouth, spitroasting him across the table. When Seven reached his climax a few minutes later and followed Three's example of heading for water, it seemed only right for Three to step up and fill in, burying himself in Ten's ass among what felt like several previous loads. Then Seven came back, still as hard as they all endlessly were and expecting an ass to fuck, and so Three found himself sandwiched between them, fucking Ten as Seven fucked him, moving together, breathing together, coming inside and all over each other again and again.

When Three had finally gathered the will to stagger away from the mess hall, more drained and exhausted than ever yet somehow still unrelentingly hard, he'd gone elsewhere in search of refuge. Pointedly not looking at the writhing tangle of bodies near his bed, and ignoring the sounds coming from that direction, Three fled into the bathroom, desperately hoping a cold shower might help drag him out of... whatever this was.

The shower, of course, was occupied.

Three found Four and Nine in there, though what they were doing could hardly be described as clean. Four was lean like Five, pale with chestnut brown hair and bright green eyes. Nine looked to be of Indian descent, with cinnamon skin and long hair so black it gleamed blue. Three only noticed that from the way Four was holding it in his fist, pulling Nine's head back while Four fucked him against the wall of the shower. Steam billowed around them, several showerheads running at once, the water leaving gleaming droplets sparkling across their bodies.

Shaking his head, Three surrendered to the inevitable and just walked in. He fucked Nine. He fucked Four. He got fucked by Nine while Four fucked him. He and Four fucked Nine together, their cocks stretching him wide as they slid against one another in a delicious dance. Three did technically spend a while in the showers, but he didn't feel any cleaner when he eventually staggered out of the bathroom.

The spirit was willing--or, at least the libido was--but the flesh couldn't take any more. Head pounding, ass throbbing, and balls aching, Three collapsed on his (thankfully unoccupied) bed. He'd seen a few of his fellows still going at it in an exhausted, desultory sort of way, but after... six? Seven orgasms in one day? ... Three just didn't have anything left. Not that his last orgasm could really be called such, it was more of a testicular dry heave than a proper climax.

Three was just drifting off, his tired brain vaguely congratulating itself for finally managing the task, when something warm and firm and rather nice slid up against Three's chest. Dragging his eyes open, he found Five spooning up against him, unashamedly cramming himself into the curve of Three's body on his narrow cot. Five grabbed Three's wrist, pulled the arm over himself like a blanket, snuggled in a bit to settle more comfortably, and--apparently--fell straight to sleep. Three's cock gave a feeble sort of twitch at the warm curve of Five's ass pressing up against it, but there was just nothing left. With a sigh, Three closed his eyes again and soon went the same way, his body too wrung out to do anything but shut down for a while.

He awoke to the sound of screams.