Wolfen Domination

Chapter One

            “Subject one has resisted all attempts at harvesting,
Doctor Wagner,” Doctor Freda Dallas said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts
as she leaned against the door jam of Wagner’s office and carefully assumed a
neutral expression.  She didn’t feel neutral about it.  She was angry and
frustrated as she studied her superior.

            Wagner looked up distractedly from the file on
his desk, his faded blue eyes magnified by the thick glasses perched on his
nose.  It was a shame, Freda thought, that the man was so totally unattractive
besides being an exceptional scientist.  He was ordinary enough that he might
have been flattered by an attempt on her part to manipulate him by seduction
except that he was too intelligent not to be suspicious of her motives and too
thick skinned to notice anything the least bit subtle.  “Have you tried milking
the prostate?”

            Freda nodded.  Her pose of professional
indifference slipped a notch at the reminder, a frown drawing her brows
together over the bridge of her nose.  The tight expression made her head
hurt.  “Yes.  It’s not working.  Nothing has.”

            Wagner steepled his hands beneath his chin
musingly.  “It amazes me the control he has over his body, but I suspect it’s a
given with what he is.  He is a magnificent specimen.  He’s next to useless
without viable sperm, however.”  He sat back in his chair, his features drawn
into an expression of disgust and disappointment.  “We’ll have to have him
destroyed.”

            She’d expected as much and the coolly issued
death penalty still sent a jolt of regret through her.  Wagner was right.  He
was
a magnificent specimen, too marvelous in her considered opinion to just
arbitrarily destroy him.

            Besides, it went against the grain to just give
up on him.

            “There’s another possibility, Wagner, one we
considered before but didn’t want to get in to until all options had been
exhausted.  I hadn’t expected it to be necessary.  I know none of us expected
entrapment and extraction to be so difficult.”

            She had his attention.  He looked at her
expectantly, more than a little hopeful, and she knew she had him.  He wanted the
specimen as much as she did, not entirely for the same reason, but that hardly
mattered.

            “Well?”

            “Natural extraction of spermatozoa through sexual
intercourse.”  It was a reach.  She didn’t especially like what she was going
to have to do to keep him alive, but she felt Dr. Wagner was desperate enough
to consider it.

            He leaned forward in his chair again trying to
hide his eagerness.  As she’d hoped, his eyes gleamed with scientific avarice. 
“Go on.”

            “As you say, he has amazing self control, but I
believe he’s near the breaking point.  If we give him someone he’s attracted
to, it could be the impetus we’ve needed all this time.”

            “You have someone in mind, don’t you?”

            Freda restrained the malicious smile that
threatened her composure.  “Erin Maddox.  I’ve seen the way he looks at her
when she delivers his food.  He’s attracted to her, I know.”

            Wagner was silent a long moment, lacing and
unlacing his fingers as he thought it over.  Finally, he said, “She’ll never
agree.  She thinks they’re nothing but animals.”

            “I know, but her contract clearly states her
obligations to the project.  Which is to say she’s under our complete control. 
She can’t object, and there’s always formula 9 if she does.”

            Wagner digested that with just a trace of uneasiness. 
“You realize this takes it to the next level.  There’ll be no turning back.”

            “I assumed we’d crossed into uncharted territory
when we took live specimens.”

            He didn’t consider nearly as long this time. 
Clearly, he was far too excited at the possibility of finally making a break
through that he’d overcome his brief battle with ethics.  “Agreed.  If this
works, I think you just may get that clearance for level five you’ve been so
eager for.”

            Freda allowed herself a smile.  A bump up the
ladder and she hadn’t even had to screw the old geezer to get it.  Who’d’ve
thought?  “Thank you, sir.”

            Wagner smiled suddenly, rising from his seat,
possibilities whirling in his eyes.  “Have a syringe of F9 prepared for its
first human subject.  I suspect we’ll need it.  I’ll call her in.”

* * * *

            “Ms. Maddox, come to my office,” Doctor Wagner’s
voice compelled her over the intercom, startling her with its abruptness.

           
What the hell did he want now?  Coffee?  Tea? 
For me to come in there and kiss his ass?
She thought.

            Erin Maddox curbed the impulse to glare at the
unit.  He could be watching, after all, and she’d never get off drudge duty if
he knew how much she despised leaping to his commands.  There was nothing for
it, though.  If she wanted her job, and she did,
and
she wanted a chance
to move up from lab drudge to something of significance, she had to do whatever
he wanted her to do.

            She stood and answered the com unit, then headed
out to the hall, following it down to his office.

            The facility was deceptively quiet save for the
hollow echo of her heels through the barren, concrete corridor.  She could
almost believe she was the only person in the building.  There were no
televisions, no murmuring conversations between colleagues to be heard.  Nothing
but herself and whatever noises she chose to make--which was almost enough to
make her want to run through the halls whooping and hollering just for the hell
of it.  She wouldn’t, of course, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t tempted.  There
were just too many cameras watching for her to act up.

            Beyond these empty corridors, however, was a
different story.  She knew the grounds teemed with guards patrolling twenty
four hours a day, just itching for a security breach.  She’d seen them the few
times she’d dared to leave the facilities for fresh air.  It felt like the
prison that it was--that it had become for her.

            Thoughts of furthering her career in the
government had all but been erased from her mind.  She’d been treated as an
interloper from the onset of coming here and wasn’t allowed access to anything
of importance until she could be thoroughly trusted--which she suspected would
be never at this rate.  She wasn’t a team player according to her supervisor,
Doctor Freda Dallas.  And she couldn’t leave and apply for another position
until the term of this contract had expired, which left her completely at the
project head’s mercy.

            She blew out a frustrated breath thinking about
it, which only served to increase her annoyance over her situation.

            Erin reached Wagner’s office and knocked,
mentally composing herself for whatever ordeal he had planned for her today. 
His muffled “come in” penetrated the door, and she opened it and went inside,
closing it behind her.

            Freda Dallas was sitting inside in a chair in the
far corner of Wagner’s office.  Their gazes locked as she entered.  Erin paused
for a heartbeat--surprised to see her in there--before she remembered herself
and reluctantly crossed the room and sat beside Freda in the only other available
chair.

            If Wagner made her feel under rule, Freda made
her feel positively like a slave.  The woman had had it in for her from the
moment she’d arrived.  She didn’t know why.  She never knew why some people
just decided to hate her.

            Erin returned her cold smile, wondering what the
bitch was up to now.  Whatever it was, she knew she wouldn’t like it.  Freda
had a smug look on her face that set Erin’s teeth on edge.

            “Are you prepared to devote yourself fully to
this project, Maddox?” Wagner asked as he settled into his chair, clasping his
hands on his desktop and giving her the condescending look he always reserved
for her.

            Was she finally going to be given the chance
she’d been waiting for?  It was too much to hope for. Carefully, she answered,
“Of course, sir.  I’ve been ready to assist in any way you deem appropriate.”

            “Good.  Good.  You may or may not know of the
troubles we’ve had extracting viable spermatozoa from the specimen we’ve
collected?”

            “I’ve not been granted access to that
information, sir.  No.”  She didn’t find the information particularly
surprising though.  Freda was in charge of that department.  The woman emanated
cold.  She wouldn’t respond to that chilly bitch either if she could help it.

            “Yes, well, here’s where you come in.  We need
your assistance in a natural extraction.”

            Erin frowned.  “What methods, precisely, have you
been using if not natural?”  The process was basically the same for any male
animal.  She didn’t see why it would be different in this case.

            Doctor Wagner stood and moved around his desk,
sitting on the edge and entirely too close to her space for comfort.  He looked
down at her.  “Freda has proposed a radical solution that we’ve not considered
before.  You’ll perform sexual intercourse with subject one and then return to
us for swabbing once you’ve collected the specimen.”

            Erin stared at him in shocked disbelief, feeling
a cold chill run up her spine.  She couldn’t speak for several heartbeats, and
when she could work her throat, her voice came out like a croak.  “Are you
serious?”

            He held her gaze, his face blank, impassive as
ever.  “Perfectly.  I know it sounds radical, but this is no ordinary
situation, you’ll agree, and unfortunately it looks like we’ve run out of other
options.  Are you agreeable?”

            The shock hadn’t really worn off, but it didn’t
have to.  Her gut reaction to his suggestion was enough to send a surge of
outrage through her.  “
No
.  No, I am
not
agreeable!  They’re …
he’s an animal!  I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing!”

            Freda rolled her eyes.  “Please.  Do we have to
put up with these hysterics?”

            Her attention caught by the snide comment, Erin’s
head whipped toward the woman she’d begun to think of as her nemesis.  She
glared at Freda, forcing herself to calm down, realizing, as badly as she
would’ve hated to admit it that Freda was right in a sense.  She wasn’t
behaving rationally and certainly not with professional, scientific
detachment.  She’d reacted emotionally.  They were just asking her, after all. 
It wasn’t like she was being forced to agree with them.  They were rational
doctors, not mad scientists.  “I’m not hysterical.”  She turned to look at Wagner
again, still seething at the outrageous suggestion and now irritated, as well,
that they were trying to make it seem as if
she
was being unreasonable. 
“I just don’t see why you need me.  He’s Freda’s little pet.  Why doesn’t she
do it?”