Feeling a bit down.

[Corsair]

Matthias woke up to a splitting headache. A gag was shoved into his mouth and he was blindfolded. His body was cramped, and he found himself curled up in some kind of box or container. Dried blood covered his face and he struggled to remember what had happened. The box he was stuffed into jostled, and he realized he was being transported. He felt himself moving, and jostled again when he was set down. His hands and feet were bound tightly, palms facing away from each other and the cord biting into his skin. He was still naked, he noticed wryly. The inside of the box stank of blood, sweat and rotting semen.

The box began to vibrate as the ship he had been loaded onto activated its engines. He felt himself go weightless, completely vulnerable to the movements of his new transport. He felt queasy as they went through Trade Lanes, and was jostled around as they approached their destination- a planet from the feel of the gravity. No matter how hard he tried to get the bindings off, they wouldn't slip off his wrists. They were tight and had small hooks on the inside to grip the skin. The mouth gag was also too tight to work out and the blindfold was tied too tight to just rub his face on the side of the box to get it off.

The transport landed and a minute later the box was opened. Strong, gloved hands grabbed Matthias and hauled him out. He was forced to hop along as he was guided to wherever they were headed. When they stopped walking, he was shoved down to the ground. Grass and dirt cushioned his fall. His blindfold and gag were torn off, and Matthias saw Jannette standing over him, gun pointed at his skull. She was dressed in a blue flight suit, and as Matthias flicked his eyes around he saw they were on a planet- Manhattan, most likely. This looked like a park, but nobody else was around. Matthias' hands were trapped behind his back, driven into the ground by his body weight. Jannette glared into his eyes, not saying anything. Her gun was trained on him the entire time.

"What was your assignment?" she asked. Matthias licked some blood off of his lip. Jannette aimed the gun at his right foot, and fired. Her gun was an advanced spec-ops pistol. It made only a slight popping noise as it discharged a metal bullet through his foot. Matthias cried out in pain. Jannette grabbed his face by the cheeks and forced him to look at her face. "Why did you do it, you son of a bitch?" Angry tears flew from her eyes. Matthias' eyes widened in surprise. She wasn't asking him about his assignment anymore. He began to tear up himself as he struggled to find words.

"I hate you." she said, more tears flowing from her eyes. "Because I loved you so frakking much." Matthias blinked stupidly. He nodded slowly, his tears finally spilling over. When they touched her hand she recoiled like she'd been burned. He looked up at her and said, "I still love you. This was supposed to be an easy assignment." Jannette gritted her teeth. Her gun hand trembled, and finally fell. "Damnit," she hissed. "Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!." She covered her eyes with her hand and turned away. She couldn't look at Matthias- dirty, bloody, naked Matthias. "Matthias," he said, "That's my name." She turned back to him, eyes red and puffy. "Harriet," she said, her voice breaking.

She moved behind him and untied his hands. His cold fingers wouldn't move. His feet were the same story. His limbs were useless, but she knelt next to him and kissed him. When she pulled away, he asked, "How did you find out?" Harriet smiled and said, "When we kissed I passed a microchip into your body. It read your DNA and matched it to Rheinland. Then I just used my Neural Net implant to look at your backstory- nowhere near Rheinland. The LSF received a tip that a Rheinland saboteur would try and blow up Baltimore. I was sent to check out any new arrivals to the shipyard. If it makes you feel better, I did the same thing to Jack. He really is Bretonian."

Matthias still couldn't feel his hands or feet- they had turned a pallid blue tinge. He knew they were useless and would have to be amputated. The foot that was shot had already stopped bleeding. His concussion still throbbed in his skull, and he could tell that he was going to die soon. Harriet knew it too, but she didn't cry. They made love one last time, Matthias' face slowly draining of color. Matthias choked up, and thrusted hard up, almost bucking Harriet off. The weakened blood vessels in his brain ruptured and he died with one last spasm of ecstasy.

Harriet sat on top of Matthias' corpse, feeling the body below her grow cold. The heat he had left inside of her remained, and after she cleaned herself up she put her space suit back on. She had to turn his body into LSF HQ to complete her assignment, so she loaded his body into the same box she had brought him here in. She loaded back up into her fighter and took off, Manhattan's urban smog obscuring her vision until she broke the cloud cover.

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