Crime and Punishment - by PM2K

[PM2K]

Howdy, all!

While I'm still struggling to get some more fiction written, I thought I'd post some of these. I salvaged them from the "other" web site when I was writing stories to go with my fakery. Thought you'd like a gander at them here, too.


Crime and Punishment

Move it!
Joan-7 mentally wills herself to go forward. It is getting all too easy to just stand here and let the suffocating barrier of vegetation slowly smother her.
She pushes back from the tree she has been leaning on and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, pushing through the thick green curtains of weeds, vines and branches. She flinches at the relentless attacks of the stinging insects, struggles to breathe in the humid air, fights just to stay alive...
Tries desperately to forget what she has seen and heard the last 36 hours...
The weight on her left wrist continues to dig into her flesh, and she casts a quick glance at it. The small crystal at the centre of the bracelet blinks at her coldly...

"It's quite simple, really... quite simple."

Joan-7 shudders. The memory stabs at her, sudden and merciless, like a stilletto. She frowns, even as she continues to trudge onward. Scowling, she tries to prevent the rest of the cliptrip, but to no avail...

"You scum are getting a second chance! A fighting chance! To prove yourself worthy enough to rejoin society..."

Joan-7 bites her lower lip. The man was so cheerful about it... the man in the fancy uniform and shoulderboards covered in stars...
A shrill scream cuts through the air, followed by a loud wet smack. Then silence. Joan-7 stops in her tracks, her stomach ice.
Dear God... another one...

Following the speech, a dozen men and women headed out 36 hours ago. Each issued a kit bag of rations and a compass. Each placed in a thin line at the outer edge of the swamp, about thirty meters apart.
It was simple. Walk across. Those who make it to the other side go free.
Simple... Joan-7 manages a harsh snort. Tell that to...
Edgar-13. The first to go. Joan-7 had been walking maybe half an hour before she heard his screams. She and Helen-3 ran towards the source of the cries, which became more muffled as they approached. Helen-3 became the next victim as the plant which had ensnared and swallowed Edgar-13 snagged her too. Joan-7 barely escaped becoming number three, and could only stare in horror as the thick leaves enveloped her friend.
John-20 and Jordan-2 were killed a day later, torn apart after stumbling into a nest of crocodillians. Ming-9 and Akane-8 fared worse...
Joan-7 kept moving, trying to shut it all out. She had the misfortune to come across the two women... both had blundered into a jelly-trap and were in the process of being both smothered and digested by the organic ooze.... Ugh, what a horrible way to go... she thinks. And there wasn't anything I could have done...
The others... she didn't know. Every now and then a shrill cry would echo through the wilderness, but Joan-7 never really knew if it was the sounds of nature, or the death cry of another...

Slowly, the thick vegetation fades out, and she finds herself at the edge of a marshy place. An expanse of shallow stagnent water stretches out before her... too shallow to support crocodillians, or other nasty creatures such as blood-lampreys or the dreaded nerve-runners, which feast on the grey matter within spinal columns...
Joan-7 looks over the calm water. She is disquieted by the scene, although she doesn't know why.
Looking along the shoreline, she spots a large tree, which has fallen to form a bridge over the swamp. Maybe... she starts to head towards the tree, when movement makes her freeze in place. Her eyes lock on the source and slowly glance upward...

Joan-7 surpresses a gasp. High up in the trees, suspended by taut cables of webbing, is a massive arachnid. It is busy wrapping something in silk.
"Donna-25...." she says quietly. She has found the source of the scream. The petite body of a young blonde woman is nearly encased in webbing, only her head remains uncovered. Her bright blue eyes stare sightlessly, her pretty face marred by an expression of horror and surprise.

Joan-7 frowns. It is such an obvious trap... the way the log was chewed at one end said as much... so why would Donna-25 chance it? She looks around again. No sign of cy-drones... those damned things were the only mechanical intrusion into the wilderness... yet serve to drive them onward. No stragglers allowed...
Speaking of... where is Gert-47? Joan-7 shivers. Donna-25 went nowhere without her shadow, the only one smaller than her. A sweet redhead, she never left the blonde woman's side. So where? Peering at the web stretched overhead, she sees no sign of the young woman.
A high pitched whine forces Joan-7 to duck. Her left cheek stings, the result of a kiss from a stun beam. Damn! Must keep going... or the beam will do more than sting next time.
Walking quickly to the swamp's edge, she peers through its murkiness. The foul looking liquid appears shallow, all right. Perhaps this area was deeper following the winter rains, but it is barely a skin of moisture now. Sections of the bottom are visible further out, clots of greenish chunky mud forming smallish humps amid the still water.
Taking another careful look around, and mindful of the slowly increasing pitch of the sound of a cy-drone's stinger recharging, Joan-7 strides forward, splashing through the greasy muck and water.

She gets about ten meters out, when her world ends.
Joan-7 cries out in surprise as her feet and legs quickly glide into a thick warm mass of liquid earth. Struggling to extract her legs, she only manages to bring up endless wads of slime, which sucks hard on her body like a hungry leach. The water around her trapped form vanishes, revealing a muddy deathtrap.
"Oh, god! Quicksand!" And I walked right into it, like a fool! Like Gert-47 must have done...
It doesn't take long... her struggles loosen up the bog, allowing it to gulp Joan-7 down rapidly. In minutes, it has swallowed her hips, her waist and chest, remaining at a weird consistancy which allows her to sink, but not float... to plunge in fast, yet too thick to escape...
"No... oh, no..." Joan-7 feels the clammy slime roll over her shoulders, and embrace her neck. She can no longer hold her arms up, and allows both to slip under. Tilting her head back, she feels the mud stop up her ears, and creep over her face...
She attempts a final cry of... defiance? Terror? Despair? A combination of all of that? The attempt is choked off into a bubbling moan by the foul slurry of mud and water filling her open mouth, and Joan-7 vanishes beneath the surface of the quicksand...

"Colonel?"
The military man leans over his subordinate, who gestures to his screen. A crimson dot has blinks rapidly, then fades from view.
"Looks like another one, sir..." the man says, no hint of emotion in his voice.
"Hm..." the officer nods. "Which one?"
Silence, save for the ticking of a keyboard.
"Joan-7, sir... convicted of the Bainsville Colony murders... sentenced for six capital offences."
"Six... yes, I recall that case..." the colonel nods again. A bad one, even for the times. Children. Very bad.
"Very good, trooper... keep me informed..."
He turns away. Some crimes truly are unforgiveable... but to simply strap them down like Vesta-7 did... no, then we'd be no better than those we sentenced.
Here, we are far more civilized than that... the colonel thinks. Leave their final judgment to a greater power... the one who brings life is the only one possessing the right to take it...

The quicksand continues to bubble for a few minutes, its mass shuddering. Then, a final spray, and the wet muck slows its motions, then stills....

[Fred588]

well done

[PM2K]

Thanks, Fred!

[kham]

Remember this one and the pic you had for it

Nice work!

[cnelson566]

PM2K,i've always loved your manips,but in all honesty,i loved the stories you did with the pics even more,always thought provoking,sometimes scary as hell,sometimes hardbreakingly sad,sometimes just pure lustfilled hotness. I'm really glad to be reliving this story,i remember it as well,and hopefully you'll post some more of your stories here,thank you sir

[PM2K]

Thanks all for the kind words.

Keep an eye out. I hope to post more of these soon.

[Aiko]

Very well done!

I hope you don't mind me suggesting this as scene material over there.

[PM2K]

Very well done!

I hope you don't mind me suggesting this as scene material over there.

Nope... don't mind al all... and thanks for the kind words.