Alternate Incarceration

A series of college girls are attacked by a rapist who uses a special drug to overwhelm them. The drug not only incapacitates them, it also fogs their memory and prevents them from identifying him… until the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the legendary W creates a suit that records people’s thoughts and dreams, including things they don’t consciously remember.

Like many of my stories, this takes place in an alternate society. In this case that alternate reality is in the distant future. I often like to envision what the world might be like long after I have become the dust of history, so the emphasis of this story is the workings of a possible future world.

ut this post deals with very non-consensual sex. The descriptions are not overly graphic, but if highly non-consensual sex is not your thing, you might want to skip this story.

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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.

Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2016 by The Technician .

Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed format is expressly forbidden.

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Mardina messaged me just before shadow off and said she had to speak with me immediately. The Scott Shield has just begun to turn transparent in our quadrant, so the light streaming in through the windows was very subdued. It was still more than sufficient for me to pad my way barefoot into the fooprep to grab a cup of coffee from the fooport.

I’ve been out in the crop lands where the shields open much earlier– depending on the crop cycle. With the sun still low in the sky there, shadow off is much different. The shields also open fully later in the day so that sun is much brighter even during replanting time. The gmon crops grow very well in the intense sun, but the few humans who still live there have to either remain underground during suntime or venture out into the full sun only if they are encased in UV survival suits.

I often wish that our ancestors hadn’t screwed up the earth so badly that our survival depended upon creating an entirely artificial environment. It would be nice to be able to look out over the city and actually watch the sun rise over the horizon rather than have a shield high above our atmosphere slowly open to allow the calculated amount of sunlight for the day to filter down to the ground. I’ve been off-planet and experienced natural sunrises. Believe me, it is nothing like the 4D experiences available at the vid houses.

Earth sunrises weren’t always artificial. I have journals and stories from my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, W, where he writes about sunrise on the beach or in the mountains. I found these stories many years ago when my grandfather gave me some antique data sticks which he said had been given to him by his grandfather and to him by his grandfather.

I had gone to visit my grandfather in the comfort home. He had asked to see me, so I tubed up to Canus North to visit him. He asked his careper to leave us alone and then told me to bring him the small book which was on display on a shelf near his bed. (For those of you who have never seen one, a “book” is a series of paper pages with writing on them. At one time they were the only way to distribute stories and other written things.)

In any case, Geep– as I always called my grandfather– held the book in his hands and bent the hard first and last pages back so that the thick cover over the front of the book gaped open. He then shook it slightly and two data sticks fell out onto the thin blanket that covered his legs.

“I think W intended these for you,” he said softly. He then opened the book and turned to the last page where he showed me a handwritten note. The note was in an ancient form of writing called cursive. Very few people today are able to read it, but Geep had insisted that I learn it.

“This note is from W,” he said and then he began to read, ““Within this book is a great treasure. It is my journals, stories, and complete designs to the various devices I have manufactured. When the right man… or woman… arises, give this book to them and show them how to access the treasure.”

He then bent the book backwards again and slipped the two data sticks back into its cover. Evidently they sat in some sort of depression, because when he closed the book, the cover remained smooth.

As he held the book out to me I asked, “Why are you giving this to me?”

Geep laughed and said, “You are named after him, you know.”

My first name begins with a W, but since I never knew the legendary W’s full name I didn’t realize we had the same name.

“There must be more than that,” I said, taking the book from his hand.

He smiled at me and said, “Nurse Julan showed me one of your pleasure devices.” He glanced at the closed door rather furtively to make sure that we would not be overheard. “A rich boyfriend bought it for her. She smuggled it in just to show it to me because she knew that you were my grandson.”

He gave me a very big smile and added, “She was afraid that I would be offended, but she thought I should know that you were successful even though no one in the family knows what it is that you do.”

I gave a short laugh and smiled back at him, “Geep,” I said, “very few people know what it is that I actually do, but yes, I am starting to be successful… and someday will hopefully also be very rich.”

“What you do,” he said carefully, “is what W did.” Pointing to the book he continued, “That’s why I know that these are definitely for you.”

Shortly after Geep’s funeral, I officially changed my name to W, and the name of my business to W5G. If anyone asks, I tell them that it means that I am the great-great-great-great-great grandson of W, himself. I keep scans of the records which prove that just in case anyone tells me to prove it.

A lot of things have changed over the decades, but human sexual behaviors haven’t– well not very much. I updated many of W’s original designs to account for our current technology, and I added many new designs of my own. I am now very successful and more wealthy than I had ever dreamed of being.

Mardina belonged to a customer of mine before she became one of my companions. It took her almost a year to trust me enough to tell me what it was that had destroyed her life. She had been well on her way to becoming a space architect with dreams of building new cities in high orbit beyond the moon, but something happened. She spiraled into drugs and worse, finally ending up selling herself as a pleasure slave to pay off her many debts.

When she came to me, she was seeking a machine that would give her pleasure, but more importantly would somehow prevent the nightmares that plagued her sleep. I didn’t have such a device. I had many that could give her pleasure, but there was nothing I had– or knew of– that could prevent nightmares. I suggested a device which would give her pleasure before going to sleep and a different device– actually made by a competitor– to keep her in deep sleep until the dreams were totally over. That way she wouldn’t remember the bad dreams.

Her owner, who had accompanied her to my place, was willing to pay almost any price to heal his pleasure slave. “When she is good,” he said with a wry smile, “she is very, very good.” His face changed as he added, “But when she has these dreams, she is terrible.”

My device did give her pleasure. And the other device did keep her in deep sleep. But even when she didn’t remember her dreams, she awoke drenched in her own sweat, her body feeling like she had tumbled to earth in a failed cargo pod reentry. Her owner was not pleased and demanded his money back. In response, I offered to buy her contract at the full price he paid for her.

He instantly agreed. In fact, he left her at my apartment that day and returned to his estate. As soon as I transferred the monunits, her contract was transferred to my account. When Mardina knelt to submit herself to me, however, I lifted her back up and said, “No, I did not buy YOU. I bought your contract. I bought it so that I could free you.”

As she stared at me in total shock, I continued, “You may leave now if you desire or you may stay in my guest room. As a free woman, the choice is yours.”

I let her absorb what I had said before saying, “But if you are willing, I would like to test some of my devices on you, including a new device that can read your memories and shape the form of pleasure they give you based on what you desire or find pleasurable. It may even help you get over your nightmares.”

Her eyes remained wide as she slowly nodded her head and said softly “I will stay forever if you can help me.”

I waited a week before introducing her to some of my more exotic machines. During that week I took her shopping for clothing. As a pleasure slave she had been kept naked at all times, so she literally had nothing to wear. As we entered the first boutique, a somewhat older, impeccably-dressed sales manager blocked our entry and said haughtily, “I’m sorry, sir, but we are a respectable establishment. Pleasure slaves are not allowed within our store.”

Mardina literally shook with fear, but I stared back into the matron’s eyes and said in the most steely voice I could muster, “Scan her!”

The manager was somewhat taken aback, but grabbed her scanner from her belt and passed it over Mardina’s wrist, reading the imbedded ichip.

“Oh, she’s been freed,” she said as the information was transferred to her internal reader. “That makes a difference.”

She then turned to me and assessed my wealth and standing based on my clothing, haircut, manicure, etc. “However,” she said somewhat stiffly, “You may still be in the wrong shop. I am not sure that you are able to afford our product line. We carry only very expensive, ultimate, top-of-the-line apparel.”

I held up my wrist and said, “Scan me.”

She looked sightly confused, but complied with my command.

As soon as her scanner crossed my wrist, I could hear an alarm sound in the store manager’s office. The sales manager’s eyes now went wide and her body was the one trembling in fear.

“I am so sorry, Mister W,” she blubbered out. “I had no idea.”

As she stammered for what to say, the store manager hurried up behind her. “Is there a problem?” she asked in that artificial I-serve-the-public voice that most store managers learn early in their career. Then in a more natural voice she said, “What brings the owner to this branch?”

“Just shopping for a recently-freed pleasure slave,” I responded. Then I turned to the sales manager. “I own this and many other business,” I said softly, “but I like to remain in the shadows. I prefer that people do not realize who I am nor the extent of my wealth.”

I raised my arm again and said, “Please re-scan me.”

The sales manager again passed her scanner over my wrist. Her hands were shaking as she did so.

“What does it say now?” I asked.

Her voice– and her whole body– was shaking as she stammered out, “It says you are a Mister Walter Roth. A metal worker.”

Now it was the manager whose voice was shaking. “That’s… that’s… that’s…”

“Impossible?” I completed for her. “Yes, for anyone else in the world, it would be impossible. But I am W. I have invented a thought-controlled switch that can change an ichip between several different identities.”

I smiled at her. “And I have a reprogramer back at my home which can change the information in any one of those nine different identities. I am showing the level of trust I have in this establishment by revealing my true identity to you.”

“I will handle this sale,” the store manager said firmly, and indicated with her hands that the sales manager should go elsewhere.

“She did her job properly,” I said softly. “There should be no repercussions for her actions.”

“Who are you, really?” the store manager asked. Her eyes were filled with wonder, or perhaps fear.

“I am W,” I replied. “And even if I weren’t, I can assure you that the monunits will transfer properly at the end of the sale.”

She may not have trusted my word, but she did trust my monunits. By the time we left the store, Mardina had two suitcases full of clothing, including two weeks’ worth of underwear. I was carrying the suitcases while she carried the two garment bags with her long formal dresses in them.

She had chosen to wear a short, pleated miniskirt with matching top, but surprised me by stripping out of it as soon as we were back home. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I have gotten used to being naked and it is actually much more comfortable around the house.”

“You won’t get any objections from me,” I replied as I set her suitcases on her bed and helped her put her clothes away.

Later that day, I introduced her to the prototype of my “mind machine.” It looked like a full-body catsuit except that it totally covered the head, including the face and eyes. There was a vented area over the mouth and nose which allowed breathing, and somewhat allowed the person to speak.

Within the suit were a variety of microsensors which read the body and mind by picking up the electrical impulses in the brain and nervous system. Special software developed by one of my subsidiary companies could even display those memories– or dreams– on custom vidscreens.

Additional sensor-style arrays acted as electrodes which could return electrical stimuli to the nervous system so that the same memories or dreams that had been read could be re-inserted– after certain modifications. We spent a week recording her thoughts and fantasies as the suit mildly stimulated her so that she was sexually aroused.

On the third day, when we had finished with the testing, she said, “I can’t stand this anymore. Let’s see if I can blow its circuits.”

She then brought her hand down between her legs and began rubbing against the outside of the suit. I hadn’t really designed it for that, but evidently it worked OK because she was soon thrusting her hips into the air and moans came out of the vented mouth of the headpiece. When she went into orgasm, she did blow the circuitry, or at least the screen on the monitor went white for several seconds.

Just before that blast of white, my face appeared on the monitor. I was much younger and several pounds lighter, but it was definitely me.

When I helped her peel the suit off her body, her sweat– and the smell of arousal– flowed out of the suit. She kept turning her head away as I helped her step out of the legs.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” she asked.

“The white flash when you orgasmed?” I asked in return. “Yes, I saw it.”

“No,” she said, almost angrily. “Just before that. I was thinking of you as I went over the edge.”

“There is no shame in that,” I said. “I freed you. I am the closest male. You were horny.” I gave a short laugh, “I would hate to think what fantasy images would be on the screen if that were me in the suit at that point.”

“It isn’t fantasy,” she said softly. “I really want to you to make love to me.”

We somehow didn’t get back to testing the suit for another three days. Except for necessary trips to the bathroom and a couple of breaks for meals, we spent the time seeing who could wear the other out. Around noon on the third day we called it a draw and both fell sound asleep until the next morning.

Mardina slept in my bed from that day forward. It took many more days of testing to finalize the design of the mind suit. Among other things, I changed the suit itself to a microperf material so that it could breathe. That prevented the buildup of sweat and had the added benefit of allowing others in the room to smell the arousal of the person in the suit.

W’s Erotic Mind Suit was an almost instant financial success. I gave Mardina co-inventor rights so she received a percentage of the profits. “That way,” I explained, “you can return to school when you think the time is right and maybe one day design your city in the sky.”

She looked very sad when I told her that. “Money won’t erase the dreams,” she said quietly.

I knew that she still had the nightmares. She would often awaken screaming in the middle of the night. I tried to hold her and comfort her, but she would push me away and pull herself into a ball in the corner of the bed trembling and crying.

One night, the dreams were so bad that I had to literally wrap her in a sheet and hold her down to keep her from throwing herself off my balcony. The next day, she came to me in my work area and said, “I want to sleep in the suit.”

“What?” I responded.

“I want to sleep in the suit,” she repeated. “I want you to record my nightmare. I want you to see what I see.”

The next night, I set up the monitors and controllers next to our bed and helped Mardina into the suit. I lay down beside her, but I knew that I wouldn’t actually be sleeping– at least, I thought I wouldn’t.

Surprisingly, I actually did fall asleep, only to be awakened by Mardina thrashing and moaning as her nightmare assailed her. I scrambled over to the monitor to be sure that it was picking up and recording the dream.

What was on the monitor shocked me. Mardina was walking on campus. It was late at night and it appeared that she was headed back to the sorority, possibly from the library. She had often talked about studying late there.

Suddenly a hand appeared in front of her face. It was a blur, but I could see that the hand was in a black leather glove and there was a rag of some sort in its palm.

The rag was pressed against the front of her face and I could hear her muffled screams in my headphones. Then everything went black.

A few moments later the screen cleared. I could see a skirt and a pair of panties lying on the ground. I could also see Mardina’s hands. They appeared to be tied to the front of a park bench of some sort. As she wildly tossed her head, I could see flashes of the bench and of her naked body bound over the back of it.

She was positioned in the middle of the bench with her hands pulled tight to the front. In the wild flashes as she threw her head from side to side, I could see that her feet were tied to the feet of the bench, causing her legs to be spread out at a very wide angle. I tried to ignore her screams, but I couldn’t– and I don’t think I will ever forget them.

She gave an especially loud and shrill scream and the image on the screen suddenly jerked upward, showing a dark street lamp and the leaves of some trees. The image then bounced rhythmically. It was obvious someone was raping her. As her head bounced up and down with the assault, she was also shaking it wildly from side to side while screaming, “No! No! No!”

After a few moments, it was over. Her head hung down and she stared at her hands while sobbing violently. A bright flash from the right caught her attention and she lifted her head in that direction. A young man was standing on the path with a vid device of some sort. He raised it to his face once again and it flashed as he took another still. As he lowered the device with his right hand, he reached up with his left hand and blew a kiss to Mardina before turning and running down the path.

The campus police arrived moments later. They quickly freed Mardina’s hands and feet and checked to see that she was “unharmed.” As they began to drape a blanket over her naked body, the screen suddenly went black and she awoke screaming.

I stood where I was until she had finally calmed herself and it was safe to approach her. “Let’s get you out of that suit,” I said softly.

“You saw?” she asked.

I removed the headpiece before answering, “I saw.”

“They never caught him,” she said flatly. “That’s probably why I have the nightmares. I’m afraid he’s coming back for me.”

After I helped her peel the suit off her legs, she sat cross-legged on the bed. “I couldn’t really describe him,” she said softly. “It happened so fast… and the drug he used to knock me out evidently affected my memory. By the time they talked to me at the hospital, I couldn’t remember any details. My memory had been wiped clean.”

“If the drug had truly wiped your memory,” I replied, “you wouldn’t have nightmares. I’m not sure what it was, but I think it just inhibited your ability to remember– to get to those memories. It didn’t remove the memories themselves.”

I paused while I used a warm cloth to wipe the sweat from her body.

“You saw him,” I said quietly.

She looked up at me with wide open mouth and eyes.

“You saw him,” I repeated, “and I have an image of his face.”

I shared the final portion of the video with the authorities. They didn’t really believe me, but they still ran the facial recognition algorithms. There was a positive match, and DNA tests confirmed that James Folley was, in fact, the notorious campus rapist who had for so long eluded them.

He had been able to avoid capture by the simple fact that he was a government DNA file clerk. His job gave him access to the DNA database, and he had altered his own file so that no DNA matches could be made from his DNA.

There were a lot of other things which should have pointed to him, but I guess our police have become so dependent upon being able to know who everyone is by DNA traces left at a crime scene, that they didn’t follow up on other leads.

The trial was hailed as “The Trial of the Century,” not so much because of who James Folley was or what he had done, but rather because for the first time in history, a video record of a person’s memory was entered as evidence.

It was not the last time. I had to create a whole new division to keep up with the world-wide demand for the suits – or at least specialized head pieces. Eyewitness testimony in video form is now standard evidence for trials. It took the juries a little while to get used to the fact that three different witnesses actually did see three different versions of the same events. But those different versions were still aligned closer than verbal testimony because the recording was often-times made very shortly after the events. In the recordings, the person’s memories were not influenced by memory loss or changed by the person analyzing what they thought they should have seen.

Then someone in the government actually checked out the original versions of the suits and realized that not only could the full suits read thoughts and memories, they could allow– or force– someone else to experience those memories. That was when some “expert” decided that the perfect punishment for a criminal would be to force the perpetrator of a crime to experience that crime from the viewpoint of his or her victims.

There were three different schools of thought on this. The first said such an approach was bullshit. The second said that just by experiencing the crime as a victim, the criminal would be forever cured of his or her criminal tendencies. The third point of view emphasized that it would be much more economical to subject a criminal to several days, weeks or months of experiencing his or her crime rather than years of incarceration. This alternate incarceration would save the government money and would return a useful citizen to society. Or at least that was the plan.

I agreed with the first point of view. Most liberal therapists favored the second. Most politicians and government bureaucrats, meanwhile, agreed with the third. So, it was decided to implement an alternate incarceration program to reform criminals, and more importantly, to save monunits.

Like any other proposed government action, they had to talk it to death first. As the inventor of the suits, I was called to one of the hearings. They didn’t like what I had to say. I guess pointing out that until they came up with a way of pulling memories out of a dead brain, they wouldn’t really have the true viewpoint of all victims.

Primarily what they objected too, however, was my insistence that living out the crime from the victim’s point of view didn’t necessarily equal punishment– especially with psychopaths or in the case of sexual crimes.

“A true psychopath,” I testified, “would not have a normal person’s emotional and psychological response. They would externalize the event and observe it like it were happening to others even if it was happening to them.”

Senator Madison, the main backer of the idea on the panel huffed his disapproval at me so I explained further, “In other words, the experience would become just one more victim for them to enjoy. You would be much better off sticking to something that you know is punishment for that person rather than trying to make them see the world from another person’s point of view.”

I glared at the committee. I figured I might as well tell the whole truth since they were going to disregard me anyway. “Beyond that,” I attempted to explain, “you have been clear that you are going to start with sexual crimes. It is my professional experience that what one person experiences as painful, another may find pleasurable. That means that the victim’s pain may be the criminal’s pleasure. You would be better off computer-generating a totally new memory– like being pursued and eaten by a tiger– than using a victim’s memory of the crime.”

I could see several of the Senators shaking their heads and making side comments to their aides. The head of the committee thanked me for my input, but it was obvious that they were going to dismiss anything I had to say. My suspicion was confirmed when Senator Madison said with a chuckle, “Luckily for us, our first prisoner is definitely not a psychopath.”

What he said next filled me with dread. “And thanks to you,” he said lightly, “we already have seven recorded victim experiences.”

He was talking about Mardina’s rapist.

She came to me for advice. They wanted the agreement of all of the victims to proceed. The other six had given their approval and Mardina wanted to know what I thought. My advice to her was simple. “Don’t be the first on anything that could really go sour or turn out the opposite of what you want.”

I reminded her of a saying I often used, “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”

I wish she had listened to me. The news yesterday included a story that the first “alternate incarceration” was going to be performed in two weeks. As I waited for her to arrive, I pulled that story back up on my vidfeed and reviewed the details. James Folley’s sentence had been “modified to three months of alternate incarceration.”

I had just finished reading when Mardina rang my door bell. She was dressed in a relatively conservative dress. “I’m interning at an architect’s office downtown,” she said. She shrugged her shoulders and added, “It fits their dress code. I don’t think it would fit the company image if I ran around the office naked.”

She gave me a big grin before saying, “But their dress code doesn’t say anything about underwear.” She lifted up the front of the dress to show me her carefully trimmed bush.

“Is that going to be your design style?” I asked. “Stately on the outside, but slutty on the inside?”

She laughed and answered, “I’ll have to consider that. It would be a unique signature design concept.”

Then she became very serious and said, “But that isn’t why I came to see you.”

“It’s about the alternate incarceration, isn’t it?” I asked.

She nodded her head silently.

“Let’s sit in the fooprep,” I said. “I did some custom programming to the fooport since you lived here and now it can spit out a really great cup of coffee.”

She looked at me quizzically, so I explained, “The government-mandated maximum for caffeine content is relatively easy override if you have the right hackbots.”

She gave me a big smile as I handed her a steaming cup of what my grandfather used to call “high octane coffee.” I think it was a reference to the fuel once used in transport vehicles.

“Having second thoughts?” I asked.

“Yes… No… A little… ” she replied. “But that’s not why I’m here. They have invited all of the victims to the incarceration. They say it will bring us closure. We are supposed to bring our families for support.”

She looked down at the floor before continuing. “I don’t have any family,” she said softly. “If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have screwed up my life so badly after this happened to me.” Looking up, she said plaintively, “You are the closest thing I have to family. Would you come with me?”

“If they allow it,” I answered. “And if they don’t, I think I can apply enough political pressure to change their minds.”

She threw herself at me and gave me an almost spine-crushing hug. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she said. “Someday I am going to name a city after you!”

Standing back a little, she smoothed her dress and said, “But right now, this intern has to get to work on time.” She smiled and said, “Bosses and owners can be late. Us lowly peons have to be on time.”

“It’s nice to be the boss,” I answered back with a smile.

***

Two weeks later Mardina and I were being led down a long hallway at the detention center by a uniformed guard. “This used to be an execution chamber in the old days,” she explained as she opened the door.

The room looked like the historical images in the museums except rather than having rows of chairs set up on risers where people could sit to witness the executions, the area was divided into seven small cubicles. The front wall of the cubicle was a half wall while the walls separating the squares went all the way to the ceiling. They were open in the back with a small hallway allowing access. We were escorted to the third cubicle, which, I assume, corresponded to Mardina being the third campus rapist victim.

All the cubicles had a clear view of the “incarceration chamber.” James Folley was already in a specially-modified suit and was strapped to a striker bed that could be rotated to any angle to prevent bed sores.

My company hadn’t done the modifications to the suit, but the government engineers had checked with us to see how badly it would degrade performance to add systems for the removal of liquid and solid wastes. Liquid waste was taken care of with a simple sleeve catheter that slipped over the penis like a heavy condom. The solid waste was flushed out daily before a special nutritional slurry was pumped back in. He was, after all, going to be on that table for three months.

After everyone was seated in the appropriate cubicle, Senator Madison walked to the front of the room and stood in front of the window. “What is happening here today,” he began, “is history making. You will witness a criminal actually having to experience the trauma which he inflicted on his victims.”

A gray-haired man in a white lab coat entered the room and stood beside him. “This is Doctor Harold Winkerson,” he said. He will explain what is about to happen.

“Thank you, Senator,” the doctor replied. He then turned to face the victims and their families.
“The crimes will be inserted in Mr Folley’s memories in the same order in which they occurred. You may witness just your incident, or all seven. A light will come on in front of you indicating that your episode is next in the rotation. The large blue button turns the monitor on and off. It also activates and deactivates the headphones. There will be a short pause after the seventh episode before it all begins again.”

He paused to look individually at the seven victims. “If this becomes to difficult for you,” he continued, “just press the blue button next to your monitor to shut everything down in your cubicle. The cubicles are designed so that you cannot see or hear what is happening in the other areas. You are free to stay as long as you want and leave whenever you desire. If you wish to return at any time during the 90-day incarceration, just make arrangements with the warden’s office.”

As Doctor Winkerson walked away, Senator Madison smiled happily and said, “The first cycle will begin in three minutes.”

Mardina looked up and me and said softly, “I want to see the others.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, but she had already pressed the blue button to activate the monitor so I just sat next to her and put on one of the wireless headphones.

As I watched, something didn’t seem quite right, so I opened my own vidcomp and connected to the data channel for the suit controller. I wasn’t worried about passwords since my personal unit was backdoored into any piece of equipment I produced. I was hoping, however, that they hadn’t changed the access protocols themselves. They hadn’t, and soon I was streaming the raw data to my screen. Except for a several-second delay, the images seemed to be the same, but the additional data on my screen indicated, “Combined Data Stream.”

“Shit,” I said quietly to myself. Then I said a little more loudly, “Mardina, I have to talk to Doctor Winkerson. I’ll be right back.”

I slipped out of the cubicle and spoke to the guard at the door. She said something into her radio and a moment later the doctor stepped into the room.

“What is your concern?” he asked.

“You are showing the reflected activity from his brain rather than the injected feed,” I said. “Since he already has memories of these events, that will be a combination of both his and the victim’s memories.”

“We are aware of that,” he said looking down at me. The tone of his voice and his body language told me he was thinking of me as a bewildered child that he could pat on the head and send back to play in my room. “But it should make no difference,” he said smugly.

“Maybe the victims won’t think the same way,” I said firmly.

“The Senator and I thought it would be best this way,” he said flippantly and turned and left the room.

“Asshole,” I said quietly.

The guard shook her head slowly and said even more quietly, “You have no idea.”

I went back to the third cubicle. As I sat back down, someone was walking down one of the paths through a different park near the campus. I noticed that two of the streetlights on the path seemed to be out. That was part of his technique. He would choose a seldom-used area and disable the lighting. Then he would wait for a victim to walk through his trap.

Whoever it was slowed down and began looking from side to side. It was obvious that she was wary of something. Suddenly the viewpoint changed and we were looking at a petite blond in shorts and a halter top. This was evidently James coming up the path.

He was moving rapidly and swaying slightly from side to side. The blond stepped to the side of the trail as he approached. As he passed by there was a skidding noise and he looked down at bicycle handlebars.

“Did I hit you?” he asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was just going too fast.”

“No. you missed me,” the blond said. She started to say something else, but his arm came up and a sudden cloud erupted from the canister in his hand. The view switched back to her for just an instant as the liquid and vapor struck her face. Then everything went black.

The blackness flickered once or twice and then we were again looking out through James’ eyes. He had quickly stripped the blond and positioned her on the ground more or less on her knees and elbows. Short lengths of rope tied her elbows to her knees while another piece of rope bound her wrists and upper arms together.

The result looked very uncomfortable and forced her ass high in the air. He pushed a tube against her crack and squeezed out some lube. Then he slapped the top of her ass a couple of times while saying, “Wakey, wakey, or you’ll miss the party.” He slapped her ass again and said, “It’s a pity you won’t be able to remember any of this.” After a short laugh, he finished with “But I will,”and pushed himself into her ass and began thrusting.

The viewpoint went back to the blonde looking down at the dirty, asphalt path. She was screaming and trying to break free of her bonds. The force of his thrusts was causing her face to nearly hit the asphalt of the path. Finally he gave a loud grunt and pushed her hard enough to force her face against the ground. There was a flash as he captured an image or something a moment later and then the bicycle rode past and disappeared down the path.

The blond was crying and sobbing and trying to scream for help. Finally another coed came down the path and screamed very loudly. The police arrived shortly after that and the scene slowly faded into darkness.

“Did she orgasm?” Mardina asked.

It took me a moment to understand her question. “The flash on the screen…” she clarified, “did that mean that she had an orgasm?”

“Probably not,” I answered, “but he did. You are seeing a mixture of both their memories.”

“Oh,” she answered. It looked like she was going to ask another question, but the screen was now showing a sidewalk in front of one of the older buildings near campus. Again it was night, but all of the streetlights were on. As whoever it was passed a very narrow walkway between two buildings, the sound of a dog whimpering could be heard.

The dog wasn’t barking, but instead sounded like it was yelping in pain– as if it was trapped in something. She looked down the walkway, and near the back of the building there was a small dog– it looked like a beagle– whose leash was trapped under a dumpster’s wheels. It was pulled tight against the ground and seemed to be choking.

The walkway got progressively darker as she walked back to see if she could free the dog from its misery. Shortly before she got to the dumpster, the dog suddenly gave a big yelp and pulled itself free. She watched as it ran barking out the other end of the walkway, trailing a length of rope behind it.

“I guess its owner will find it eventually,” she said to herself as she turned to go back to the main sidewalk. She gasped suddenly as a black glove appeared in front of her face and a rag was pressed against her mouth.

We watched through James’ eyes as he stripped her and bound her over a length of pipe railing which protected some gas meters. Her feet were tied to the upright posts while her hands were stretched down and tied to the large gas pipes themselves.

He evidently stepped back for a moment and then reached forward with his tube of lube. He positioned himself against her asshole and then reached forward with a small spray can of some sort in his hand. He squirted it toward her face and suddenly we were again seeing things through her eyes.

She could see nothing but the gas meters as he drove into her ass. Like the others, she screamed loudly as he pushed his way into her bowels. He began to grunt and we were looking down at her naked back. There was a bright flash and for just an instant we could see her face. The image was distorted slightly, but it looked as if she were, indeed, having an orgasm.

I looked over at Mardina, but said nothing. A little while later, things faded as the police arrived on the scene. Evidently the good doctor was using that as the end of each memory.

Mardina was now very tense. She had seen her own memory before several times, but each time it had been an emotional experience. Now she was watching it knowing that others in the room were also seeing her ordeal.

The screen brightened slightly and showed the path through the woods. I also had seen this several times, so I was paying attention to what was Mardina’s memory and what was that of her rapist. We could tell that he had hidden behind the large oak tree near the park bench. That was obviously his memory.

Things proceeded as I had seen before up until she was tied over the bench. Then, in addition to the glimpses of her body as she tossed her head from side to side, we also had a clear view of her ass from behind.

“That’s not me,” Mardina said softly.

“It’s OK,” I said, trying to reassure her.

“No,” she said, “that isn’t my body. I’ve seen enough videos of myself from when I was a pleasure slave to know what my ass looks like from behind. That isn’t my body.”

“Memories are never totally accurate,” I said. Again I was trying to reassure her, but I started paying more attention to the details of her body as James had remembered it.

It wasn’t her. Even in the dim light I could see that the hair was the wrong color. And the shape of her ass was wrong. The hips were way too small and the asscheeks were much less supple. In fact, the overall shape of her body was not right. I began wondering if there were not another, unknown victim who had been assaulted in the same spot as Mardina had been.

One thing confused me about this– only one? Despite the differences, the actions of the person tied to the bench corresponded to Mardina’s in her memory. If the actions were the same, it had to be the same event. Why then was James remembering her so incorrectly? I began to pay very close attention to the differences between what we were watching and Mardina’s original dream.

Everything was the same except the size and shape of Mardina’s body. Then the scene finally got to the point where James had ejaculated in her ass. Just before that occurred, there was a very quick view of her face. Like the other two girls, the face was distorted. Then a very short, very bright flash showed across the screen.

“I did NOT orgasm,” she said angrily.

“No, you didn’t,” I replied immediately. “He did. This is a mixed memory. That flash was much shorter than when you orgasmed in the suit. It was a male orgasm, not a female’s.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, “he got off raping me.”

“I think it is more complex than that,” I said lightly touching her hand. She didn’t pull her hand away so I took both her hands in mine so that I could look at her face to face.

“If you want to stay to watch the others,” I said, “I will stay with you.” I gave her half a smile and added, “If you want to leave, that is OK too. I need to stay to watch the other memories. There is something going on here that is very important and I need to be sure before I say something to Doctor Frankenstein and Senator Blowhard.”

She smiled at my derision of the pompous senator. “I think I am going to leave,” she said firmly. Then she smiled again and said, “This really has done nothing for me. I stopped having the nightmares as soon as I was able to watch my memories. The nightmares were my mind trying to tell me what had happened. I know now. And the rapist is caught. I can sleep at night.”

“I promise that I will explain everything once I am sure of what is going on,” I said. Then I asked, “Can you stop by my place for breakfast tomorrow morning? I will explain everything then.”

“My boss told me to take the morning off,” she said, looking down slightly. “He thought I might be emotionally drained after today.”

“Are you?”

“Not really,” she replied. “But now I am wondering how many other sickos there are out there like James.”

“There might be a lot of them,” I said. “But none of the other sickos work in the DNA database offices… or at least they haven’t been able to modify their own files,” I added with a chuckle. “That means that they will get caught after the first time.”

She started to say something, but I held up my finger and said, “And in case you are worried that others might have copied Folley’s example, after this case, they retested all employees with access to the databases. No other files had been tampered with, and there are now three copies of all files kept is separate databases.”

Her face became very serious and she looked me in the eyes as she asked, “Do you really think this alternate incarceration will do anything?”

I took a deep breath before answering, “I think that James Folley will be the only one to ever be subject to this type of alternate incarceration. They might come up with other ways to use the suits, but if I am right, this will end here.”

“Does that mean that James Folley will go free without being punished?” she said. I could see tears welling up in her eyes.

“I think he will be punished,” I said as I tilted her head back up so she was looking at me. “It just won’t be what Doctor Frankenstein and Senator Blowhard think it is going to be.”

I gave her a quick peck of a kiss on the forehead and said, “Go do what you have to do today. I will fill you in on everything tomorrow morning.”

“OK,” she answered as she turned and left the witness area.

By the time she had gone, the scene for the fourth victim had nearly reached the final moments. What I needed to see was just before the end, so that was fine with me. Besides, my vidcomp was recording the data stream and, if necessary, I could replay what I wanted.

When the fifth episode began, I could see that the victim was actually tied to the same bench in the park as Mardina had been. About the only difference was that he used black nylon rope rather than the white cotton he had used on Mardina. I had never met the fifth victim, but looking at her naked body, I knew that the ass was wrong. The whole body was wrong. James wasn’t remembering her– and I knew why. He was remembering who he was fantasizing about when he raped her.

I waited patiently through the sixth and seventh victims’ episodes. The sixth had been tied down over a children’s merry-go-round, the seventh over a low fence. Other than that, the rapes were nearly identical– and made even more so by the overlaying of James’ fantasy of what was occurring.

As the cycle returned to the first victim, I found myself alone in the witness cubicles. I was just about to ask the guard where I could find Doctor Winkerson when he and Senator Madison walked into the room.

The Senator was beaming with pride as he said, “What do you think about my ideas now, Mister W?”

He laughed loudly as he added, “All of your fear-mongering was for nothing. Today has shown itself to be a perfect example of government innovation at its best.”

Now it was my turn to laugh, but my voice quickly turned very serious as I addressed the doctor in his crisp, white coat. “It is indeed a perfect example… of why this should never be done again.”

“What do you mean?” he sputtered.

“Did you watch the data stream?” I asked. “I mean really watch the data stream? Did you compare the combined stream to the original memories from the victims?”

Senator Madison looked very confused. Doctor Winkerson looked alarmed– and defensive.

“Let me ask you a couple of question Doctor,” I began. “Why do you suppose that James Folley never actually harmed any of his victims– I mean besides the fact that he forced himself upon them? Rape is almost always about power, not sex. The act is usually forceful and physically harmful, but James used the least violent means possible and inflicted nothing upon his victims but himself.”

The good doctor now looked as confused as Senator Blowhard.

“And why was it that in his memories, the body of the victim was distorted in each of the episodes? Why are the hips too narrow… the ass cheeks too small… the faces… well, the faces at the point of ejaculation are the same in all seven scenes. Why is that?”

I dropped my voice slightly. I have a habit of doing that when I want to emphasize something. “Why did he take them in the ass and do nothing with their cunts? And perhaps most importantly, why is there a short white flash which bursts over the image not at the point of ejaculation, which you can tell by James’ groan, but a moment later– as if the girl were responding to the climax of her partner?”

Doctor Winkerson’s face no longer showed confusion. It showed shock. “That can’t be… that would mean… it would mean… oh God, how could we have not considered that?”

“What is going on?” thundered Senator Madison.

“Your pet psychiatrist can fill in the details for you later,” I replied forcefully. “But what it means is that you screwed up. … And if you attempt to repeat this fiasco, I will make sure that the entire world knows exactly how– and how badly– you messed this up.”

“But this was successful!” the Senator nearly screamed.

“Was it, Doctor Winkerson?” I asked.

He didn’t respond, but instead just looked at the Senator with wide eyes and a wide open mouth.

“What your pet doctor will tell you when he recovers his voice is that James Folley wasn’t living out a fantasy of raping young, college coeds. He was far sicker than that. He was living out a fantasy of being raped himself.”

Doctor Winkerson finally found his voice. “It’s true,” he said just above a whisper. “The data stream shows that James is getting sexual pleasure out of being raped.”

“Congratulations, Senator,” I said with a sneer. “You were very successful. You just sentenced a rapist to ninety days of almost continuous orgasms. That may, in fact, be a very severe punishment, but I doubt the public will see it that way.”

As I pushed past them to reach the door, I added, “Alternate incarceration is a failure. And if you ever attempt this again, I will make sure the world knows exactly why it was a failure… and who is responsible.”

***

When I got back to my apartment, Mardina was waiting for me.

“I don’t have to get up early in the morning,” she said. “And I figured if I was already here, we would have more time to talk.”

I fixed us some steaks for supper. Afterwards, we sat on the balcony and I explained everything to her. In the morning I awoke with her cuddled up to me in my bed. She had slept peacefully all night.

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END OF STORY

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