Moonstone Realizes Something Is Wrong

Karla Sofen wasn't stupid. In the panting aftermath of her climax, she peeled the panties off of her face and sucked in clean air, blinked, and stared at her own wet fingers. Barely able to believe that she had just done that. Something so perverted...and jilling off to a woman, a patient...

Yet what she noticed most of all is that the implants in her skull were no longer buzzing.

As Moonstone straightened her clothes and prepared to leave the office, tucking her trophy into her purse, she thought hard about the last few weeks. It struck her now that her own behavior and emotions ever since Doom's enhancement had been...odd. She had thought about Sue Storm often, even during "non-work" hours. Part of that was just part of the planning she had to do, each session laid out with surgical precision, to lead Sue on away from her goody-two-shoes life and into some kind of hedonistic affair that would break up her marriage and the Fantastic Four.

Yet there had been other times. With a glass of wine, reviewing Doom's dossier on the Invisible Woman late at night, and clicking through to the folder where the Latverian Monarch kept all the costume damage and wardrobe malfunctions Sue Storm had suffered over the years. It had become almost a routine with Karla; a nightly ritual. She wasn't sure when she had started to touch herself during those sessions, but now she could hardly go to sleep without fingering her twat while staring at Sue's heaving bosoms and...

...and her implants had been buzzing the whole time.

Moonstone bit her lip. A dark suspicion lodged in her brain. There was only the question of what to do about it.

If Doom had a way to remotely activate her implants—to use them against her—then she was in considerable personal danger. He probably had other little surprises involved too. Which meant she needed someone to check her out. Someone who was smart enough to understand Doom's technology, resourceful enough to investigate without alerting the armored supervillain, and faithful enough that Karla could trust them with her life and sanity.

It was a short list. The Mad Thinker, maybe; but he would want money. Superia, possibly, but what she'd want in exchange was anyone's guess. Most of the heroes wouldn't possibly help a villain, and those who might, like Reed Richards, had good reasons not to. So that left who? Shuri from Wakanda?

Karla frowned as she ran the possibilities over and over in her head. Alert now to any hint of a buzz if the implants activated without her willing them to.

Her feet carried her to a bar with no name. THE Bar With No Name. No one even looked up as she entered; her civilian guise might have fooled Susan Storm, but the regulars—and there were a handful here tonight—knew her. More importantly, the bar's cloaking technology might be able to keep out any surveillance Doom had on her.

"Whiskey, neat."

Still, she took no chances. Moonstone wrote a name on a piece of paper and slid it to the bartender, along with a roll of bills. Not for the first time, she envied the criminals of the John Wick movies with their discreet gold coins, instead of having to lug around thousands of dollars in cash.

The bartender took her time. When she came back, it was with a glass of Japanese whiskey that smelled of tar and smoke, and a piece of paper with an address.

Moonstone took her time and savored the taste of the liquor, the way it burned her nostrils and made a pit of liquid warmth in her stomach. If she had chosen poorly, this might be the last whiskey she ever tasted.