Number Sixteen

The Runestone Mask was one of those BDSM clubs that you would never know existed if you were not introduced to it. The sort of place that you can find almost anywhere if there are enough interested people.

It was located in the good part of the city, and inhabited a sprawling building. Part club, part diner and part brothel, it was a massive building of stone and glass. Bulletime had done her work well. She was a veteran hero and before that, she'd been a villain for long enough to know that you always gathered as much information as you possibly could before you made your move.

The building had four stories. The level was the club. There were bright flashing lights, dancing people. Food and drink and bouncers at the doors. Of course, considering the nature of the club, there were also other things. The music would be interspersed with moaning and grunting. The staff were all female, and all worked naked. They were paid extremely well, but the expectation put upon them was great as well. Any staff member below a certain rank could be fucked or used at any time by a club member. And that didn't just mean sex. The building was lined with so-called punishment rooms where an unlucky staff member or club member could be taken. There were all sorts of toys and machines designed to play with the senses and drive you to the edge of your endurance.

All staff members started on the ground floor. But the best ones didn't stay that way. The next level up was for those who had money. Real money. Here, things were all plush. The carpet was rich and red, and the rooms tastefully decorated with artwork and items of cultural interest. The music and the moaning from down below was filtered out by soundproof walls, and things were oh so much more civilised. Here, the best of the best gathered to indulge themselves with parties and orgies. The staff members who had impressed one of the elites were reassigned to this floor. Though their task was not much easier. As with before, the staff were up grabs by anyone. Though they would now be called ''Companions'' rather than just staff. Staff being the sort of thing that a lesser person might pay for.

Here, the companions were really put through their paces. Things got a lot more personal. Down below, it was about mindless indulgence, but on floor two things became more personalised. More intense. In spite of the much greater pay, many companions ended up going back down below.

After that, there were two more stories. Floor three and floor four. It troubled Sarah that she could find no information on floor four, and almost nothing on floor three. All she knew about that was that it was for the most exclusive guests. Money didn't get you in. You needed something else, and that they occasionally recruited from floor two. Companions who truly impressed could be taken one level up.

Those who did almost never returned.

Since she had nowhere near enough money to buy her way to Floor Two as a member, and she didn't want to risk leaving a paper trail by involving the League, she was looking at the fact that she would probably have to infiltrate as a staff member. The idea sent a wave of heat rolling through her body. Bulletime didn't have a partner at the moment. Her work left little time for that. It had been a long time since she had done anything remotely sexual with anyone else.

This was not how she had expected her dry period to end. But she wasn't totally adverse to it. Nervous as it made her, there was also a sort of anticipation. Bulletime was an adventurous girl, and she had always wanted to see if that sort of thing appealed to her. Now it looked like she would get the chance.

But she wasn't stupid. She was very far from it, in fact. Bulletime was an ex-villain. A bad girl turned good. With her speed, stealing had been easy and it had also been one of the only ways to survive on the streets. An orphan, she'd been picked up by a group of lost souls who lived outside of the law. They'd helped her, taught her, and shaped her into who she was now.

Turning her back on them had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to call on them if she needed them again.

She was speaking to one of them now. The two had met in a cafe, though she was already starting to think that had been a mistake. People kept throwing looks at them. Or rather, at _him. _Sarah wasn't wearing her costume. She'd come as a civilian. But her companion had no such identity. Like her, he was an ex-villain. Unlike her, he hadn't joined the side of the angels. He existed in a sort of murky grey area. As long as he didn't cause too much trouble, the league let him do as he wanted. There were far worse out there.

Her friend did not have a name. Nor did he have a face, or a humanoid body for that fact. He looked like...well, like what he was. Take a mirror. Now shape it into the crude approximation of a person. Still perfectly reflective, mind. Also, the proportions are a bit off. His waist is thin, his head is angled. His arms are sharp like blades. Now shatter the mirror. Break it into pieces, but keep it in a humanoid form. The pieces just float, jagged shards of glass in the shape of a man. Finally, make it so that there is the implication of more. As if the mirrors are surrounding an invisible form. He has weight, and when he speaks, his voice seems to emerge from the shattered remnants of the head.

If you do this, you will have a rough idea of what Bulletime's friend looked like.

He didn't use names. He had a number instead, and a description. If you were being formal, he expected you to use the full thing but for Sarah he would answer only to his number.

He was Number Sixteen. There had been over sixty like him made. Decades ago, in a different part of the world. Of this sixty, barely ten had survived. None of them were even remotely alike. Not even Sixteen knew exactly what he was. Was he a human who had been hideously altered? Or an elemental like Avatar who had been bound to an imperfect form? He did not know, for all of his memories prior to first waking up in his current form were lost.

"So you are going to infiltrate the Runstone Mask?" He asked her.

"Yes," she said with a look over her shoulder. "And you don't need to be so loud about it. Anyone could hear."

"They won't."

"But they could!"

"They won't."

She shivered. Sixteen was far weaker than Avatar, but he had a trace of the greater elemental's confidence. When he said something like that, it sounded a lot more like a command than a prediction or a guess.

"You want me to help you?"

"Yes."

She'd chosen him for a few reasons. Firstly, his unique abilities made him perfectly suited to the role. If she was going into unknown territory, she wanted someone adaptable and dependable to have her back. Secondly, he wouldn't be distracted. Again like Avatar, human sexuality meant little to Sixteen. If he'd ever been interested in naked women - or men for that matter - he'd lost that interest when he'd stopped being flesh and blood.

That was also part of the third reason. That one was a bit more petty. If Bulletime was going to infiltrate a BDSM club as what was basically a prostitute, she didn't want her partner to be reminding her about it later! Anyone else, she would feel as if they were eyeing her up, or maybe enjoying her humiliation. But with Sixteen, she had no fear of that at all. She was half convinced he didn't even realise when someone was wearing clothes or if they were naked. In fact now she thought about it, she didn't even know if he'd chosen to be a ''he'' at all or if people had just assumed from his voice and he'd rolled with it. What was gender to a living mirror?

"Payment, " he said.

"You want money? That's new. I thought you didn't care about things like that."

"Was before. I am legitimate now. I have to pay taxes. Rent a house."

"Seriously? You rent?"

"Great saving on money when you don't need to eat or use central heating."

"Then why do you need money?"

"Pets."

She gave him a long, hard look.

"I collect fish. Tropical fish. The price adds up. Need to move to a bigger tank soon. Cover the cost of the fish tank and filter and we'll call it good."

"Fine," she shook her head in mock disgust. "I can't believe that you, a legendary assassin has started to do something as normal as collect fish."

"Ex-assassin." He reminded her. "Retired assassin. And that is why I collect fish. It is normal. It is an anchor. I do not wish to return to what I was before."

"You mean who you were?"

"No. I mean what."

Having secured Sixteen's help, Sarah returned to her home. It was small, but she didn't need much else. There was no car of course. That would only have slowed her down, and much of her belongings were packed away in careful cases and neat boxes. As she went to bed that night, Sarah mused that she would have a hell of a time tomorrow. She would have to begin her infiltration of the Runestone Mask.

Which meant she would have to get hired as a member of staff.