Walking the Catwalk

Jacqueline reflexively shut her eyes at the brilliance of the light and was unsurprised when she opened them to find herself, once again, someplace else. She was slightly more surprised to find that Jenna and the other contestants were nowhere near her. She found herself at an intersection of three grated metal catwalks. Surrounding her, the metallic walls, ceilings, and underside of the catwalk were all covered in a cacophony of pipes and wires, with an occasional tank, junction box, or control panel. The catwalks were about seven feet off the ground and close enough to the ceiling to provide easy access to the pipes above. Every so often, there was a small set of stairs leading from the catwalk to the floor below. If it weren’t for the strange terms labeling the pipes or the way some of them were transparent and clearly filled with glowing liquids or arcing electricity, the scene would have resembled the underground utility corridors that she’d once found during her university days. The whole area was dark, but lit sporadically by dim lights attached to the catwalk, illuminating just enough of the surroundings to see and walk without tripping, while still leaving plenty of shadowed areas to hide in. Jacqueline guessed that, under any other circumstances, workers looking to make repairs would probably only navigate this space with their own lights, but, given the stealthy nature of her objective, she was glad that she hadn’t been given one.

As soon as she took a step, she realized something was different. In the new and strange space between her legs, which she had intended to ignore as much as possible for the time being, she felt something soft and rubbery pressing against her new anatomy from outside. She lowered her hand and, without pressing too firmly, examined the area. She quickly found that something small, rubbery, and cylindrical had apparently been added into the inside of her suit, positioned so that it lightly separated the outer lips of her new sex, the center of the object positioned perfectly over her clitoris. Recalling C2’s description of the rules, she concluded this must be the device he had described and began to feel slight dread regarding what kind of signal it would deliver.

She mentally braced herself as she began to walk down the catwalk in a direction she’d chosen at random. She was unsure about how quiet she needed to be, but decided to lean towards being as stealthy as possible. Her efforts were impeded by the change in her body's shape and the slight discomfort of the object pressing between her legs, causing her to be slightly more ungainly and louder than she would have liked. It was probably 50 feet down the catwalk that she felt the first response from the device, which startled her so much that she jumped a little, barely avoiding tripping over her own feet. It was a soft vibration applied directly to her clit, ending as suddenly as it started. It was so brief that, after the initial shock of sensation, she almost wondered if it had been her imagination till a minute later when the rapid pulse repeated. She kept walking, trying to suppress the small twitch that went through her every time the pulse came. She came to an intersection that wouldn’t let her go straight and decided to go left. However, a few dozen feet down the new path, she realized that the pulses had stopped. Part of her was relieved, but she realized what the lack of sensation meant and turned around.

As she turned around, though, she caught sight of a golden light in the distance that seemed to be moving towards her from beneath the catwalk several hundred feet ahead. She froze, but her mind began to race as she tried to decide whether or not it was likely that the drone could see her through the catwalk. She debated climbing onto the handrail of the catwalk, but decided that doing so would likely cause too much noise and probably wouldn’t hide her any more than just staying still if the droid was making any real effort at searching. She decided to take her chances and hope that the droids weren’t looking too closely. She watched as the light came closer. When it reached the intersection in front of her, she saw the light rotate, doing a full rotation before it continued towards her. She could feel her heart beating out of her chest as the droid grew closer and closer. She held her breath as she saw the light pass directly below her. She looked down and saw a miniature version of C2, floating in a straight line, the light emitted from its eye forming a yellow cone that was somehow visible in the air, pointing down and slightly strafing side to side as it moved. She finally let out her breath as the droid moved past her. She risked looking back and saw the light moving off into the distance. Once it got far enough, she started moving again as she processed what she’d seen.

The droids, apparently, weren’t trying very hard or were deliberately leaving openings for them. It seemed likely that, as long as she avoided the illuminated cone, she wouldn’t be considered caught. Their patrols seemed predictable, and the fact that they didn’t look up left some possibility that they could be ambushed from above. She would have to find a way to determine whether the safety of being on the catwalks while the droid patrolled below was mirrored in the opposite situation. She hadn’t wanted to experiment with making noise, but she decided that noise would draw their attention.

‘If they’re noise sensitive, that’s going to be difficult,’ she thought as she passed the intersection again and felt the pulse between her legs resume.

When Delia arrived at the station, she took a moment to survey her environment. When she was fairly certain that she was, for the moment, alone, she put her back to the handrail of the catwalk and allowed herself to slide down into a seated position, took a deep breath, and began to cry. Momentarily released from the need to appear strong for the others, she let the overwhelming emotions of the past few hours wash over her. The overwhelming change from worrying about how she would keep her precious store afloat to suddenly being abducted and learning that, not only would she never see her beloved store or even her home planet again, but she had no choice but to be transformed to become part of a harem or face the threat of slavery. It was too much for a single night, and so, she cried. She did so silently, hoping that she wouldn’t draw the attention of any of the droids, but she allowed herself the moment to fully feel the challenging emotions that she was dealing with. It wasn’t enough, but it was all she could give herself at the moment. She let herself wallow for what felt like roughly ten minutes. She took a steadying breath and stood back up.

She had become aware of the presence between her legs as soon as she had sunk to the ground, but had chosen not to look more closely until she stood up. She briefly considered extracting the vibrator and keeping it somewhere less awkward, but realized that, given the suit's design and the presence of her transformation-mandated corset, it would be an annoying waste of time. She also felt nearly certain that the damned robot would have some way to prevent them from removing it. Instead, she decided to weather the device and add it to the long list of violations that the robot had already inflicted on them.

She looked at each of her four potential routes and, seeing no movement, picked the one that appeared to extend the farthest in a straight line and started walking. She moved briskly, eventually emerging into a large chamber filled with massive, transparent water tanks that seemed to be undergoing filtration. The room was more brightly lit than the hallways she’d started in, and the catwalks were much denser as they crisscrossed between the large tanks. As soon as she entered the room, she heard a slight whir that she recognized as the sound of C2 floating. She backed out of the room briefly and then peered back in, trying to keep as much of herself as possible hidden around the corner. She quickly spotted the guard in question, a single droid floating around the tank at the center of the room, spiraling up and down between the catwalk and the floor, its glowing cone of awareness facing outward, reaching the wall of the chamber, even through the assorted tanks. When it reached the floor, it reversed and started to spiral back the way it came, reversing again when it reached the chamber’s high ceiling. After timing it for a while, she realized that she could pretty easily sneak by, but that she would have more time to do so if she went to the floor below.

She turned around to see if she could find a set of stairs and saw another droid coming down the catwalk straight towards her. She looked back at the droid patrolling the center of the room and compared its speed to the one approaching from the way she’d come. She did some quick calculations. Then, when the orbiting droid in the middle of the room reached a point where she felt it was high enough not to scan her, she moved as quickly and quietly as she could into the space and briskly headed for the exit on the far side. Just as she passed the center of the room, she felt a quick pulse from between her legs that made her gasp, but she managed to choke down the response just enough that the drone took no notice and she made her way through to the other side.

When she reached the other side of the chamber, she looked back and found that, while the droid in the center of the chamber had not noticed her, the droid that had been moving in the same direction as her was not only still following the same path she was but, given how much closer it was, seemed likely to be moving faster than she was and was apparently moving directly through the water filtration room without stopping at any of the intersections. She continued to move at her brisk pace, feeling the occasional pulse of the vibrator between her legs. When she reached the next intersection, she debated taking the turn and trying to lose the droid that way, but decided instead to continue to the stairs she could see ahead, leading to the area beneath the catwalk. Once there, she crouched in the darkest corner that she could find and waited silently for the droid to pass overhead. As it did, she noticed that it had resumed its quick spin at the intersection and started to wonder. She had spotted how the droid had stopped to rotate at each of the intersections it had passed before the purification room, but, as far as she could tell, had skipped doing so in the room with the spiraling droid. That suggested that the droids might not just be on simple patrol routes, but might be at least somewhat coordinating their efforts. If their goal was to cover as much territory as possible, then it was conceivable that following one droid might help avoid the others, while also possibly giving her a chance to sneak up and deactivate it. She knew it was a long shot, but she figured that it was as good a plan as any. So, she started moving briskly to follow the droid that had passed her, stalking it from below.

Serena's first reaction upon arrival was to move. She could feel the invasive presence of the device and, like the others, quickly deduced its purpose, but decided that the quickest way to be rid of the damned thing was to finish the challenge as quickly as possible. So, she picked a random direction and started jogging. The feeling of her altered hips moving and her chest bouncing slightly was disconcerting, and she eventually settled into more of a power walk to reduce the strange sensations, but she decided that she wasn’t going to let that distract her any more than the presence between her legs. A comparison that shattered when she felt the first pulse from the vibrator and squeaked in a decidedly un-masculine fashion as her legs suddenly slackened and she found himself tumbling to the metal floor. It took her a moment to understand what had just happened, but after a moment of catching her breath, she pushed herself off the ground and made her way back to her feet. She almost fell again as she did when there was another pulse, and she squeaked again. She started moving again, trying to maintain her quick pace, but found herself definitely slowed as she attempted to brace herself from the unfamiliar sensation. Still, she barreled through the maze of chambers. On the rare occasion that she spotted a droid, she simply tried to move faster or took a turn. Her one rule was that she would not stop moving, no matter what.

It wasn’t until nearly half an hour later that she turned a corner and found herself suddenly face-to-face with a droid moving too fast for her to avoid in time that her plan finally caught up with her. As soon as the yellow cone touched her, it turned red, and she was engulfed by a familiar flash of light, only to find herself back where she started. In front of her hovered some holographic text.

Penalty: Caught! – Next Transformation Downgraded

“Fuck!” She yelled, annoyed at herself for being so reckless. Still, she reasoned, if she could only receive one penalty, it meant the vast majority of the teeth had been removed from the drones' threat. So, she started again. She tried to follow her initial path, trying to find where the pulse had first started, but it took her trying three of the hallways before she found it again. It felt decidedly strange to have to direct the whole of her attention to the part of her anatomy she most wanted to ignore every time she probed one of the hallways, but she knew that she had no other choice. Once she got the first pulse, she tried to note any landmarks around her and, finding none, made a small mark with her fingernail in the paint of the railing in the direction she was headed. As soon as she completed that, she started moving again. Like the first time, her goal was to keep moving, but this time, she tried to keep a general map of where she had and hadn’t gone. After a while, she realized she had reached a point where the vibrations had become more frequent. She took a moment to mark the paint again at the last intersection she’d passed and attempt to mentally map the direction she’d traveled to give her some idea of which direction she was heading. She knew it wasn’t a perfect system, but it significantly reduced the number of possibilities. Now, all she had to do was hope that she could find the card she was tracking before someone else did.