DARK SUNSET by Mort

Book One : Part Two


Mulder kept his eyes on the floor as he stumbled along in the middle of the line of the 'chosen', as they were marched through the alien ship. He was so cold that it took all of his attention simply to keep one leg moving after the other and he felt so light-headed that he diagnosed himself as suffering from severe, medical shock from the transportation, the intense cold and the horrific executions of Kersh, Reinhold and the others. 

Although he knew he should be looking around himself, searching for possible routes of escape, absorbing whatever clues were available in the rooms which they were passing, his head was too full of the horrors he had already experienced to risk absorbing any new images into his already traumatized brain.

Yet, as undeniably terrified as he felt about his own impending fate, he couldn't stop picturing Skinner in his mind. Somehow, despite his nakedness, the AD hadn't once lost his dignity in what Mulder was beginning to think of as the alien's 'waiting room'. Skinner's presence had been like a warm, comforting shield between Mulder and the reality of their captivity and the loss of that presence was making Mulder feel doubly naked and vulnerable.

Mulder had always been a loner. He had never depended on anyone else for strength and he'd rarely even considered Skinner as more than an encumbrance to his work. He'd spent more time attempting to avoid Skinner than appreciating his company. So he decided that it was just another symptom of his shock that he couldn't get the AD out of his mind. The way Skinner had stood fearlessly as the blue light had taken them, the way Skinner had wrapped himself around Mulder's own body to keep him warm, the absolute unbelievable fact that under his suit, AD Skinner had hidden that body.

It seemed ludicrous to even be considering his newfound attraction to his boss, given the situation he was in and the very real possibility that Skinner was already dead. But it wasn't sexual arousal that kept Skinner's face in the forefront of Mulder's mind, it was a strange feeling of regret. If he had trusted Skinner before, if he had leaned on him for support, he was suddenly sure that Skinner would have risen to the challenge. Sometimes it took a crisis before you saw someone clearly, and over the last few hours - perhaps simply to distract himself from the situation they were in - Mulder had begun to see Skinner with a clarity that had startled him.

So how the hell had the aliens simply discarded a man like Walter Skinner? How had they presumably seen him as disposable? He was worth more than all the 'chosen' captives in Mulder's opinion.

Mulder had little doubt that his group *were* the chosen. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the aliens had chosen his particular group based on youth, health, looks and genital size. The Vet had seemed completely indifferent to intelligence, strength or personality. 

The real question though, was still what the Aliens actually *wanted* and from the evidence so far, Mulder didn't think he was going to find the answer to be particularly palatable. The Vet's final criteria had seemed to be the weight and potency of each human's balls, judging from the way the alien had pointed an instrument at Agent Collin's groin and then had discarded him, despite the fact he was hung like a horse.

Which suggested to Mulder that the Vet was picking breeding stock. 

He felt too distanced from himself to make any great deductive leaps. His brain was too busy telling him that the whole situation was just a bizarre nightmare. Yet, at another level, he was thinking furiously, desperately trying to work out what was going on in the minds of the Aliens. In a situation as seemingly hopeless as he had found himself in, he decided that his only possible weapon would be his intelligence.

Perhaps the only reason the Albrecx intended to spare the one percent they had mentioned was to breed more useful 'beasts' after they had finished their implied cull of the human race. 

If that was true though, it begged the question of what characteristics the Albrecx considered *useful*. It didn't make sense that the Albrecx would want to breed humans without selecting for intelligence. Dependent on their intentions, it might suit the Albrecx to have either intelligent humans or stupid ones. It certainly made no sense that they didn't care either way.

Unless Mulder was completely missing the point about what the Albrecx wanted from their 'chosen', of course. He needed more facts. It was hard enough to try and profile an alien mind anyway, let alone attempt it without even the minimum amount of necessary information to base a theory on.

Especially when he couldn't think for the constant worry about the fate of the men left behind in the 'waiting room'.

Mulder was so lost in his speculation that he walked right into O'Reilly's back before he realized the line had finally stopped moving. They were now in a smaller, but otherwise identical room to the one they had left. It had the same plain dull metallic walls, the floor was lined with the same grates and the ceiling had an identical sprinkler system. 

Mulder had the horrible, sinking feeling that the only reason they had been led into another shower room was because they would all soon be puking their guts out again.

~~~

Skinner wasn't given any time to speculate about Mulder's possible fate. As soon as Mulder's group had left the room, the Albrecx began separating the remaining humans into two smaller groups. 

He clenched his fists and forced his arms to remain at his sides as one of the aliens approached him and began poking and prodding at him with a baton. The Albrecx seemed to take so much pleasure in inflicting a series of painful and humiliating jabs of the stick against Skinner's abdomen and groin that Skinner became certain the alien was deliberately trying to make him strike back.

His earlier suspicion, that the Vet had given instructions *not* to just kill them coalesed as he saw other guards inflicting the same indignities on his fellow captives, and then seeming to take great satisfaction in executing anyone who reacted, as though they were looking for any excuse to defy the Vet's orders.

So he held his breath *and* his temper and allowed himself to be mauled, knowing that his only chance of ever fighting back against the Albrecx depended upon him remaining alive until the odds were more in his favor.

The guard finally tired of taunting him and moved on to a new victim, leaving Skinner bruised and furious but still alive. 

Only five men 'failed' the selection process this time, and the others began to relax a little as the guards drew away and conversed amongst themselves. 

As though they could sense the moment that the captives' frantic heartbeats had begun to slow down again, one of the Aliens returned to the line and walked down it, tapping the shoulders of several men with his baton, then telling the rest to cross to the opposite wall.

Since the men who had been tapped with the baton were either near retirement age or bore visible imperfections such as distinct scars, Skinner was a little ashamed of how readily he accepted the order to leave them behind. He stood, ramrod stiff, against the 'safe' wall and tried not to meet the eyes of the men across the room who had presumably been found 'unsuitable'.

But, just as Skinner's line started to calm down, the Albrecx with the baton walked over to them and began tapping shoulders once more, this time removing any man who was either particularly thin or overweight and sending them back across the room again.

Skinner quickly realized that any deviation from a toned, fit body was obviously seen by the alien as a 'flaw', but the fact that he had sent those men to the 'safe' line, only to then retract his earlier judgment, seemed little more than an act of petty cruelty. For all their technological advancement, it struck Skinner that the Albrecx were no more than vicious, mindless thugs.

Even in the midst of all the horror, what surprised Skinner the most wasn't the fact that the Aliens saw humans as dispensable. In some ways what they were doing was no more than an echo of human history. American colonists had almost wiped out the Native American tribes. Australian colonists had driven the native aboriginals to live in the desert. History was full of proof that a stronger, better-armed force was ruthless in its approach to a weaker society. So the fact that the Aliens felt their weapons gave them the right to treat humans as disposable didn't really shock him. What he couldn't reconcile though, was the guards deliberate cruelty.

In Skinner's experience, cruelty was  a trait most usually found in people who didn't have the intelligence to know better. It wasn't what he expected to find in a species so advanced that they could travel through the galaxy.

He was sickened by sound of terrified sobs as men were forced to return to the opposite wall. He could hardly bear to watch them stumble across the room, too terrified of the Aliens' weapons to refuse the order yet so sure they were walking to their deaths that several of them lost control of their bladders. 

Skinner had seen horrors in Vietnam, he'd witnessed things that had made him ashamed to call himself a human being, but as he watched the cull, never knowing whether he would be the next person to be rejected, he realized that he'd never truly known what hate was before. 

He wanted to scream out a protest, wanted to curse the Aliens for turning these men's last moments into no more than a sadistic torture, but he just didn't dare. He tried to tell himself his silence was merely because he knew a protest would be pointless suicide, but he knew the truth was that he was simply too scared to speak.

And in being forced to face his own weakness in that way, Skinner's hatred for the Albrecx burned even stronger.

When Skinner's group had been reduced to just eighteen men, the alien with the baton gave a signal to his colleagues and the men who were standing by the opposite wall were incinerated.

~~~

"You have been chosen because my preliminary examinations suggest that you have the potential to be prime cattle," the Vet advised Mulder's group.

"Cattle? What the hell do you mean by cattle?" someone challenged. 

Mulder didn't recognize the speaker but he admired the guts he'd shown to ask the question, even as he flinched and half-closed his eyes in expectation that the speaker would be killed.

The Vet seemed unperturbed by the interruption, however, and merely answered the question.

"We have examined your language carefully and have chosen the word as the most appropriate term to use for your species," the Vet replied. "You were bred and designed to become cattle for the Albrecx. Unfortunately, because we have been forced to harvest your planet too early, your species' physiology has not yet evolved to fulfill your original function. Initial analysis suggests that less than one percent of your population will prove suitable. The selection process is primarily aimed at your scientific castes since it is logical to assume that they will provide specimens of the most advanced of your species."

"We're not scientists," O'Reilly blurted.

The Vet shrugged and gave a thin-lipped smile.

"Which is why so few of you are in this room. The primary reason for collecting the members of the governing caste, such as yourselves, is merely to eliminate you as a threat to our occupation. Our original intention was to simply put you all down. We are not wasteful, however, so we have been screening you to select anyone who may prove suitable for our needs.

"And what, exactly, are your needs?" Mulder demanded, now that asking questions no longer seemed to be a capital offence.

"The Albrecx breed cattle such as yourselves because we require certain chemicals that we can most easily ingest directly from your bodily fluids," the Vet replied. 

"You're going to eat us?" O'Reilly demanded, his face bleaching of color.

"I *said* your fluids, not your flesh," the Vet replied impatiently.

"Oh god, they're vampires. They're fucking vampires," someone gasped.

Next to Mulder, a young Agent gave a hitching sob of terror and made a run for the door. He barely took three steps before one of the guards fired and blazing flame engulfed the youngster's body. 

As the smell of charred flesh filled the room, Mulder felt the room swaying around him and he sank to his knees, uncertain whether he was going to vomit again or simply faint. A voice in the back of his head was screaming at him to pull himself together and rise before he was incinerated too. But he couldn't. 

Fortunately for Mulder, he wasn't the only man whose brain had simply overloaded with the horrors of the last few hours, and instead of being annoyed at their reaction, the Albrecx vet was fascinated as he looked  around the group of humans. Over half of them were on the floor, either swaying drunkenly or attempting to vomit. It surprised him since he hadn't even shown them the milking dormitory yet.

He couldn't decide whether the new beasts were simply easier to intimidate than their usual cattle or whether their distress was because they had a more heightened sense of sympathy for each other. So, instead of having the guards force the beasts to their feet, he sat back and observed them as they slowly pulled themselves back together.

"What are Vampires?" the Vet asked, when he was satisfied that all the beasts were capable of listening again.

"Creatures that drink human blood," Mulder clarified, when it became obvious that no one else dared to speak and the Vet wanted an answer.

The Vet shook his head. "We have no requirement for your blood. The essence we require will be extracted from your reproductive fluid."

Mulder just blinked as he suddenly understood why the Vet had seemed so interested in their scrotums. His own balls began to crawl uncomfortably as his over-active mind began to imagine what way the aliens intended to extract semen from their 'cattle'.

The same realization had obviously struck the other men because the room filled with panicked murmurs.

"No fucking way," O'Reilly snarled, his pale skin flushing red with outrage. All around him there were loud mutters of agreement.

"Refusal is not an option," the alien vet said pleasantly enough. "You are cattle. Your purpose is merely to provide essence. You do however have a choice over the method by which you provide the essence. You are the lucky few of your group who meet the requirements of the Albrecx. If other groups prove to have more suitable candidates, you may be de-selected again."

"What happens to the people who aren't selected?" Mulder demanded.

"As I explained, we are unfamiliar with dealing with such unrefined cattle as yourselves. We had no intention of harvesting your species for several more centuries. The current level of technology that you have reached means that your planet has a damaging level of radiation.

"Several more centuries would have taken you to a point where your technology would have been based on less harmful fuels than nuclear power. As it is, our only option is to extract those of you who are least affected by the radioactive residue in your atmosphere and we will return your planet to a pre-technological state.

"Certain humans will be chosen as breeding stock and will be left alive on the surface to reproduce under controlled conditions. All flawed non-breeding humans will be culled. The few of you who do have suitable essence will be used to provide our current requirements and any excess harvest will be processed and sent back to our homeworld.

"The Albrecx do not keep flawed or aesthetically displeasing cattle. Those humans whose essence is found satisfactory but who do not conform to our aesthetic requirements will be suitably stabled in milking dormitories. 

"You are among the lucky chosen few. If you prove tractable, you will be given the opportunity to be personal producers or be allocated to serve the Imperator's guard. Some of you may even have the honor of becoming personal producers for the more esteemed of our leaders."

"What the fuck's a personal producer?" someone demanded angrily, causing a murmur of agreement to ripple through the room.

"Only the most prime cattle may become personal producers," the vet replied. "Prime cattle are valuable and as valuable possessions they receive the best food, comfortable sleeping quarters and perhaps even a fond master who indulges them with fripperies. It is a far preferable life for a beast than either of your alternatives."

"What alternatives?" a hopeful voice piped up.

Mulder recognized the speaker. He didn't know the man's name, but he knew he was an office-based researcher, not an Agent. Somehow, it made Mulder feel more sorry for him than the rest. At least the field agents among them were used to facing death and it was becoming increasingly obvious to Mulder that they'd all be better off burning than accepting the horrific future that the alien was offering. 

The vet pointed at the speaker and one of the guards surged forward to separate him from the crowd. The young man's face twisted and he began to scream in panic, obviously expecting to be burned alive.

Instead, the huge guard demonstrated the true purpose of the Albrecx's tentacles.

As Mulder watched in fascinated horror, the guard's middle tentacle raised and slid over the man's groin, enveloping his cock and balls. Then his left tentacle snaked between the man's legs and began to penetrate his anus. The man screamed piercingly as he was breached by the thick organ. The guard took the opportunity of the gaping mouth to thrust his third tentacle down the man's throat. 

Mulder could see the tentacles thrusting and undulating as they fucked the man from both ends simultaneously. Blood was dripping down the man's thighs and cheeks as the alien organs ripped tender skin with their brutal assault, and all the time the middle tentacle was squeezing and pulling at the man's groin, forming a strong vacuum.

The man was thrashing helplessly in the guard's arms, pinned mouth and ass, his flailing arms beating uselessly against the Albrecx's huge, solid frame. Then his eyes rolled back in his head, his hips began to jerk and the horrified silence of the room was filled with a disgusting slurping sound as the guard sucked the essence out of him.

The guard detached his tentacles and let his victim fall to the floor, where he curled up in a ball, sobbing with humiliation and pain.

"Fortunately, only the lower caste tend to eat with their Qwentcha," the Vet advised them. "Your particular species are too small to survive long if the essence is withdrawn naturally. On the other hand, the Albrecx prefer their essence to come directly from the source rather than via milking tanks. Mechanical mass-extractors pollute the flavor of the essence," the Vet explained

"The higher caste Albrecx prefer their essence to be harvested for them and do not physically touch their cattle. Essence is collected by means of a personal milking machine. To ensure production, Producers are physically serviced by other cattle. To prevent confusion, we will refer to those cattle from now on as Studs. A number of suitable non-essence providing male cattle will be selected to become Studs and will be trained to service you. Our experience of cattle on other harvested worlds is that the direct stimulation of a beast's prostate is the most efficient way to facilitate essence production."

"You mean some guy is gonna fuck us to make us cum?" O'Reilly demanded.

The Vet nodded.

"Fuck that, I'd rather be dead," O'Reilly snarled.

The Vet grinned unpleasantly, pleased that the dissenting voice had come from the red-headed beast. Because only the red-head and the cattle named Mulder had been brave enough to speak out, the Vet had feared this lesson might have to be taught to the cattle named Mulder and he knew the Imperator had expressed an interest in having him as a personal pet.

He signaled the waiting guards to approach O'Reilly. Two of the guards stepped forward and separated him from the group. Then they unholstered what appeared to be laser pistols and each quickly severed one of O'Reilly's legs. What remained of O'Reilly's body crashed to the ground, screaming in agony.

The room erupted with howls of horror that almost drowned out O'Reilly's own continuing wails. There was no blood. The wounds were instantly cauterized by the laser, so that although O'Reilly was howling and gasping, flopping helplessly on the floor like a beached fish, it was obvious that he wasn't going to die and that was somehow more horrifying than the dismemberment itself.

The Albrecx waited until the spectators quietened into shocked silence, and then severed both of O'Reilly's arms too.

"You fucking bastards," Mulder screamed, leaping towards the guards. He knew the aliens would kill him for attacking them, but he was well past caring whether he survived or not.

One of the Albrecx pointed a weapon at Mulder and fired. A blue light enveloped Mulder's body and he was immediately frozen in place. He waited for the pain, the burn, and then realized he had simply been surrounded by some form of restraining beam.

He battered his fists helplessly at the invisible wall and watched as O'Reilly's still screaming body was lifted in the air and carried to where a doorway had suddenly appeared in the far wall.

"Why?" Mulder howled at the Vet, unsure whether he needed to know why O'Reilly had been dismembered or why he himself hadn't been killed.

"Limbs are unnecessary for cattle in the milking room and interfere with the milking equipment," the vet replied coldly.

The doorway gaped open to reveal room so vast that Mulder could barely see the far wall. The floor of the room was lined with countless hundreds of rows of short couches. The ceiling was covered with a tangled spiderweb of black tubing. 

Although most of the couches were empty, the first few dozen rows were occupied by human men who had been shorn of their limbs like O'Reilly. Their bodies were almost covered in tubes and wires and each had an unidentifiable football-sized organ that seemed to have been attached under their truncated pelvises. The organs were pulsing as though alive, expanding and contacting minutely with each heartbeat of the victims. 

As Mulder watched in numb horror, O'Reilly was carried to the first vacant couch. Two long tubes unfurled from the ceiling directly over the couch and the guards began to attach the tubing to what remained of O'Reilly's body. 

"The anal tube allows for removal of faeces and the stimulation of the prostate to encourage the production of essence," the Vet explained, as the guards fastened one tube over O'Reilly's cock and inserted the other inside his anus.

O'Reilly was screaming in pain and shock, begging the guards to simply kill him to end his agony. The only response from the guards was to tighten the straps that held his torso on the bed. 

One of the guards began to insert sharp wires into O'Reilly's chest. From where Mulder was standing, it appeared that the wires were being pushed directly into O'Reilly's heart. The other guard picked up an implement that looked like a long hypodermic needle attached to a football sized bladder. He pushed the needle into O'Reilly's scrotum and then squeezed the bladder to slowly force the liquid through the hollow needle.

This time O'Reilly's scream was so loud that Mulder heard the distinct sound of his larynx ripping and in the choking silence that abruptly followed, Mulder finally understood why none of the other bodies on the couches were making any sound.

As Mulder watched, he saw O'Reilly's scrotum expanding as though it were a balloon. It seemed physically impossible that it could expand so much without exploding, yet although the scrotal skin was stretched so tautly that it shone, it didn't rip. Whatever liquid had been forced inside was obviously causing a change on the molecular level.

"The cattle are changed at a genetic level so that their body's sole imperative becomes the production of the essence. It is necessary to enlarge the scrotal sac to allow for the storage of those larger quantities of essence," the Vet explained casually. "The process takes very little time to achieve. If you look at the cattle on the other milking units you will see that they have already achieved full growth although we have been collecting cattle for less than one of your days. The tubing attached to the penis of the cattle removes both urine and essence."

Mulder gagged as he realized that the strange alien organs that pulsed beneath the victims' pelvises were their own obscenely expanded balls.

"The wiring into their chests is because their hearts are now controlled by machines which ensure that the constant production of essence will not strain their bodies to the point of termination. Cattle on the milking machines should last an average of twelve of your years in almost constant production of the essence."

"Constant?" a man named Rogers whispered.

"Sleep periods are unfortunately necessary to maintain body function. Twelve extractions per day are the norm."

"And this is what is going to happen to us?" someone asked.

"Not if you make the obviously wise choice to become Personal Providers instead," the vet replied. "Although you will be expected to contribute *some* essence to the Harvest in addition to supplying your own masters it is unlikely that you will be adapted to provide more than four extractions on a six hour cycle. Your bodies will only be physically altered to increase your production of the essence accordingly."

"We're going to look like them?" Rogers demanded, staring at the football sized scrotal sacs of the 'cattle' in the milking room.

"Of course not, or you would need to be constantly milked," the vet snapped impatiently. "You will only be altered sufficiently to ensure you provide a little more than the needs of your individual masters."

"So those are our choices?" Mulder asked calmly. "Being the pet of a high caste Albrecx while being raped four times a day by a 'stud', or being kept as a fuck toy by the guards or spending 12 years on that fucking machine?"

"Yes," the vet smiled.

"I'd rather be dead, thanks all the same," Rogers growled, beating Mulder to the comment.

Two guards immediately stepped forward and began stripping him of his limbs.

"No longer an option," the vet told the others lightly, ignoring the fact that most of them were vomiting onto the floor. "We have now culled those of your group that we did not require. Does anyone else prefer the milking room?" he asked, looking pointedly at Mulder.

Mulder swallowed heavily and then shook his head firmly. 

If he was ever going to get out of this place, if he was ever going to stop these bastards, he needed his limbs intact. He resigned himself to the fact that his ass wouldn't remain the same way.

He shrugged.

"I vote for being a pet then," he drawled, casually enough to cause a few of the other humans to give nervous chuckles of appreciation at his attempt at nonchalance.

~~~

The Albrecx left and the room turned into a shower. This time, at least, the water was warm and Mulder welcomed the unexpected pleasure as his numb limbs began to thaw.

He didn't fool himself that the Albrecx were trying to be kind. After twenty-four hours of cold, starvation and countless horrors, they were all at risk of clinical shock or hypothermia. All the Albrecx were doing was taking care of prime cattle.

Even so, when the water stopped and the ambient temperature of the room was raised so that he barely noticed his nakedness, Mulder still found himself huddling against one of the other captives.

He couldn't use the excuse of cold this time, it was mainly a desperate need for human contact, but the psychologist in him suggested that it was also a small subconscious attempt to get used to the idea of another man's touch before he had to face a 'stud'.

It was impossible to gauge time in that room.

On three occasions the doors opened to admit a new group of shell-shocked captives but their terrified demeanor and the way they just silently joined the huddled group on the floor told Mulder that they had already been through the aliens 'welcome' routine.

Other than the swelling of the group, only the growing discomfort of his empty stomach and the occasional need to take a piss, proved that time was passing at all. 

The Albrecx didn't return, no food was provided, and the only source of water was when the showers would turn on to sluice away the captive's waste products.

None of them spoke. It was as though they were all too terrified that their voices might cause the aliens to return. Other than the occasional sob, they sat and huddled together in silence.

Mulder could feel a hazy calm descending over him. He knew he was probably just light-headed with hunger, but he embraced the way the sensation allowed him to drift away from himself. It helped time pass and stopped him thinking about the nightmare future that awaited him outside the room.

He occasionally wondered about Skinner but he refused to let himself even think about Scully because he was pretty sure she was dead. He could see no conceivable reason why the Albrecx would keep a barren female alive, and since he blamed himself for her sterility, thinking of her death hurt him too much to bear.

As for Skinner, it was possible the Albrecx had kept him alive to be a Stud but Mulder simply couldn't see AD Skinner agreeing to obey, so he'd probably been put down by now. He almost envied Skinner his death. At least the Studs had that option. The Producers only had the option of the milking room and that was too high a price for anyone to pay simply because of pride.

Either he'd find a way to escape or he'd find a way to kill himself. He could accept no other alternative. In the meantime, he would simply have to accept whatever pain and humiliation was waiting for him outside that door.

Go to Part Three