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From: MichaelD38@aol.com
Subject: {MichaelD} "The Needle and the Dungeon" Part Three (bdsm, caution) (4/6)
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                                    XXVI.

	She was dreaming, but not with the simulated confusion and fogginess of 
the other programs.  This time, she really felt like she was dreaming.  A 
sense of disconnected terror began to grow in her, detached from any image in
her mind.  She saw a flower bed, and it frightened her.  Something was 
falling.  Something was pressing on her.  She was falling.  She was about to
die, but didn't know why.
	Then it was over.  She woke up, attached to the Needlebot.
	"What happened?"
	"Ashley, there's something wrong with the system.  Wait a moment."
	A shock jolted through her.
	"Ow!  What the hell was that?"
	"Get out of the bot.  Something is wrong."
	She tried to pull away from it, but her limbs were stuck tightly to the 
bot's arms.
	"I can't!  Turn it off!"
	Another shock, worse this time.
	"Ow!  Stop!  Let me out!"
	"I can't shut it off.  Try to get loose if you can."
	She fought the electrostatic tension holding her in place, shaking the 
bot back and forth.  A vastly larger shock ripped through her, throwing her
forward against the restraints.  Her whole body fizzled with energy, and her
skin started to smoke where it contacted the bot.  This wasn't the fantasy
shocks she had survived in the programs, but horrid, painful electrocution.
A deeper pain began in her chest, and her field of vision began to narrow.
She realized her heart had seized up, frozen by the electricity coursing 
through her.
	With her last real conscious thought, she knew she was dying.
	The pain suddenly faded, and she fell forward.  But something was 
wrong.  With the pain had gone every sensation of any sort, good or bad.  
Only a vague confusion remained.  She looked around the lab.  It seemed 
fuzzy, no longer quite there.
	She was sinking, falling downward.  She looked around her, and stared 
in disbelief at what she saw.  A limp body hanging in a Needlebot.  Her body.
	Something passed her, going up.  It seemed to pass out of her, out of 
her belly, a small, amorphous blob rising to the ceiling.  A feeling of 
resentment and lament radiated from it.
	In a moment or two, she had passed into the floor, and everything went 
dark.  Now, more than ever, she felt like a being of pure thought, with no
bodily sensations remaining.  All that remained was the sensation of falling.
	With no transition at all, she was standing in a line of fuzzy humanoid 
blobs.  They stood in a v-shaped valley of severe dark rock.  Everything was
in shades of gray, the sky, the ground, the people (?) around her.  It lacked
any hard-edged reality, and none of it was stable.  The sides of the valley
seemed a few feet away one moment, hundreds the next.  The sky hung low, then
higher, then thousands of feet above.
	The blobs (people?) around her were murmuring, but never could she get 
a clear sense of what they said, even though the voices seemed to come from
right in front of her.  It was as if the sounds were gray as well.  She tried
to cover her ears to block out the noise, but her hands passed right through
her head.
	Only now did she take a clear look at her body, or what remained of it.  
She was a blob herself, a being of gray smoke.  She put out her hand to touch
the being in front of her and felt only vague resistance.  She knelt and 
tried to pick up a rock at her feet, but could only seem to make it wobble
slightly.
	She looked up and saw that the line in front of her was gone.  She 
stood in front of an insane stone desk, hundreds of feet high it seemed, even
though she could almost see over it.  An even vaster creature stood behind
it, and unlike the blobs, it had a clear form.
	The creature was humanoid, painfully thin, almost skeletal.  It wore an 
archaic pin-striped suit and narrow gold-rimmed glasses.  It glared down at
her, pushing the glasses up a protuberance that passed for a nose, and 
shuffled some papers on its desk.
	"Ashley Taylor MacMillian," it said.  "Born March 3, 20__.  Died 
eighteen years, four months, four days, eleven hours, thirty-two minutes, and
twelve seconds later.  Your sins include adultery, failing to honor your 
father and mother, and taking your Lord's name in vain.  Your death was very
nearly a suicide.  At the very least, you took a foolish risk that cost you
your life.  And the life of your unborn child."
	If Ashley had had lungs left to gasp with, she would have done it.  She 
could only respond with a sense of horror.  Could this possibly be only the
program?
	"But-it was an accident.  It wasn't the program that did it."
	"It matters not.  You knew the risks, and chose to ignore them.  
Throwing your life away was bad enough, but you carried the life of another
within you as well."
	"I didn't know!  I didn't think anything would happen."
	"You knew.  Others warned you and you spurned their advice.  Now your 
child is dead as well, and, having died unbaptized, is condemned to Purgatory
until Judgment Day."
	It shuffled more papers.
	"For your other sins alone you would be consigned to penance in 
Purgatory yourself.  For the crime of infanticide, I send you to the Fifth
Circle of Hell.  Be gone."
	Ashley shrieked in terror.  This couldn't be real!  But it felt nothing 
like the other programs.  Her body was gone, not just replaced.  She had a
sense of nothing but her own thoughts.  
	She catapulted into the sky, arcing through the clouds, falling.  She 
saw a vast city, almost the size of the continents she had viewed through the
window of the spaceplane on her way to Berlin.  The city was circular, ringed
with concentric walls, and she fell toward one of the inner rings.  As she
grew closer, she realized the city was an inverted cone, and she passed the
outer rings as she fell toward her destination.  Deeper down, she could see a
black pit in the very center, but then she passed into a stone building, and
found herself in a rough cell.
	Again, with absolutely no transition, her body was back.  She was nude, 
lying on the bare dirt of the cell.  It was hot, and she began to sweat.  The
cell was little more than a rude cavity gouged out of some rough volcanic 
stone.  No door to the cell existed, only bars of dark cast iron, buried in
the floor and ceiling.
	Through the bars, she heard sounds she could barely comprehend.  Growls 
and groans, roars, agonized screaming.  A hideous, gargoylish creature 
lurched past the cell, dragging a mutilated body that was somehow still 
alive.  She could hardly determine its sex, let alone what it might have once
looked like, but it mewled and whimpered at the creature dragging it.  Then
it was gone.
	When the two had passed, she could see into the outer area.  It was a 
vast, smoldering pit, a thousand times the size of the building she had 
passed into.  Other cells ringed the pit on different levels, and at various
points, broader areas stretched out away from the terraces.  In those places,
she saw other gargoyle creatures tormenting human forms.
	She backed up to the rear of her cell, pressing herself against the 
wall, wrapping her arms tightly around her knees.  She had to figure out 
whether this was level fifteen.  The alternative was too much to consider.
	"Jasmine!  Please!  If this is still the program, you have to tell me!"
	A warped black face stuck its head in front of her cell and laughed.
	"Jasmine?  There is no Jasmine here."
	It cackled at her.
	"So this is the one who enjoys being tortured so much.  We have awaited 
your arrival with great relish.  Perhaps I will be given the honor of 
breaking you in.  You will learn to enjoy my caresses, I think."
	It laughed again.
	"Oh, ho?  So frightened?  You disappoint me.  We have such wonderful 
torments for you here.  Why, I could chop you into a hundred bits and you 
would not die.  You are dead already, after all!  I could do it a thousand
times, and each time you would reform to begin your punishment anew."
	 It leaned back and seemed to regard an inscription above her cell.
	"Baby-killer?  What delight!  You have no conception what the 
prescribed torture for that is!  But you will see, oh yes!"
	It cackled again and stalked off.
	Ashley closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, whimpering. She began 
to cry quietly. Please, let this be the program.  Please, God.  I didn't do
anything wrong.  Did I?
	In the back of her mind, a sinking feeling began.  If she had died in 
the lab, she had taken her baby with her.  Everyone had warned her of the 
risks, and she had ignored them to feed her own fantasies.  And now her poor
baby was dead.  She had seen it going up as she died.
	She rubbed at her stomach.  The fullness she had begun to feel was 
gone, as was the swelling of her breasts.  She wrapped her arm back around
her knees and buried her head in her hands.
	A screeching noise ripped through her cell.  She looked up to see the 
gargoyle that had teased her bending the bars apart.
	"Time to begin, little one!"
	"No!"
	"Oh, yes!"
	She tried to squeeze herself into a tiny ball, pressed back into the 
corner, but it did no good.  A rough claw grabbed her arm and dragged her 
painfully out of the cell.  The stone quickly shredded the skin on her knees,
and she tried to pull herself to her feet.  The creature dragged her to the
nearest torment area.  
	She scarcely had time to take in the multitude of torture apparatuses 
before she saw a round pool of molten lava.  She realized the creature meant
to toss her into it.
	She screeched, grabbing onto the gargoyle, but it pulled her off and 
threw her into the pool.
	The pain was inconceivable.  She should have died in an instant, but 
somehow she had enough of herself left to surface and claw her way partially
out.  She saw the cooked flesh of her arms tear off on the sharp rock of the
platform, leaving bone behind.
	The gargoyle laughed and kicked her back into the pool.
	"Suffer!  Suffer as your child suffered!"
	Scarcely able to conceive of it, she saw that the lava had reduced her 
to a bare skeleton.  The last blobs of flesh on her body sizzled and dropped
off her bones.  Then the gargoyle grabbed her neck and pulled her out.  And
like that, she was whole again.
	"Oh!  Little wench, this is only the beginning!"
	It picked her up and tossed her through the air.  She slapped flat 
against some sort of metal surface, and a million knives were clawing into
her.  She tried to pull away, but that only increased the agony.  She turned
her head and saw that the creature had thrown her onto a metal wall covered
with thousands of rusty barbed hooks.  Hundreds of them were now stuck in the
flesh of her back and limbs, holding her to the wall.
	It drew out a whip and began lashing her.  The leather of the whip was 
woven around dozens of razor-sharp blades, which sliced into her, ripping off
long shreds of her skin.  The torture went on long after she should have 
passed out from agony, after she should have fainted from the blood loss, 
past even the point where the whip had flayed her down to bare bone in spots.
	Finally, the creature tossed down the whip and approached.
	"Had enough?  Does this meet with your satisfaction?  Perhaps I could 
let you chose the next torment from tonight's menu.  We could begin with an
exquisite series of thumbscrews, followed by a rapid flaying.  Then a few 
minutes in the iron maiden.  For dessert, a simple rape.  I rarely get to 
work with a human as attractive as you, and I hear that you have such twisted
taste in sexual intercourse.  I am eager to see if I can live up to your 
expectations."
	She could only manage a few gasping sobs in response.
	"Bah!  Pathetic!  I expected more from you."
	It grabbed her head and ripped her from the wall.  A fresh explosion of 
pain greeted his action as the hooks on the wall tore her back to shreds.
The gargoyle tossed her to the ground, and her wounds again healed.
	Before she could stand, perhaps to attempt flight, the gargoyle grabbed 
her.  It tossed her on a horizontal rack, and leather straps whipped around
her, tying her down.
	"Let's begin with the thumb-screws, yes?  Unless you would prefer 
something else?"
	"Please stop," she whimpered.  "I don't deserve this."
	"Oh, no?  Would you like me to fetch the spirit of your daughter from 
her limbo in Purgatory and ask her how she feels about this?  How she feels
about your ending her life before it even began?  It can be done if you 
wish."
	"It's a girl?"
	It smacked her.
	"You have no right to ask me such things.  It is your place only to 
suffer.  Yes or no?  Shall I fetch her?"
	Ashley closed her eyes and steeled herself.  Maybe this was some kind 
of test.  At the very least, she had to give her baby some kind of apology.
She had screwed up, but she hadn't meant to.
	"Yes.  Bring her."
	It paused for a moment.
	"It is done.  Now back to work."
	It grabbed the thumbscrews off a nearby pile of torture instruments.
	"Wait!  Where is she?"
	"Coming.  These things take time."
	The thumbscrews were little more than handheld vises, which the 
gargoyle clamped down on her thumbs.  Bit by bit, it tightened them, watching
her reaction.  The pain grew, from annoying to agonizing to mindbending.  
Then she felt the knuckles give way as the bone collapsed, crushed, and she
screamed.
	A voice split the air around her.
	"Stop!"
	Blazing light enveloped them, and the thumbscrews fell away, her thumbs 
suddenly intact.  At the top of the torture area stood a being so beautiful
she wanted to cry in joy at the sight of it, a shining creature of shimmering
energy.  Its form solidified, becoming vaguely humanoid.  At its side now she
could make out a smaller figure, a human.  A beautiful young girl.  Her 
daughter.
	The gargoyle recoiled, shielding its eyes from the glare.
	"You have no place here!" it screeched.  "I summoned only the girl!"
	"I have come for a different reason."
	It motioned to the child, who floated down toward them.  Ashley felt 
tears running down her cheeks as she approached.
	"Mother?"
	Ashley let out a sob.
	"I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry," she bawled.  "I didn't mean to kill you, I 
didn't.  I thought it would be safe, I really did.  It was an accident."
	The girl put her hand on Ashley's shoulder.
	"I know."
	"I wanted to have you.  I wanted to love you and raise you and be your 
mother.  I wanted to watch you grow up.  And now I can't because I killed 
you."
	"It's all right.  I forgive you."
	The girl turned back to the being of light, which approached them.
	"You do not belong here," it said to Ashley.  Its voice was deep, 
sonorous.  "At worst, you deserved time in Purgatory."
	It glanced over at the gargoyle, which shrunk under its gaze
	"This creature's request prompted a review of your case.  I came here 
to see if you had seen the error of your ways.  I believe you have suffered
enough to expiate your sins.  You and your daughter will return with me to
the upper realms."
	"No!" the gargoyle shrieked.  "I am not finished with her!"
	The other being waved its hand, and the gargoyle dissolved into a puff 
of smoke.  Then it gestured at the rack, and Ashley was free.  Her body, the
body she had been given only for torture, fell away behind her, and she 
became a glowing creature like her daughter.  The girl took her hand and 
smiled.
	"Come," the being said, and lifted its arms.  The three of them shot 
up, through the roof of the cavern, into the smoky sky above, through the 
clouds.  They passed through a dull gray area of drifting forms.
	"Purgatory," her daughter said.  "Where I was."
	"I'm sorry," Ashley said again.
	"It's all right, Mother.  I love you."
	Then they burst through the amorphous ceiling of Purgatory into a 
shining realm of light and joy.  Music, wondrous music filled her ears, and
the sense of pleasure and fulfillment roaring through her was so infinitely
more than anything she had ever conceived of, so far beyond anything she had
ever experienced, that she knew then that it had all been real, that she had
truly passed on, left the mortal world behind and passed into Heaven with her
daughter.  Other forms swirled around them, welcoming them, loving them, 
embracing them.  She returned the embraces, laughing with joy.  She took her
daughter's hand, and the two of them flew off together, into the light, into
the laughing, singing souls dancing around them.


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