Internal Affairs Ch 02

Ch 2: Knee Deep

Corporal Hart moved into the next room, and took a seat in an obvious chair at the center of the otherwise bare room. Immediately after settling himself, he felt the cuffs and ankles of his suit lock down tight to the chair, as if magnetized. He tried to struggle against the restraint, but was powerless; he could only move his hips from the seat in fruitless effort. Doctor von Schwendi entered the room through a tinted glass door, and approached his seat with a sly grin upon her face.

"I trust you've enjoyed yourself so far, Corporal Hart?"

"Don't play games with me, just get down to the actual work, doctor!"

"Very well, I'll prepare you for resizing myself. This may feel...a bit strange."

A console rose up from the ground next to the chair, and von Schwendi entered a few quick keystrokes. The chair began to vibrate as a low hum filled the room. Hart felt himself being leaned back to look up at the ceiling as a panel slid aside and a large apparatus lowered slowly into position above his torso. It looked to Hart as something out of a science fiction story, a cliché laser aimed right at his chest. He struggle more, but couldn't look away as the point of the machine began to glow a bright blue and the humming sound intensified.

There was a blinding flash, and Hart shut his eyes. Von Schwendi, having donned a set of protective tinted goggles, looked on in excitement. Hart squirmed as the beam of light hit his chest, and his whole body began to glow a faint blue color. Slowly but surely, he began to shrink, though not at all smoothly. His body seemed to implode in places, crushing into compactness at random points until he was barely visible as anything but a speck in the center of the table. Von Schwendi shut off the device, and approached the table with a small eyedropper. She picked Hart's body up and observed as it floated in the glass tube, unconscious from the intense strain of the procedure. She carried it carefully into yet another plain white room, and emptied it into a small glass cup.

Hart regained consciousness, and immediately felt in danger. There was water all around him, as if her were submerged. The pressure was intense, though he could clearly see the surface only a few feet above his head. As he flailed around, he suddenly heard a voice in his head, echoing through clearly.

"Corporal Hart? It's von Schwendi. You'll need to engage your suit's SCIBA mechanism to breathe here. Just push that disc on your chest in, it'll do the work for you."

Desperate for air, Hart slammed a closed fist into the disc in the chest of his suit, and it responded immediately. It rose out from its position, and a thin plastic mask rose up over his nose and mouth, connected back into the suit by a thick hose. It forced out the water, and Hart could breathe clearly. He swore to himself under his breath as he began panting heavily.

"I heard that, Hart, as did your CO."

Hart looked around, and saw the room around him, though each wall seemed miles away. He felt something slam up to meet him as the glass was picked up, and looked up to the surface of the water as a dark red shape came into view.

"You'll be proceeding orally, Corporal Hart. Just try to relax while you're being swallowed," said von Schwendi nonchalantly.

"'Try to relax,' you say... Even if you say that, being swallowed is..."

The water all around him began to flow into the dark red shape in front of him, outlined top and bottom by rows of bright white. Hart guessed it must have been the test subject's mouth, and braced himself. He was pulled along with the water into darkness, and as he felt himself fall, presumably down the subject's throat, he lost consciousness once again.

***********************************************

Corporal hart lay face up in a small pool of clear liquid, in what appeared to be a large pink tunnel. His eyes fluttered under their lids, and a male technician's voice echoed from an internal speaker in the neck of the suit, reverberating through Hart's whole body.

"Hotel 6, this is Overwatch, give us a Sitrep. ... Hotel 6, respond."

The voice carried on repeating itself until Captain Hunter's voice overpowered it.

"You read the SOP, didn't you, Hart? Hotel 6 is you! Answer us, tell us what's going on."

Hart slowly opened his eyes, and looked around. He spoke, and was received by an internal microphone in the suit.

"I'm...inside the subject, I think."

"We lost contact with you for about ten minutes there."

"Yeah well, I think it must have been the near-drowning, or maybe the plummeting drop, but I was knocked out. But, I think I'm alright..."

He sat up to stand, but was greeted with a sharp pain in his right side. He gasped in surprise, and put his hand to his side; it seemed even breathing deeply hurt.

"The suit's telling us you've broken a rib. Hang on a minute, we'll get that sorted."

"You sending a medic in after me, Ma'am?"

"Something like that."

Hart felt a sharp pinprick in his side where the rib was broken, followed by a dulling of the pain, of all sensation in the area. Within a minute, the area was completely numb.

"I guess that crazy doctor thought of everything," he mused to himself as he finally stood.

"Stimmt, but... just remember that it can't fix the problem, only dull the pain," von Schwendi replied.

He walked slowly over to the wall of the tunnel-like space he was in, and probed a cautionary hand into it. It was warm, slick, and yielding to the touch. As he looked around more intently, he realized that the whole tunnel was, in fact, seething up and down, as if breathing.

"Just where am I, in the subject?"

"The intestinal tract, actually."

Looking around him hurriedly, a feeling of dread took him. The intestines, he thought to himself... Talk about being in a world of shit...

"Have no fear, Corporal Hart," von Schwendi reassured him. "The subject has been fed intravenously for the past week, and has undergone seven enemas to prepare for your mission. You didn't think we'd have you crawling in feces, did you?"

"Yeah, well, maybe... What's the mission then?"

"Two objectives. First, we need you to collect a sample of intestinal tissue, then make your way to the lungs to run a test of oxygen processing capacity."

"Understood," he said with some conviction, "though it still seems a little ridiculous," he added under his breath.

By Hunter and von Schwendi's directions, Hart took a sample of tissue using a small cutter in the wrists of his suit. Placing the piece of flesh into a small compartment in the chest-set disc, he made his way back through, and prepared to enter the stomach on the way to the lungs.

"Corporal Hart, one caveat, before you head up there."

"Go ahead, Ma'am."

"Von Schwendi informs me that, while the acids in the stomach cannot cause you any damage nor erode your suit, they might impede your progress, should you stay too long. Please try to exercise restraint, alright?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

With that, Hart pulled open the valve-like muscle back into the stomach, and climbed through. Faltering in his steps, he fell face first into the cavernous pink chamber, and into a pool of slightly yellow liquid. Two things entered his mind simultaneously. The first being that he should get up and continue on his way, the second that his entire body felt as if it were tingling and tickling. He rolled onto his side, relishing in the feeling as the liquid seeped into his suit, and the sensation intensified.

Though his whole body felt stimulated, he couldn't help but feel how it affected his cock, which soon hardened under his suit. A technician worriedly informed Captain Hunter of this, who tried to talk Hart back to his senses.

"Hart, we need you to continue on your mission. That's the stomach acid we briefed you about, and while it's not corrosive--"

"Captain Hunter...please just let me...just once..."

Everyone in the sterile operations center became increasingly worried as Hart continued to disregard orders, stroking himself unabashedly as he lay face-down and shivering. The feelings were beginning to penetrate through his suit, and the direct stimulation was almost too much. He began to grunt and moan aloud, causing various technicians observing to blush heavily. As Captain Hunter tried fruitlessly to reason with him, doctor von Schwendi entered the room slowly, followed closely and shyly by Private Fournier.

"What seems to be the problem, Captain?"

"Hart's gotten distracted like we thought he would. I can't reach him, and at this rate..."

"At this rate he'll re-grow before leaving the subject? Unlikely. We've still got at least an hour to kill before that happens."

Captain Hunter clenched her fists, advanced on the doctor.

"I'm not willing to take that risk with him! It's not just the subject at risk, Hart's..."

"He's...what? Is there something you should be telling us? Bitte, just who is this man to you? A subordinate, or a--"

She was silenced by a smack from Hunter and recoiled, cradling her cheek in one hand.

"You civvies are all about results, aren't you? An Officer's job is to accomplish the mission, but never at the expense of her people! Hart's...my subordinate, and it's my duty to keep him safe. And yet now he's at risk of missing his exfil, exceeding his timeframe."

Private Fournier looked at the monitor observing Corporal Hart, fear in her eyes. She ran over to a nearby technician's desk, ripping the headset off his ears and speaking into it with a harried voice.

"Corporal Hart! You have to get up, or you and the subject are both gonna be in danger! Please, listen to your CO!"

Hart simply laid there, seemingly oblivious.

"Please, Corporal Hart, if you get up now...I'll give you something even better!"

His ears perked up, and his motions slowed as he replied.

"Fournier? You'll...what?"

"When you make it out, I'll give you something ten times better than that, but you have to get up right now!"

It came before his senses once more, the feelings of his last encounter with her. As good as this felt right now, it couldn't possibly compare to being with another person. Choosing the greater of two lusts after some difficulty, Hart staggered to his feet, and wiped himself off with disgust. In the control room, Captain Hunter instructed a technician to hail Hart.

"Hotel 6, this is Overwatch. Do you receive us?"

Shaking the liquid from his hands, Hart responded. "Hotel 6 receives you; send traffic."

"Hart, your next step is to get out of the stomach, proceed up the esophagus, and then transfer into the respiratory tract. Any questions," Captain Hunter asked.

"...uhh, yeah. How do I get all the way up there?"

Hart craned his neck as he spoke, looking above to the stomach's entrance. It looked about 70 feet up, and the walls of the stomach were completely smooth.

"So what is it, ma'am? ice picks, or grappling hooks?"