Trapped - Neep's Story

     To look upon the house itself, one would not expect such a vicious monster to be living inside. The home was large and old, not exactly a mansion, but still a house that only one of the irken upper-class could possibly afford.
     The classical music drifted through the rooms of the house, the rise and fall of the wordless complex sound floated on the air, bouncing and moved around the objects placed within the home. The music could be traced to a door labelled ‘private’, the study of the owner of the home.
     Pictures hanging around the walls showed off scenes of great battles, beautiful irken females and heroic irken males. The room itself was a dark maroon, shaded and lit only by a few low-key lamps that hung on the walls of room. Bookshelves covered most of the walls, all of them thick and dusty, showing their age as almost everything was now put onto CD’s and downloads. Whoever owned this place was obviously somewhat wealthy if they could afford such archaisms as books.
     A small table set to one side had an unfinished game of chess, the chair showing that only one person had been playing. Other symbols of this irken’s taste and wealth were littered around the room. A small table with a bottle of expensive Vort wine, crystallised glasses and a hanging in the space between a bookcase and the door hung a large, ancient irken weapon known as a kru-ktar, two opposing blades with one connecting handle in the middle.
     In the far corner of the room was a desk of a dark, mahogany-esk texture and on it were a few piles of paperwork, some electronic notepads and video-letters, the only modern things in the room. Oddly, on the desk, on top of the video-letters, was a handheld mirror, the edges and handle was an elaborate pattern of two intertwining gold snake-like creatures on a jet black polish.
     Near to the desk was a large, real Try’re leather chair, huge and old looking it engulfed its tall occupant.
     The being sitting in the chair was a slim irken of a tall, almost advisor-tall height. He had a lean face with thin unsmiling lips. His slightly dark green skin contrasted with his dark clothes, his dull grey suit, tied across on his right side with three large black buttons, his neck covered by the collar. His pants also a dull grey to match the top, his shoes a solid polished black, a classic business-caste irken uniform, reflecting both his job and his status in society.
     His long antennae fell down onto his head, his deep red eyes, thoughtful and intelligent but also sad, looked slightly to his right at the mirror sitting on the desk. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair, his finger-claws touching at the tips. However, if one was to look closely, one could see that he was shaking, quivering just lightly as if a chill was running down his spine.
     By irken standards, he was quite handsome, rich, slim, and most importantly, tall. A perfect specimen of his species, an irken other irkens would look up to, would admire and aspire to imitate.
     However, past this irken’s smarts, past his riches and intelligence, lay something… evil. Evil that crawled under his skin, that stalked around his heart and that whispered into his antennae when no one else was around. It haunted his mind, showing him images of things it liked, things it wanted, things it did…
     This demon was part of him, part of his very being, yet, the irken wish to anything that would listen that it wasn’t. He wished that it could be removed from him some how, exercised out of his very cells and cast away into some black hole forever.
     But it couldn’t.
     The irken tried his hardest to keep it silent, to keep the monster inside him, but he knew it was useless. It only built up in strength, his voice slowing getting louder and louder until it became powerful enough to spill over from whatever dark corner of the irkens mind it was banished to.
     The irken then had no choice, he had to appease it, he had to obey the monster that he hid inside himself. Then, once it had been fed, he could go back to his other life. The life where he was a normal business-caste irken, Tall-Vice-Leader of a company that produced glass needed for voot runners and other space fighters.
     The irken slowly closed his eyes and his hands pressed together his claws linking together tightly. He looked like he was in pain of some kind, like he’d been stabbed slowly.
     The demon was calling. It was telling him how much he enjoyed hurting those girls, how he enjoyed brutally raping them… how he enjoyed killing them. It reminded him how the flesh and blood tasted in-between his teeth and how the blood would drip of his body, running off his claws and onto the floor.
     “No…” The word was spoken almost as a whisper, harsh and gritted. He showed his teeth, which hinted towards the monster inside him. They were sharp, like knives, and gave the gentle looking irken a sudden air of danger.
     The irken’s eyes snapped open and in a second he’d grabbed the mirror of his desk, glairing into his own reflection with a hate most warriors use to look at their enemies.
     “NO!” He was shouting at his demon, his malevolent side, “I will not obey you! I am not evil!”
     There was no answer, not to anyone who was on the outside of the irken’s mind. The irken growled again, but his resolve was quickly fading, he was shaking more now. “No… I… I can’t… not again…”
     Again, the reply was only heard by the businessirken. “I… I…”
     The irken slowly looked away, the colour was draining from his face, his eyes becoming wide as he placed the mirror slowly back down onto the piles of work. He seemed to have entered some kind of automation, as if he was no longer thinking about his actions but simply fulfilling them by memory alone.
     He lifted himself up from his chair and walked over to a picture on the wall. The picture showed a battle, the last great war of Irk, the famed general Nelcon conquering the last of the Reet nation, uniting Irk under the one rule of the Tallest Empire.
     The irken took a second to look at the picture, than he ran his claws put the sides until he gripped the fame and pulled, taking the picture from the wall. Behind it was a metal safe, accessible only with a touch, eye and voice authorisation process, each the irken passed until the voice code.
     The irken paused, than weekly announced, “Regret.”
     The safe bleeped in acceptance, and opened to reveal the contents. Two large combat knives, a coil of thin metal wire and a set of keys.
     The irken took each one, in turn, his face remaining emotionless. He then turned towards the door of his study and walked over, picking his large black trench coat off his old metal coat-rack.
     The door unlocked with a quick tap on the keypad and the irken stepped out of his study pulling his coat around him and turning to quickly lock the study again.
     No one entered his study, no one.
     He turned and headed down the hall, wanting to get out to his cruiser as fast as he could.
     “Master Neep?”
     The irken turned his head but didn’t look up, his claw resting on the button to open the front door to his home. Standing down the hallway, with a worried, almost scared look on her thin face was a vortian girl.
     The girl only came up to Neep’s waist and she had dark navy coloured skin and large, contrastingly bright blue eyes and pair of gently curling pearl-coloured horns rose out of her head, each one with a gold band around it.
     She was wearing a sleeveless black dress with white eloquent frills that hugged her slim form and came down on the front and back of her body, showing off her calves and letting her strange, feetless legs with her high ankles move freely. The dress had a large pocket on the front, and a small red irken-imperial logo was on her left shoulder. Her claws where held up to her small chest, her hands covered in a pair of skin-tight black gloves. This was the uniform of a vortian maid and it was her job to keep Neep’s large home clean, to cook him his meals and generally serve his requests.
     Around her left wrist was what looked like a tight black wristband, but was in fact her ownership tag. Scan it with a computer and one could instantly access all the information about her, including the irken she was owned by.
     Her eyes blinked as Neep’s sad eyes rose to meet hers. “I’m going out, May Qui.”
     “Oh…” The vortain girl looked down. “Okay then.”
     Neep deeply suspected that she new what he was going to do, but if she did know, then she never mentioned it. She never questioned it when her master came home at the dead of night and wishing to wash his own clothes, or why he turned the news off when it began mentioning disappearances in the slums of irk. Why he stopped buying the newspapers as they began cover the now famous story of ‘The Irk Ripper’. However, whether she knew just how horrible the details were…
     Yet, they both knew it wasn’t a servants place to pry into the business of their master.
     She looked back up at her owner. “Well… do you want me to be up late tonight?”
     Neep shook his head slowly. He had a strange feeling about tonight, something he couldn’t explain, but he knew that tonight he would not be returning to his home. “Don’t worry about me May Qui, I’ll be fine.”
     Neep pressed the button and the door unlocked, swinging open. Neep went to walk out, to go and complete his grisly mission.
     “Please.” Her voice stopped him, but he did not turn to look at her. “Master Neep… please… be careful.”
     She did know. “Don’t worry about me May Qui,” A small smile appeared on his face, and the vortian servant saw her Masters strange sharpened teeth, “I don’t deserve to be worried over.”
     He closed the door, leaving the maid to stand alone in the corridor, wishing her master wasn’t about to go do anything horrible. She knew something was wrong with him, from the moment she arrived in this house and met him for the first time she’d known that there was some great pain behind those red eyes. She knew that everyday was a battle within himself, he was a good irken, a good person, but he had some kind of great evil inside of him, some terrible devil that haunted his soul.
     She knew that whatever it was he did when he went out, it was wrong. She wished that he’d talk to her about it, she wanted to help him. She could see how much he despised himself, how much he wanted to end his pain, but he carried on because he knew he’d never stop.
     She shook her head and looked down, finally turning away from the door. “I hope he finds his peace.”

---

     The hovering streetlights cast a repetitive passing of light across Neep’s cruiser as he sped down the mostly empty roads of Irk’s flightways. The two moons about cast an odd mix of blue and pink down upon the planet, telling it’s occupants that it was time for rest.
     However, Irk never rested, and the planet continued to work under the light of the moons.
     Neep looked down over the dashboard of his cruiser to see larger transporters and carriers rush about in the flightpath below him; however, his flightpath remained empty apart from his own MK2 Mera-class cruiser, an expensive ship built for businessirken’s like himself.
     In the back of his cruiser, Neep had a shock-gun, some rope and a rag he used to gag his victims with. He also had a specially bought PAK-casing, the type they used on criminals to stop them from using their mech-legs or any other PAK ability. All these items were kept neatly in a small briefcase.
     However, right now he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking about his victim. He didn’t know who she would be, or what she looked like, but whoever it was, he was sorry.
     He was sorry he couldn’t control his monster. He couldn’t control the urges that made his fingers curl and his teeth press together. The urges that made him want to explode from the sheer force of the feeling. The beast that crawled under his skin and across his mind, calling to him, demanding that he obeyed the call of his own vicious, sadistic nature.
     The thing that disgusted him most about it all though, was that he enjoyed it. It was like some terrible guilty pleasure. At the time, he felt like a Tallest and all worries were forgotten, but then, the moment it all ended, he felt so… cold. Like another part of him inside had died, or he’d got a little closer to completely becoming the monster he so carefully tried to control.
     His biggest fear, bigger then being caught, was that one day he’d let his demon loose and he’d never be able to change back. That he and his inner evil would switch places, and that it’d be the civilised being inside him that’d become the urge, the thing that lurked at the back of his mind, building up until it spilled over and he could no longer ignore it.
     He shook his head, scattering his thoughts. Part of him wanted to just get this over with; part of him was looking forward it.
     The buildings around him chanced, getting smaller, less clean. The streets became filled with rubbish, boxes and drunken homeless irkens.
     The slums of Irk were horrible things to see. Houses literally piled up on top of one another, people who made the absolute minimum wage, the slaves and janitors and all those who were deemed too stupid or weak to be part of the larger irken machine. On Irk, you didn’t get a second chance. You either made it, or you failed, and if you failed… well, this was where you ended up.
     Neep’s case had become famous due because it had draw attention to the terrible, horrifying conditions that the poorer side of Irk had to live in, as well as cause a panic that the biggest, most productive and powerful planet in the universe had a mass rapist-murdering running around on it.
     Neep drove on, he knew where he was going, the red light district, the place that only existed because the irken mafia bribed the police not to go there; otherwise the authority’s would have obliterated it a lot time ago. However, thanks to Neep, many irkens were now calling for some kind of re-building program and demanding to know why the police hadn’t destroyed it a long time ago.
     The businessirken couldn’t help case a weary smile, one good thing about this was that he knew his case would bring that corrupt Tallest-Police-Chief down and expose the vice in Irk’s supposed ‘peace keeping’ force.
     His cruiser slowed down as he finally reached his destination, the irken females standing nervously under the hovering streetlights. This was Neep’s hunting ground; this was where he looked for the most useless, pathetic irkens he could find. The ones he hoped wouldn’t be noticed if they vanished forever.
     Nervousness grew in Neep’s spoonch, but also, a sick sort of excitement. His claws itched for a kill, any kill. That need crawled under his skin, he need to take one of them, he need to taste her blood and hear her screams, the need to rape them…
     He scowled as he passed another group of four prostitutes. Since he’d come along they’d started bunching together in an attempt to stay safe, on some of them he’d even found knives and guns. It seemed even the lowest of the low wanted to keep whatever excuse for a life they led. He couldn’t blame them though, who would willingly want to be mutilated and murdered?
     He knew finding a victim was getting harder and harder, but inside, he only enjoyed it more. It gave a more… primal thrill to the hunt. He hated himself for it, but in the same way, he revelled in it.
     Neep suddenly stopped, his eyes widening. Under a hovering streetlight, stood a female irken and she was alone.
     She was wearing a typical prostitutes wear, high-thigh leather boots to flash her long slim legs, a short tempting skirt and a boob-tube to show her ample breasts and reveal her toned mid-drift. She had fishnet stockings over her arms, which she crossed across her middle, one arm supporting another while she held a still lit cigarette to her mouth. Her lips had almost radio-active green lipstick and she had heavy blue eyeliner. Her antennae sagged down slightly from the gold clips she had on them.
     She came up to Neep’s neck in height and her green eyes matched her lipstick, flashing in the light of the streetlight.
     She was perfect.
     Neep felt that horrible urge explode in him, and the need to taste her flesh came over him so strong he shook and clenched his claws, closing his eyes shut tight and gritting his teeth.
     He stopped his cruiser quickly, parking it within the shadows where it wouldn’t be seen. The moons were blocked out by the tall decrepit buildings around them, the streetlights casting only small shots of light amongst the pitch-black of the night around them. It was a prefect setting for a murder.
     However, as Neep opened the briefcase in the back of his cruiser a sudden thought struck him.
     The scene was too perfect.
     A prostitute out alone, with him on the prowl in one of the darkest and secluded parts of the slums?
     His eyes narrowed slowly as he gripped his stun gun. This was a trap, and he knew it.
     He should walk away now while he had the chance, but he couldn’t, the beast inside him wouldn’t allow it. Now he’d seen her he had to have her, no other would do. He needed to taste her, he needed to her hear scream, he needed to kill her.
     Neep had read the police reports on what they expected the ‘Ripper’ to be like. A defective, some kind of random killing beast with enough smarts to at least hide the bodies. However, sometimes Neep had left the bodies out to be found. Whether he secretly enjoyed taunting the police or if he wanted to be caught he himself was unsure.
     This had led the police to think he lived in the area, probably one of the mafia members. They never even thought the killer might be cultured, intelligent, one of the wealthy elite.
     This could work to his advantage.
     Neep placed the stun-gun into a pocket and pulled his coat around himself. He’d lure her into the shadows, if she was a police-female then she’d put up resistance but she’d come eventually.
     She wanted to catch him, and he knew tonight, he would be. But he’d have her as his last before they placed those cuffs on his wrists.
     The female looked up from where she’d been gazing at the sky, the cigarette smoke drifting around her face. She’d heard something in the shadows, the very faint sound of a cruiser door closing.
     She was so scared she could hardly stand, but she believed in her job, she believed that no matter who a person was, no one, not even the Tallest themselves had the right to take away their life.
     This being, this ‘Irk Ripper’ was a monster in the truest sense of the word. From the few bodies they’d recovered they knew what sort of mindless demon he was, probably crawling through the sewers and living on the very edges of society, probably violently abused as a smeet and wanting to pushing those in the same manner as he’d been punished. He was a brain dead psycho, nothing else to it. She’d been told that the moment anyone approached her acting even the slightest bit strange, she was to activate her PAK legs and blast away. Although the lasers in mech-legs could only cause minor burns at best, they’d still be enough to alert the strike team in waiting to come to her rescue and catch the bastard.
     She gulped, re-gaining some of her confidence, and called out, “Hello?”
     She could here someone walking towards her at an almost leisurely pace. A small part of her relaxed, if this was their killer then she wouldn’t have heard him, he’d be trying to sneak up behind her.
     “Come on honey,” She called out far more in character now, “Show yourself would you?”
     A figure began to step into the cone of light, but he stopped before she could see his face. Her eyes couldn’t help but widen in surprise, despite his heavy black trench-coat, she could see the grey collar of his uniform. He was one of the business-caste.
     “Well hi there,” She grinned, putting her crash-coarse in acting to some use, “Looking for some fun?” She wasn’t meant to taunt them like this, but she still enjoyed the looks on their faces when she told them she was a police officer.
     She suddenly felt a chill run down her spine and despite his face in shadow; she could tell he was grinning. “Come over here.”
     “Aww,” She was suddenly feeling like she was in the presence of someone very, very dangerous. But she couldn’t be, he didn’t fit the description at all. She fought to keep the smile on her face. “Now why don’t you come over here? I want to see that handsome face of yours, and I also need the light to count the money in.”
     “They won’t find you.” Her face instantly dropped and her mouth fell open in fear. “They’ll only find your remains.”
     “Oh… my…” She was frozen with fear, her muscles seizing up. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe, she could only whisper her one thought, “The ripper.”
     The light above her suddenly exploded as a laser hit it, one fired from Neep’s PAK. The police-female tried to run, but Neep was faster, and he had already pulled out the stun-gun. His aim was surprisingly good for a businessirken, but then again, he’d had lots of practice.
     She fell instantly, and Neep dived forward on his mech-legs, catching her. The moment he did he turned and moved as fast as he could back to his cruiser.
     Throwing her into the back of his cruiser he immediately jumped in after her and wrapped her hands and legs together with rope, than he tired the cloth around her mouth, gagging her and placed the PAK-casing on her PAK. Now she was at his mercy.
     The thrill of power ran through him, disgusting but also, exciting him. He was losing his mind to the demon and a sadistic, evil look replaced the sadness in Neep’s deep red eyes.
     Wasting no time, he jumped back into the driving seat of his cruiser and started it up again, speeding of in the opposite direction. Already he could see the police-carrier following behind him, and he grinned.
     Neep, or the Neep that most irkens knew, had gone. This Neep was an altogether different being, one driven by murderous hunger, rapist lust and a taste for the flesh of his victims.
     This new Neep decided to see if a carrier could keep up with his far faster cruiser. His foot pressed down on the accelerator and he swerved the ship sideways, diving into the thin alleyways of the slums.
     The police followed, also kicking their ship into high gear.
Neep felt a thrill of the chase explode inside him and he laughed, long and loud and insanely. Neep was truly gone. He swerved in and out of traffic, taking dangerous routs and tight corners, the police ship barely keeping up with the sportier, far more agile modal. It was clear that this was not something they’d expected to happen. Their cruiser was filled of heavily armoured police strike irkens, ready for a short but brutal confrontation.
     Now they where chasing an intelligent being with a very fast ship, who was clearly leading them in circles, trying to throw them off.
     Neep knew he was winning; the bulky carrier was no match for his cruiser. Neep saw an opening in the way of a busy transport lane and dived downwards into it, the police ship following quickly.
     Neep passed through, just barely being missed by a huge transport ship; ironically it was one of his companies.
     The police ship wasn’t about to take the same chance, and just before it could get smashed by another huge transport cruiser, it pulled up and away, letting Neep vanish back into the winding alleyways of the slums below.  
     The insane irken laughed again, the police were so stupid.
     It didn’t take long to reach his, as he liked to call it in the heat of the moment, killing grounds. An old generator built under the slums and into the ground, long since shut down as technology had advanced. It was the perfect place to keep the bodies as it was out sight, near to his prey and completely inconspicuous.
     The only disadvantage was that there was only one way in or out, a long thin staircase, designed for only one janitor or electrician to walk up and down everyday before the place had been abandoned.
     Neep dragged the still unconscious female out the back of his cruiser and towards the door. Dropping her momentarily, he turned towards the door and blasted the lock open with his PAK lasers. No point using a key now, not if this was going to be the victim that would get him caught.
     He picked the girl back up again and, holding her in his arms, he used his PAK legs to make his way down the staircase.
     The moment he got to the bottom he was hit by that smell, the smell of dried blood, rotting corpses, violence and gore and death.
     The room was huge, grey and old. The walls were covered in dirt and grime and the floor was covered in bits of flesh, meat rotting on bone, the stains of blood and gore and insides where all over the place. Webs from six-legged arakrd insects where at every corner, cockroaches, the insect of the universe, scuttled around the floor, feasting on Neep’s leftovers. Three huge cylinders took up most of the space in the room, the old generators long since killed. Shadows where everywhere, only three windows in the very high corners of the room cast any sort of light into the room, but they only succeeded in causing three spears of moonlight to cut through the darkness and illuminate a small square on the generators.
     The female was beginning to wake up, making muffled groaning sounds in Neep’s arms. This only caused the insane killer to grin cruelly, just in time for the final waltz.
     He set her down on the floor and took the knives out of his coat as he threw it onto the floor. He placed the knives down together, side by side before he turned his back on her and began to undo his uniform, taking off his shoes, his socks, his shirt and pants, folding them neatly, until he was completely naked. He shivered at the cold of the metal floor and draft coming from the doorway, but he didn’t care. He’d been warmed soon enough.
     The girl behind him had now completely woken up, and Neep could hear her muffled screaming, her attempts to get away, to get free of the bonds he’d put her in. However, he smiled as he cracked his knuckles, she wouldn’t get away. She belonged to him now.
     He knelt down and picked up the knives, finally turning to face her.
     Her eyes were huge with fear and panic and she began trying to wiggle backwards away from the monster in front of her.
     Neep grinned, flashing his sharpened teeth, and she tried to scream.
     “You know,” He took a step towards her, “They’ll catch me tonight. You’ll be my last victim.” She tired to scream again, to wiggle backwards, but Neep was already stepping over her, his knives held towards her throat. “Did you know they were using you? They hoped to use you as bait to lure me out and follow me back to my personal graveyard here. You were just a tool to get to me.”
     Neep cocked his head slightly, the urge to tear this female to shreds almost overpowering him. His eyes seemed completely glazed over, like he’d taken some kind of drug. His heart was pounding in his chest and his mouth was slowly opening into an animalistic grin-snarl. “But when they get here, it’ll be too late.”
     He stuck out his tongue and took a long, rough lick of the side of the girls face, tasting her sweat-drenched skin and grinning. “I will enjoy this.”
     The next few moments seemed like a dream, as if Neep was watching himself over his own shoulder. He could see himself perform his horrifying acts on the poor girl, tearing her clothes away, taking her by force before going even further, biting into her neck and drawing out her blood. He watched himself as he laughed and revelled and covered himself in the insides of the irken female or former irken female. He literally, tore her apart, and by the time he was finished everything around him, including Neep himself, was coated in her remains.
     Outside the sound of cruisers landing could be heard, voices shouting and echoing into the great hall where the smell of fresh blood and death was heavy in the air.
     Neep sat, cross-legged in the centre of a pool of blood, his breathing deep and heavy, his eyes unfocused, staring only at the floor. Slowly, he blinked and his head twitched up looking around in shock. It was almost as if he’d come out of a deep sleep.
     He looked down to his gore covered hands, blood not only dripping off them but also dripping onto them as blood was also falling from his chin.
     He began to shake as he realised what he’d done, again. He’d lost control, he’d given in. The demon had been satisfied, but at the life of another person.
     Neep could hear the sound of boots pounding on the stairs as the police strike teams came to get him, the businessirken assumed they’d had some kind of back-up tracker put into her PAK.
     Tears formed in his eyes and a horrible chocked sob came into his throat. He raised his hands to his face, his palms covering his eyes, but somehow his tears found a way to seep through and they fell, mixing into the blood around him.
     He could hear the first of the strike team swear in horror as they came through the doorway. He could hear them scream and shout as they told him to stay still.
     Neep didn’t move, he just continued to cry into his blood stained hands.
     He felt the cold nuzzle of a gun poke at his head, “Don’t. Fucking. Move.” He finally looked up, to see a strike-irken with a las-gun aimed at the space between his eyes, her armour covering her whole body and an orange visor over her eyes. Neep could tell it was a female when she spoke. “You… sick fuck.”
     Neep smiled and bowed his head again. “Thank you.”
     Someone behind him grabbed his arms and forced him to the floor with a grunt. Neep winced at the pain of having his arms pulled back and cuffed tightly, the metal almost cutting into his skin.
     He was then pulled back up and a quick glance around him revealed that he was surrounded by six irkens with four more towards the door, all of them in full strike armour and armed with rifles pointed at him.
     The irken female in front of him narrowed her eyes in anger. “Thank you? What for asshole?”
     “For catching me,” Neep replied simply.
     A harsh shove came from behind him and Neep stumbled forward into a walk as the others led him out by gunpoint. He could hear someone commanding to him his rights, but Neep wasn’t listening. He’d finally been caught, now he’d never kill again. The monster in the shadows of his mind would be kept in check by force.
     He was shoved into the back of a van and quickly locked inside; however, just before the doors closed he saw that female strike team hold up his clothes.
     Again, all Neep could see were her eyes as she tossed his clothes to him. “Enjoy your uniform while you can, soon you’ll be wearing a straightjacket.”
     Neep nodded. “And thank Tallest for that.”

---

     Neep had never seen such a media frenzy over the capture of a murderer before, not since several years ago when they’d caught that evil academy teacher whose name slipped Neep’s memory.
     The papers, the irken news and beyond had been knocked over by the identity of the Irk Ripper. Not the twisted, horrible defective creature that the police had predicted, but instead, this modal irken, one of the wealthy business-elite, kind and courteous and extremely civilised. Suddenly, the whole of Irk was questioning the definition of a defective, the power and respect of the business-caste was put under question and a huge scandal of the Tallest-Police-Chief had come out, revealing the frightening depth of corruption within the Irk police force.
     Neep, in a way, was quiet proud of himself. He’d changed the face of irken society forever and he’d cleaned up the whole police force.
     Neep had been as helpful as he possibly could with the police investigation and when it came to his trial it seemed to have paid off. Even though he pleaded guilty and insane, even requesting that he be put down and left out of the recycling of his PAK, the control brains had pitied him, if a machine could pity, and had sentenced him to life imprisonment at the famed prison-asylum, Skitzatos 7.
     At this news Neep had been saddened, he’d wanted to die. He felt that he, as a twisted murderer, shouldn’t be given a lenient treatment just because of his status and height.
     Either way, now only a few months after his capture, he was sitting in the maximum security wing of the psychopathically insane ward of Skitzatos 7.
     He’d been issued the uniform of the insane, the black and white striped shirt, black pants and boots, his old suit had been put back into storage. Some of his possessions, like his chess board and some of his books had been given to him under the condition he behaved well.
     Neep fully intended to try as hard as he could to become cured. However, he could still feel it, lurking inside of him. Sometimes it whispered to him, laughing at his efforts to silence it, warning him that one day he’d snap again, he’d kill again, and on that day all his work would fail.
     Neep tried to ignore it, but when you’re alone in a white cell, it becomes rather hard to ignore.
     Today he’d been told he’d meet his doctor, the one he would have for therapy twice a day, every day for the rest of his stay in the asylum.
     The irken couldn’t help but think about the things he’d left outside, his money, his house, his possessions, all now seized by the state. The only things he had left where in the room around him.
     However, there had been one other thing that had remained in his possession. He remembered, the night before his trial as he’d been sitting in his cell, the one visitor he’d had.
     May Qui stood silently on the other side of the transparent force-field, looking down at Neep, who was sitting on the floor of his cell.
     Her voice shook as she talked. “Is it true what they say, Master?”
     “Yes.” Neep replied without looking up, he couldn’t bear to see his former maid while he was like this.
     “I… I…” He heard a sod escape from her and he finally looked up.
     “May…” he searched for the words, “You where never in any danger, I promise you.”
     She was shaking as her eyes became wrapped in tears. “Master… why?”
     “I… I couldn’t help it.” Neep knew this wouldn’t be enough, but it was all he could say. He smiled slowly. “And I’m not your Master anymore May Qui, you’re free now.”
     Neep remembered when she’d first arrived. She’d been forced into becoming a servant when Irk had conquered and enslaved Vort and she’d been bought for him by his old boss as a present when he’d been promoted to Tall-Vice-Leader of his company. At first, she’d fought against him, refusing to do work or follow his requests. He’d not been to happy about having his privacy invaded either, after all, this vortian girl could uncover his deadly secret.
     However, slowly, they’d grown used to one another. He never treated her badly, unlike many other irken’s who owned servants, and she came to realise she was very lucky to have Neep as an owner. Neep on the other hand began to appreciate her company, he enjoyed teaching things about literature and philosophy, however, he always kept his greatest secret from her because he never wanted her in any danger.
     May Qui slowly shook her head, “What am I going to do? I have no money, no where to go…”
     Neep looked down as he realised he’d destroyed whatever sense of security she’d ever had. “I’m… so sorry May.” He realised that was the first time he’d ever addressed her simply as ‘May’.
     “When you get out, I’ll be waiting for you Neep.” She managed a small smile. “I’ll always remember you for you.”
     Neep smiled, that had been the first time she’d ever called him ‘Neep’ without calling him Master.
     He suddenly heard the wall behind him open up, and he jumped in surprise. Out of the wall came what looked like a sort of giant clamp, and inside it’s jaws were the white of a straightjacket. Neep sighed and stood stock still as it grabbed him and forced his arms around his sides before attaching the jacket to him. It also forced a mouth guard onto his face, causing Neep some discomfort as he tried to move his mouth. The clamp let go and vanished back into the wall, pulling a chain along with it. Neep didn’t notice until the last moment that the chain connected to the back of his straightjacket, and so he was suddenly yanked off his feet by the sudden force of the lock and dragged away from where he was sitting in the centre of the room.
     Frowning in anger at the rude treatment, he sighed as he realised he’d have to go through that twice a day for the rest of his life. He consoled himself by reasoning he deserved it.
     The door swished open, drawing Neep’s gaze up.
     Standing at his door was an irken female with average antennae, soft green skin and a good, but not tall height. Her pinkish-red eyes were looking down at her clipboard that was held tightly in her hands. She had some green clips on her antennae and she wore a long white doctor’s coat, a light yellow top with small black lines going across it. She also wore a black pencil skirt and a pair of heels.
     Neep suddenly felt better. It was like someone had injected warmth into him and it was rushing through his veins. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the female as she noted some things down.
     She looked up at Neep and cast a small smile. “Good morning,” she glanced at her notes, “Neep.”
     For some reason, when she spoke his name, Neep’s heart jumped. “Good morning.” He managed to control his speech, but he still was confused about why he was suddenly feeling so odd. He stood up slowly as the doctor sat down on a chair that was in the corner. It was next to a table which had some of Neep’s book on.
     Neep immediately walked over to sit down across from her. Being near this girl was making him nervous for reasons he still didn’t know. “May I ask,” The doctor looked up from her notes, “What is you name?”
     She smiled again. “I’m Doctor Feto. I’ll be your therapist from now on, ok?”
     Behind his mask, Neep grinned in joy. He already liked this female, and having her as his therapist twice a day was going to be a joy, he knew it. “Erm, I’d just like to let you know.” Neep said with his grin still on his face, “I’m going to try my absolute hardest to be cured.”
     Feto smiled, and this time there was something genuine about it. It set Neeps heart on fire. “Thank you very much Neep. I have the feeling treating you is going to be a joy.”
     Suddenly, life imprisonment didn’t look all that bad.