It's midnight, the 'music' has stopped, and it's time for Edward to pay the piper.  And tonight the 'piper', also known as Lothos, is demanding only one form of compensation.

       PART ONE

Getting the samples to the lab, Peter set out to confirm what he already knew as the truth.  Tala might be a beautiful, headstrong woman, but she definitely wasn't a liar.  She didn't have cause to even do so.  After thirty minutes, he looked at the results that had printed out, confirming that the samples of ejaculate that he had gotten from both Edward and Tala were identical.  Peter began to shake his head slowly….the bastard!

With the test results in hand, Peter headed out the lab door, informing Lothos as he headed back to the elevator, "It's confirmed.  It was Edward Grant."  Lothos didn’t respond as the elevator returned Peter to the single women’s quarters’ level.  The walk down the hallway to Tala’s quarters was equally as silent.  At Tala's quarters Peter knocked once then entered the room when the door was opened to admit him.  

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After getting Tala into the bathroom then into a tub of warm soapy water, Nurse Susan Smith, helped her to bathe. Even though the rape had happened over several hours ago, she watched the abused young woman just sit there in the water, unmoving, the shock at what has happened to her still far too fresh in her mind. Gently she instructed her on washing herself, then watched without comment. When Tala finished her haphazard bathing, the nurse just let her sit in the warm water for some little time, giving her the opportunity to let the warm water begin to sooth her sore, bruised body. But after a while the water was becoming lukewarm, so she knelt beside the tub and used a large, soft bath sponge to squeeze the soapy water over her body once more. After well over an hour in the tub, Susan finally told Tala to stand up. When she did as asked, Susan wrapped a towel around her torso and helped her out of the tub.

Putting an arm behind Tala’s waist, Susan, guided her back to her bedroom where she helped her to sit down on the side of the bed before going over to her dresser and pulling out some loose clothes - a pair of sweatpants and a short-sleeved shirt. Helping her into the clothes, Susan finally sat down beside the bruised and battered young woman. Slowly, gently she placed her hand on Tala’s hand, understanding why she moved her hand away from the touch.

"Why don't you lie down, Tala? I'm not going to let anything happen to you. I promise."

Hearing her words, Tala closed her eyes and finally turned her head toward the nurse, at last opening her eyes to look at her. "I don't want to lie down on this bed again." Standing, she moved over to sit on the floor near the door, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them, hugging them tightly. "I don't want to lie on that bed, sit on that bed… anything… any more." Her body began to shake again to the point of it being uncontrollable. Tala felt the hot tears on her cheeks again, but when Susan came over to her, sitting down beside her, Tala watched as she hesitated slightly before she placed her hand on hers once more. "Please…" she told her softly. "Don't touch me, unless you want me to scream."

Susan removed her hand upon hearing Tala’s words but still stayed close to her. "I'm just trying to lend you some moral support, Tala. I…" The average looking nurse licked at her lips as she ducked her head. “I haven't talked about this to anyone in a long damn time,” she began, turning her head back to face Tala. "I’m a victim of Edward Grant myself, Tala. I know what you are going through, and I promise it does get better. It'll take some time -- but eventually you will come to terms with it."

Susan maintained her gaze on Dr. Grant’s latest but, unbeknownst to them as yet, last victim. When Tala’s blue eyes met hers, Susan confided even more in her as she heard the door of Tala’s quarters open. She didn’t spare a thought for who it might be. All she wanted to do was to help Tala, and if confiding in her would help… then that's what she was going to do.

"He…Dr. Grant took me when I was barely fourteen, and I didn't know any better. I thought that he loved me. Talk about being a lovesick blind fool teenager...” Susan shook her head softly, never letting her gaze stray from Tala’s face. “That was me.” The nurse paused at that and shook her head a bit more strongly before refocusing on the reason for her revealing this painful aspect of her own past. “But after talking with a couple of the others that have been victims of his as well, and a hell of a lot of counseling sessions with them…. I've come to deal with this. But, it's times like this when I encounter someone who has been through the same incident because of this… bastard… I relive it all over again." Tears filled the nurse’s sympathetic eyes but didn't spill over onto her cheeks as she dashed them away when she saw Dr. Hugen out of the corner of her eye. "So… if you want compassion, empathy, sympathy, revenge… anything… I'm here for you Tala, if you need it."

Tala didn’t have a chance to respond as Dr. Hugen came into the bedroom just then, looking at the two women sitting on the floor. Even though she had become Dr. Hugen's personal assistant over three years ago, as well as becoming a friend of his – Susan had never told him about what happened so long ago. Now, however, looking up into his eyes, she saw his face and couldn’t help but see the care in his expressive hazel eyes. Shifting her gaze to Tala as the doctor moved toward her and Tala, without looking up at his face, Susan watched as Tala thought on what she had just said and slowly moving her hand and placed it on top of Susan’s, her fingers wrapping around the nurse’s hand. It was only then that the tears in Susan’s eyes spill over as the abused woman reached out to her. Taking the hint, she closed her fingers lightly on the top of hers. "You'll be fine, Tala." She told her softly. "Just fine."

Peter entered Tala's room just as Susan Smith began talking quietly to the brutally used and bruised young woman; there was no way he didn’t overhear what she had been saying. Seeing the tears in the young nurse’s eyes begin to trickle down her cheeks when Tala finally accepted the comfort and support she was offering, his heart went out to both of them, even as his loathing of Edward Grant sank to an all-time low.

"You look like you're feeling a little better," he said quietly to Tala. Even through the tears Peter saw a minute lessening of the tension that had been coiled inside her like a gigantic spring waiting to be touched so it could explode. When she looked up at him he saw a question in her eyes, but before he could speak Lothos spoke aloud.

"Tala?" Lothos called her name firmly but not unkindly. "How are you feeling?" The quasi-living hybrid super-computer knew it was a typical and often asked question in emotional situations. But though he was now primarily a computer, there is still a spark... faint as it was.... of humanity in the entity known to the inhabitants of the complex as Lothos.

Tala looked up at Dr. Hugen when he said that she looked like she felt better though at the same time, she felt as if she had been rolled over by a street cleaner. When Lothos asked how she was feeling, she looked up at the ceiling, her eyes glancing around the room. Licking her lips, Tala said, "I... feel..." She paused, dividing a glance between Susan and Hugen. "Dammit!" she yelled as she got up under their gaze. "I've been raped! What do you expect me to feel? Happy and giddy?!" Gritting her teeth together, she moved to the corner of the room, putting her back in it. It seemed that at the moment, the corner was the only thing that she really wanted, the place in which she really wanted to be.

"I feel very used… and I'm... I want his head on a platter! Is that too much to ask!?" she yelled up at Lothos, not caring about correction... not caring about anything now. At that instant, Tala didn't care about anything that her father might do to her.

Lothos listened without comment to Tala's raging at what she plainly thought were just platitudes uttered to try and help soothe her a bit. Perhaps they were, and whether she would have believed it or not, the computer, the machine that was once a human being and the man that sired her, did care for her. But even as the man he had been before his transformation, Nathaniel Lothoman, Lothos had never been good with handholding or hovering. Instead he replayed again Tala stating emphatically what it was she wanted as perhaps atonement for what *Mister* Edward Grant had done to her.

Tala had not only the blood of Nathaniel Lothoman, ergo, Lothos, in her veins, but that of Zoe Malvison, too. That aspect of her heritage was clear, in that her reaction to Lothos’ next question could have come directly from her mother's mouth, not a single word any different that Zoe might put it.

"Instead of his head on a platter," Lothos suggested bluntly. "How about his male organ on that platter...flanked on either side by his testicles?"

At Lothos’ suggestion of a different body part on a platter instead of her rapist’s head, Tala rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling and spat, "Oh yes... and let me place it on my mantle," raw sarcasm coloring every syllable. "Do you honestly think that I want anything to do with that... thing?" she demanded hotly. Flinging her arms up over her head then letting them fall to her sides in frustration, she flung back at Lothos, "The only person in this room who remotely understands what I'm feeling is Susan. And ... dammit... I don't want his head... I don't want his testicles... I don't want anything to do with that man. He'd be better off dead." The last of her response was uttered lowly as she finally moved to sit on the floor again, this time in the corner of the room.

"My thought precisely," Lothos agreed with his daughter. He couldn’t help a bit of a smirk when he observed that his agreeing with Tala had startled her. "And you are going to get your wish, Tala," he advised her. "At midnight you and a select group of women, those of his other victims who are willing to come forward about his violations upon them, will go to the main assembly arena where you will all watch Edward Grant be emasculated. Then you... and everyone in this complex... will watch him die." He noted the way his daughter went a bit pale at that pronouncement. And, unless he had misread his oldest daughter, Lothos had a suspicion that she might be entertaining the notion of trying to argue her way out of attending.

"No, Tala," Lothos stated firmly then went on to make it quite clear when she did as he had anticipated she would do. "You WILL attend Edward Grant's death, and further more you will have a seat in the front row. I want you to enjoy his suffering as he enjoyed yours."

Though she had her mother's temperament, it was plain that Lothos’ daughter hadn’t expected what was now waiting for her in a little over two hours.

PART TWO

Upon hearing Lothos telling her that she would attend the death of Edward Grant, Tala closed her eyes, almost unable to believe what he has just told her. She wanted to argue with him... fight with him... to convince her father so that she wouldn’t have to go. Still, at the same time, that part of her…all of her being, body and soul…wanted to see the bastard get what he deserved.

She sat there in the corner for a moment thinking about what Lothos had said, thought about why this was happening. If it had been anyone else... nothing would have happened; perhaps a little slap on the hand. Yet because it was she ... Lothos' daughter... it was going to be death. Tala realized in that moment just what having the question that had haunted and dogged her all of her life until just a few days ago, namely that of her parentage, now meant to her…to her life.

Finally looking up at the ceiling above her, Tala cocked her head a bit to one side, arching an eyebrow as she looked up as if looking at 'him'. "I ... I want the final blow that brings him to his death, Lothos. Or is that too much to ask for?"

“No," Lothos stated with calm finality. "You will observe... as closely as you wish," he told her. "But you will not soil your hands with his blood in any manner." Zooming in close on his daughter’s face, there was no missing the glint of disappointment in her eyes, but it was overshadowed by the rage and revenge also shining in the depths of those blue eyes.  "You have two hours," Lothos advised. "Perhaps you should bathe and put on fresh clothing. I will summon you when it is time for you and the others to assemble."

Tala looked up at the ceiling and shook her head. "I've already had a bath, Father. However, at the moment, I'd just like something to drink,” she said plainly. Without waiting to hear a response, Tala crossed out of her bedroom, going straight into the small kitchenette where she reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out a bottle of Crown Royal. Pouring a small tumbler half full, she quickly took a drink of it, cringing as the liquor burned her throat as it went down.

At this point, there was nothing more that Peter could do here. In her anger that was only now beginning to come out, Tala, by her actions, showed herself to be her parents’ child. Watching her toss back half of the whiskey, he noticed that she handled the stinging on her throat almost as well as her father. Crown Royal, he recalled, had been Nathaniel Lothoman’s liquor of choice, and it now appeared that at least one of his children liked it as well.

"If you don't need my assistance, " Peter said. ‘Or my advice’ he thought, watching Tala pour a second shot. "I'll leave now."

Tala listened to Dr. Hugen for a moment as he started toward the door. She mimicked him as she poured yet another drink for herself. “Well, Dr. Hugen, I appreciate you coming down… taking samples and leaving,” she retorted snidely then remembered to whom she was talking. “I…oh damn, Dr. Hugen, I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t the first time someone related to Lothos had taken a swipe at Peter Hugen’s back with words. Truth be told he didn’t even feel what Tala probably thought had been a stinging retort. To insure that she realized just how little it had affected him, the doctor allowed her to see it in his eyes and calm demeanor when he turned back to her.

"You're welcome," he told her. "What more can a physician ask for than the appreciation by a patient of his skills to alleviate his or her suffering and pain?" Dr. Hugen watched Tala squirm visibly at that, accepting her apology after a long moment before continuing out the door.

Lothos chuckled to himself. ‘Zoe through and through’ he thought as he watched and listened to Tala. He wasn’t particularly pleased with how quickly she apologized but there was time to wean her away from that habit.

Hearing her father's chuckle, Tala raised the drink to her lips and swallowed the rest of the Crown Royal left in the glass. She stood there for a moment before looking around and seeing the nurse standing at the door. "You can go, Susan... I'll be fine," she told her, acknowledging the other’s leave-taking with a like nod of her head. When the door closed, Tala glanced up at the ceiling. "I'm glad I amuse you, " she sniped to Lothos as she poured yet another drink. Replacing the cap on the bottle of whiskey, she picked up the glass then went to sit on the couch, leaned back on it and closed her eyes.

Lothos waited until the door closed behind the doctor before addressing Tala. His tone as well as his words caught her off guard as he zoomed in closer on her face, watching as she hesitated, the glass at her lips but not drinking.

"Address me in that tone again, for any reason at all," he told her with quiet menace, “and you'll spend a night in chains." Lothos watched as she slowly lowered the glass as she looked all around her room.   "You may be my daughter, Tala," Lothos informed her. "But that has never and will never exempt you from punishment or correction." He noted how his eldest child sat up straighter on the couch, holding the drink with both hands now. "I demand utmost respect from _everyone_ in this complex, including my offspring. Is that understood, Tala?"

"Yes sir, explicitly," Tala responded, holding her drink carefully with both hands and looking down at it. When Lothos didn’t say anything further, she spoke again. "May I ask you a question, Lothos?" This time her tone and attitude were kept in better control, addressing Lothos...her father with utmost respect.

"You may.”

She shook her head, considering the question that came to mind, knowing that it was probably going to make him blow up at her; it might even land her in chains.

"It is a question that I've thought about while this..." she motioned toward her body. "...happened. And I am not trying to be disrespectful. However, since you do see all that happens in this complex... why didn't you stop him? Didn't you wonder... question why I was with him?" Tala had no

way of knowing that Lothos had been anticipating this very question.

"Because you are my daughter, and in spite of the fact of cameras in your quarters the same as for the majority of the complex," he told her. "I determined a number of years ago to give you the privilege of privacy in your quarters. Only when you speak to me or call out to me, do I cross that line of privilege and visually enter your quarters." Lothos paused.

"I was unaware of Edward's actions," he told her, "because at no time during his attack upon you, did you call out to me or even speak to ask a question." Lothos knew that countless numbers of the people living in the complex would have found his answer damnably hard to believe. That didn’t make it any less the truth, and that’s what it was, and that was all that mattered.

Tala considered carefully all of what had happened here in her quarters. She stared down at the floor, her mind working at maximum. She could still feel every touch, hear every word... everything. Glancing again at the once more full tumbler in her hand, she lifted it to her lips, and without hesitation, drank the whiskey down, shuddering somewhat as the liquor burned all the way down her throat. She took a deep breath then let it out slowly before speaking again.

"I tried to call out to you. All I was able to get out was 'Lot...' when he clamped a hand over my mouth, taping it with medical tape. I apologize for even implying..." She let the sentence falter then fade away.

Shaking her head, Tala looked up at the ceiling toward one of the cameras in the corner. "No one will get close to me again. I won't let myself be in a position again where this might happen."

For as much as he wanted his daughter to be as fiercely independent as her mother, or he, himself, had been during his humanity, Lothos also knew that Tala isolating herself from others would severely hamper that goal of independence which he had envisioned for his daughter from the moment of her birth. To rise to power, to obtain goals, to measure oneself, other people were, annoyingly, necessary.

"Then you are a fool," he informed her bluntly. "Isolation from life, from the pain it holds in store for you, and believe me, my dear, you will know different kinds of pain, and you won't be much better than the proverbial bump on a log. How can you expect to command or have authority over others, if you have no interaction with them? To learn about them so you learn how to.... manipulate and control them? How will you learn if you are not amongst people? How will you entice them to see your way, agree your way is best, if you aren't amongst them to learn about them?"

He gave her a few moments to think about that, and then added, "And though you are yet young, my dear, I don't believe I sired a fool. Learn the lesson and use what you learn, Tala. You need people to achieve whatever goals you aim for in life. Use the pain to grow and learn."

Tala listened without comment to her father, heard in his voice the pride that he had in her, what he it was he wanted her to gain from his knowledge. Still, as impressed as she was at how intelligent her father was... it still amazed her that they had criss-crossed information... a miscommunication so to speak. It was just wording it back to him that she was worried about, so she chose her words carefully, remembering just a few moments ago how he had warned her about talking to him in an appropriate tone.

"I understand completely what you have just told me... father,” Tala began carefully. “But I don't think that you understood what I meant." She swallowed with difficulty before continuing. "I don't see myself being intimate with another man again. I'm not going to put myself in a situation where I may be raped again," she told him softly. "I... I don't even see myself the same as I did yesterday. If I can't see myself in that manner, how can anyone else?” She paused, wondering what Lothos might be thinking then hurried on. “But, don't worry about my goals in life, father. They haven't changed. I'll get what I want from life."

Having, hopefully, suitably expressed herself, Tala lowered her head before the anger welled back up. But her anger would not be denied, and rearing her arm back, she threw the tumbler against the opposite wall, watching and hearing it shatter. "Damn him," she whispered fiercely under her breath.

"And how do you intend on accomplishing that goal? Of never putting yourself in a situation that might lead to another rape?" Lothos demanded of her. "If that is the case, lock the door to your quarters and never come out." He noted how the comment cut through her anger; he also saw the _expression in her eyes, as if she meant to repeat herself. "No, Tala," he broke her train of thought. "Again, the only way to reach that level of... assurance is to hide, because the black and white truth of life is that rape of a female, or a male, can occur anywhere. Anywhere… any time… to any person."

Lothos remained focused on his daughter’s alcohol and emotionally flushed face, considering her, watching her pitch the glass across the room to shatter against the wall. She was rightfully angry and hurting, emotionally as well as physically. But for as determined as his daughter was, so was Lothos not going to permit her to hide from life.

"I did not say forget it, Tala, though if you are wise you will, in time,” Lothos told her, his tone unbending. “I said put it behind you. "If you don't pick yourself up and put this incident behind you... no!" Lothos spoke sharply over Tala when she started to interrupt him.

"If you don't pick yourself up and put this incident behind you, then Edward Grant has taken more than your virginity from you. He has taken your spirit as well." He saw her back stiffen slightly as she looked up at that, startled. "Do you want him to take your spirit... all the pleasures in life that you have yet to know...physical pleasures included... with him to hell when he dies in a short while?" Lothos paused, allowing several long moments of silence to stretch out between him and his daughter. "Well…do you?" he demanded at last.

Tala tried to explain to Lothos but every time she opened her mouth he cut her off. But when her father mentioned that Edward Grant may have taken her spirit as well as her virginity, every nerve in her being lit on fire, making her head snap up to look up at him. She rocked her teeth against each other as she ground them together until she finally answered him.

"My spirit is my own... and I'll be damned before I let that vile son of a bitch take it from me," she told him in a remarkably calm, almost subdued tone.

It had meant some prodding with a sharp stick of carefully chosen words, but Lothos saw that Tala finally understood. With that settled, there were other things to attend to.

"Prepare yourself, and then go down to the 'cellar'," he instructed her. By the look in her eyes, it was plaint that Tala knew why, but Lothos voiced it nonetheless. "Edward Grant's time on Earth is drawing rapidly to an end."

Watching her stand and go to put the empty glass on the counter in the small kitchenette, Lothos notified the other women selected to be present for Edward Grant's last hour of life, waking some from sleep, to be a witness to life leaving the body of the condemned offender.  "You have fifteen minutes to report, Tala," he informed her. "Do not be late."

Tala nodded in acknowledgement. "No... I'll be early. I'll be there within five minutes. Why keep him waiting?" Without waiting for a reply, she crossed the small living room, opened the door and headed down hall to the elevators and from there, down to the cellar.

As she approached the elevator, Tala saw several other women as they open their doors, Susan being one of them. As they all waited for the elevator, Tala changed her mind and headed for the stairs. She needed to get some of the pent up energy out of her system anyway. By the time she reached the fourteenth level where the Cellar, as well as the Correctional Facility, was located, Tala was lightly sweating from the exertion; she had also beaten the elevator. She was already at the door located at the end of the hall furthermost from the elevators and the door leading to the stairwell, clearly marked “Surgical Theater” when she heard the chime heralding the arrival of the elevator.

Opening the door, Tala remembered what Lothos had told her, and stepped inside then moved quickly to take a seat in the front row of the four low tiers of seats encircling the operating table that was the focal point of the small surgical arena. She was, in fact, the first woman in the room just before the guards entered with Edward Grant in chains. Hearing the rattling, she turned in her seat to look at the man, her face blank of expression but her eyes telling him everything that she was thinking and wanting to do to him. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

‘Any man or woman knowing they are facing execution and who says that it doesn't bother them in anyway is a bald-faced liar.’   Edward Grant had never lied to himself. Others, yes; especially women, but never to himself.

The past couple of hours had been the longest and the shortest he had ever endured, the hands of the clock seeming to fly around its face, steadily erasing what was left of his life. When the cell door opened at last and the chief of complex security accompanied by two burly guards entered, his usually steely nerves were on a razor's edge. As the three men stepped inside the small cell, Edward’s eyes flew yet again to the clock above the door: 11:44 P.M. – sixteen minutes until midnight.

Standing when ordered to do so, Edward didn’t make a move when one of the guards used a knife to cut his shorts from his body, then winced as his hands were cuffed behind back, and finally chained before being forced from the cell. He knew the futility of trying to fight; no way did he stand even the smallest chance against the likes of the two behemoths.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded of them. The sound of Lothos answering sent icy chills coursing through Dr. Edward Grant’s body.

"To the doorway of hell, Mr. Grant. And one who has ushered many through that portal waits for you now where others wait to see you go through it."

When he felt the elevator begin to descend instead of rising... ‘I thought it would happen in the main assembly arena’ ....nothing could stop the sweat that broke out all over the condemned doctor’s body, and being naked meant there was no hiding the fact. He started to ask again about the destination, and then glanced at the light on the panel by the elevator doors just as it glowed orange. ‘The cellar.’

"Oh...gawd," he whispered under his breath, licking at his suddenly dry lips.

"That entity has nothing to do with this," Lothos informed him icily. A few moments later when the guards pushed and shoved Edward Grant into the small operating theatre and his gaze fell on Xavier, already gowned and masked, it was then that the man knew without any doubt how he was going to die.

PART THREE

Tala could tell that Edward couldn’t see her sitting in the darkened small gallery.  So when she saw him, she felt the pent up anger inside begin to rise rapidly. Slowly she rose from her seat and moved to the end of the row of seats, turning slightly to look at him as they brought him down the aisle toward the operating table in the center of the operating room. She waited, stepping into the aisle just as the small cluster of men drew near her, and thus into the light. The look of shock on his face was one she would carry with her forever.

There was nowhere Dr. Edward Grant could have hidden even if he had the chance to do so. No one in the complex would be so out of his or her mind as to offer him so much as literally the time of day. At this moment, except for this place, the last room in which he would ever draw breath, most of the complex personnel and their families were sleeping. So as the guards before and behind him led the condemned into the small surgical theater used only to punish... or kill... Edward made peace with himself. That was, until a figure stepped out into the aisle near where he was walking.  He could hardly believe who it was, and judging by her reaction to the startled look on his face, he had no doubt that Tala was present by design.

"Tala..." he began quietly; that was all he managed to get out as Tala spoke over him, spitting her anger and rage at him.

She sneered at him for a moment before taking a step closer, being only a foot away from him. "So, this is the great Doctor Edward Grant... about to be humbled and abused almost in the same way that you abused me," Tala spat icily at the bound man. Hearing footsteps coming up from behind her and before whoever it was could pull her away from the egocentric bastard, she reared back and popped him twice with her fist and causing him fall back onto his rear.

"You may have taken something from me, you bastard... but you will not take my spirit. That is mine..." Feeling hands now on her shoulders, Tala jerked away from them and moved up toward Edward again to stand over him. "... that is mine, and nobody will take that from me." 

Laying on the floor, looking up at her, Edward couldn’t stop the mocking smile that matched the gleam that came into his eyes as he gazed up at the furious redhead standing over him as well as at the thought that looped through his mind. He almost didn’t say it but then he had nothing left to lose.

“I may be dead shortly, Tala,” Edward told her, his tone obvious as he looked up at her. “But you were still the best one I ever got!” His soft laughter mocked his last victim as he watched as twice one of the guards strove to pull her away. The second time as they pulled her back, he locked gazes with Lothos’ daughter, leering as he licked his lips wetly.

"Kiss me goodbye?" he mocked.  In the next instant though, Edward screamed, coming close to gagging when she drew back her foot then slammed the toe of her boot so hard between his legs that he felt the pain shoot up his back.

Tala’s fury rose in seismic bounds at the mocking directed solely at her, glaring hotly down at Edward. Before she was jerked away, for good measure, she got a good kick between his legs that made him scream and curl into a tight ball on the floor, the vicious pain causing him to gag. She didn't bother to stand and watch the guards get Edward back on his feet and practically carry him the last twenty feet to the operating table in the center of the room. Instead she returned to her seat; from this vantage point and angle Tala would be able to see everything and she meant not to miss a single second of what was about to happen.

While Tala had her final moments of venting her rage at Edward, the other women invited, a few summoned, to attend, filed silently into the viewing gallery room. It took a couple of minutes for them to find a seat; there was no talking or whispering of any sort. When the last woman was seated, Lothos spoke.

"Put him on the table and strap him down tightly," Lothos ordered, his voice clear and cold. As the surgical assistants carried out their instructions, Lothos spoke to Xavier. "Emasculate him," he pronounced with icy clarity, “and then let his blood cover the floor."

Xavier nodded to Lothos' orders then waited a moment, allowing his assistants to move out of the way. Once the few assistants he required were out of the way, he glanced down at the instruments on the tray before him. But before he picked up the instrument of choice, he glanced out into the assembled women, his gaze finding Tala, her eyes focused on the man on the table, her hatred for him flowing out openly, as well as the other women in the room. Gazing upon at her, the only man that the people in the complex feared more than Lothos, saw in Tala’s face his daughter –Siren - then glance back at the creature strapped down on the table before him.

‘He could have done this to Siren... taken her... bruised, belittled, making her feel so small...’   In that moment the time was decided.

Reaching out, Xavier selected the dullest scalpel from the tray of precision surgical instruments. Lothos' orders were to emasculate Edward Grant. As usually happened, Lothos had left it to the Master Torturer by what means that would happen. It didn’t matter really; Xavier knew that any method he chose would be acceptable to the one he had served for the last twenty-seven years.  He waited a moment before moving over to the operating table just in case Lothos should tell him otherwise. When there was only silence, Xavier approached the operating table, his face wiped of all expression, quite ready to expedite the situation. But when he heard a voice from the crowd, he hesitated, and looked around.

Olivia had sat quietly amongst the women surrounding her, waiting and watching. But as she saw Xavier ready to proceed, she couldn’t help but stand up and call out, "Stop, only for a moment. Lothos, may I address this... thing?" the last word spat out as if it left a vile taste in her mouth.

"If you so desire," Lothos said clearly. "You may speak where you are or go down to him."

What she had to say was only for Edward Grant’s ears, and so Olivia Robinson moved through the chairs, pardoning herself by the ladies, then made her way down the aisle the walked out to the operating table and the man on it.

Looking down at the man before her she saw the question in his eyes.

"Do you remember when I left the complex, Ed?" she asked softly, wondering if he even remembered what he had done.

Edward didn’t care who it was who had stayed his fate for even a few seconds. But when he saw Olivia come down from the seats and approach him, he thought back.... she was damn near as good as Tala. To her question, he let his eyes speak first before he uttered a word.

"It was just after the first of that year, I believe," he told her clearly. His was now being measured in minutes, and very few minutes were left but he couldn’t help smiling knowingly at her. "As I recall, you said you had a ... little problem to take care of. A... family matter you said..."

Seeing him smile at her, came close to making the English-born nurse want to throw up, yet amazingly enough she was able to smile back at him, remembering that time like it had been yesterday.

"Yes, that's right. I told you that my mother had a little problem with her liver. Remember?" She watched him nod then licked her lips at him. "And if you recall, I came back to the complex about November, keeping to myself, and then becoming one of the finest nurses that Lothos has on staff. However, there's just one little thing that I want you to know before you die here tonight, Eddie. I'm just glad that _our_ son never learned one _damn_ thing about you."

Edward had no option but to listen to Olivia talking. More importantly, it was giving him minutes he hadn’t expected to have. Still he remembered it all, everything she was saying, but.... what was the point? It was two of her last words that shocked him cold: _Our_ son.

He stared at her, long and hard, knowing that he had gone pale. "No!" he shouted up at her. "You're a lying bitch!"

"No, Eddie. I'm not lying. You know him, he's here in the complex... and you know what? He's nothing like you. He’s a gentleman, born and bred in England and you know what, I think that Maxwell is one of the finest young men that work in the gardens.”

Straightening up Olivia finally allowed all of the hatred she had nurtured in her heart over the years for this man to show in the depths of her eyes as she bid him a final good-bye.  “Enjoy your time in hell you bastard."

Hearing his son's name instantly brought the young man’s face before Edward’s mind’s eye. He knew his son; well he had seen him around the complex...in the gardens but had never spoken to him.

"You conniving, scheming bitch!" he screamed after her as she returned to the gallery. "You had no right to keep me from knowing my son!"
At Edward’s screamed accusation, Olivia turned back to him, her right index finger pointing down into his face, her left hand coming down to meet Xavier's hand that held the knife close to Edward body.

"And you had no right to take what wasn't offered to you! Don't you dare try to be the loving one now." Olivia knew that Lothos gave orders to Xavier, and she did not dare touch the knife, but that didn’t prevent her from pressing into Xavier's hand making the knife slide up slightly cutting Edward before stepping back.

"Why don't you do the one thing that might save yourself..." she began then stopped. "No... don't...I know you don't have the balls to do it anyway. You sure didn't have the balls then, and you sure won't have them now." she sniped at him then looked at Xavier. "Proceed when you're ready. I'm done now." With the taste of a measure of vindication fresh on her lips, Olivia didn’t even turn her back on Edward, walking backwards not wanting to miss a single solitary moment.

While Olivia was giving Edward Grant the last emotional shock he would ever know... that he had a son.... Xavier had quietly made eye contact with each of his assistants; by their nods he knew all was ready, what little was needed. Bleeding an animal to death did not take a lot of skill.

When he heard Olivia's comment to Edward about 'balls', Lothos’ master tormentor and executioner allowed the woman to press his hand, watching Edward wince. The knife, however, wasn’t close to where he was about to put it. At the moment the now vindicated Olivia began moving away, still facing the operating table, Xavier moved around to the end of the operating table. Edward legs had been positioned like a woman's legs would be during delivery and strapped down tightly.

With the scalpel in hand, the unassuming man who looked as if he could have been someone’s kindly grandfather moved closer to Edward's body. Looking into the condemned man’s face... he had lifted his head to watch, wanting for some morbid reason to look his executioner in the eye... Xavier repeated one final time, and with great pleasure, Lothos' order.

"Edward Grant... by Lothos’ order you die by the knife in my hand."  So saying, Xavier placed his free hand intimately on Edward’s body, and then with a single, vicious and powerful stroke of the scalpel in his other hand sliced open his scrotum. While Edward strained and struggled against the straps that held him, screaming the agonies of the damned, the man for whom this was just another assignment, albeit a very special assignment, used his hands to tear the wound open before literally ripping his gonads out and dropping them into a small basin.  As blood spurted from Edward’s body, his screams reverberating off the walls of the small surgery, Xavier continued calmly on, using the same blade to make the dying man’s agony double...triple... quadruple as he deliberately sliced his penis off one inch at a time, dropping the bits and pieces on the floor.

By the time he step back from the operating table, his surgical garb and even his protective face cover spattered with blood, the dying man’s screams were beginning to weaken. Some ten or twelve minutes later, the silence over the gallery was so heavy as to be smothering, yet not one of the women made a move to leave the room. Not one of then stirred until Edward Grant's last breath rattled in his throat before escaping his lips and his body ceased to move.

"Return to your quarters," Lothos instructed them sternly. "And speak to no one of what you have witnessed here. This was your revenge. Do not share it with anyone."

It wasn’t until after the last woman left the surgical theater did the surgical team started to prepare to remove the body.

"Leave it!" Lothos spoke with ominous quiet. "It will be removed by the sanitation crew and incinerated with the rest of the day's garbage."

Long after everyone, Xavier included, had departed Lothos studied from different angles the mutilated remains of what had once been a fine surgeon. Finally he cut the lights in the blood-spattered operating room, knowing that where Edward Grant was now, there was plenty of light.... from the fires in which he would burn in forever.

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