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You forced the red plastic jerrycan harder against your ribs as the basement of the Police Station swallowed the sound of your boots. The air down here always felt heavier than the upper floors, thick with the mineral damp of wet concrete, the sour tang of old oil that had seeped into every crack, and the sharp metallic bite of pipes that sweated steadily along the walls. Fluorescent tubes flickered in long, uneven strings overhead, throwing stuttering bars of sick yellow-white light across scuffed floors and peeling paint. Somewhere far off a pipe dripped with the slow patience of something that had been leaking for years. Two propaganda posters already sat crumpled in your pocket, the paper stiff with whatever adhesive Murkoff used to glue them to the walls. One more still waited somewhere in the remaining corridors. The generator sat at the far end of Sector C, behind a few more doors you needed to bash and another lock to unpick. Secondary first. Then the lockdown. Then out.
Coyle’s voice had been rolling through the halls for what felt like hours, but had only been minutes. That low Southern drawl carried easily in the concrete spaces, full of the same ugly promises he always made, the ones that bounced off the walls and seemed to come from every direction at once. From the opposite side of the map came the heavier tread of Pitcher and the soft, constant rasp of his breathing. The pyromaniac never bothered with subtlety. No words ever made it past his destroyed larynx. Fire and the seemingly painful noises that came from behind the full-face mask did all the talking for him. Both of them were hunting you. The corridors of the underground levels narrowed the deeper you went. The red plastic jerrycan dragged at every decision, the weight of it turning every corner into a calculated risk. Breath stayed short in your throat. Left past a bank of dead lockers. Right through a stretch of hallway lined with shelves. The layout of Sabotage the Lockdown lived in the back of your head by now. Keep moving.
The technical corridor that linked the outer maintenance routes was one of the tightest but quickest routes on the map, barely wide enough for two people to pass without turning sideways. You heard your pursuers closing in. Coyle’s boots striking concrete with that familiar, purposeful rhythm. Pitcher’s heavier stride and the click of the bottles around his waist growing louder. The drawl rising into something closer to a shout. There was nowhere left to turn and no time left to think.
You dropped and slid into the tiny opening to your side.
Momentum carried you clear across the slick floor the instant the two bodies met in the centre of the corridor with a bone-deep crash that shook dust from the fixtures overhead. Limbs tangled hard. The stun baton still gripped in one hand discharged with a sharp blue-white crackle that exploded in the narrow space for a fraction of a second. A short tongue of flame coughed from Pitcher’s mask nozzle and blackened a dark streak up the opposite wall. Both men hit the concrete hard enough for the sound to travel down the length of the corridor and echo back.
Silence settled after that. Only the distant drip of water somewhere in the pipes and the soft, persistent hiss of residual fuel remained.
Then the first movements started. Slow. Wrong.
Pitcher’s body rolled first. The gas canisters strapped across his chest clanked against the floor as he pushed up onto one side. The metallic full-face mask turned left and right in short, disoriented jerks, as if the room itself had tilted. When the mouth behind the nozzle opened, a raw, high scream tore free instead of the usual wordless cry that always announced Pitcher’s presence. His hands rose into view in front of the mask. One long leather glove. One shorter with metal-tipped fingers. They flexed slowly, studying themselves with sharp, assessing focus. Shoulders rolled experimentally. The spine twisted with sudden, greedy range of motion, testing the new machinery like someone who had just been handed an unfamiliar weapon. Another scream strained toward actual language and failed, breaking into a long, irritated rasp that collapsed into a wet, painful cough and folded him forward. Even through the coughing, the air around him still carried the same heavy, controlling weight it always had. Heat already poured from the rough, scarred skin beneath the straps and gear. And yet somehow it didn’t seem right.
Coyle slowly came to and shoved up onto one elbow, immediately buckling under the protest of a stiff knee and a locked lower back. He tried to straighten fully. Something in the spine cracked loud enough to echo off the concrete walls. A low, startled sound escaped his mouth. Unused. Rough. Like a voice that had not formed real words in a very long time.
“…Hnnh. What…” The Southern accent shaped the words, but the rhythm stumbled, testing each syllable as if speech itself were unfamiliar. “What… is this. Voice. I have… voice.”
You stayed on the floor a short distance away, the red plastic jerrycan still locked against your ribs, and the pieces locked into place without needing to be spoken aloud.
*That’s Coyle in Pitcher’s body. And Pitcher is wearing Coyle.*
The masked man coughed harder. Metal-tipped fingers scraped at the nozzle in short, frustrated motions. Another attempt at speech produced only a long, frustrated rasp that reached for words and fell short. Between the spasms the younger limbs flexed with open hunger for how freely they answered, yet the throat remained in open revolt. A sharp slap landed against the side of the mask. A pointed jab followed, directed at the throat.
"Coyle" forced himself fully upright this time. The back cracked again, sharp and vicious. He winced, then stared down at the stun baton still clenched in his right hand, the wires trailing back to the battery harness on his back. He gave the wires an experimental shake, trying to work them loose, then another harder one, clearly intending to free the weapon… as if trying to throw it.
A long, warning rasp cut through the corridor. "Pitcher" closed the distance in two strides, metal-tipped fingers clamping down hard around "Coyle’s" right forearm. The grip was tight enough to bruise, tight enough to stop the shaking cold. He leaned in, the mask inches from the other man’s face, and gave a single sharp, threatening jerk of his head. Do not. The message needed no words. "Coyle" froze, then slowly lowered the arm. "Pitcher" held the grip a moment longer before releasing it, still watching.
“This stick… is tied to me.” Speech came slow and deliberate once the arm was free again, the careful pace of someone relearning the shape of language. “Heavy. Old. Everything… aches.” A short experimental swing tested the weapon without trying to remove it. The wires yanked it short. The tip sparked against the floor. Frustration rumbled up from the borrowed throat, but the drive underneath belonged to someone who had always preferred fire. “Not fire. Why… no fire.”
"Pitcher" reached his knees. The shorter glove with the metal tips flexed. He tried to snap those fingers the way the body remembered. Nothing. A harder attempt. Still nothing. A drawn-out, furious groan ripped from the nozzle, followed by another ragged coughing fit that left him wheezing. One finger stabbed at the canisters strapped across his chest, then at his throat. Clear demand.
"Coyle" watched for a long moment, then answered, voice still rough but clearer now.
“You. Mask. Throat is… broken. Same as before. You need… the fuel. Drink it. Or you keep… choking.”
"Pitcher" went still. Eyes narrowed behind the visor. He looked down at the canisters, then back at the other man. Suspicion and necessity warred across what little expression the mask allowed. Another cough shook him. One gloved hand unscrewed a cap, tipped the canister, and forced a measure of gasoline past the nozzle. The swallow was visible. The grimace that followed was pure disgust. The next breath, however, came easier. The wheeze faded.
A long rasp of relief escaped him. Immediately the younger body answered by rolling both shoulders and twisting at the waist with open satisfaction. He snapped the metal-tipped fingers again. This time a sharp spark jumped between them. The grin behind the mask turned wide and mean. The small flame was lifted and held close to the scarred forearm. The skin registered nothing. No recoil. No sensory protest.
"Coyle" continued testing the borrowed spine, forcing himself as tall as the aching frame would allow. Every full extension produced another ugly crack. He stayed half a step back, hierarchy intact even in the wrong skins.
“Back… cracks something fierce when I stand up straight,” he muttered, still measuring each word. “Used to stand tall. This one… wants to hunch. Stiff. Slow. Smells like smoke and old leather.” A shorter swing of the baton tested the wire’s limit. The tip crackled. When current jumped back along the wires and bit into the palm of the hand that held it, a low, involuntary sound escaped. Something closer to interest than pain. “And this stick shocks. Not burns. Wrong… but the body likes it.”
You remained on the floor, the red plastic jerrycan secure against your chest. The earlier tension of the trial had burned off, replaced by something sharper, almost edged with disbelief. You watched "Pitcher" explore the younger body’s responsiveness between disgusted swallows of fuel, and "Coyle" force himself upright again and again simply to feel the spine complain, then linger when the baton fed current back into the nerves of the body he now wore. A short, genuine chuckle slipped out before you could stop it.
Both heads snapped toward the sound at once.
The chuckle recentred everything.
"Pitcher" brought the nozzle to bear on you. A low, extended rasp rolled out of him. Heat poured off the scarred body in waves. "Coyle" glared through the sunglasses and tried, on pure reflex, to throw the stun baton. The wires snapped taut. The weapon jerked back and cracked hard against his own shin. Electricity arced. He went down again with a strangled sound that carried more than simple pain, then scrambled back up under the weight of "Pitcher’s" silent expectation.
You stood slowly and eased a step backward into the darker stretch of the corridor.
"Pitcher" flexed the younger legs once more, coughed, forced down another swallow of gasoline, then jabbed a finger at you and at the floor in front of him. "Coyle" scowled, still testing the baton grip and the way residual current crawled up the arm, yet stayed where he was.
You gave them no more time. You turned and ran.
What followed was pure chaos.
"Pitcher" came after you with the younger frame’s raw speed, canisters bouncing against his chest. He tried to snap the metal-tipped fingers of the left hand to light a Molotov and failed twice. Long frustrated rasps tore from the mask between violent coughs. Each failure forced a stop, another disgusted swallow of fuel, then another try. The third snap produced the spark. The Molotov flared to life. It was hurled without hesitation. The throw went wide. The bottle shattered far behind you against the concrete wall and painted a stretch of the corridor in temporary fire. A drawn-out groan of irritation chased you down the hall.
"Coyle" followed, slowed by the stiff knee and the complaining lower back, yet learning the baton through aggressive trial and error. He kept attempting to throw the weapon. Every time the wires yanked it short, the tip cracked against his own legs or the wall, scattering blue-white sparks across the floor. Each backlash of current drew a low, complex sound from the borrowed throat. Speech still emerged carefully, rough around the edges.
“Stop… running. Stand still. Let me… learn... this damn stick.”
You cut through a side passage lined with old evidence lockers, vaulted a stack of crates that crossed the corridor at shin height, and slipped through a darkened storage alcove that smelled of mildew and forgotten paperwork. The earlier stress of the trial had flipped into something sharper. The showers in Sector B still offered the best route toward distance and the generator path, yet the disorder at your back proved too useful to waste. You let them get close enough to hear "Pitcher’s" ecstatic, coughing rasps each time the younger body answered a sharp cut or a sudden drop into a slide. You let "Coyle" get close enough to nearly tag you with the baton before the wires betrayed him again and snapped the weapon hard into his own thigh.
Left into a parallel technical hall. Hard right that forced "Pitcher" to skid, canisters swinging wide, and left "Coyle" cursing the older frame’s refusal to change direction without the knee locking up. Adaptation continued in real time. Fuel swallowed between exploratory movements and failed finger-snaps. The baton refusing to leave the hand. Through it all the essential weight of each remained unchanged. The drive to dominate still poured from the masked, canister-laden form, intensified by the novelty of the younger body at his disposal. The restless hunger and fire still radiated from the man in police gear, held in check yet free to act on his own initiative.
The pursuit drove you, inevitably, toward the showers in Sector B.
The wide tiled room opened off the main underground corridor the way it always did. Open plan public shower space. Rows of rusted shower heads lined the walls. A low divider wall ran through the centre of the room, roughly chest height, breaking the open floor into two halves but offering no real privacy. Changing stalls stood against one wall, their doors hanging crooked or missing entirely. The constant irregular drip of cold water never quite stopped. The air always felt colder here than the rest of the basement, heavy with the smell of wet tile and old soap that had long since lost any scent.
You slipped inside, tore the final propaganda poster free from the wall above the sinks in one clean motion, and checked the seal on the red plastic jerrycan. Secondary finished. The generator still waited at the far end of Sector C. Almost free.
You heard them coming. The only other exit was a heavy locked door on the far side of the room. You dropped to your knees in front of it, lockpick already in hand, working the mechanism as fast as you could. The tumblers shifted. Almost...
The main door slammed open hard enough to rebound against the wall.
Too late.
"Coyle" filled the frame first, breath coming in short, pained pulls. One hand braced against the doorway as the lower back protested the movement. The stun baton hung at his side, wires still linking it around his arm and to the battery harness. The tip still sparked from the last failed throw. Behind him came "Pitcher", fuel canisters clanking with every step. Heat rolled off the rough, scarred skin in steady waves. A cough forced another swallow of fuel from one of the canisters. Disgust crossed what little of the face the mask revealed, yet the subsequent roll of shoulders spoke of pure satisfaction at the freedom of movement.
You scrambled upright, the red plastic jerrycan still clutched against your chest. The locked door behind annoyingly sturdy. The only exit was now blocked by the two of them.
*Comedy’s over.*
"Coyle" took one stiff step inside. The knee clicked audibly. “You laughed. Stood there… and laughed while the stick shocked me in this wreck.”
"Pitcher" answered with a long, low rasp. He closed the distance across the open tiled floor until heat from the scarred skin and the residual fuel on his breath pressed against your chest like a living thing. Metal-tipped fingers caught the front of your trial gear and yanked hard. Fabric tore at the shoulder seam with a sharp sound. Shocked by his own strength, he paused for a second. Shifting his stance slightly, his feet knocked something. Eyes behind the mask flicked once to the fallen red plastic jerrycan on the floor and dismissed it entirely. Gripping tighter, in an unspoken demand, his chin jerked toward you ushering "Coyle" over.
"Coyle" made a short, irritated sound but held his position. “Don’t get greedy.”
A drawn-out, irritated groan answered from behind the mask. The hierarchy needed no further demonstration. Both turned their full attention on you. Nothing else needed to pass between them. The only target that they could truly take their frustrations out on, was you.
"Pitcher" drove you backward until your shoulders hit the low divider wall hard enough to drive the air from your lungs. The red plastic jerrycan by your feet tumbled across the wet tile as you were roughly moved. Cold water dripping languidly from an overhead pipe found the back of your neck and traced a thin line down your spine. Heat from the scarred skin filled the space between you and the wall emphasizing your positions.
Metal-tipped fingers seized the front of your undershirt and ripped downward. Fabric split with a wet tearing sound. Where the material clung, he snapped the metal tips together. A sharp spark jumped. Fire caught and flared across the cloth. Burning scraps were torn away, leaving angry red paths across your chest and collarbones where the heat had kissed too close. A long, satisfied rasp escaped the mask.
"Coyle" moved in under his own power, baton ready. Charge climbed with a rising whine until the tip glowed a hard blue-white. The baton tip was used slice through a stubborn seam of remaining clothing. Electricity cracked loud in the open tiled space and left a thin, stinging welt along your hip. "Pitcher" gave no notice, he simply continued his own work. Scorched fabric landed on the wet tile in ruined pieces. The last scrap of propaganda paper drifted down among them. You stood in shreds basically bare beneath the dripping shower heads, skin tightening and prickling under the cold water, the fresh burns, and the twin sources of heat now filling the open room.
"Pitcher" did not wait. He shoved you down onto your knees on the wet tile in front of the low divider wall, one hand grabbing at your hair, wrapping strands around his glove. Tugging once to test their hold, eliciting a short yelp from you. With the same self-satisfied sense of urgency, he moved the apron and trousers away from his hips and forced himself into your mouth with the same selfish urgency that had always defined him. The younger body he now inhabited answered his own desires immediately. He set a hard, punishing pace, using your throat with focused intensity, testing how deep the new frame would let him go, how long he could hold you there before the need for air became a problem. Every thrust was about his own pleasure. Every sound that tore from the mask was about how good the borrowed body felt when it was being used the way he wanted. He snapped the metal tips of the glove once against the side of your face just to feel the spark jump, then kept going, greedy for more.
"Coyle" watched for a moment, jaw tight, then stepped in. He was not content to wait. The older body complained with every movement, but he still found ways to take what he wanted. He dragged the live baton tip along your side, then lower, forcing another hard jolt through you while "Pitcher" continued using your mouth. After finding his own position, "Coyle" pushed closer, grinding against you from behind, searching for friction against his building hard-on, any way to make the stiff frame give him some pleasure of his own. The grinding continued as the two worked themselves up on your body.
"Pitcher" eventually pulled free with a wet sound and a long, satisfied rasp. He hauled you up, turned you, and shoved you face-first against "Coyle" who had conveniently positioned himself between you and the divider wall. Your face ground roughly against his chest, and upon glanding down, you could clearly see the hard bulge covered only by underwear, jutting out from the now unzipped fly of his trousers. Almost shyly, "Coyle" grabbed your chin down and proceeded to release his straining erection, smearing pre-cum all over your face. After a few emboldened rubs, he proceeded to grab both sides of your head and shove himself into your mouth with a low and hungry moan. The younger body behind you, not to be outdone, forced your legs apart in one swift motion. Lifting his mask up, he spat thickly onto you once for the barest lubrication, and pushed into you in one hard thrust. The stretch burned. He did not give you time to adjust. He set a brutal pace immediately, testing the limits of the new hips, the new stamina, how hard he could drive without the body failing him. Every snap of his hips was selfish. Every low rasp that escaped the mask was about how much better this body felt than the one he had been stuck in for years.
"Coyle" refused to be left out. He moved in tight, reaching around to force your hips back onto the length already inside you. When that still was not enough, he lined himself up and pushed in alongside "Pitcher", forcing the same hole to take both of them. The stretch became brutal, overwhelming. Your body locked. There was no room, no give, only the two of them fighting for space and for their own pleasure inside you against the low tiled wall in the open shower space.
They did not move in sync. "Pitcher" set the dominant rhythm, using the younger body’s strength to keep you pinned and open while he chased his own release. "Coyle" fought for every thrust, the older frame protesting, the wires of the baton still trailing from his arm as he tried to find an angle that gave him more control, more friction, more of what he wanted. When "Pitcher" slowed to savour a particularly deep stroke, "Coyle" shoved harder, trying to reclaim the pace. When "Coyle" tried to shift the angle, "Pitcher" answered with a frustrated rasp and a corrective yank that put things back the way he preferred. They used you as the battleground for their own competing needs, both determined to take what the new bodies and the situation would give them.
Metal-tipped fingers dragged down your side hard enough to leave new raised lines. "Pitcher" snapped them together and seared a short stripe across one shoulder when the sounds you made grew too loud for his liking. "Coyle", still fighting for his own share, retrieved the baton and pressed it against your hip, forcing another hard clench around both of them. The feedback made him groan. "Pitcher" answered with a longer, hungrier rasp and drove deeper, refusing to be outdone.
Whenever your eyes started to close, "Pitcher" brought the nozzle close and let a controlled wash of heat cross your cheek. Enough to keep you present. Enough to remind you who was in charge of the moment. "Coyle" kept pushing, kept grinding, kept trying to find the angle that would let the older body finish first. The one-hole double penetration left no escape. Every movement from one only forced you tighter around the other. You remained where they had put you against the low divider wall. Held open. Used. Given no meaningful choice in any of it.
The climax was forced out of you under the combined assault. Burned. Shocked. Stretched beyond limit around both of them at once. Your entire body locked and shuddered. "Coyle" cursed and followed shortly after, grinding deep as he finished with a low, drawn-out sound. "Pitcher" lasted longer. The younger frame had the advantage of stamina. When he finally pulled free and finished across your back, the sound that tore from him was a broken, triumphant scream that collapsed into a wet cough. He drank once more, face twisting behind the mask, then simply held you there a moment longer, free hand flexing as though still measuring how readily the new body answered. "Coyle" stayed in place until he chose to move.
For several long seconds only the irregular drip of the shower heads and three sets of harsh breathing filled the open tiled space. Your skin throbbed in overlapping maps of heat, current, and broken vessels. The stretch between your legs pulsed with the aftermath of being forced to take both of them at once.
"Coyle" moved first under his own decision. He withdrew carefully, wincing as the knee reminded him of its limits, and retrieved the baton from the wet floor. He looked at the weapon, then at "Pitcher", then at you still held upright against the scarred chest, new burns and welts already rising across your skin.
“Next time we collide,” he said, speech still measured and careful, “I want a body that can throw things properly. And maybe one that doesn’t crack like dry wood every time I stand up straight.”
"Pitcher" answered with a short, dismissive rasp that turned into a cough. He drank, grimaced, then delivered a single-fingered gesture that needed no translation. Afterward both shoulders rolled and the waist twisted simply to feel the younger spine obey. He let you down onto the wet tile, reached past, twisted one of the shower handles, and let a sudden cold spray strike all three of you at once. Water hit the fresh burns like a second set of teeth.
A sharp sound of protest left you.
"Coyle" laughed. A low, mean sound still rough with the novelty of speech. And stayed under the water.
"Pitcher" simply tilted his face into the spray, eyes closed behind the visor. Every few breaths required another swallow of gasoline or the wheeze started again. Disgust never left the expression, yet neither did the open satisfaction at how the body continued to move. The essential nature of each remained unchanged. Only the skin had changed. And the adrenaline of something new, something unapproved by any Murkoff protocol, still burned beneath both of them, now mixed with the satisfaction of having used the body caught between them thoroughly.
Somewhere deeper in the basement the generator still waited at the far end of Sector C. The metal gate beside it stayed closed. The lockdown still held. And in the open showers of Sector B, two men wearing each other’s bodies and one thoroughly marked Reagent remained where they were, listening to the cold water run over new burns and welts, already measuring how many more corridors and blocked doors still stood between the red plastic jerrycan and its final destination.
Murkoff would certainly be interested in the details of today’s situation.