Book Chapter - The Funhouse Protoype - WIP - 7/17/22 (Patreon)
Content
The hallway was long and claustrophobic, feeling as if it was almost alive as it seemed to go on and on and on. The squeaking footsteps came closer and closer, looming behind him as a constant reminder that he would not escape. With every step he took, he thought he could finally wake up from this surreal nightmare, but the hallway seemed to be stretching further and farther with the exit as far out of reach as his chances of getting home.
Jake, a muscular alligator man, and Boris, a slightly chubby but tall polar bear man, had only just found themselves in the strange vast underground labs. With nothing but rubber shorts for clothing, they were forced to retreat after escaping from the weird inflatable padded rooms they were nearly forced into, with only the hallway as their option for retreat while pursued by the rubber-coated androids. Jake took a quick look back, seeing one of the androids waving something in one of their hands, a pink shiny ribbon of some kind with two green balls attached to both ends. With a swift powerful toss, the android tossed the device towards them, and Jake just turned his head forward as he redoubled his sprint.
But then, he heard a loud thud from behind him, looking back to see Boris had fallen face-first onto the ground, with the ribbon snuggly tangled around his ankles and weighed down by the two green balls now laying beside his fluffy feet. With the androids rapidly approaching, Jake had no choice but to continue his retreat, leaving his friend behind. Just as Boris was about to reach down to untangle his ankles, the two green orbs began to hiss loudly, quickly expanding to twice their size while gravitating upwards. Before he could even react, he felt them tugging on his legs, becoming flustered as the inflating balls began pulling him off of the floor.
Desperately pawing at the ground, he only then realized that the metal floor was completely seamless, with nothing to grasp onto as his legs were hoisted above him, the orbs still inflating until they begin to squeeze around his feet. Boris gasped as pointlessly bapped his muscular hands against the floor feeling the ballooning inflatable rubber balls squeeze up his ankles until he was hoisted off the ground completely. While one of the androids continued their pursuit of the alligator, the other slowed down and stepped up to the helpless polar bear letting out a crackled chuckle as she placed her hands on her hips. This android had one leg that had slightly darker rubber on her right leg, with a sharp gash on her thigh. With that, she simply stared at him as he dangled upside down, suspended off the ground as the balls continued to expand and envelop Boris all the way up to his knees.
Feeling the ever-increasing tightness traveling down to his body, he fussed and thrashed about trying to free himself, only for the balls to squeak and creak with his futile struggles as the android watched in amusement. Meanwhile, the sound of hissing air grew louder and louder as they continued to expand, smooshing and pressing around the polar bear's lower half until they reached his pelvis, resulting in a loud growling moan from Boris as the inflation quickly sped up. Realizing this, he quickly pressed his arms down against the squishy rubber balls sandwiching his body from both sides, but his muscular arms only got stuck underneath the puffing green rubber, pinning them to his sides as the balls squeezed up around his chest.
With only his neck free, he could only shake his head and whimper until the rubber pressed up underneath his chin, only stopping once it tightly inflated over his mouth. “Mmph!? Mmmmph!” Completely sandwiched in a ball of green rubber, his defiance was reduced to reverberating squeaks and groans just bearly audible outside his prison. Boris struggled against the tight double-layered latex from within as he remained suspended upside down, glaring at the rubber robot that stood triumphant before him. Though satisfied with her catch, the robot just sighed, feeling just a bit underwhelmed with just how easy and quick it was to capture the strange beast-man.
It was then that she reached over to the com on her wrist, connecting to her partner further down the hallway. “06 wait.” she instructed. The machine she was addressing turned her head all the way around, still running as she resumed her pursuit. “What?” she asked. “Reacquiring these test subjects has gotten… dull…” the stationary machine explained, leaning nonchalantly against the floating polar bear balloon next to her. “Don’t re-acquire him just yet.”
“Are You nuts 85?” the other machine growled, slowly gaining up on the beast-man. “If I let this alligator loose in the facility, I’ll get downgraded!” she snapped. “I’m not saying to let him go per se-” 85 responded, still leaning against the double-floating bondage balloon. “Hear me out, there is a prototype inflatable test chamber only a few blocks from here. I can access the chamber by connecting to the terminal, all you need to do is herd him to it.” 06 went silent for a moment, thinking about her partners alternative while keeping the alligator man in her sights. She could technically catch him at any time with her arsenal of rubber gadgets, but indeed, the task of recapturing these slippery anthropomorphic people was getting rather monotonous. Out of curiosity, she quickly accessed the data on the test chamber in question, looking over all the interesting sets and toys the chamber had to offer. Getting closer to the end of the hall, she began to slow her pace and responded to her counterpart. “OK, I’ll seal off the exits ahead and put him in the right direction.”
85 then switched the frequency of her com to contact one of the other lab employees. “Yes, hello Andra, you know that new testing room you’ve been working on with Rei-Uno? Could you connect me to the block's terminal for just a minute?” Finally, Jake reached the end of the hall, fumbling his hands against the control panel on the left side of the door before finally opening it. 06 did not immediately pursue, stopping at the terminal as she stuck all four of her main digits into the open socket next to the controls, connecting to all of the block's corridors. Jake saw multiple elevators ahead, with two separate hallways on either side at the end of the room. But before he could make a choice of where to go, almost every elevator suddenly slammed shut ahead of him, with the only open one being on the far end of the room, right next to the left hallway. With few options, he ran towards the hallway on the right, sprinting as fast as he could right as a blurry projectile flew past his head.
With little time to react, he only stumbled to a halt once the projectile landed directly on the hallway wall with a splat, jiggling and wobbling like a water balloon before rapidly expanding outward. In less than a second, the strange shiny ball swelled up until it filled the whole hallway, bulging out with reverberating creaks so loud he could feel the vibrations of the rubber shaking the room. Not wasting another moment, he turned the other way toward the other open hallway, only for another projectile to be shot toward it as well, swelling up and blocking it in an instant. Jake looked back to the android, staring down the barrel of a small metallic nozzle poking out from her wrist as she slowly advanced on him, slowly but confidently advancing on him with little hurry. Panicking, he quickly bolted toward the one open elevator, running inside as it slammed shut behind him. 06 tucked the barrel back into her wrist, putting her counterpart back on the calm. “We got them, do your stuff.”