Tolerable Cruelty - Chapter 13 (Hi res image at Super Supporter Tier) (Patreon)

Chapter 13

Piper parked the company car outside at the Satellar offices, a 3 hour drive from where she lived. She groused. She could have flown here in minutes if she wanted, but she’d get too many questions. Plus, her clothes may not have survived the supersonic trip.

The Satellar receptionist gave her a guest badge and introduced her to the project manager.

“Mrs. Paloma, it’s so nice to meet our business partners in person!” His tone was particularly ingratiating.

“Nice to meet you too, Mr. Prezbiak ,” Piper nodded courteously.

“Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea? It must have been quite a drive.”

“No, thank you.”

“I must say, it’s nice to have someone of fairer company over than your boss, Mr. Davis. I’m hoping we can resolve any tension and our partnership continues to be successful.”

“I think you’ll find that I may be just as tough, if not tougher, to work with than Grant.” Piper smiled as she made her declaration, as much for Mr. Prezbiak’s sake as her own.

---

A limping Peter, useless arm in sling, shuffled into the office, a big grin on his face. As he walked past the nursing room, it suddenly shot open. A slender feminine limb shot out, grabbed him by the front of his button-down, and yanked him off his feet.

“Whoaa!” Peter yelled.

“Shhh!” Maria shut the door behind them and put Peter back on his feet.

Peter rotated his shoulder gingerly, the sudden motion aggravating his superficial wound.

“I shouldn’t be in here!” He looked around nervously. “Wait, who are you?”

The fact that a devastatingly gorgeous woman had just lifted him off his feet effortlessly should have surprised him, but after weeks of being dominated by one, he’d forgotten this wasn’t standard fare.

“No puedo pinche creer, Peter!” An upset Maria reverted to her native tongue. “It’s me!”

“Maria!? You’re… you’re beautiful!” He stated, more as a matter of fact than anything.

“Yes! Isn’t this what you planned?! This is what you gave me, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes, I know! I’m so happy you took it! Do you feel okay?”

“What do you think, Peter?”

Maria turned her cheek, showing that there was no hint of the bruise that Steven had accidentally given her. Her relatively pale skin was unbelievably even and smooth. Even her brown eyes seemed to sparkle.

“I think… I think it worked! And you’re strong!”

“Yes, unbelievably so! Peter, don’t tell me you didn’t know this is what would happen!”

“No, no, of course, I was hoping it would work out this way. But I didn’t know if you were going to take it. And my weekend was quite… vigorous.” He moaned in pain at his fresh wounds.

“Vigorous? Peter, are you okay?! You’re so hurt!”

“I’m fine, Maria. Really.”

“It is not okay! Oh my god! It’s not just your arm, is it?”

Peter winced as Maria’s fingers pressed into his torso. God, her delicate digits felt stronger than steel!

“Ahhhh! Please, Maria! Be gentle!” Peter moaned.

“Can you not take the potion yourself?” Maria inquired.

“I… I haven’t tried. I, um, don't want to grow a pair of huge breasts...” he muttered sheepishly.

“Who did this to you? You are so strong! Someone you got into a fight with? Rick?”

“No, no, Maria. Nothing like that. Please, don’t ask.”

Peter’s reticence to answer, his obvious injuries, the fact that he was sneaking around after hours for his wife… it suddenly dawned on Maria.

“It’s… it’s your wife, isn’t it?! She is abusing you!” The final statement came out as an outraged whisper. She clenched her fists and stamped her foot. The floor vibrated from her little outburst.

“NO! Maria, please! It’s nothing like that.”

“You’re not going to tell me you just ‘fell down the stairs’, Peter! Please, let me help you! I… I think… I am quite powerful now...” she whispered shyly.

“Maria, no, you can’t save me from this. I am fine. Really. I am. I’m… I’m glad my potion worked out for you. You look great. Um... healthy, that is.”

Maria looked absolutely crestfallen. “She’s… she’s more powerful than me, isn’t she? I can’t help you, can I? What is she doing to you, Peter?”

Peter shook his head. He was at a loss for words.

“Maybe… you can make me more of it? I’m certain I’m more than strong enough to handle Rick for you now. He wouldn’t get in... our way.” Her choice of words was deliberate.

“It would take months, Maria. I’m all out of reagents. Really, there’s nothing wrong. Please, please don’t worry about me. I'm begging you. Don't talk about this to anyone. Take care of yourself, hmm? Let’s get back to work.”

A frustrated Maria watched impotently as the injured man of her dreams peeked around the corner of the nursing room door before surreptitiously slipping out.

---

Mr. Prezbiak had basically stonewalled Piper, showing her around the offices, but not being forthcoming about the use of Transient’s computer chips in their satellites. A few times, she nearly resorted to violence. Oh, it would be so easy…

Just what the fuck was Satellar doing anyway? Reporting delays in routine testing, some implying that Transient’s product was not up to snuff, others contradicting the story, citing delays in Satellar production… it just didn’t add up. And all with Prezbiak and his disgusting, fawning smile.

Piper checked into her hotel at 6:00 PM, frustrated with the total lack of progress for the day. She told Grant she could handle this. Just how much of a tantrum did Grant throw at these meetings? She laughed out loud as she imagined her boss chewing them out.

She looked around at the cheap motel that Transient had comped for her. Carpet somewhere between the color of red and brown, a lousy twin sized bed that looked like it would fall apart, even without her vigorous superhuman orgasms. A dingy TV, a flickering overhead light… fuck this. Piper didn’t need to sleep nowadays anyway.

Maybe it was time to go play investigative agent.

None of the clothes she had packed were suitable for what she had in mind. No matter.

She strolled back outside, checking with her superhuman senses that she wasn’t within sight or earshot of anyone. Then, she took off from the ground, suddenly hundreds of feet in the air.

Piper soared home languidly, not wanting to shred her beautiful office attire. Even with her easy flying, she made the multi-hour drive home in an easy 30 minutes.

She unlocked the front door to their house and grabbed her pitch-black wetsuit at superspeed.

“Piper? Is that you?” came Peter’s voice from the kitchen.

But she was already gone. Mysteriously, Peter found her office clothes laid out neatly on their new bed that evening.

---

Piper descended at the Satellar warehouse at 10:00 PM, dressed in her wetsuit to try and hide in the dark of night. Her flaming red hair was tucked into her swim cap.

Of course, her eyes had no trouble piercing the shroud of nightfall. She easily spotted the security cameras and timed her superhuman movement through their blind spots. The warehouse shutters, emblazoned with a stylized ‘S’, were locked by some electronic keypad, but Piper just shoved her fingers through the concrete, placed her delicate hand underneath the barrier, and lifted the whole thing up with a deafening rattle.

She could see partially assembled satellites in the open space with hundreds of boxes lining the walls. There it was, a shipment from Transient. Piper levitated off the floor silently and flew over to it.

It was open… but mostly full! Piper dug through it, her enhanced mental acuity able to keep up with her superhuman speed. Rifling through the non-static wrappings, she found that Satellar had only used three of their chips.

The entire shipment was supposed to be in their satellites now! What the hell were they doing? No wonder they didn’t have any results to give her!

Piper wasn’t involved in the manufacturing, nor did she know about integrated circuits, but with her powers, this would probably be a breeze. Grabbing a package and unwrapping it, she floated over to the control panel, inserted her fingernail into the screws, and twisted them off.

She scanned the circuitry inside at super speed with her incredible eyesight. To a layperson without her super mind, the parts would have seemed genuine—but Piper was able to pick up enough slight, yet regular imperfections. None of them looked Transient-made. But they were clearly designed to look as such…

They were knockoffs! Piper took her cap off and shook her hair out, then zipped around the perimeter, turning into a red blur. Sure enough, she found some of their chips on a bench, decapitated. There were even cameras set up around it!

Fucking Satellar! She had half a mind to call Grant up right now!

But how would she explain where she was, and how she had broken into the warehouse?

Then, a much better idea popped into Piper’s head. One that would solve the problem at hand in a much more entertaining way.

With the image of the knock-off chip seared into her mind, Piper began ripping through all of the wooden boxes, digging her fingers into the nailed lids effortlessly and tearing them off. Crate after crate of the stuff, she plunged her hands in and squished all of the advanced circuitry into unusable molten blobs.

Really getting into it and finding so much of the faulty stuff, she started flying through clusters of the boxes without examining them, smashing into them headfirst and scattering them all over the floor. She stomped any survivors brutally under her foot.

All that was left was to tear out the ones installed in the satellites. Even at super speed, Piper was pinpoint accurate and precise. In a minute, she’d removed all of the knock-off chips and flung them behind her with a half-hearted throw, smashing them against the roof.

All that was left were their Transient chips. Perhaps it would look too suspicious; still, who would believe that she could have done it?

Piper tipped the Transient boxes over in the wreckage to try and camouflage her targeted strike.

---

“Hey Grant. On the drive back now.”

“I got your report. So they’re still behind schedule as usual, those fuckfaces.”

“Yeah. But I chewed them out. They’re working around the clock to test our product and give us results.”

“Great work, Piper. Whose ass did you have to stomp on to get them to get their fucking shit in order?”

Piper smiled at his choice of words. If only he knew how she’d incidentally roughed up Prezbiak… he wouldn’t be sitting comfortably for a while.

“Just some new middle management mook. Um, listen Grant, I don’t think we should deal with Satellar after this fiscal year.”

“You got a bad feeling about them too? I hate going down there every year. I swear they’re up to some fucking bullshit, but I never could figure it out.”

“Yeah, Grant. I think they’re covering something up.”

“I hear you, Piper. That’s good enough for me. I’m glad you went without me telling you. No bias from me. They’re done.”

Piper smiled. Things just couldn’t get any better.

“Thanks Grant. I’ll be back in the office on Monday.”

“Hell, take the day off, Piper. You earned it. And keep your eyes on the road!”