"Plea -- eeeep!" While Jen had been distracted by what was going on at her feet, sneaking tentacles had found their way up under her arms. Suddenly, each sensitive hollow was filled with tracing, probing,wriggling, teasing tips. Giggles poured out of Jen, louder and louder the more she tried to control them. Her spine arched as she strove to break loose, but a storm of tickles from the tentacles that covered her ribs drove her back down again, gasping with laughter. And then the all-but-forgotten tentacles at her feet began to move, gliding across each white-stockinged sole. Jen threw her head back and screamed, barely aware that she had lost her other shoe in her struggles.
More tentacles wrapped her feet, tips digging into her toes, splitting the fabric to crawl into the spaces between her toes. Soon every gap had a tentacle in it, vibrating happily and driving Jen mad; their larger cousins swept all over her feet, some burrowing inside the stockings to tickle her skin directly, others working through the thin fabric. . The tentacles around her body had almost completely ceased their motion, save for a few distracting tickles here and there, but that was no comfort for Jen -- they would start again, and the only question was when.
A thicket of silver metal filled the air between Jen and the machine, covering her all the way from the tips of her toes almost to the crown of her head -- there were even tentacles in her ears and lined along her neck, their light touch supremely distracting. In an instant, a tickle could strike anywhere -- or everywhere. The robot's metal face gave no clue to where the tentacles would stir to life next, and Jen almost never guessed right. A tentacle across her belly would twitch, and she would tighten her abdominal muscles in anticipation -- only to be caught completely unawares as the tentacles under her arms went into action, like a double handful of fingers scratching away in each armpit, making her howl and buck. And before she could catch her breath, the belly tickle would come, but now she was totally unprepared for it and was once more reduced into a squealing, squirming mass in the space of a heartbeat. Another time, tentacles began to lightly flicker over her nipples and clitoris with a delicacy that made her breath catch in her throat and her skin rise in goosepimples. Her hips twitched forward involuntarily and a moan rose from her throat unbidden -- and became a shriek of laughter as half a dozen metal tips drove into each side of her ribcage, ruthlessly kneading, while others raked across the arches of her feet.
Sweat slicked her emerald flesh, and her soaked hair hung limp around her face as she glared at the robot during one of the quiet spaces. A dozen tentacles were lightly tracing circles around as many ticklish spots, waiting for the right moment to strike. "Come on," she pleaded, then giggled helplessly as two tentacles kootchy-kooed her underarms. "Have mercy. I can't take much more of this." Tentacles played with her toes, and even though she knew it would be futile, she couldn't keep from wriggling in her bonds, trying to pull away. "Please ... please, just stop." Begging for mercy from a machine ... a silly idea, almost as silly as being tickled loopy by one. How much longer was this going to go on?
No sooner had the thought come to her when the tentacles on her feet began to torment her again, all working in unison. The robot seemed to have kept some kind of catalog of her most sensitive spots and how best to tickle each ... at least, that was what it felt like. Jen gave a single convulsive heave upward, as if trying to jump out of her skin, hysterical laughter echoing off the apartment's walls. "NOOOOOO! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! STOP! STOP! YOUHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" After whatseemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, the robot stopped, and the tentacles at her feet withdrew. Jen had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, and then the machine began to tickle her knees with the same merciless exactitude.
It went that way all up the seven-foot length of her body: each vulnerable place was thoroughly tickled, pushing Jen to the brink of madness, and then the tentacles dropped away as the robot started in on the next target. Jen's screams would have deafened any ordinary human in the room, and the violence of her thrashing would have broken even adamantium cuffs. The robot took no notice of her reactions, moving relentlessly upward.
Finally, the machine removed the last tentacles, from her ears, and studied Jen, now limp and giggling in the energy bonds. "HUMAN SPECIES PROVES SUITABLY VULNERABLE TO TICKLING," it announced. "INVASION ARMADA DISPATCHED. ARRIVAL IN TWELVE STANDARD HOURS." It turned and exited through the hole it had made. A few seconds later, the bonds vanished, dumping Jen to the floor.
She sat for a moment with her back to the wall, legs splayed out in front of her, the shreds of her clothing hanging loosely on her frame, staring at the hole. Then she closed her eyes, gave a single shudder, and crawled across the room to the phone stand where the Yellow Pages were kept. Flipping through it, she found the number she wanted and pulled the phone down beside her, punching in the number.
"DC Comics? I want to apply for asylum."