Against A Rock Page 6

  And she also had to play a part. She needed to treat him as though he was an old friend, and the best way to do that would be to think of him as one.

  So she talked for a time on the animals they would see, and drifted to other topics. They received their meals and continued chatting as they ate, and at some point, Floreina decided to play a little trick on him.

  Mahran began itching his left shoulder, then returned to his sandwich, then quickly moved to itch his right shoulder, then a moment later, back again to his left.

  But Floreina had grown quiet as she watched him react to her mental prodding, and after itching back and forth several times, he asked, “Are you doing that?”

  She laughed and turned off the sensations.

  And Mahran just stared at her. “I thought the implant wasn’t supposed to be a toy.” And he cocked his head, raising his eyebrows questioningly.

  Floreina grinned in surprise and laughed harder.

  Mahran chuckled and shook his head. “Is it possible for police scanners to pick up those signals?”

  “No, no. There’s far too many signals bouncing around for them to notice something like that.”

  “We probably shouldn’t be talking about it in a restaurant either,” Mahran said.

  “You’re probably right. I’m glad you’re looking out for me.”

  ______ ______ ______

  Mahran’s eyes gleamed and his mouth dropped as they walked through the opening archway of bushes and fir trees to look onto a green field, a pond, and weeping willow trees. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “So many plants! Grass!”

  “Oh, yes,” Floreina replied. “Someday you’ll be able to see what it’s like on a fully terraformed planet.”

  His face was tight and bright red as he looked up at the ceiling looming overhead. “I had no idea it looked like this…”

  “Yes, yes,” Floreina said. “Don’t act like it’s your first time.”

  “A playground!” Mahran exclaimed, focusing on a colorful set of slides, bridges and climbing surfaces.

  “That’s for children!” Floreina laughed.

  “Exactly… I’m gonna run over there.”

  Floreina chuckled, thankful that it was the middle of the night, even if the giant overhead lights still gleamed the same as they would at high noon. “Okay,” she replied.

  And Mahran took off running. Floreina glanced around. There was no one within immediate range and she felt like having a little fun, so she popped open the menu and triggered a shutdown of the nerves in Mahran’s legs.

  He fell hard and fast, letting out a quick and abrupt cry as his outstretched arms and body slammed into the ground. His arms splayed out across the grass and he lay still.

  Floreina walked toward him, slowly at first, then began jogging after he still did not move.

  “Geiyfron!” she called, her general guidance program gently reminding her of the proper name.

  He rolled to his side and sat up. Floreina slowed to a walk. “Ah-ha! You made me think I’d gotten you good.”

  “You did,” he replied. “It hurts.” He glared at her for a long moment, before seeming to remember his place. He looked back at the ground and rubbed his legs. He took a deep breath and shuddered, gritting his teeth. “May I ask that you please not do that,” he spoke carefully, “as it is a greatly added risk of us being caught, and it is also quite painful.”

  “Okay, okay,” Floreina responded quickly, “I’m sorry. Come on, get up.” She knelt to help, but he crawled to his feet on his own, stumbling at first, but quickly regaining strength. They walked toward the playground, but now Mahran did not seem as interested.

  Floreina followed him as he climbed the steps and tried the different slides, scaled a climbing wall, and jumped on a trampoline, but rapidly seemed uninterested, and finally the two found themselves sitting on swings overlooking the rest of the park.

  “Now, don’t get all down on me,” Floreina said. “You’re not mad I played that little trick are you?”

  “It just… concerns me…” He looked at her carefully, as though analyzing. “I don’t know what I’m getting into… What else might you do with that implant…”

  “Oh, come on,” she replied, laughing lightly. She playfully jabbed him in the shoulder. “If our roles were reversed you’d play around with me… Just think about it… you’d enjoy it… it’s nice to be able to affect someone from the inside… there’s nothing malicious about it…”

  “Right… but you understand why it makes me uncomfortable; because I’m the one whose life is in danger… it reminds me that you can kill me with your thoughts…”

  She shook her head. “You’re talking like you’re an Amarrian or something… okay, okay… if it’s going to affect your morale like that then I promise you now, no more games with the implant. I'll only use it when absolutely necessary…”

  “Really?” he asked. “No more mystery itches?”

  “Yeah, yeah; I’ll hold back,” she replied.

  “Thank you.”

  “But you must admit that if you had one of these, and I was at the other end, you'd have a hard time resisting too…”

  He sighed and smiled, “Yes, I suppose I would.”

  ______ ______ ______

  Mahran was clearly uncomfortable sleeping in the same bed with his owner. Floreina was the one who should be disgusted, but she had insisted that he did not need to sleep on the floor.

  “I must apologize, Master,” Mahran started slowly, as Floreina turned out the lights, “for today…”

  “Huh?” Floreina replied. “I had a fun time today.”

  Mahran lay on the edge of the bed, careful not to take too much of the blanket. “About the whole implant thing—sometimes I forget who I am and allow my selfishness to influence my decisions… it was wrong of me to question your desire to use the implant… you paid for me and you paid for the implant, so it’s not my place to complain, and you’re such a caring master that you let me get away with things like that. And I just feel… guilty sometimes.”

  And Floreina grinned widely in the darkness, knowing the slave could not see. This was what it was all about. To gain influence that could never be attained with punishments… to control from the inside, from their deeper emotions, desires, spirituality, sense of self, where they never expect it, because they are so used to concerning themselves with the punishments of the flesh… you can affect your slaves to the point they become their own master… the way God intended… .

  “Well,” Floreina replied, “You were expressing your feelings, being transparent, which isn’t wrong in itself. You simply told me how you felt, and I realized that such joking was not an appropriate way to treat you… and you were right, it wasn’t conducive to a proper relationship… it wasn’t respectful, and you didn’t deserve it.”

  “Thank you, Master… Floreina.”

  They lay in the dark, nearly motionless. “Tomorrow morning’s your time to shine,” Floreina told him, simply wishing to break the silence.

  “I’m a little nervous.”

  “Understandable. Tomorrow isn’t going to be the dangerous part, though it’s going to be my test of your abilities to see if I can actually go through with this plan… so you’d better impress.”

  “But you can’t tell me any more about what we’re doing?”

  “I’ve got a drug deal,” Floreina whispered. “And we’re going to manipulate certain aspects of the exchange.”

  ______ ______ ______

  Floreina looked ahead, a perfectly symmetrical crawlway splayed out before her as far as she could see. She pulled herself along the air duct, grabbing with the palm of her hands and dragging her body along, hand-over-hand.

  “You doing okay back there?” she asked glancing over her shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Mahran replied. “How much longer?”

  “Another half kilometer… so settle in for a long crawl.”

  “There’s no closer outlet than the one in the hotel?”r />
  “Nope,” she replied. “That’s why it’s so perfect; they’ll never expect a third party from the air duct. They think they’ve got all their bases covered…”

  They crawled on, pausing occasionally to catch their breath, but otherwise dragged themselves at a rapid pace. Eventually they arrived at an opening where they could drop into a tiny control room designed as a communications and recharging hub for maintenance drones. There was barely enough room for one man to work comfortably, so when Mahran dropped in after her, they found themselves packed together intimately.

  “Hello,” she greeted, smiling as their eyes met. Floreina knelt and Mahran shifted to allow her more space. She pulled a connector from a panel on the side of the enclosure and plugged it into her head. Closing her eyes, she searched the connections in the local area of the space station, finding controls for lighting, temperature, communications, and security.

  “Good good,” she said aloud. She removed a small data scanner from her pack and began scanning for the codes to access the system. “You familiar with how a code scanner works to hack simple station systems?”

  “No,” Mahran shook his head.

  “Well, it’s pretty simple, though it’s a little harder without a mind link,” she showed him a readout panel on the opposite side and took several minutes to explain the processes.

  “Okay,” Mahran nodded, paying careful attention, but looking nervous. “I’m going to want a couple practice sessions first, since this is a bit more complicated for a Minmatar without a mental connection…”

  “Of course,” Floreina replied. “Let me just wait and make sure that my attempt is going to work, and that it won’t trigger any unexpected security routines. I’ve got water, sandwiches and chocolate in my pack, so we can stay here all day if needed.”

  “Okay, good; I’ve never done anything quite like this before.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “So tell me…” Mahran started slowly. “What is it that I'm doing here?”

  Floreina pulled a canister from her sack. “This is a gas,” she told him. “That you will be releasing into the meeting room.”

  His eyebrows raised. “What kind of gas?”

  She pulled a mask from the bag and simply held it out, putting it straight onto his face. “Wear this. Put it on before releasing the gas. Don’t take it off for anything.”

  He took the mask and slowly pulled it from his face and looked at it. “What’ll happen if I remove it? Will it knock me out?”

  “It causes your lungs to fill with fluid and you drown.”

  Mahran nodded slowly. “Hmm…” His face tightened. “How long does it take?”

  “Two to three minutes.”

  “Seems like a long time…”

  “There’s a numbing agent as well so they won’t notice the effects until it’s too late.”

  Mahran sighed and fell silent for a long time. “I didn’t know we would be killing people,” he mumbled.

  “What?” Her lip curled and eyelashes rose questioningly. “What did you think we were doing here?”

  “I didn’t know. This is the first you’ve told me about anything.”

  The code scanner beeped its notification. She focused on the sensations, found the entryway to the local security cameras, and entered the password, reading it manually from the screen on the scanner. A moment later she accessed the security menu for the entire level. She could not help grinning with power.

  She set up a few basic security measures to ensure their hacking attempt was not noticed by the authorities. After double checking the protocols, she accessed the controls in front of Mahran and began displaying the same menus she saw in her mind.

  She went through the process with him, taking more than an hour simply to show him all the menus for the various systems he would need to control. At first she felt overwhelmed. When seen all together, the options and responsibilities seemed endless, and while she had been aware of each one of them individually, she had never been able to step back and take a look at the overall complexity of the systems of which she expected her simple Minmatar slave to take control. But she kept pushing forward, explaining screen after screen of menus, just as the mental implant fed her the explanations.

  Oddly enough, Floreina quickly grew comfortable with the physical closeness to her Minmatar, and, especially with the temporary facial alterations and clothing differences, he could seem like any other co-worker.

  Eventually Mahran began testing the system himself, and Floreina found him catching on quicker than she had expected. The menus all worked under similar user interface concepts, so the same patterns of behavior could be applied to all of them, and Mahran seemed to recognize them quickly.

  But in the midst of her training, a low level alarm sounded.

  They stopped to look up and see a repair drone just above, it’s antennae extended.

  Floreina already had the local area scrambled for drone emergency signals, but needed to take this one out before it attempted a longer range frequency. She leapt up, just as the drone began extending its drive unit.

  She caught it as the drive kicked into motion, jerking her against the side panels. Holding tight, she pulled back, and dragged the drone toward her. She pulled, and forced it into their enclosure. Simultaneously she scanned the local frequencies, searching for the drone’s transmissions.

  She lost focus for a moment as the drone shifted its magnetic propulsion, reversing and driving toward Floreina. It no longer had a hold on the floor, but had clearly found a propulsion strip in the side wall. The force drove her backward, against Mahran.

  She held the drone, keeping it at arms length, but unable to push forward. She found its signal, bouncing systematically through frequencies. She followed it, narrowing her eyelids to gaze through a haze. She split her focus between the frequency race in her mind and the shoving match in the physical realm.

  The drone extended a cutting torch. Within seconds it lit up and turned rapidly, attempting to catch an arm.

  “Get to my pack!” she shouted. “Get the blowtorch.”

  Mahran wiggled behind her to free himself. He reached, but couldn't quite touch the bag at the far edge of the pit. He twisted and allowed her to move against the wall, but his thigh remained trapped behind her hip.

  As he moved, the drone opened its applicator and sprayed nanite paste in a forceful jet against Floreina’s face. It switched propulsion to push toward Mahran, but despite the distraction and the sudden blindness, Floreina continued to hold.

  She shook her head, freeing enough paste to look at Mahran in time to see him fumble with her pack, then pull out her emergency mini blowtorch. He fired it up, looking cautious for just a moment before turning it toward the drone.

  Several seconds later he had a section cut from the back of the bot and was forcing the flame into its intestines.

  The robot sparked and burned, rapidly heating her hands, but the magnetic force continued for several more seconds as Floreina gritted her teeth and her mind against the combined force of the propulsion and the rising heat in her hands.

  Her elbows began to bend, but she looked down and found the drone’s torch dead. Only the propulsion remained; and a moment later, that died as well, the drone dropping to the floor with a loud clank. Mahran stepped backward to avoid a crushed foot.

  They stared at each other and panted. Floreina moved toward Mahran to free her leg, and slipped, falling against him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders to pull herself up, and they hugged for several long moments, panting. Had there been a larger floor she would have fallen over to relax. But resting against Mahran was a welcome substitute.

  After catching her breath, Floreina pulled back and stood straight.

  Mahran swallowed, clearly feeling the discomfort from their sudden embrace. His eyes narrowed, his face shifting to anger. “How did that happen?” he asked. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, running a hand down his clothing. “I thought you had all the dr
ones covered.”

  “I mostly did,” she replied. “I got distracted… ”

  Mahran shook his head and stared at the hunk of metal on the floor. “That drone tried to kill you…”

  “Yeah,” replied Floreina. “They’ll do that.”

  ______ ______ ______

  Mahran seemed distant as they crawled back through the ventilation system, as though thinking something he could not say out loud. She needed to find out more, but her conversational assistant could not invent a good avenue. Instead, she simply started talking. “So tell me what's been going on, Buddy. We’ve got a while left to crawl; might as well pass the time.”

  “Well…” Mahran started cautiously, “Since I've been promoted to overseer I have become more curious about your theories on slave management… the slaves on your team seem quite effective…”

  “Well…” she started, wondering how much she should actually tell him. “There’s different things… I think we can get too caught up in punishing slaves, for example… punishment’s a very dirty and imprecise form of communication.”

  “Yeah,” Mahran said as he trailed behind her. “You’ve never punished me for anything… even though I deserved it a couple times.”

  “But you continue doing a good job,” she replied. “The little things don’t really matter. Punishments often solve short term problems, but contribute to long term problems.”

  Floreina looked back at Mahran, bumping her head against the side of the crawlway.

  “There’s too many situations that make punishments counterproductive. If they don’t realize they’re being punished; or if they don’t understand why… It creates an emotional distance between slave and master, and teaches the slave to deal with issues by punishing others.”

  They rested for a moment.

  “And if their quality of life isn’t high enough, the punishments won’t have any meaning either. You need to show them respect. Then if you punish it will contrast enough to be effective.”