Human Commodity (12 page)

Phillip’s eyes shot up.
 
“What the hell are you suggesting, Damon?
 
You know that we don’t let anyone beneath level ten into the quarters.”

Damon crossed his massive arms across his broad chest.
 
“Then what do
you
suggest, Phillip?
 
If you think you’re going to get this girl through level
one
, then you might as well pack her up right now and ship her out.”

Phillip turned to Eddie for support.
 
Hell, he had been the one to insist on the level training as a determining factor in commodity sale’s price.
 
Eddie shook his head.
 
“He’s right, Phillip.
 
You didn’t see her.
 
I’ve had virgins come through here that never came
close
to reacting the way this girl did.
 
I’d have to clear it through Mason, of course, but she’s going to be a total wash if we don’t try it.”

Phillip looked back down to the sleeping girl.
 
A wash… was unacceptable.
 
“Call him.”

As usual, Mason had been busy with a commodity crisis.
 
He quickly agreed with Eddie.
 
What the fuck do I care what they do with a lousy AG?
 
I’ve got an outbreak of chicken pox… chicken pox for fuck’s sake… running through the SPs and trainers in the compound in Spain.
 
The deceitful little bumps can leave scars on the women… and cost SHCI millions.
 
“
No
, I don’t want to see her first.
 
If Damon thinks he can save us some money on her, let him take her.”

Eddie slowly unwrapped the rest of the strange girl.
 
She was completely unshaven… like her friends… and he mentioned the fact to Damon and Phillip who were standing by the table with jealous fascination.
 
“Damon, go get the redhead that you handed to Rodrigo.”

“What’s up?” Damon asked.

“I think the shit that she was spouting about POHO might have something to it.
 
When was the last time you saw a girl who didn’t bother shaving under her arms, much less her legs?
 
I think only someone raised in a feminist stronghold would neglect to do that.
 
Those wacko’s with POHO wouldn’t even think of it, if these three are plants.”

Damon strode through the doors.
 
He came back with the redhead slung over his shoulder.
 
She was screaming hoarsely behind the gag, and there were red welts from a recent whipping across her ass and thighs.
 
The trainer unceremoniously dumped her onto her feet as Rodrigo burst through the door behind him.
 
“What the
fuck
, Damon?
 
I thought you gave her to me.”

“Settle down, for fuck’s sake.
 
You’re getting her back.
 
The Doc and Phillip want to ask her a few questions,” Damon replied.

The US18RB made a frantic dash towards the door, still screaming behind the gag.
 
Rodrigo snaked an arm out and caught her, and held her by the back of her collar.
 
“You ready?”

Eddie scrunched his eyes closed, preparing for her screams.
 
“Go ahead.”
 
God, even hoarse, her voice cut through his head like a razor.

Rodrigo tightened her collar until the screams were strangled.
 
“Quiet and I let go.
 
Nod.”
 
It took a few seconds for his words to cut through her panic, but she quickly nodded.

As soon as his hold loosened, she wailed, “You
hit
me!
 
Please… they didn’t tell us it was going to be like this.”
 
Lizzie’s eyes widened when she saw Daria.
 
“Oh god.
 
You didn’t have to kill her.
 
She never even believed any of it.”
 
She looked up at her trainer and began quivering in terrified, jerking wracks.
 
“Please, please don’t kill me.
 
I’ll do what you want.
 
Oh god,
Daria
.
 
It wasn’t her fault.
 
We never knew what bastards were like.”

Eddie was registering confusing information the girl was sputtering about Daria.
 
As trainers, Rodrigo and Damon registered the girl’s acquiescence to be trained… as long as she would not be ‘killed’ like her friend.

Rodrigo glared down at her.
 
“You realize how serious this is?”

“Yes,” she cried.
 
“Oh, god.
 
Please don’t kill me too.”

Phillip asked, “Who sent you here?”

“The OTRs.
 
Ummm… I mean mom.”

“OTRs?”
 
Fuck, is there another renegade dissention organization out there?
 
Phillip persisted.
 
“Who are the OTRs?”

“No, I meant our mothers.
 
Our mothers sent us.”

Rodrigo lifted her collar until it tightened.
 
“Bullshit.
 
Who the fuck are the OTRs?” he demanded.

Lizzie was completely overwrought.
 
She sobbed and cried, “Our mothers.
 
We called them that so they wouldn’t know we thought they were ‘off their rockers’.
 
We’ve called them that for years.”

The girl was too rattled to have made it up, and Phillip was the first to begin to laugh.
 
“So, who do these OTRs belong to?”

“I already told him.”
 
Lizzie pointed a shaking finger towards Eddie.
 
“They’re the leaders of POHO.”
 
Her tear-filled eyes turned back to Phillip.
 
“If you let us go, we won’t give them any information to sue you over.”

Phillip looked at her incredulously, but he figured out that she was being completely serious.
 
What kind of world has she been living in if she thinks that POHO is a threat to us any more?
 
“Where did you live?” he asked curiously.
 
“You and your friends?”

“At POHO’s headquarters.
 
Daria helped Annie and I sneak out, but we stayed by the garden gate.
 
Mostly we just wanted to see what was going on in the evil world of human slavery… and maybe see a couple of young bastards.
 
We got scared and hung around the side garden.”
 
The girl was still looking at Daria.
 
Did she breathe?
 
I think I saw her chest move
.
 
“Oh my god, she’s still alive.”
 
She looked up at Eddie.
 
“Save her,” she begged.

“Not until you answer our questions,” Eddie replied smoothly.
 
“What are you and your friends doing here?”

“They told us to get information on names and stuff.
 
They’re going to come get us after we were sold with our lots.
 
They’re going to give us a year after we’re placed.
 
It kinda’ got messed up, because we had to wait for Annie to turn eighteen.”

“Rodrigo, you can take her back now,” Eddie said.
 
He picked up an extra big needle and stroked it.
 
“Let me know if she gives you any more problems.”
 
He smiled when the terrified girl gasped.

The trainer winked at him.
 
“Will do.”

“What about Daria?
 
You’re going to save her now, right?
 
I told you everything.
 
You will save her, right?”

“Probably,” Eddie calmly replied.
 
The girl had begun to sob again, while the trainer led her back to the cells.

Eddie stared at Phillip.
 
“Don’t look at
me
.
 
I’m
not going to call him.
 
He’s got a fuckin’ Spanish chicken pox crisis to deal with.”

“Okay, we get with Mason after five.
 
Look, I think we need to ship those two out to the facility.
 
We can maybe have them de-compressed from POHO’s crap and bring them up to speed on what’s going on in the world.
 
Did you catch her reference to ‘bastards’?
 
She wasn’t using the term like an insult; she used it as if it was a common description of men.
 
In the world they were raised, maybe it was.
 
I still see value in them, but we should get them out of here in case they do manage to get information to pass back.”

Eddie looked down at Daria.
 
“With this one’s mental impairment, I don’t see her as a threat.
 
Obviously they weren’t planning on using her to bring back useful information, and I think maybe they sent her along to distract us.
 
They probably didn’t realize that the girls would be separated,” Eddie said.

What the fanatics with POHO did not realize was that they never told their daughters not to tell anyone about their mission.
 
The women had been so obsessed with their decades long fight, and they had so little involvement with their daughters, they merely assumed the girls knew that their infiltration was to be kept secret.
 
With almost their entire world… and virtually everyone they had ever met… being involved with POHO, the three girls assumed that the rest of the world was aware of what they were doing at SHCI.
 
After all, how could you be the heroes against the evils of human slavery if people did not know?

Chapter V

Daria woke up slowly, with groggy, fuzzy recognition of the clinic.
 
The metal table was warm underneath her, so she knew that she had to have been lying on it for a while.
 
When she tried to raise her arm to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, it was stuck.
 
No, not stuck… I’m hooked onto something
.
 
She realized that both wrists were locked down, and she experimented and found that her ankles were secured as well.
 
A lethargic numbness kept her from becoming overwhelmed, though she felt a detached nervousness.

“She’s waking up,” a deep voice commented.

Daria swooped her head towards the voice, and she saw the big bastard Damon, the Doctor, and Phillip.
 
“Hi, Phillip,” she slurred.
 
Everything felt like slow motion.

“Hello, Daria.
 
Are you feeling a little better?”

Daria’s thoughts were muddled and confused, though to the men, the girl did not appear any more addled than when she was fully awake.
 
Daria had never taken a drink or a drug in her life, and the mild tranquilizer had hit her like a ton of bricks.
 
It remained in her system keeping her bewildered and confused while her body tried to absorb or get rid of it.

Daria remembered being told to take her clothes off… rudely, she remembered, and she tried to scowl at Damon… but after that, everything was a blank.
 
Clothes off?
 
Daria realized that she was feeling the warm metal table under her
bare
bottom.
 
She blushed profusely and slurred, “I’m a little cold.
 
Could I have a blanket?”

“Not right now,” Phillip replied.
 
He remembered how easily distracted the girl was, and he said, “We had a chat with one of your friends.
 
She says you were sent here by POHO to get information on SHCI.”

Daria gave a lopsided smile, and said, “I’m not sure if we’re supposed to tell anybody.
 
The OTRs might get pissed off.”

“The OTRs?”

“Oops.
 
I shouldn’t have said that.”
 
Daria closed her eyes, but she opened them again when things began to spin.”

Phillip was fairly certain that the redhead was not lying, but he wanted to make sure.
 
It made no sense for the girls to be raised in POHO society yet think that their mothers were crazy.
 
“Who are the OTRs, Daria?”

“I can’t really say,” she yawned.

“Daria?”

She smiled at Phillip again.
 
“Really… I can’t say.
 
It was a mean name we called our mothers, and it wasn’t very nice of us.”

“Over their rockers?” he led.

“Off,” Daria corrected.
 
“Off their rockers.”
 
She smiled and said, “They’re
nuts
.”

Damon whispered, “Acorn doesn’t fall far from the…”

“Ssh,” Phillip whispered.

Although still more calmed than she should be, Daria’s mental facilities sharpened slightly.
 
She realized that they must have done something to her mind, and that from descriptions she had read, she thought she might have been drugged.
 
Whatever they had done had made it almost impossible for her to focus.
 
Oh, oh.
 
I wonder what the other girls told them?
 
God, I’m naked… completely naked… in front of three bastards
.
 
Still, she could not summon up the terrified feelings she should be exhibiting.
 
“Phillip, could I have a blanket now, please?”

“Your Master will give you a blanket if he wants you to have one,” Phillip answered.

Damon smiled maliciously at her, while Daria looked around the room.
 
There was no one else in the clinic.
 
She tried to focus on the big bastard with the ponytail, and she asked, “Could you find him for me, and tell him that I’m really cold?”

The smile dropped off Damon’s face.
 
“IQ30,” he muttered.

“50, Damon.
 
She
is
shot up with tranques,” Eddie replied.
 
“She’s still coming down from the knock-out shot.
 
Things will clear up a little bit more… maybe.”

Damon walked over to her.
 
It was strange having to treat a contract with kid gloves, but it would only be until the initial shock wore off… a week at the most.
 
“I am your Master, Daria.
 
You do everything I say, and you’ll be fine.”

“I may be fine,” Daria agreed, “but I’ll be fine with a runny nose.”

Damon wrapped a big hand around her breast.
 
Instead of protesting, her big green eyes widened and she said, “See?
 
I’m freezing.”

Damon began squeezing her breast… not hard… but, enough to gauge her response.
 
His thumb brushed across her nipple, and the softened little pillow tightened immediately.
 
Daria looked down at his hand.
 
“
That
only happens when I’m cold,” she assured him.

Damon smiled.
 
“There are other reasons that happens, AG.”

“Daria,” she announced.

“No, you are US18AG1427, and I am your Master.”

Daria’s bound hands opened and closed in defeat.
 
“Okay,
okay
.
 
Can I have a blanket?”

“Master.”

“God,” she gasped in frustration.
 
“Can I have a blanket,
Master
?”

“No.”

“No?”
 
She threw her head in Phillip’s direction, completely ignoring the man fondling her breast.
 
“Phillip, can you pick me out someone else?”

“You win, Damon.
 
30,” Phillip chuckled.

Daria looked down at her breast again.
 
She was beginning to get a fluttery feeling in her stomach… not her stomach, exactly… but down there somewhere.
 
“Would you stop that, please?
 
It’s making me feel weird.”

“Unusual description of it,” Damon replied, “but no.”

“Eddie, how much of this is her, and how much is the tranque?” Phillip asked.
 
Shit… I really don’t want to ship her to the facility
.

“Hard to tell, with her mental impairment.
 
I have to assume that she isn’t used to drugs, so Damon and I might have to fool around with the dosage a little.”
 
Eddie walked over to the foot of the table, and he slipped the two platforms securing Daria’s ankles up and towards her chest, bending her knees.

Daria ignored him, and she continued to alternate between a fascinated stare at Damon’s hand making little indentions on her breast and tickling her nipple to keep it hard… and glowering up at him.
 
When he took his eyes off her tit and caught her glare, she mouthed, ‘I want a blanket’.

Daria felt something slippery and cold on her privates, and a hard thing was pushed against her… not against her…
inside of her
.
 
“Oooh… it’s cold, it’s cold… ow, stop it.”
 
She looked up at Damon with her eyes filling, “Make him stop it.”

Damon squeezed her nipple, crushing it purple between two fingers.
 
“Stop… owee.”
 
She looked down at her bruising bud, and Damon twisted.
 
Her bottom lip trembled and she began crying.
 
“Stop it… you’re breaking it.”
 
She had completely dismissed Eddie and the speculum.

“Eddie, is it possible that she can be this naïve?”
 
Damon wondered if the girl had been kept literally in a closet.
 
It was 2036, and with the commercials and ads for slaves, how could her ignorance be possible?

“I don’t know how naïve her mind is, but she’s never been fucked.
 
Shit, she’s as tight as those other two,” Eddie replied.

Damon began thinking of all of the possibilities of working with a canvas that had no preconceptions, no good or bad experiences… only what he taught her.

Phillip had been thinking, too.
 
His mouth fell open when he looked at her eyes again.
 
“Shit, how could I be so stupid?
 
No wonder she looks familiar.
 
That bitch wouldn’t have… she couldn’t…”
 
He thought a minute longer and walked up to study the girl’s face.
 
“What is your mother’s name?”

“Please make him stop, Phillip.”
 
Daria’s bottom lip continued to tremble, while Eddie began to notice a slight gripping on the speculum.

“Daria, what is your mother’s name?” Phillip demanded, a little more sternly.
 
Her easy distraction was becoming irritating.

“Vanessa.
 
Vanessa Claudine Boudreaux.”
 
Daria looked at her poor breast again.

“I’ll be damned.
 
I never knew that she had a kid.
 
Did you, Eddie?”

Eddie slid out the speculum.
 
“There were a few months at the beginning when that other chick, Lilly something, showed up at the hearings and Vanessa was absent.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“I guess it’s possible.
 
I never saw her with a guy, but even in those drab outfits…” Eddie’s eyes flew to the discarded shift on the floor.
 
“Shit.
 
Yeah, this is her daughter, alright.”

“You don’t suppose she got herself knocked up just to plant a spy almost twenty years later, do you?”

He was surprised when Daria giggled and said, “Bingo.
 
If mom wasn’t OTR, she would be almost as smart as Mason Sanford,” she assured them.

“You knew?
 
You knew that she was raising you just to be a spy for that crazy lunatic organization?”
 
Phillip asked.

“Nope.
 
Well, we figured it out about a year ago, sort of.
 
We weren’t positive, or anything.”
 
She smiled up at Phillip.
 
“She might be OTR, but she’s committed to conquering the evil world of human slavery.”

God, Phillip hated that stupid slogan.
 
They chanted it at rallies, ranted it at hearings, and plastered it on bumper stickers all over their cars.
 
Not so much now, but in the early days the phrase was used so often it gave him headaches.
 
“Are your friends’ mothers Barbra Thomas and Lilly Jeston?”

“Uhn, uhn.
 
Nope.
 
Lilly is Annie’s mom, but Lizzie’s mom is Doc Hancock.”

Eddie’s face paled.
 
“Daria, what is Doc Hancock’s first name?”

“Nancy… but, everyone just calls her Doc.”
 
Daria pictured the basement clinic in her mind, and she whispered, “You bastards don’t want to
mess
with her.”

Eddie looked at Phillip, surprised as much at the news that Rodrigo’s contract was his ex-wife’s child, as he was at Daria’s warning.
 
“Damn, Phillip.
 
Her own daughter?”

Daria floored them when she added, “Barbra had a little bastard boy so she gave him to his father.”

Even Damon’s hand stalled on that remark.
 
He said nervously, “I don’t think training her in the compound could possibly be as fucked up as what she’s been raised in.”

Daria had no idea why she was telling them all this, but it did not seem important.
 
Phillip only had to look at the contract that her mom had signed to find out who she was.
 
She looked down at the hand resting on her breast, and she wished Damon would move his fingers again.
 
It made her warm.

Phillip walked down to Eddie and whispered, “Those weren’t the names on the contracts.
 
Daria was listed as ‘Daria Kappas’.
 
I don’t remember the other two, but I sure as hell would have caught Nancy or Lilly’s names on contracts.”

“Well, this is one of the rare times that we’re actually doing contracted girls a favor.
 
Wait until Mason finds out.
 
Damn, I wish he wasn’t tied up with the SP mess.”

“Master guy, you either have to keep rubbing me so I can stay warm, or get me a blanket.
 
Annie says I’m a bitch when I’m sick.”
 
Daria stared at his hand, willing it to move again.

“I’m going back to the office to check the other contracts and the signers’ information on them.
 
I’ll get hold of security to see if the names are aliases or if they’re using the names of other POHO members.”
 
Phillip began to leave for the hallway, and abruptly stopped.
 
He turned and grabbed the phone.
 
“Noreen, the last three contracts… stop the payment for them immediately.”
 
Phillip listened, and said, “Good.
 
Don’t issue them, then.”

Phillip looked up at Damon and Eddie.
 
“For once, the lazy bitch’s procrastination has worked in our favor.
 
She was going to transfer the money this afternoon.”
 
Phillip wondered who would show up when the money did not hit the accounts.
 
By the time a case could make it to court, he was sure that Mason would come up with something.

“Damon, it will take me a bit to get all this hair burned off.
 
You’ve got time to check your other girls,” Eddie said.