Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind
Slave World 2
The Ties That Bind
by Johnny Stone
ISBN:
978-1-939916-82-2
A Pink Flamingo Ebook Publication
Copyright © 2014, All rights reserved
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Erikson Robotics, Sub Level 4
Reykjavik, Iceland Earth
Six Months ago
The stainless steel chair, bathed in blinding light from the depths of a high-vaulted ceiling, is a living nightmare for the unfortunate souls who find themselves strapped into it. It is a device of extinct morality, and of pain and truth. It is a device where the ends justified the means, much like the brutal torture chambers of old. The only difference today, is in the methods used to extract the information. Barely controlled violence and crude mechanical devices meant to rend and tear the human body, has given way for scientific precision and computers. Now, an interrogator is able to exert the precise amount of pain, at precisely the correct location, at precisely the correct moment in time, to gain the information they seek. In most cases, that is.
Dr. Andrew Gniedin crossed his arms, stepping in front of the subject dotted with electrodes and sensory equipment, desperately trying to think of some form of leverage to break him that hadn’t already been tried. In addition to holding a doctorate in Bio-Mechanical Psychology and Physiology, he was also a master in the field of electronic interrogation. Until yesterday, no man or woman had withstood his methods of questioning for more than 20 minutes, yet his current source of frustration had remained defiant for an unbelievable 16 hours.
At first glance the subject, Dale Walthorn, appeared to be exactly who he claimed to be; a middle aged, automated machinery sales representative attempting to pander his particular brand of wares to the executives of Erikson Robotics. He’d been thoroughly searched and all his possessions analyzed for covert, combined uses. The security personnel who had screened and admitted him to the facility noticed nothing out of the ordinary or innately suspicious about him in the least. Given his profession, his cybernetic enhancements were mundane if not slightly outdated - a CR4 Executive Class Microprocessor along with a wireless Net modem, an outdated finger jack, and a run of the mill, high-end optical enhancement. Even his physical appearance wasn’t worth a second look, like a bland consistency of average height and weight. To the trained eye, to someone like Gniedin, he was too ordinary, fitting the classic profile of a corporate agent.
His supposed identity had been verified, and just as Gniedin had expected, it was conspicuously inconspicuous, like a physical ghost of nebulous substance. Everyone seemed to know of him, yet didn’t really know him. He lived alone. He traveled frequently due to work, and kept to himself with no close friends or living family members. The records showed that he had been married at one time, but his wife and two sons had died ten years ago. How convenient… The entire account of his lineage and immediate family, or lack thereof, had made Gniedin chuckle.
Of course, there were in depth records and memorabilia to corroborate the story of his life; all the normal things that a person accumulates, from vids of him in high school track, to traffic violations, to winning runner up salesman of the year. There was nothing about the subject that would draw any unwanted attention or raise suspicion, at least until you started to dig deeper and looked beneath the surface of his impassive face and stone cold gaze. Somehow, without outside aid, he had vanished into thin air at the conclusion of his business meeting, bypassed some of the most sophisticated surveillance equipment in existence, and infiltrated a secured portion of the building, which was in fact a covert R&D research laboratory for Burke Industries. He then killed four armed, highly trained security guards with improvised weapons without raising the alarm, hacked into a secured database to extract unknown information, and finally corrupted an incorruptible AI with a fatal virus rendering it brain dead.
The entire building had been plunged into darkness for nearly thirty minutes, as dead as the brain that had once controlled it. The fatal virus also created a situation of network isolation as adjoining brains cut all ties with the infected host, ensuring that a proxy brain wouldn’t follow its failsafe programming to assume the duties of building administration. It was a nearly perfect escape, as the subject quickly wound his way through the chaos of memorized corridors towards an emergency exit that no longer required identification verification to open. He almost succeeded, but almost wasn’t good enough in this case. Minutes away from safety, the subject tripped over a deactivated maintenance bot and bounced his head off the floor, knocking himself unconscious.
Now it was Gniedin’s job to unravel the mystery of exactly who the subject really was, what rival corporation he worked for, and what industrial secrets he had attempted to steal. Thus far he’d failed at every turn, learning nothing about him except a carefully scripted rendition of a make-believe life. It was in this failure, that Gniedin he had discovered the most useful information of all.
Other than one mishap of fate, or extremely bad luck on the subject’s part, his skills and level of proficiency were far above the norm, even for a corporate operative. The most shocking aspect about him was his mind itself though; it was a masterfully conditioned machine for resisting interrogation. Every specialized chemical concoction in Gniedin’s repertoire had the effect of sterile water in his veins. Breaking into his brain to dig out the truth by means of cerebral taping and deep hypnosis, had run into an unbreachable wall no different than the unexpected security of his seemingly normal microprocessor.
Gniedin turned away from the subject with the foreboding sense of continued failure, nodding one last time to his assistant seated before a manual user interface computer.
A gradual mist of billowing steam from below, fed from bowels of the earth itself, slowly immersed the subject. He had been given a drug to dilate his vascular system, increasing his heart rate and blood pressure, in essence, increasing his pain and suffering as he was slowly steamed alive. As with every time in the past over the last several hours, when the last resort of distasteful, physical torture was used against him, the subject screamed out a steady chorus of nursery rhyme lyrics.
“Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow!”
Gniedin shook his head in anger after listening to several more minutes of wailing gibberish, before signaling his assistant to turn off the steam. The subject’s vital signs were nearing a sustained, danger level again.
The only logical explanation at this point for the subject’s staunch resistance, was that he had undergone some sort of specialized, sub-conscious conditioning. He wasn’t a corporate agent, Gniedin was sure of it now, confirming his earlier suspicions. In most cases a corporate agent could be broken with something as simple as being bought and turned. This one had too much at stake to divulge his true identity, it was painfully obvious now that he would take that with him to the grave. That left only one explanation, and the realization of it sent a deathly shiver down Gniedin’s spine.
“Paul, erect a privacy barrier around our guest. I need to make a call.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Within seconds an opaque dome shimmered to life around the subject from the ground up, completely blocking him from the outside world.
“Open an encrypted priority channel to Miss Burke, please. Privacy bypass authorization G-9105.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Gniedin closed his eyes, raising his face to the ceiling, composing his thoughts, waiting for the call to be accepted from across a thousand light years. She was not an easy person to work for; a business and financial prodigy that demanded results from her human employees with the same speed and precision that one might expect from an AI. You either performed above the standard, zero defects, or you were replaced by someone who could. She was also the most devilishly clever, subtly vindictive, and perversely creative person that he had ever met. Her recent fascination with genetic manipulation attested to that. Of course, Gniedin valued his position within her inner circle, not to mention his life, to ever openly voice even a hint of his true feelings about her.
A youthfully seductive voice, thick with unexpected playfulness, cut through his thoughts as easily as the warm air of the interrogation room. Music played in the back ground, heavy and slow, and wickedly provocative. It reminded Gniedin of filthy sex in audio form.
“Andrew, darling, it’s not nice to keep me waiting like this. I assume you have good news for me? You know how much I hate to be disappointed.”
Gniedin swallowed hard, clearing his throat.
“Yes, Ma’am, I mean no, I’m afraid I don’t. The subject...” A riveting crack of flesh meeting flesh, and a muffled moan cut him off in mid sentence.
“Did I tell you to stop?” Her tone suddenly turned ruthless, rife with pent up sexuality. “Get your face back in there and make me cum, you little bitch. Now you were saying, Andrew?”
Gniedin’s voice caught in his throat, and he fought desperately to find it again. Just the mental image of what she was doing at the moment… He’d disturbed her during ‘playtime’, and he knew he was on dangerous footing at the moment. Something like this had happened once before, and as before, her emotions currently seeking pleasure, would be running high. That could quickly turn to uncompromising anger in an instant, and that anger would be directed solely at him. Not to mention the poor fool that was brave enough to spend intimate moments alone with her.
“I’ve been unable to ascertain any more information on the subject at this time as he’s being, difficult.”
The music ceased in the background of the transmission, replaced by heavy breathing reminiscent of a slow pant, followed by foreboding silence.
“I don’t pay you for excuses, Doctor, I pay you for results,” she said softly, gathering her breath for the coming storm. Gniedin still flinched when her voice suddenly rose to a shrill crescendo of rage. “And I want them! Yesterday! Do you hear me, you fucking worm!”
“Ma’am, I don’t—” Gniedin stuttered.
“Shut up! I’m tired of your incompetence. Stop pussyfooting around with all of your textbook formulas and theories and simply break him, Andrew, or I’ll break you. Do you understand?”
“Ma’am, I have reason to believe that the subject is not a corporate operative.”
“What? Of course he is! Ever since I started this pony project my competitors have been trying to steal it, they see the potential in this as much as I do. It’s been one set back after another over the last year and I’m tired of it. Even with the loss of my field testing facility and Stage 2 Prototype I’m so close… Find out who he works for Doctor, no more excuses.”
Gniedin nervously cleared his throat.
“I believe he may be a FedSec Agent.”
“Internal Affairs?” There was a note of cool professionalism in her tone again, if not cautious fear. “And he didn’t suicide when he was captured?”
“No, Ma’am. He didn’t have the chance, I removed the explosive charge from his aorta before awaking him.”
“I see… Continue.”
Gniedin regained some of his fragile confidence, finding himself back on familiar ground again. At least she was listening. He quickly recounted his findings on the subject, focusing in on the data that had led to his final conclusion. There was really no other explanation at this point, that Federation Internal Affairs had gotten wind of her illegal genetic manipulation project for slave sales in the outer Rim, or more specifically, on Slave World. If that were the case…