Searching for the Kingdom Key

by TylerRose.

  He fiddled with and handed over the device Shestna had used.

  “It is set. I’ll send someone now and then to see how you are. You’ll have an assignment waiting when you come back. K’Tran’s new application is officially filed. It’s yours when you’re ready.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she scowled, and teleported to the penthouse of Crecorday station.

  Baener looked at Julian with an expression Julian recognized.

  “What kind of girl is this? She’s not much like an eighteen year old Earth girl. She speaks with the greatest conviction and determination.”

  “It’s the Widening, I’m sure. She’s still growing into her abilities and the broadening intellect. She is stronger with her anger. The more angry she is, the more decisive and implacable she becomes.”

  “She speaks with the conviction of an Ercoli Cursing Prophet.”

  “Because she is one, with exception of being from Ercoli,” Julian sighed.

  “Which means she is right and knows it, whether she has the proof or not.”

  Julian could not shake his head no or nod for yes.

  “So let us find her the proof. It’s time your father no longer held this Congress prisoner to his personal agendas,” Baener said. “The choice is to stand with her or get out of her way. I will stand with her.”

  “EVERYBODY OUT!” she shouted to the humping mass of naked bodies on the raised living room platform.

  The mass stopped moving and, seeing her, broke apart to flee to the lift and teleport pad.

  “Where is Jeera?” she demanded.

  A sleepy form came around the divider between the front of the penthouse and the bedrooms.

  “I’m here, Ma’am.”

  “It’s done,” Tyler told her. “Speenar and Solomon have both been taken and the girls from other times are being rounded up and taken back. Get dressed so we can take this station in hand. Where is Arran?”

  “I’m doing what you told me to do,” he said over the communicator watch she’d taken from Solomon’s suite. “You left ten minutes ago.”

  “Keep at it. Assemble all the Rolcha and employees currently on the station. Tell them all to go to the strip club. I’ll be there at the top of the hour. Have someone go to Solomon’s suite and bring me my belongings. They’re hanging by the door and on the floor under the clothes. And—”

  “My Lady,” said as if he was saying “look here, bitch.”

  “If you want me to get my job done, then you must let me go. Give petty orders to a servant, not your Security Chief.”

  He hung up on her.

  “Fine. Where are the servants for this apartment?” she asked aloud.

  “Here, Ma’am,” came a timid voice from the kitchen doorway.

  Two young women. She repeated the order about her clothes to one of them.

  “Now you, get some men and take every disgusting thing of no value that belonged to Speenar and chuck into the incinerator. Get me new furniture. Sofas, beds, dining tables. Any surface that was fucked on is to be replaced. Get a team up here to scrub this apartment from ceiling to floor to get the stench of him out of here.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” she curtsied.

  “One more thing,” Tyler stopped them.

  They both turned to look at her, fearful for what the next order might be.

  “You’ll never be forced to sexual service again so long as I own this station.”

  They smiled and went about their tasks while Tyler called down to the station maintenance office to tell them of the change in ownership. She set the crews not already on the job cleaning the station from top to bottom and painting fresh every wall and ceiling that could be painted. Hire people from the planet below if needs be, to get the job done within two days. Jeera came out and Tyler gave her the list of rules.

  “Make a hundred copies of this and bring them to the strip club at the top of the hour.”

  Jeera read as she walked, and stopped at the teleporter.

  “Seriously, you’ll enforce this?”

  “Absolutely,” Tyler replied.

  Next she asked for an immediate meeting with the Admiral in charge of mechanical operations of the station itself. Generators exploding had her immediate concern.

  “I don’t get many visits from owners,” he said in the central control room when she arrived. “Only when things go wrong.”

  “I’m here to prevent things from going wrong. These generators are old?”

  “Very old. About fifty years past their limit. No one wants to pay to replace them. No one wants to take the time it takes to replace them. They replace one generator only as absolutely necessary.”

  “But that puts a strain on it, to be supporting two lesser machines.”

  “It does,” he nodded.

  “I will pay the money and I will take the time. How quickly can you get three generators here and how much will it cost?”

  “They can be here within a couple weeks. They take a week to install. And they cost half a billion dollars.”

  “Total or each?” she asked.

  “Total.”

  “That the best deal you can get?”

  “I have had the most current quotes on hand every six months.”

  She leaned against the wall, looking out at the three story tall generators that would explode in the not too distant future.

  “Get fresh prices. Try to get an installment plan if you can.”

  “How much can I say we are willing to put down?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll get back to you soon as I see the finances and where all the money is. Also, look into solar panels. If we can generate our own electricity, that would help new generators last longer. Thank you, Admiral.”

  Time for a meeting with her bookkeeper.

  “Solomon’s accounts have some three million Ruds. Speenar’s have a total of ten million. The station itself has twenty million in the daily fund.”

  She needed half a billion.

  “Where’s the rest of it going?”

  “What rest of it?” Vaus asked.

  “Oh come on. This station takes in a fuckton of money every day. Where is it slipping through? Are we paying a kickback to the planet below? Are we paying someone off?”

  “Yes to both.”

  “Then both end right now. When they have a problem with it, make them make an appointment to see me.”

  “You are playing with fire, Rose.”

  “No. They are. Let’s go talk to the Rolcha.”

  She took the stagewith all the house lights on so everyone could see everyone, and asked for seats to be taken or pull up a piece of floor if there weren’t enough seats.

  “I won’t keep you long. I know most of you would rather be sleeping. You know I came here only a few days ago. I’ve made the effort to talk to as many of you as I could without revealing myself. Speenar is gone. Solomon is gone. This station is mine and I’m going to institute a great many changes. Jeera, if you would please.”

  The photocopied sheet went around the room.

  “If you cannot read it, it will be read to you. These are the rule changes that go into effect immediately. First and foremost, there are no more twenty minute, twenty buck humps. You are all one hundred Ruds per hour and they must pay for the full hour up front. If they finish in fifteen minutes and can’t get it up again, that is not your problem. Play cards the rest of the time if you want. There are no free fucks and no free sucks. There are no ten buck sucks in corners.”

  She gave them a moment to let that sink in.

  “All transactions that require the patron to rent a room must go through Jeera, who will be up here. You will have hand held receipt machines for transactions with patrons who already have a room. Bookkeeping will be meticulous and audited every night. Your earnings will immediately be transferred into your bank accounts. You’ll have bank books and cards as soon as we can make them.”

  “What is a bank book?” someone raised a hand.

  �
��A little book the bank issues to tell you how much money you have saved,” she explained. “I’m serious. You will keep your own money.”

  Smiles began to perk up around the room.

  “The station will close to new arrivals at the twenty fourth hour every night. We are creating the bank into which your share of the money will be deposited. It will be your money in a sixty forty split. Meaning you keep sixty percent and the station gets forty. You can pick up your money and leave whenever you want.”

  “But we have debts,” someone said.

  “I know you think you do. Station books are going to be very carefully audited starting today. I know the kinds of crap games that have been played to keep you enslaved. We will sort out what is real and what is not, and as soon as we know how much money is owed you, you’ll know. I will not force you to work while we’re straightening out the books; but I would greatly appreciate your staying. I still need Rolcha. You are now making sixty Ruds per hour of your own money, for one patron an hour. You decide what time you start work each day. You decide when you will end work each day. But you must work at least three hours per day for four days out of every station week.

  “Considering what has been demanded of you until today, I do not think it is so much. Considering how much more money you stand to make starting when we next open, there is a tremendous amount of money to be made. If you cooperate with me, I will cooperate with you. Some of you were stolen here. If you want to leave, put your names on the list Vaus has and then go wherever you want to go. We will check your books first and get those funds to you.”

  “We can go home?” someone asked.

  “Of course you can. Selling flesh for an hour’s fun is not illegal. Bringing you here against your will was. You are all free to leave whenever you want. Every single one of you. Even the wait staff. This is now an ‘employment at will’ station. You can pick up and leave right now and I will not do a thing to stop you. A call to the Landers will get you a ride home, I’m sure. Anytime you want it.”

  Glances exchanged, distrust turning to hope and some body language easing. They were more interested in what she had to say.

  “Those of you who will agree to stay and work will check in with Jeera when you’re ready to start work. One more thing. We will no longer use the Rolcha rooms for our business. You will go to the room of the patron. That means you can pick a friend and pick a room downstairs, and have a little space to yourselves where horny men cannot bother you.”

  “How do we get the clients?” someone asked.

  “Easy. Pick a spot somewhere on the station. Talk to the men. Flirt with them at the gaming tables. Talking and flirting is free. If they buy you supper or a drink, all the better. When they want to take you to their room, you run their card through your machine —You’ll have card readers just like the wait staff. Slide the card. Enter how many hours. Give the client a receipt. Go do your thing. Before you finish for the night, you will report your totals and turn in the machine. The receipts will be reconciled and the amounts deposited into your accounts as previously stated.”

  “No cash transactions?”

  “You handle no cash,” she confirmed. “If it must be cash, it must be done with Jeera or whomever is at the table. If you don’t have cash on you, you cannot be robbed of that cash. Card readers only work one way. Any refunds have to come through me. They won’t like that answer.”

  “They can just beat us.”

  “Only if they want me to beat them,” Tyler replied. “And I promise you that I will beat them far worse than any of you have ever been beaten.”

  “Why should we believe you?” someone asked.

  “Because I’m telling the truth. We can all make a tremendous amount of money. There will be no more drug trade on my station. There will be no more rape. There will be no more beatings. There will be no more slavery. That is the end of it. Talk with each other and decide what you want to do. I have to go to another meeting.”

  This one with the owners of the stores and vendors, in the large restaurant. First, vendor cart operators were given a reduced rate for their future rents and no longer had to pay profits to the station. Stores never did have to pay profits but their rent was even worse than the vendor carts. They would be given a lower rate as soon as she and Vaus had gone over the contracts and determined what a fair rate would be.

  One more meeting, this time with the male wait staff. She offered them the opportunity to make money as Rolcha.

  “We are going to be catering to a higher class of clientele,” she explained to them. “There will be women who will want to rent your services. And men.”

  Glances exchanged as men who had hidden their homosexuality as a matter of survival showed new interest.

  “Tell Jeera if you are willing to work as Rolcha. We are no longer using the Rolcha rooms. Our comfort workers will be allowed to go to the hotel rooms and suites from now on.”

  Next for the department heads. They met in one of the conference rooms and the first thing Tyler did was order up food.

  “Let’s be seated so we can discuss further changes,” Tyler said, taking away the chair at the foot and claiming for herself the head of the table.

  “Vaus, send a couple trustworthy girls down to the planet to shop for evening wear. We have girls of all sizes, so they are to buy out all size ranges for any particular style of gown. Most of the men are within a closer range. Assign a wardrobe manager. All items purchased by the station are to be returned to the station at the end of their working day. After this purchase, they’ll have their own money and will buy their own clothing if they wish.”

  “How much is this wardrobe manager to earn?” Vaus asked.

  “We’ll discuss that during our own meeting. You’ve all seen the new rules. They are to be posted in Arrivals and every person who comes here must sign saying they have read and understand these rules. Post them in every lift, on the walls outside the strip club and on the ends of every row of hotel rooms. They are to be posted in every shuttle bay. Every person on this station who works for this station is required to uphold these rules. If you see a patron strike a Rolcha, male or female, that patron is to be detained and I will decide if they are to be deported. Every room is to be equipped with a vocal call for help. The word is ‘fire’ in whatever languages are spoken by the Rolcha. If one of them calls the word fire, a security detachment will be sent to their location at once to intervene,” she said directly to Arran. “The safety of the Rolcha is your number one priority. The ending of drug trade and use on this station is your second highest priority.”

  “If I’m going to watch over a hundred Rolcha, I need more men.”

  “Then hire them.”

  She turned to the Admiral.

  “How goes the new generators?”

  “I have gotten a quote of four hundred fifty thousand Ruds to be split into three payments over six years. They will replace one generator, wait two years, replace another, wait two years, replace the third. Each will take four days of work and it will give you time to save up the next payment.”

  She sat back in her seat, head tilting to think about this. “It’s fair. But I’m sure we can do better. Contact the Balnaatrus. They love a good challenge and are fantastic engineers. They also have a soft spot for a hard luck story. Explain to them that I’ve just taken over and am turning this place around and I’m terrified the old generators are going to explode on me any minute and take my hundreds of employees and thousands of patrons with them. Once we have the generators, will this station be mobile?”

  “It’s mobile now, if you don’t mind going slow and working the engines too hard.”

  “We’ll wait until we have more power. Thank you. You can go if you like, Admiral.”

  He did, rising from his seat and then pausing. “I may be a cranky old man; but I know a good thing when I see it. You have my full support in doing what must be done to rid this station of the criminal element that has ruled it for too long.”

>   She could only smile and thank him. Food arrived a moment after he left, and was set out on the side table as a buffet. The group paused to get their plates and she continued when they were all at the table again.

  “I’m getting new uniforms for wait and support staff. They’ll be color coded so I know at a glance where a person works and security will know if they are in a place they should not be. When I have the colors decided, I’ll pass out the list. Vaus, set up a bank on station for the employees. Contact banks on the planet and see if one of them would like to install a branch.”

  “I will, but if I wanted to do some interplanetary banking, I would want to talk to the Deek’Traiians. They are brutally scrupulous in their figures but ask no questions about origins of the person owning the account,” Vaus replied.

  “Then you would not be tied to the planet below,” Arran said. “Especially if you expect to move the station.”

  “Very well. Contact Deek Trai. Is it three, four or five?” she asked.

  “There is only a four right now. None of the other planets have reached interplanetary travel,” Arran said.

  Interesting. She’d not known Deek Trai V was such a recent addition to the Congress.

  “Next, make sure the Theater is fully ripped out with new seats installed, cleaned from top to bottom and disinfected. Repaint it too. What things have you wanted to do that the former owner wouldn’t let you?” she asked, and spent the next half hour listening to ideas.

  Some she approved at once. Others she liked but needed more information. Only one thing did she outright refuse – to have a team of guards around her.

  “I will not act like I’m afraid on my own station,” she said.

  “I don’t care if you act like it. You are a target and you will always be a target so long as you try to enforce these new rules.”