by Johnny Stone
I slowed, beginning to retch as we passed by a group of them jabbering away in quick, almost discernable speech, faces hidden within the murky depths of their long cloaks. The odor their pale, spindly bodies gave off in close proximity reminded me of something that had been left rotting in the sun for too long. I was shoved from behind, prodded relentlessly forward. No rest for the weary, not any longer.
Most of the time when I delivered cargo, it was off loaded and spirited away shortly after I landed. I rarely stayed planetside for any longer than it took to purchase a restock of supplies, or make any minor repairs if need be. I’d never been this deep into a citadel before, let alone a slave market. Fascinated disgust was a good way of describing what I felt, the closer that we came to it.
A cacophony of street vendors from around the galaxy lined the bustling causeway, selling foodstuff and oddities, rare and exquisite jewelry or vibrant handmade throw rugs. You couldn’t walk five feet without a different heckler trying to entice you into buying something. I began to see the horror of indignity that would become an all too familiar sight in my life, from here on out.
Mixed in among the vendors were the independent slavers, the little guys that made a credit here or there selling whatever happened to fall into their dirty, little hands. Most of their slavestock looked worn from years of abuse and ill treatment. I briefly met the lifeless eyes of an old man before looking down in shame. He was naked and in chains, scarred with neglect and the waxy completion of near death hinting behind sagging, malnourished skin. The tag hanging around his neck said he cost thirty credits. That was less than I’d spent on my last pair of boots.
Among the humming masses we passed a long row of naked slave girls tied together moving in the opposite direction. They were all human, but as varied in shape and size as they came. A tall slaver dressed in full environmental armor led them on a tether, his face obscured beneath a pair of multi-optic goggles and a breathing apparatus. I couldn’t help but watch the girls as we passed, wondering if that would soon be my fate.
The more I looked around, the more astounded I became. An entire cross-section of the galaxy, a microcosm of every race could be seen either leading a slave, or becoming one. The one thing that remained a constant though was the broken look of the slavestock. It didn’t matter if they were male or female, human or alien; they all had a downcast gaze of hopeless defeat about them. Probably not unlike my own, if I were to guess. I could honestly say now, that Regilain was nothing but a pit; a stinking cesspool of people that made their way through life living on the misery of others. And I’d turned a blind-eye to this, supporting it for how many years? Karma sure is a ruthless bitch.
I was jerked to a stop before a nondescript, but heavily trafficked building that stretched forever into the gloom of the wide tunnel like road. I knew we’d reached our destination, even if I hadn’t seen the large glowing sign above the main, double door entrance. Quin pressed in close, so close that the sour reek of his sweat filled my nostrils.
“Not a word, not one fucking word, or I’ll have Dobbs put you down for good, understand?” I looked up at him pitifully, as my life as a slave beginning with a downcast gaze of resignation.
A trio of armed guards at the entrance stopped us none to friendly. “Your business?”
“Name’s Quin, I’m here to make a sale. Alexi’s expecting me.” The guard scanned our small group before his eyes finally came to rest on me. He snickered, shaking his head. “Good luck, you might be able to buy lunch with what you’ll get out of her.”
I swallowed hard, inwardly crumbling just a little bit more. Was human life really that cheap here? Was I worth so little? Yeah, apparently I was, based on what he saw.
“Whatever, tough guy, where’s the new drop off point?” Quin prompted him impatiently.
The guard jerked his thumb, pointing us in the direction of a recessed gap in the building about a block away. “Property entrance is down that ally. Go through the cargo door and present her at the foreman’s desk.” Quin nodded his thanks, and we continued on.
I had to wait my turn on the foul smelling, crowed loading dock behind a large chained-gang group of mixed races. They looked terrible; dirty, beat-up and anything but tame from what I could tell. More than once, a few of them were beat into complacency with stun-sticks.
Despite the size of the group in front of me, I was presented before the Holloway Trading Company’s purchasing rep in less than ten minutes. It’s amazing how easy it is to actually sell a human being; a cursory inspection by the greasy, cigar smoking foreman to make sure you’re not already someone else’s property, and that’s it. Outside of Federation space, the laws that kept slave trade at least somewhat civil were all but extinct; it’s all about turning a profit, regardless of the consequences it has on someone else.
Shortly thereafter, I was hustled into a backroom. Holloway Trading weren’t fools and before money exchanged hands, before anything was made official, they had to see if I was actually worth the exorbitant amount that Quin was asking for me. For my sake I hoped so; this was one of those situations where being sold to Holloway Trading was probably my safest route. What else did I have to look forward to? Being a plaything for Dobbs and Quin for awhile, before being sold off to a street peddler, or dumped off in a back alley with my throat cut? The sooner I was away from those two, the better.
A tall, strikingly beautiful redhead dressed in a shimmering leather emerald suit-skirt flowed briskly into the room on clicking heels with an entourage of T’ivk brokers in her wake. I’d never met Alexi Holloway, let alone seen her before, but she simply oozed with the scent of distinguished power. Quin seemed to know her from somewhere; they shook hands lightly, looking in my direction. Her piercing gaze made me feel like a turd in the toilet bowl about to be flushed away forever.
“Is this what you intend to sell me today, Miles?” I couldn’t place Alexi’s haughty accent. The old South African Confederated Kolony, maybe? “You must be joking? The only reason I agreed to meet with you in person-”
“Alexi,” Quin cut her off. “You’ll like her, trust me. She’s well worth your time,” he cooed soothingly.
Her sparkling, dagger-like eyes bore ruthlessly into Quin. “I hope so, Miles, for your sake. If this is some sort of pathetic attempt on your part to-” Quin took a step closer, his hand hesitantly reaching out to grasp the expensive material of her jacketed arm.
“Alli…”
She pulled away gently, and her expression took on the slightest trace of softening above a rose shadow that blossomed in her cheeks. Holy shit, Quin and Alexi Holloway have something going on between them? No freaking way! How in the hell had someone like Quin ever hooked up with her? She was the richest, most successful slave broker in the entire Outer Rim.
“I told you not to call me that anymore,” she whispered with a hint of edgy remorse. “It’s over between us, you made that quite clear when you started fucking that little tramp behind my back.” Bad boy…I thought wistfully.
“Look, I told you I was sorry. It was a stupid mistake. Let me make it up to you?” Alexi shook her head, face growing hard again.
“I don’t have time for this right now, just…just show me what makes this piece of trash so special before I have the lot of you thrown out into the street along with her.”
She wasn’t fooling anyone, at least not me at any rate. She still had the hots for him; it was written all over her face. Quin stepped back with downcast eyes though, and my performance started with nothing more than a nod and the touch of a control key.
It was stronger than what I’d felt before. Every ounce of self-control and humility I had remaining was tossed aside just as readily as my clothes. I came at least twice from the sudden wash of sensation while I frantically stripped, begging to be fucked first by Dobbs and then everyone else in the room, to include the nasty T’ivk. Yuck! I wasn’t even sure that was possible. I think they laid eggs, but at the time, I could have cared l
ess. Surprisingly, none of them seemed all that impressed by my sex-crazed display.
“Any sentient could be made to do that, with some mind-altering drugs and reconditioning,” one of the brokers clicked dryly through his mandible-like mouth after Dobbs turned the pleasure stimulation off. Neither the brokers nor Alexi were even convinced the remote was actually doing anything, while they continued to discuss me like a piece of meat. The thing that did seem to interest them was seeing a display of my enhanced strength and other hardware.
A house lackey was summoned with a gravity belt that he strapped about my waist before activating it. The pull on my shoulders and legs was immediate, and I sagged momentarily under the weight until my servos kicked in. I straightened my knees, back stiff in a feeble show of defiance, with the equivalent of carrying at least an extra 200 pounds if not more. Just the fact that I was still standing at all, that I wasn’t screaming in agony, crumpled into a pile of broken bones, made the T’ivk’s dark globular eyes light up with excitement. Alexi cocked her brow at Quin with an amused expression.
I was ordered to jump as high as I could; my palms thumped off the twelve-foot high ceiling. After that I was ordered to continue with a lazy jump rope hop for nearly five minutes non-stop. The animated banter between Alexi and Quin told me my fate was now sealed; I’d just become a victim of my body and what it was capable of doing. The command came for me to stop, and I was placed in a sterile holding cell while the negotiations continued. Sure I was a little sore, I was out of shape after all, but I could have easily kept going.
I watched the negotiation emotionlessly, growing cold inside. Somewhere in the back of my mind a change had already started to fester like a puss filled sore. This was it, this was my life now, I was a slave and nothing was going to change that anytime soon. I started to revert without even knowing it into the person I’d been long ago. It was a defense mechanism that had helped me cope through the worst times of my life, and now it was needed again in order to survive. I would do what I had to do, willingly obeying my new Masters without question from now on.
It wasn’t long before the I’s were dotted and the T’s were crossed. It was official; I was now a slave belonging to the Holloway Trading Company. Alexi was more than happy to take me off of Quin’s hands after a display like that.
“Miles,” her voice was smooth as silk now. “I was wondering if you would join me in my office to…ah…finalize the transaction. I’ll admit that I’m a bit curious as to how a remarkable specimen like this came into your possession. She’s worth every credit you said plus maybe a little extra for thinking of me first, instead of that lowlife Charagin.”
“I’ll tell you all about it, Alli, by the way, I need a favor.”
She rolled her eyes with a tight-lipped smirk, shaking her head in disgust. “I should have known; you’ll never change, will you?”
Quin followed her out, giving me a toothy grin of parting satisfaction. And why shouldn’t he be happy? He was free, while taking everything from me in the process, to include my freedom. My ship would follow soon enough; a modest bribe with the bonding authority and ownership along with the authorization code and registration would be transferred in his name no questions asked. That’s how things worked in the Outer Rim, possession equaled five tenths of the law. The other half consisted of brute force.
A brief flicker of dimming emotion surged through me when Dobbs grabbed his crotch, smiling, winking playfully as he disappeared from my life. Someday you son of a bitch…I felt no desire for him whatsoever now that the remote had been surrendered to one of the brokers. Just thinking about how he’d made me act, the things I’d said to him, threatened to push me over the top. Yeah, some day I’d make him pay for what he’d done to me, and John, my stupid droid that I loved as a man. I’ll make all of them pay for everything I had yet to experience.
My first day as a piece of property, if it wasn’t bad enough already, was one rude awakening after another. Within minutes of being sold, I was fitted with my restraint collar, the ever-present symbol of slavery throughout the galaxy. It was an unadorned silver band that could be tethered to a hand held baton by an energy field similar to an electric leash. No matter how I moved the length was constant, allowing me no slack forward or back, but it did give me about a 90-degree leeway left and right. Despite my lack of maneuverability, it allowed the baton wielder an unlimited range of motion.
I was mixed in with the batch of newly purchased slaves I’d seen earlier, herded from one area to another like livestock by hard-faced men giving harsh commands through universal translators. I continued to discover how the business of trafficking lives doesn’t discriminate in the least; we were all equal now regardless of what species we were, whom we’d been in the past, or where we’d come from.
Order was always maintained despite the vast differences between us. Any trace of slave infighting or rebelliousness was quickly smashed by the guards with brutally efficient force. Even the small group of warmongering Tartans, the race of muscle-bound Neanderthals that resembled mythical Minotaur’s from earth’s past, didn’t dare cause trouble, or try to bully any of the smaller, weaker races. Besides, what was there to fight over? There was plenty of food, although it tended to be bland and tasteless for the most part, and we all had our own bunk, along with a single blanket and pillow assigned to us by our identification numbers. My new name was slave 2451. That was my life now, a number, a bunk, and a blanket and pillow.
I thought it funny that things really weren’t all that different for me now than when I was with Fleet. You were nothing more than a number to someone most of the time, you were never really in control of your destiny, and there was always an unending line to wait in. Because of the surprising similarities, my fear quickly grew distant, replaced by mind numbing boredom that once again reminded me of the military’s ‘hurry up and wait’ mentality.
I could even understand the point of our continual nudity, looking at it from a military standpoint. Clothing gave you comfort, a sense of security and individuality, or just something to hide within. By removing it from the equation, by stripping a person down to their bare essence, it keeps you off guard, humbled and subdued. It was no different than the uniformity that made the wheels of the military machine turn with regulation haircuts and precision drills you reacted to instantly without thinking. You became a thing, a piece of the larger whole with a single-minded purpose in life. It let you know exactly who held the reins of power like a slap in the face.
As the days wore on, I was shamelessly poked and prodded during the course of a full medical exam. I received a broad range of inoculations, universal decontamination and an anti-fertility implant. Not like I needed that. My DNA was taken and put on record along with a retinal scan, aromatic body chemistry profile, brain scan, and holographic photo showing me from every angle. If I ever did manage to escape in the future, I would always be hunted; it would be worse than the bounty on my head. I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere now, without my identity inevitably being discovered.
I also underwent an in-depth psyche evaluation to determine my affinity to become a slave. This I actually found interesting and a bit of a surprise. I hadn’t considered the mental condition of a perspective slave would even be a considered factor. More or less, the machine measured the level of my submissiveness and propensity to obey orders, along with my possible threat level to a potential buyer. I didn’t catch all of it, but my results had been a disappointment from what I gathered. For some reason, I was categorized as unstable, volatile, and unpredictable, thusly labeled a high risk. It appeared that I wasn’t good slave material in the long run.
I’ve never considered myself to be innately violent, or much of a leader in my opinion, content to let others make decisions for me most of my life. I could only assume the test results were due in part to my military training, a strong survival instinct, and a lifelong practice of self-reliance that I’d grown to rely on since my life fell apart at the age
of twelve. Apparently the machine was never wrong though, and if not for the remote curtailing these ‘flaws’, I would have had my brain picked apart with cerebral reconditioning, or made physically docile by means of a permanent implant. Thankfully for me, the remote was enough to pacify their fears. Besides, brainwashed or cybernetically lobotomized slaves brought in a significantly lower price, just like Quin had said.
What really threw me for a loop were the Holloway employees themselves. They acted like this was nothing more than a well paying, run of the mill job, carried out emotionlessly without the slightest bit of remorse or compassion in any sense. In the beginning, I half expected to be passed around like some sort of willing party toy with my remote on high pleasure, but I wasn’t touched sexually, or outside of necessity, by a single staff member the entire time. Alexi Holloway definitely ran a tight ship that’s for sure.
Other than when the need arose to discipline me, the slavers weren’t even abusive or cruel in my opinion. Don’t kid yourself though; there was always the pain of discipline in my life now. I was never physically beaten like I’d seen on the loading dock; none of us were that I knew of. Instead, I felt it through the tools that would instruct me in what it meant to be a slave: an electric jolt from my restraint collar, or a hand-held stunner.
At first, even if I obeyed instantly, I was still disciplined. I didn’t understand and tried to react quicker, trying to anticipate what they wanted before I was disciplined again. I didn’t realize it until later that I was being systematically broken and instilled with fear. I was being conditioned to serve with innately prompt obedience, without hesitation or question. I was learning what it was to be a mindless slave.