Slave World

by Johnny Stone

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No.”

  “Good, have her ready to be presented to Mrs. Savota in three days.”

  “Everything will be fine, Rupert, I can handle this one.” I bet you can Mister Overseer Sir. His voice rang with authority; the kind that was used to giving orders and having them obeyed, instantly. My pussy gave an involuntary shudder, ready to obey just as readily.

  “I know you can, Nathan, I have the utmost confidence in you.”

  “Follow me, 2451.” Burke turned, beginning to leave the room.

  “Sir?” It was my guard holding the leash baton.

  “Release her,” he said quietly, back still turned. The guard hesitated.

  “Sir, she’s extremely dangerous. She nearly killed one of-”

  Burke turned to face the guard with the expression of a lifeless automaton. “I know what she did, and if I wanted your opinion, Simon, I would have asked for it, now release her.” The hold on my collar dropped away, and Burke sized me up with one last cursory glance. “Follow me, 2451, and keep up.”

  I was dumbstruck. Something wasn’t adding up, but I was still too far out of it to make sense of my predicament or my Overseer. Shocked from my stupor, I took off at a half jog in order to catch up. I walked freely behind him now, unhindered by a leash or restraints. Who the hell is this guy? Mr. Todd’s voice quickly grew distant behind me.

  “Slave 2430 and 2544, you have been assigned to household entertainment. Stand and follow…”

  I came to a jerking halt as soon as I stepped out of the cool, artificially controlled environment of the processing building. It was like slamming into an invisible wall of suffocating heat, as I squinted, shielding my eyes against the harsh, sun-lit glare. A vibrantly thick breeze, not unpleasant, with an earthy smell that reminded me of a jungle, sang with the odor of hundreds of unidentifiable forms of vegetation.

  “I said keep up, 2451.”

  “I…I can’t see.” I heard Burke exhale and sensed that he’d stopped.

  “I can’t see, Sir, is the proper response 2451.”

  “I can’t see, Sir.” I immediately echoed. I heard the flick of a lighter, catching the strong smell of tobacco, making me sneeze. Why people continued to do that still amazed me. I know cancer, as well as most other forms of disease had been eradicated years ago, but it was still a nasty habit and smelled bad as far as I was concerned.

  Burke was beside me, a blurry white haze, grasping my upper arm, turning it up slightly. I instinctively pulled away, but was held fast in an iron-like grip. My servos involuntarily kicked in, but Burke kept his hold on me regardless. He released my arm after a moment, sniffing loudly in satisfied recognition.

  “Who were you with?”

  “Wha…what?”

  “I said who were you with, 2451? You have a Fleet mark on you, and I saw you talking to the Trusk earlier. Don’t do it again, and don’t use your servos against me again either. Now answer my question.” The cadence-filled strength of his voice made it easy to obey.

  “I served with the 21st Orbital Strike Squadron, 5th Fleet, and later with the 340th Assault and Retrieval Wing from ‘49 to ‘56, Sir.”

  “I figured you were aviation; you didn’t have the look of ground forces about you. Can you see better now?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Burke set a pace I could keep up with now, and I shuffled behind him in a bewildered trance, eyes frantic in an effort to take in the overwhelming beauty surrounding me. A large group of strange, colorful birds flocked among one of the nearby trees, singing and squawking. They occasionally flew overhead in two’s and three’s creating a wild blur of bright, chaotic patterns. To my right, luscious groves of fruit trees stretched to infinity. Every so often, an agricultural bot would float among them, disposing of fallen fruit on the ground, or picking the best and ripest from the branches before moving on. To my left was a rock waterfall that disappeared into a stifling, untamed jungle. Its gentle rock slope was perfect to walk up or sit on, with a large, tranquil pool at the bottom not far away. The numerous buildings scattered about reminded me of teak or bamboo bungalows in a ranch style layout. Whoa… I’m in paradise, a magical, eye-pleasing paradise.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it? Mr. Savota went to great lengths having it remodeled to his specific tastes.” I looked at Burke a little confused. Despite his words of praise, he sounded bored or uninterested. Or was it possibly contempt? “As far as I know we are the only two Sups’ on the planet.” I pursed my lips, even more confused; he seemed to be rambling. “You know, Sups’, short for super human.” I still didn’t get it. I think part of my brain might have been left in deep freeze. “501st Strike Regiment, 3rd MEU?”

  What the hell’s Burke talking about? MEU… Marine Expeditionary Unit? The light finally clicked; duh, he’s prior service, and enhanced like myself. No normal human could have kept a grip on my arm like he had. Super human indeed, I snorted, almost wanting to laugh. I’d never heard the term before.

  My brain kicked into afterburner, as the tickling of long forgotten memories clawed their way to the surface. The 501st had been a bunch of hell raising Marines based off the Intrepid, a strike carrier belonging to 5th fleet. The same ship I’d been on at one point.

  “The Death Dealers,” I blurted suddenly, causing Burke to look over his shoulder, eyeing me silently. The 501st had earned that nickname the hard way.

  “Did you support our pickup on Target the first time?” Target was the name commonly given to the Seth’Kelain homeworld among vets.

  My face paled remembering it all too clearly. That had been a rough one to say the least, a predetermined disaster in the making, fueled by the admiralty’s overconfidence and the pressuring haste of political ineptness. It was the Federation’s first attempt early in the war to knock the Seth out of it for good, and it had failed miserably. Their ground and space defenses had been hellishly brutal and deadly effective. Our losses had been horrendous along with those of the Marines and regular Army we were ordered to save in a mass exodus of defeat. It had taken the service bots aboard the Intrepid a long time to clean and sterilize the bloody aftermath from my boat’s troop compartment or what was left of it anyway.

  “Yeah, I was there, I made 18 retrievals.” The average life expectancy of a pilot on Target was 3 drops; I’d survived six times that amount through sheer luck and a lot of praying.

  Burke stopped dead in his tracks, turning to face me. “I saw some of the gutsiest flying of my career during that mission. Your people managed to pull a lot of Marines out of that meatgrinder.” Burke took off his sunglasses to reveal the most riveting pool of light gray eyes I’d ever seen. They held the kind of treacherous depth you had to be careful of; one false step and you’d drown in them forever. I started to tingle, chest growing tight. Uh oh, too late.

  The tropical jungle slowly began to thin, opening up around us, as the worn dirt path we followed came to an abrupt end before a large, sprawling single story building. That must be the stables. There were four very large men, naked, being hand bathed in the sun nearby by several generically dressed people of normal size. A scantily dressed woman of nearly equal height and bulk, wearing a fishnet top and bottoms, was running on an inclined treadmill not far away.

  I began to slow, blinking, not really believing my eyes. Something didn’t look right, and I wondered if I was hallucinating as a result of the stasis I’d been in only a short time ago. The closer I got the wider my eyes grew, as horrified shock finally set in with full force. That was when I came to a screeching halt looking at Burke. His expression appeared almost apologetic.

  “Welcome to Slave World, pony 18.” He spoke in barely a sigh, but it sounded louder than a crypt door slamming shut to me.

  I’d heard of Slave World before, the mythical place of dark whispered rumors where the super elite of the universe ruled with ultimate power. Nothing was denied them here. They made th
e laws; they were the law, and no one else. Its whereabouts were unknown except by those that needed to know. I’m in deep shit now. What the hell was I thinking? No one pays that much money for a slave to shovel shit, but this? Burke had called me pony 18 which meant I would soon be one of them.

  I searched the jungle with terrified eyes seeing my way out of this nightmare. I was close to running; anything was better than becoming one of them. Burke followed my gaze.

  “Don’t do it 18, don’t make me hurt you… please.” His pleading tone carried a menacing warning with it. I swallowed loudly, nodding solemnly before following him inside the building.

  Now I was subject to a new set of laws as once more my life was smashed beneath confusion and fear, faceless medical techs, and dizzy unconsciousness. The feel of the slab beneath me was a constant sensation as my body was changed. What am I becoming? There was tugging and pulling, bright lights and a lingering pain that floated about me like the caressing touch of a phantom. What’s happening? I was drowning in an atrocity that defied reason. I knew what was happening to me, but refused to accept it. How could they do that to another human being? But I wasn’t a human being any longer, I was a slave, and when I awoke, I would be something else entirely.

  ***

  “All done, Mr. Burke. Quite an improvement, isn’t it? This may be some of my best work.”

  My mind swirled with the tornadic ferocity of hesitant consciousness.

  I couldn’t see…

  I couldn’t move…

  Help me! Something was covering my mouth, and a tube was down my numb and scratchy throat.

  “She looked fine the way she was.” Thank God it was Burke. What’s happening, what did they do to me?

  I heard unfamiliar laughter. “What, getting a soft spot for the new pony? She is a cutie now, isn’t she?” Fifteen hours had passed while I slept.

  Burke growled, deep and ominous. “If you ever so much as breathe a word like that again… Never say that again, Thomas, ever.”

  “Yes, Mr. Burke. I didn’t mean-”

  “Get all that crap off, I need to get her registered and fitted for her gear. I’m running short on time, and have to start her training immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.” The tube was pulled out of my throat causing me to retch. I felt hands on my face as a glimmer of light began to seep in.

  “Dim the overheads; I think she has light-sensitive eyes.”

  There was a pause before delicate fingers removed something from my face. I blinked, trying to clear them. The room was bathed in a shady fog of gray. I could barely make out the image of Burke and another man standing close by. My eyes felt funny and ached. My vision seemed different, and it was partially obscured by long blonde hair. Wait? I don’t have long hair, not this long anyway.

  I was still naked and restrained to the auto-doc. The slab began to hum beneath me, turning upright, putting me into a standing position. I felt the light touch of the floor beneath my slightly elevated feet. What the hell…My breasts! They looked, or more correctly felt huge, and my skin grew taut under the downward pull of their weight.

  “My feet, where did my feet go,” I giggled, still under the lingering effects of the anesthesia. I couldn’t stop giggling, and what made it even funnier is that I didn’t recognize the voice doing it. The color of my skin looked funny too, but maybe it was my imagination. I started to hum, rocking my head from side to side. “Whoa, do I feel funky.”

  “Turn up the lights, slowly, and get a mirror. I want her to see herself before we take the restraints off.”

  The man in a surgical uniform moved a large full-length mirror in front of me, before touching the lighting control on his armband. A stranger with light blue eyes set beneath long sweeping lashes, came into view. I had brown eyes though. My breath faltered and my mouth moved like a fish out of water. My skin was white, bleached looking, and angelically perfect without a single mole, blemish or freckle from what I could tell. I didn’t even have the large, wicked looking scar on my shoulder from when I was a kid any longer.

  My eyes roamed in morbid fascination about my newly trimmed body. 120 pounds maybe… Oh wow, I have a waist again! Other than the hair on my head, I was as bald as a cue ball. Poor little panty hamster…

  Jesus, my boobs are huge! I think they’re my boobs. Even partially concealed by the platinum blonde hair that cascaded over my shoulders and down to my navel, they looked like DD if not E cups. What made them seem even larger than normal was the lack of any sagging whatsoever. I could kill someone with these things. Where were you two when I was younger?

  I started to wiggle my shoulders, jostling my breasts from side to side with a slurred grin that may have been erotic if I wasn’t drooling on myself. “You’re getting sleepy… sleepy… You’re now under my boob power. Kneel before the power of my boobs!”

  “You’re definitely going to have your hands full with this one, Mr. Burke,” the doctor chuckled.

  Burke just shook his head. “I can see that.”

  My face… Wow, I’m a babe! I looked completely different, like some kind of super model, like Miss Galaxy or something. It held a look of ageless beauty now, with high delicate cheekbones, a petite little nose and full inviting lips with a sharp widow’s peak of stark sensuality; my mother wouldn’t even recognize me. I looked perfect, that was until I saw my ears.

  A pair of full size white horse ears that matched the color of my skin, stood tall and proud through my new hair. They twitched. Oh my God, did I do that? Then I saw something that defied logic even worse than my ears. My lips started to quiver, unbelieving. A horsetail, being the same color as my hair, swished, brushing against my thigh. I felt it move, I’d made it move. I was one of them now, just like the other ponies I’d seen outside.

  Burke had known somehow; he’d known what I would do after the terrifying inconceivability of what I’d become finally sank in. I screamed, bucking in primeval fear, pulling at my restraints. The voice of a stranger, softer and more feminine, lashed painfully at my new ears. This only made me scream louder in panic fueled madness. The auto doc began to creak and snap under me as metal began to contort and high-density reinforced plastic gave way. I pulled and pulled with every servo-assisted muscle in my body in an attempt to free myself.

  “Sedate here, quickly, she’ll injure herself if you don’t!” Burke cried distantly through the red haze in my mind.

  A warm sensation flooded my veins with immediate effect. I grew calm and woozy, head spinning as my vision jumped and blurred. I continued to tug and pull, but my efforts were weak and half-hearted now. My head drooped; brain turning to terrified mush. The last thing I remembered was the swish of a horsetail tickling my leg.

  ***

  I was lying on my side, lost in an erotically bizarre dream of frolicking horses when my vision slowly came into focus on the ceiling above me. I blinked several times wiping away the grogginess with a hand I didn’t quite recognize. That was when the nightmare returned. I stumbled awkwardly to my feet, backing into the nearby corner, wincing in pain. I reached back to touch the tender spot of my tailbone that had a horsetail grafted to it.

  Burke was lounging in a chair across from me, legs crossed, with a pocket computer display screen under his nose in the otherwise empty room.

  “You might as well sit back down until I’m finished,” he said flatly, eyes still locked on the screen.

  I gave a weak scowl, returning to the couch as I was told. Then I discovered something else unexpected about my new body; I’d never be able to sit normally again in a closed back chair or couch. With a tail in the way, it looked like reclining in a leaning ball on one hip, was what it was going to take for me to be somewhat comfortable ever again.

  I gave a slight grimace from the gut wrenching ache in the pit of my stomach. I covered it with my hand, pushed down slightly with a wheeze of pain. That’s when I caught sight of the unnatural light pink hinting out from between my thighs. I turned
away from Burke slightly, giving him an embarrassed glance, while spreading my legs slightly in exploration. My outer labia were fuller and almost puffy, definitely larger than normal in a weird sort of way. Damn my guts hurt, what the hell did they do to me?

  My fingers started to roam tentatively over my body while I waited for Burke, touching it and my long silky hair for the first time in my life. My skin felt so daintily soft. I touched my ears, moving up their length letting the odd sensation sink in. I touched my tail, running my fingers through the genetically engineered hair, pulling on it gently to see if it was really a part of me. I don’t believe it, I’m a horse-girl.

  My lip curled into a slight frown while rubbing absentmindedly at my shoulder. The doctor had removed my somewhat gaudy, yet proudly displayed unit tattoo from when I was with the 21st Orbital Strike Squadron; a black falcon diving in the attack with lightning bolts in the background. My bar code and registration number was still there; they were permanent, that is, unless you wanted to take my arm off.

  “You have one of two choices, pony 18; you can either accept this and your new life making the best of it or not. If you don’t, your life will be hell, trust me.”

  “I’m already in hell,” I replied softly, hands going to my lap. My voice still blew my mind; I didn’t even know who I was anymore.

  Burke exhaled, looking up at me. “You may think so, but things could have been worse. The slaves in the recreation center are in hell. The slaves that entertain your new Master night and day, they’re in hell. The ones assigned to the repro… Look, the ponies are treated better than any of his other pets and slaves. Your life won’t be that bad here compared to most.”

  “It stopped being my life a long time ago.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, 18. There’s nowhere for you to run or hide. Even if you did make it into the jungle, it’s overgrown with dangerous flora and fauna. Creatures roam it unhindered, stalking one another and any escapee’s that do make it that far. Not even your enhancements would keep you alive for very long. This is your life now, 18, this and nothing else. No one has ever escaped from Slave World, and the sooner you accept the fact, the better off you’ll be.”