Chapter 15 - A Friend

The middle of the following morning, Jill had gone to the Policebot Station to see what she could find out and the girls were talking about what had happened and what might happen next. They were sitting in the Choosing Room wearing their off-duty clothes, mostly tunics and trousers, though one or two had dresses on, and having a drink from the House of Joy's customer drinks, rather than the innocuous imitations they were more used to. Suddenly, and unannounced this time, more policebots arrived in a large aircar and all the girls thought they were now going to be arrested. Then a large, well-fed man came out of the aircar and into the House of Joy.

Sitting down in the Choosing Room he said, "Right, let's see what we have here. Parade for me as you would for a customer."

"What, dressed as we are?" asked Martha, "Or stripped as we are in the evenings?"

"Please yourselves," the man said, "But you won't attract much custom dressed like that!"

"Who are you, and why are we doing this for you?" ventured Martha.

"Never mind who I am or why, just do it!"

He seemed so much in authority that most of the girls started to strip, but Martha stopped them with a gesture.

"Why should we give you a free show? Can't you afford to pay somewhere else, or is this just so that we can be taken down to the courts three-parts naked?" she demanded.

The large man laughed and said, "Well, I think that tells me who the new Madame is going to be, doesn't it? You seem to have the girls under control and to have no fear of any man who walks in here, even if he is the local Policebot Director."

It dawned on Martha that this was the sadistic local Policebot chief that Madame had warned them about, and who had, presumably, ordered Madame's arrest yesterday; and he seemed to be taking over owner's rights on the House of Joy and to be appointing her as the new Madame. Were things to go on as though nothing, or next to nothing, had happened?

Some explanation was obviously needed, so Martha summoned up her most frigid and commanding tone of voice and said, "Either tell us what has happened to Madame and what your plans are for this House of Joy, or get out, or arrest us. We can't waste time parading for fools like you, so decide and do it, now!"

The Director looked at her with considerably more respect and replied in measured tones, "I can see you will do well in this business. Right, your Madame has been forcibly retired because she laughed at the size of the wrong man's prick; he was a politician and he swore to get her imprisoned. He did his best and she was sentenced to jail, but somehow she escaped from police custody and my policebots can't seem to find her anywhere, even though they are supposed to be infallible and she has an identity implant like everyone else."

He winked in the most silly and stagy way and some of the girls giggled.

"The House of Joy will be open again tonight as usual and had better keep up with its charitable donations to the well known local Orphans' Fund," he continued.

Turning specifically to Martha he said, "Here is the combination for the office safe and the setting code for the doors here; you are now the Madame and provided all continues as profitably as before, you have a completely free hand. Effectively this place belongs to you. Don't change the name of the House, or change the services offered. You open in eight hours time so you have a lot of reading to do very quickly in that office. First thing to do is to pick a Top Girl you personally can trust; her earning power doesn't matter, but Jill isn't coming back. I'll be here without an official band of tin can officers at about half-past seven and I'll have my free parade then and I'll have Li Kim to thrash after the parade. That also will be free."