Chapter 4

It took us a bit over 45 minutes to get to Frankel’s compound. From the inside of the van, neither of us could see it, but when the garage opener sent the signal with the mine embedded the first layer of the compounds computer began talking with me.

At this moment I had only access to the basic house control system, but my Trojans slowly and carefully made inroads into the network.

The first success was the entertainment system, followed by the low security network. Then I encountered the first serious road block. The security around the more important computer systems was astounding. Nothing I could not get through, but still, much more than I expected. Frankel’s hacker turned out to be at least a fourth level hacker.

I wouldn’t have thought that a computer expert of this caliber would work with a slaver group. That changed the situation much to the worse for me. Instead of breezing through the security I had to work slowly to not alert my opponent.

In short order we were dragged out of the van, and shoved into a group of cages. The cages where just adequate enough for the bigger guys of us, and for once I was glad for my lack in stature. Not that I made some sort of happy dance. One by one they removed our cuffs, and then left us alone.

I used the time to identify the firewall, and hit a bit of luck here. It was an US Army model, just two years old. For most people it would have marked an insurmountable obstacle. But I knew not only that it was based on a much older model from the Commonwealth, I actually had the source code for both versions. That meant I could set my cluster onto the task of infiltrating the system.

Time to shut down a bit. It would take a few hours for the cluster to get into everything. Even knowing the vulnerabilities of the firewall it had to move slowly, and suppress any indication of an attack. To gain a bit of time I quickly set up a minefield in my credled account for the hacker to play with. If I estimated his ability correctly he would spend the next week coursing and reinstalling his board. At the same time I erased and then locked down my board, so he would not find anything there. The real work was done on the cluster, and unless he found the q-link he would never even guess about it.

Then I moved my attention to the outside again. The others were still complaining. Marc was bitching about my bitchiness. To the left of my cage was the blonde, while the Mute was on my right.

After a while the blonde tapped at the bars between us.

“Hey, Red. Why did you shoot down Marc so fast? I mean, yeah, he has the tact of a bull, but I think you broke the record.”

I looked into her eyes, and then shrugged my shoulders.

“Call me Veronica. And how did I break the record? Your canine friend had to threaten him to get him away from me.”

“Oh, that was simply his inability to give up. No, what I mean is that normally it takes at least five minutes before he pisses a girl off. With you, it happened in what? three sentences? Four?”

“If you mean outside of the ship, then it depends on how you count them. Do you think a single no is a sentence?”

From Marcs cage we all heard an “Aw, shut up bitch. I was just being friendly.”

Yeah, the guy was a good sport. The mutant interceded at this point.

“I would count a single no as a half sentence at best.” He or she grinned a bit.

“Well, in that case, it was six and a half sentences. And I simply wanted to be left alone, nothing more and nothing less. And, at this point nothing personal. It was not that I did not want to talk to Marc. I did not want to talk to anybody.”

“So you would give him a chance if the situation would be right?” Now I was sure that she was joking.

“Uhm, it became personal when he invaded my personal space, disrupted my peace, gripped my shoulder and refused to accept that I wanted to be alone. I can’t stand guys that can’t take a hint.”

Marcs friends began to laugh at this, which, frankly astonished me.

One of the other passengers seemed similarly surprised.

“You folk are awfully happy with the shitty situation we are in. Care to share what’s so funny?”

Black hair was the one who answered, “We are not really happy. But we don’t give up yet, and with a bit of humor everything gets easier.” And I had to face palm.

“Thank you for getting us all under tighter scrutiny. Want to make some explicit plans to escape that these slavers can listen to? Or do you leave it at this vague declaration that you will make it as hard for them as you can?” Whatever these people were, they were not professionals.

“Wow, you really can be bitchy, you know?” the mutant threw into the room.

“You nearly sound as those arrogant Pures.”

I thought it over for a moment, before I answered.

“That is mostly education and immersion into the culture. If you grew up in the system there you would sound the same.”

“Ha, bullshit! I know enough Mongrels from Seattle to know that they sound like anybody else.”

“Mongrels in the Commonwealth grow up in a different system. I spoke about the system of the Pures.”

Surprisingly it was Marc who made the connection first.

“Wouldn’t you have to be a Pure to grow up in the Pure system?”

And here it was. I could likely keep it secret, but why bother?

“Yes. And what tells you that I am not a Pure?”

It was the brunette that answered this time.

“Oh, come on, you are way too tiny to be a Pure.”

“Contrary to common belief, Pure does not automatically mean tall. Sure, as far as I know I am the smallest Pure ever, but my mother is only 8 cm taller than me. So yes, I am Pure and I grew up in the Pure school system.”

That created a moment of silence in the room. Then Marc crowed, “Shit, no wonder you are such a bitch. Damn, I had to trip over a Pure bitch. Just my luck.”

I heard a few agreeing mutterings. Just as I expected.

“And you all wonder why we Pures don’t like you? Marc had intolerable behavior. He invaded my personal space, not me his. Five minutes ago, everyone agreed that he was in the wrong. And now, just because you know that I am a Pure you agree that it was my fault. I bet you are already thinking about how this whole shit we are in is my fault to. It has to be the Pures fault. You just piss me off.”

With that I closed my eyes and ignored the assholes around me.

Not much later, the first one got taken out of his cage, only to be returned 15 minutes later with a slave collar. One by one they collared us, and then it was my turn.

In spite of no resistance from my side, the three thugs where somewhat rough. Two of them grabbed an arm each and the last walked behind me, while they dragged me through the door.

On the other side was a laboratory with several contraptions more suited to the Spanish Inquisition then to a modern world. I was shoved into one of them, and several clamps immobilized me. Then Frankel grabbed a collar from a table to the side and came to me.

“Well, little miss Pure. We got ourselves a real prize this time. You have no idea what some of our customers will pay to get one of you to play with. With a bit of upgrade and an enjoyable amount of training you will fetch quite a sum. Enjoyable for me and my boys of course. You, I fear, will be rather less entertained.”

With that he let his evil laugh out again.

I tried to remain calm, and show neither fear nor submission.

“It is not too late to take my offer. So far it was just a bit uncomfortable for me. As soon as you put that around my neck you will eventually regret it.”

His laughter became louder and he had to grab the torture rack I was restrained in to keep his balance.

“Oh yeah, you have brass ones. I will enjoy taming you. I am almost sorry that you are worth so much. I would love to keep you around as toy. But I just can’t justify it. Well, we will have a week to play with you.”