Chapter 2

"Wakey wakey."

I find myself in a small, dark, windowless room. As my confusion clears, I discover I am strapped down to some sort of seat with my legs spread widely apart. Beneath the many strong bands holding me against the molded frame, a rubbery grey suit stretches tightly over my body.

Across from me sits a stunning woman; she wears a gleaming catsuit which, aside from the red collar, is as black as night. The glossy reflection of the dim ceiling light delineates her contours; I can even see her chest rising and falling lightly as she breathes. Where I come from, this is not something we see every day. She notices my wandering eyes.

"You like our uniforms, don't you? We like them too." She smiles. "But on to business."

With the slightest rustlings of her uniform, she gets up and begins to pace slowly. There is more than a hint of enjoyment in her voice as she continues.

"It seems, my darling, that you are in quite a bit of trouble. Apparently you were sneaking around without identification, trying to pass back north under cover of darkness, when the border guard took you down. They were almost done filling in the forms for the standard five-year jail sentence when they felt the canister sewn into the lining of your jumpsuit."

Canister? In all the years I'd used that jumpsuit, I'd never felt anything. And surely it would have been noticed when after that last jump, I was asked to leave the suit behind for repai--ohhh.

The officer pivots dramatically to face me. "And what did they find in that canister? Film copies of our military spec sheets and drawings."

Ah, crap.

"Naturally, that changed everything. The border documentation was immediately destroyed. You were promptly conducted under heavy guard here to the base, where tonight you are to stand trial before the high court on charges of espionage." She leans in and gleefully places her hands over my strapped wrists. "And, pardon my language, but it looks to me like you're royally screwed."

Glumly I agree. Someone has set me up for deep, deep trouble.

She resumes her pacing. "In the meantime, you will be held here. Perhaps you should use the time to figure out how you're going to explain yourself. You're also welcome to try to escape -- though I should point out that, as part of your preparation for the trial, I'm about to activate your control suit." Since realizing the severity of my predicament, I have not really been very concerned about the strange suit I am wearing.

"Embedded in its fabric, you see, are multiple processors, powered wirelessly, that transmit your location and the position of your major joints. Using fine wires sewn into the suit, the processors also verify that the suit is still intact and snugly fitted around you. In other words, this suit is a guard you can never escape, and it knows everything you're doing. Recently we've even been using the joint data to tell us where prisoners are moving too much and need their restraints tightened down." I realize that maybe the grey suit is not so benign after all.

She produces a small device like a key fob and begins playing with it lazily. "But the suit does more than mere monitoring. Through it we can administer any strength or quality of electric, eh, 'inducements' that may strike our fancy. And as a last resort, we can also trigger an embedded explosive charge that will most certainly stop you in your tracks. Basically, with this thing, we may not even need any other restraints, but we definitely enjoy using them all the same."