Chapter 26: Dark Ride Dungeon Raid

Muffin and Timothy were a pair of ponies. Muffin was white with brown patches and Timothy was brown with white patches. The two ponies were working with a pair of dogs--a poodle named Britches and a boxer named Buttons. They had a comedy act and then they'd mingle with the audience with a pair of human handlers, Jane and Larry. The act and audience interaction took 20 minutes, the cast would rest for 10 while the audience changed out, and the next show would begin. From 9 AM to 5 PM the team would give a total of 16 shows. They had completed 11 days of a 14-day show contract. Because Orlando Land was private property and catered to a diverse--and body-modest--tourist clientele, the human actors were attired in "family-friendly" costumes--shorts and loud floral-print shirts and nylon-topped deck shoes. Larry wore an indentured servant collar. Two days a week each of the different theme parks in Orlando Land permitted clothing optional guests--Orlando Land was, after all, in nudist-dominated Florida. The Orlando Land management analyzed the roughly 200,000 daily visitors and determined that having two clothing optional days per week per park would improve park operations--but "clothing optional" was only for guests. The one exception was "Hedonisia", the adult-oriented theme park--that had clothing optional for the paying customers and featured nude and semi-nude employees. Muffin and Timothy and the rest of the show were guest stars who were only at Orlando Land for two weeks. They would do their 16 daily shows and then rest until the next day.

When the last show of their guest star performance was completed, Muffin trotted back stage dejected. Suddenly she stopped, sniffed the air, looked around and spotted a tall, white-haired man.

"HANK!" The little brown-patched white pony rushed Hank Dalton and threw herself against him, sobbing. "Hank, Hank, Hank."

Hank hugged the shaking pony and whispered in her ear "I love you too, Muffin."

The other three animals crowded around joyfully.

Amanda, clothed for once (it wasn't clothing optional day) was overwhelmed with emotion.

"They're like children," Amanda said in awe, "and it is like their daddy just came home."

"They are children," Jane said. "I'm Jane and this is my indentured servant Larry. Muffin was really feeling depressed. Horses are herd creatures. They need to be in constant contact with their herd. Usually there is a lead mare and the stallion stays a little way off from the herd. In many ways Hank is Muffin's daddy and she needs him."

Amanda half-listened to the lecture on horse society as she chafed in her light clothing. A simple dress and sandals were all that Amanda had added to her slave collar, the collar once worn by Hank's wife Kelly, but after being naked for the better part of a week, Amanda found clothing uncomfortable. There was also some anxiety over the uninhibited affection demonstrated for Hank Dalton by two ponies and two dogs.

"Children," Hank actually addressed the dogs and ponies as children! "This is Amanda."

"Amanda," all four animals chorused.

"You are pretty," Muffin said.

"You smell good, too," Button said.

"In exactly fifteen seconds the raid party is going to assault the dark ride you've been watching for me," Hank motioned to a monitor. "You humans aren't equipped to watch, so I have the raid videos on the various cameras. Four, three, two, one..."

The cameras showed the doors open suddenly and the raiders pour in. They were dressed in head-to-toe armor with colored disruptive patterns that coursed across the surface. There were several video feeds from the actual raiders themselves, sixteen feeds in all. As people inside the attraction, the one named Doctor Demoray's Dungeon, those people were immediately stunned and bypassed. The assault was over in under 13 seconds and all ride operators and paying customers were separated from the suspects. Nine suspects were placed under citizens' arrest. There was a bank of 20 feelie booths with a paying customer each in them. Six ride operators were flex-cuffed as well for questioning.

"Now we call the real police, Mr. Fletcher," Hank said.

"Please, call me Roy," the CEO of Orlando Land operations insisted. "Your girls did that so rapidly. I'd like to hire some for my security force."

"You'll need to discuss that with Joan," Hank replied. "I think you'll see that this was a mass brainwashing exercise. You have a positive defense in the many law suits that will come out of this. The ride crew was all brainwashed. You had no way of knowing. I had to get your permission and catch them in the act in order to take this case to a private prosecutor. Roy, I have more bad news. Your security department is compromised. One of the reasons I'm so troop heavy is that your security chief is one of them. I don't know if he is a victim of brainwashing or not. His name is Barry Honey and he used to be a slave."

"That was years ago," Roy said. "He got his citizenship and he has been working here for the last 15 years."

"I suspect that his slave implants were never really deactivated," Hank continued. "The court is supposed to take care of that during a manumission ceremony. I have Barry Honey's file right here," Hank tapped his temple, "and for a disgraced ex-cop he seems to have gone from slave to chief of security in record time. He was a cop in New York City for six years until he was arrested for excessive use of force. Barry insisted that he didn't touch the guy, but the jury was convinced and Barry was sentenced to five years as a full chattel slave. He was sold to the Morning Star Line at auction and worked as a crewman on an ocean-going freighter called the Titanium Trickster. When released here in Florida, Rehabilitation Services got him a job here as a security officer and as a free legal resident. Five years later he got his citizenship back and moved into management. Now he's the chief of security and he went up through the ranks replacing six other men and women. Two of them died of natural causes, one works elsewhere now, one retired, one is enslaved for embezzlement and one just vanished. I don't have a lot more, but if I am permitted to examine your security chief I can determine if his Conrad-Steinberg Control Implant is functioning or not. I can deactivate it, too. But I need you to permit this examination. I warn you, he may be programmed to defend himself against such an examination."