Chapter 11: Disaster

The job in the perfume shop was much the same as all the others, but this time she made two mistakes instead of one. She couldn't afford the lovely perfumes, so she stole some; and she didn't like the oily little supervisor who caught her. When he made it plain that he would forget her theft if she would let him grope her tits and cunt, she refused. In a way she was right because he fully intended to blackmail her into his bed in the very near future.

Unfortunately he was not only repulsive in her eyes, he was also vindictive and did not just sack her. He called a Policebot and had her arrested for the theft. She was taken off to the court in the cell built into a policebot's aircar, which was frightening in itself as it had no windows and she was in total darkness for the half hour it took to get to the court. This gave her time to regret being caught again, but as it was technically her first offence, she expected to be let off lightly.

When the Police aircar finally stopped, she was dragged at high speed through some corridors to a bare small room with one door and a light high up in the ceiling. The policebot left, closing the door behind it. She looked around and saw that the room was completely empty except for a small open box in the corner. In the ceiling was a utilitarian light fitting with an odd surround of what looked like small tubes. A spotlight illuminated the box in the corner

"Jacqui Mountjoy, remove all your clothes for delousing! Place them in the box in the corner of the room," said a robot voice from a loudspeaker. Jacqui hastened to obey, knowing that she had nothing to gain by disobeying. A short while later the mechanical voice said, "Delousing commencing in fifteen seconds." Then the lid of the box slid shut.

When the delousing sprays started up, Jacqui stood quite still, but tried to avoid inhaling the odd-smelling cleaning gas. The robot voice then said, "Jacqui Mountjoy, you may replace your clothes." The box which protected them slid smoothly open. Jacqui hastily dressed.

The door opened and a policebot said, "Come on."

Without waiting it dragged her at break-neck speed down the corridor and pushed her through a small door which led to a large room, or rather into a glass box set in a large room. This, she realised, must be the court room.

She looked nervously about her but there didn't seem to be any people in the room. This seemed odd, since she thought that this would be her trial. Suddenly a robot voice said, "State versus Jacqui Mountjoy. The charge is theft of a small bottle of scent from your employers. How do you plead, Guilty or Not Guilty?"

She was surprised that this was the court hearing with no people taking part. She said, "Guilty," because she had been caught red-handed and there seemed no point in denying it. She expected to be fined and wondered how long it would taker her to pay.

A panel saying GUILTY lit up on the wall and the robot intoned, "Since you offer no defence, the court finds you guilty as charged. As the crime was your first offence and a minor one, the sentence is three months imprisonment."

Jacqui was astounded that she could be sent to prison for one little bottle of scent which she had not even managed to take home!

The policebot fetched her away again and gave her a rough hessian smock. "Put this on over your clothes and come with me," it said.

Wearing the rough smock, which barely covered her tunic, Jacqui was pushed roughly into a cage just large enough for her to stand up in, with a solid floor and bars all round. It bore the number E3 in removable characters on a rack above the door and a datacube was slipped into a holder also on the door. It was then loaded, with some others, on to a transporter and darkness again fell when the doors were closed.

The journey didn't take long, and when the transport stopped the doors opened and the cages were moved into an obvious holding area. There were a nasty looking group of men in strange uniforms there and Jacqui assumed, rightly, that these were guards. One of them came over and leered at her; she did not like the way he was taking an interested in her body which was rather more attractive, she thought, than most of the other prisoners'.

He said to one of the others, "I guess the Chief might want to take a look at this one," and her cage was moved through a door into an office where an ugly bad-tempered fat man sat behind a small desk.

Even from several feet away Jacqui could smell his anger in the sweat on his swarthy body. Judging from the braid on his uniform he was some sort of senior Guard. He took the datacube from its holder and slipped it into his computer. He looked up from the computer screen and the expression on his face was, perhaps, a smile, showing his uneven and ill kept teeth, which made her feel uneasy. Three months in jail was one thing; three months under the control of this one promised to be unpleasant in the extreme.