Piper's Price

by D. A. Maddox

  STAY TUNED AFTER TONIGHT’S PROGRAM FOR HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR LATEST INTERVIEW. APPROVAL STATUS TBA.

  And underneath that, in lower case:

  Cassie Stratham, 20 yrs. old, internet trespass, conduct unbefitting a transitional, attempted distribution of restricted media. Brown hair, brown eyes, defiant and scared—very cute! Consequences, Live! will return…

  Counselor Lavallee was already on the job recruiting volunteers for her discipline—or would be, if she could only make it to her car. The pantsuit and briefcase set her apart from most of the gathered, freeloading unwashed citizenry she now had to push through. There were so many of them. Navigating through them, even in her car, was going to be like leaving a sold-out rock concert.

  Why had they moved so fast on this latest one? The boss wanted volunteers now. He’d given her a list of potentials, promised her time-and-a-half as well as a bonus for the unexpected hours, then sent her off at the worst possible time.

  Call for a chopper, she thought. Skip this shit. You’ll be at the airport in fifteen minutes.

  But no. For two years, Paige Lavallee had stayed safely out of the limelight. And she wasn’t wearing her badge where anyone could see it. She knew better. All she had to do was lower her head and—

  “Miss!”

  Lord, why must You send forth people to fuck with me?

  “Miss! Hold on! One sec!”

  The caller was a young man—definitely younger than thirty—leading a young woman by the hand. She looked so much like him that they had to be siblings, not a couple. The man had a tablet in hand. His voice was excited, earnest, dark eyes ablaze with the kind of fervor usually reserved for political rallies. He had a beard, a ponytail—and his twin sister, if that’s what she was, had on an explosive tie-dye shirt and for-real bell-bottomed jeans.

  Hippies, she thought. God save me, I’m about to be invited into the Resistance.

  If there was such a thing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Kind of in a hurry, here.”

  But they were upon her, flashing the tablet at her face.

  The woman pointed back at the theater screen. “What, you’re leaving now? There’s only eight minutes until—”

  “I’ll be quick,” the man said. “Got a Jumpstart Fundraiser going for Robbie McNeal. Look!”

  Paige couldn’t help herself. She looked. And she was stunned.

  Between the assembled masses and whoever had stumbled across this charitable giving opportunity online, the bearded Jesus standing before her had raised nearly one hundred and fifty-thousand dollars in pledges for a privileged senator’s scion—all to cover his continuing education and living expenses … away from home.

  “Um … may I?” she said, reaching for the tablet.

  “Sure!” he said. “Can you believe it?”

  Taking the device, promising absently to return it, she hardly could believe what she was reading—but there it was, plain as could be. Why would so many working-class people be chipping in for this? But then she saw the fine print: Robbie had to cut himself off from his mother and father. From their money. In order to qualify for this special scholarship, Robbie had to go out on his own.

  And at the top of the screen, a still shot of Robbie giving his mother what-for during their prison visit.

  “Robbie McNeal ain’t one of the Eloi,” the man proudly proclaimed. “He’s down here with the rest of us Morlocks. Fuck Senator McNeal. Let’s stick it to him.”

  Look at me, she thought. Take a good, long look. I am the Eloi. It’s just—sometimes we eat our own.

  Paige gave the man his tablet back. “The law will take care of Senator Dusty McNeal,” she said, turning from him. “And you’re dreaming.”

  ****

  The cameras came back to life at the same time Officer Kersey arrived at his cell and Nurse-Reyes Garcia unclipped the cuffs from her belt.

  “Hands,” she said.

  Robbie offered them, glad to be bound up front instead of at the back.

  She cinched the cuffs over his wrists, snug and inescapable. And pointless, he couldn’t help but think. I’m not going anywhere.

  “Tonight, we need to pass through Intake into the main work station,” said Nurse-Reyes Garcia. “We are going two floors up. Usually, when we escort prisoners through our clerical offices, we require them to wear leg irons. Do you require leg irons?”

  “No, Matron.”

  “Excellent. You will follow me, then, with Officer Kersey documenting your journey from behind.”

  Robbie tilted his head at her in acknowledgment.

  “Don’t look at me, fucking insect,” she snarled, setting the tripod atop a rolling wooden base.

  Robbie almost huffed in disdain. Officer Kersey would now have to work a lot harder than that to outdo Miss Trainer, as far as words were concerned. But he restrained himself and faced out into the hall.

  It was strange, leaving protective custody, going back through Intake, and then through the clerical offices that serviced both halves of the Huntington Regional Prison Complex. He passed cops, both male and female, some of whom actually waved to him or called his name in a more or less friendly way. He wanted to answer them but understood he was not allowed to.

  Others—most of them, actually—deliberately steered clear of his path, as though he had some horrible disease or might actually be dangerous. But that was a laugh, a fleeting thought hurried off by the ever-present reality of the camera rolling behind him. They didn’t want to be on TV, these officers—and most particularly not on Consequences, Live!

  There were no viewer-count displays out here, no tracking ceiling cams. Yet Robbie guarded his every move, minded every “tell” that might appear on his face, knowing that there were millions of outside eyes upon him.

  I’ll give them what they want, when the time comes. I’m not going to finish this a begging, blubbering mess. I’ve got one more shot at a little dignity in this fucking apocalypse of humiliation—and this time, I won’t blow it.

  The elevator was nothing special, and there were no extra guards. Inside, standing between his Matron and Officer Kersey—who left the tripod on its roller out in the hall—he saw that the building had three floors: G, 2, and Studio. But Nurse Reyes-Garcia didn’t push any of the buttons. When the door whisked shut, she keyed open a side panel with one additional option: Arena.

  That one, she pushed. Then, from a steel pocket in the panel, she pulled out a red leather circlet studded with steel diamonds at the end of a rawhide cord. A collar.

  She buckled it around his neck, leaving the fastener in front—where, Robbie guessed, he could wrench it off himself pretty easily—and the drawcord at his back. She gave it a tug to test its security, jerking Robbie’s head back an inch or two.

  The elevator moved. The “2” light lit up.

  She unlocked his handcuffs, clipped them back to her belt.

  The “Studio” light lit up.

  “Get down on all fours,” she said. “You will crawl to your victims.”

  Robbie lowered himself to his knees. Leaned forward, hands in front of him. Felt his fingers in the rough carpeting, the texture of used chewing gum, years since smashed into the fabric intractably, between his pinky and ring finger. There was hardly any room between the door at his head and the back wall at his feet. He heard rather than saw Nurse Reyes-Garcia twist the leash handle around her fist, making the cord taut.

  Well, he thought, at least I don’t have to wear the tie.

  The elevator jerked. Its ascent halted. The grinding of gears, the rocking of the frame—and it proceeded sideways to Robbie’s right. He looked up, found his Matron staring down at him.

  “No,” she said. “Look neither up nor down. When the door opens, look straight ahead until you see them. Any deviance from this instruction will force me to correct you with the leash or with my boot. Be a good animal.”

  And then, as the elevator kept moving along its bizarre sideways trek—and to the audible sigh of Officer
Kersey—she took one knee next to him in the final seconds they were off-camera together. “Do not be afraid,” she said. “Remember: no permanent scarring or injury, Robbie.”

  She was back on her feet when the door slid open—into total darkness.

  Robbie crept forward.

  ****

  His first crawl-steps were tentative at best. The blackness was so complete, so absolute, he needed to be sure there was a real floor out there. Turned out there was, and it was cold, smooth, hard marble. He proceeded in a straight line with slightly more confidence when no one corrected him. The leash was tight, the cord unyielding, but his Matron never yanked it or steered him. Her boots, and the boots of Officer Kersey, echoed through empty space.

  This place is huge, Robbie thought, as blind as he’d ever been, even under medication. Why?

  Distantly, he heard laughter. Female laughter. He couldn’t tell—

  Then, clearly to be heard, a woman clicking her tongue: Tchock-tchock.

  Jasmine. God, please, don’t start me with Jasmine.

  A decidedly inhuman noise followed that, a hissing, like steel coils slithering over the floor, mechanical snakes. Tiny lights that illuminated nothing at first—then expanded, growing into images. They were in color, three dimensional. They were people, and he knew them. They spoke to him in the dark.

  Mrs. Fenwick: “It’s good to see you again, Robbie. Ashton says hi. He can’t wait to catch up with you.”

  Had she told Ashton, his best childhood friend, everything?

  Mrs. Merriweather: “You’ll be attending church in the near future, yes? If not, I’ll put your name in the prayer box. Precious boy. You have a lovely penis, you know. Simply delectable. I could play with it all … day … long.”

  If Robbie had his way, she’d never see him again.

  Theresa, her face flushed with rage: “I hope they make you pay, you sick, twisted jerk. I hope they make you scream. You deserve it.”

  Through the ambient light, Robbie could see the cables behind the images, the luminescent eel mouths that served as projectors. The wires writhed, unmanipulated by human hands, making sure the images paced him, bathed him in their glow.

  Shadows: five of them, outlined in silver, as hollow and black as moonlit silhouettes. They didn’t speak, only watched him, lifting from the ground and hovering over him like ghosts as he continued to crawl. But their eyes resolved into focus: light blue, green, dark blue, deep brown, brown.

  They were the anonymous women who had come to torture him when he was blind, and they blinked down on him as the next fully-resolved image spoke.

  Professor Mack: “All of the sketches were worthless, Robbie. Too bad. You were an excellent subject. Might try to catch you on canvas from memory. Not how it generally works, but you did make quite an impression.”

  And, kneeling right in front of him, Michael: “Any chance you’ll reconsider, buddy? No? Well, I’ll be around if you do—and remember, true friends keep their secrets.”

  Robbie crawled straight through the hologram, momentarily breaking it until it rematerialized by his side. He glared at it, then, and instantly felt the swift, painful correction of his Matron with the leash. He returned his gaze straight ahead.

  Robbie was only too aware of what he could do to Michael. If he let it be known that the whole stupid thing had been Michael’s idea and not his—and then Michael had volunteered to be one of his humiliators—well, that just had to be illegal, didn’t it? It wasn’t the first time the thought had come to Robbie, and he hadn’t made up his mind what to do about it yet. He had more pressing problems on his mind.

  When he reached the center of the Arena, the lights came on, blinding him anew and dispelling the holograms. But they were still there, Robbie was sure, watching him through the invisible ether of technology. Robbie clamped his eyes shut.

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia took the collar from him. “Do not get up,” she said. “Stay just as you are. Say nothing until I tell you.”

  Footsteps, coming his way from either side and from behind. More laughter. More tongue-clicking. More echoes.

  And one woman, just one, who did none of that. But he could hear her breathing, and he knew who she was.

  Maddy.

  Chapter Twenty

  Arena

  His estimation had been correct. The Arena was massive. It was a perfect circle, its diameter as long as the entire row of prison cells back in the protective custody building. Robbie had been right about the floor, too—glittering marble, three concentric circles alternating between shimmering black and polished alabaster. His hands and feet rested on smooth gray stone in the exact middle.

  Six red pillars, mounted at equidistant points around the innermost circle, hummed with electric life. Beyond that, mounted on wide wooden A-frame racks in the second circle, a dozen or more potential tortures awaited him, implements both known and unknown, many of which he’d seen hanging in the Preparation and Grooming room.

  The third circle was all cameras, dozens of them mounted on poles from varying heights. Robbie could hear them above him as well, ziplining along cables he could not see.

  The walls themselves were video screens. These Officer Kersey brought to life by remote control, and they showed his audience: the prison parking lot teeming with spectators, a conference room that accommodated the real persons he had just encountered as holograms—including Michael but minus his anonymous tormentors from Day 2—and the adjacent television studio. There, a mysterious anchorwoman dressed like the mutant offspring of a fairy princess and a dominatrix chatted with Senator Brenda Worthington. Their conversation was muted, but they seemed to be getting along well.

  As for the projector cables that had given life to the holograms, they lay inert on the floor until, with another tap on the remote control, Officer Kersey retracted them into the pillars of the first circle. In one long, collective, mechanical hiss, they disappeared.

  Again, the sound of hard footfalls echoing over hard floor filled Robbie’s ears. They approached from every side.

  Directly in front of him was Officer Thompson—who unbeknownst to Robbie, went by “Officer Jenny” to the girls. Her uniform was all black, her gauntleted hands bearing no overt threat other than the power of command. Through his peripheral vision, Robbie could see Jasmine and Heather closing in on him from either side. Heather did so with deliberate calm, but Jasmine was clapping her hands together and actually twirling as she drew close, simply giddy with anticipation.

  They were dressed as cops, too—almost. Robbie didn’t think cops generally wore their badges on sleeveless vests, and their police-gray uniform shorts hardly qualified as underwear. Nor did he think police boots typically came up to the knees. Both had identical paddles hanging from their belts like oversized six guns. Robbie could see the words carved into Heather’s: “BAD BOY”.

  They were wooden. Officer Thompson’s had been only rubber.

  Oh, this is going to suck.

  Robbie could sense Maddy right behind him. She had come to him first, standing just outside his circle. Now that everyone was in place, none more than five feet away, all inside his circle—including Maddy—Robbie sensed her taking a knee at his feet.

  Then he heard her voice, a whisper that carried across the expanse, audible to all: “Hold still. Don’t you kick me.”

  They’ll make me scream, all right, Robbie thought, and it’s going to be like yelling through a bullhorn in this place.

  When Maddy’s gloved hands went for his shoelaces, he made no move, no sound. When the shoes came off, followed by his socks, he could already feel blood heating his cheeks. This wasn’t an older woman in charge of him, nor a casual classmate, nor a total stranger invited to share in his degradation. This was the woman for whom he bore a crushing and continuing infatuation, a woman he had wronged—or had tried to wrong.

  But he did nothing. She would do what she would do. Robbie’s toes curled against cold stone, his heels up, the backs of his feet bared.

/>   “Oh, come on!” Jasmine hooted, clearly unable to restrain herself. “Stand him up! Let’s hear it!”

  Nurse Reyes-Garcia stepped between him and Officer Thompson. The upper buckles of her boots were level with his lips. “On your feet,” she said. “Stand with your arms and legs apart, Robbie, head down.”

  Robbie got up, noting that his Matron had the reader for his vitals out, that her eyes darted to it constantly. He couldn’t imagine why. He was okay—albeit more than a little nervous. He stretched his arms out, put his feet shoulder-width apart.

  Jasmine doubled over with laughter, and Heather rolled her eyes at her.

  The first circle shifted. At the direction of Officer Kersey, the whole thing turned a quarter rotation clockwise, stopping only when the pillars changed color, red to gold. Then the cables came back out.

  This time, they weren’t fitted with projectors. There were small, metallic insect legs where the eel mouth cameras had been, and they skittered across the floor, coming fast.

  Watching them unspool and wind in his direction, drawing the lengthening cables after them, Robbie wanted to shriek in fresh panic—or to run, or to at least fight.

  Nurse Reyes Garcia lifted his chin, stayed right there with him. “Do. Not. Move.”

  They scuttled around her boots. Two of them went up his pants, one along either leg. The first stopped at his underwear, hooking its insectile appendages over the waistband. The other came out at the beltline where Robbie could see it glint and twitch as it grasped one of the loops.

  Two more went up his sleeves, beginning under the button-down cuffs. Robbie winced as the feelers sliced the buttons right off, then proceeded farther across his skin, seeking, as though they were not only alive but sentient. They curled up and out at his open neck. They thrummed against it, as though waiting.

  The final two scuttled over his back, hooking at his pants over the ass and the collar just under his nape.

  A creaking from above. Nurse Reyes-Garcia stepped away, again checking her palm monitor. “You are fine,” she said, sounding both surprised and impressed. She turned and kept walking, all the way past the first circle, crossing the second.