Human Commodity

by Candace Smith

  “Your Master will give you a blanket if he wants you to have one,” Phillip answered.

  Damon smiled maliciously at her, while Daria looked around the room. There was no one else in the clinic. She tried to focus on the big bastard with the ponytail, and she asked, “Could you find him for me, and tell him that I’m really cold?”

  The smile dropped off Damon’s face. “IQ30,” he muttered.

  “50, Damon. She is shot up with tranques,” Eddie replied. “She’s still coming down from the knock-out shot. Things will clear up a little bit more… maybe.”

  Damon walked over to her. It was strange having to treat a contract with kid gloves, but it would only be until the initial shock wore off… a week at the most. “I am your Master, Daria. You do everything I say, and you’ll be fine.”

  “I may be fine,” Daria agreed, “but I’ll be fine with a runny nose.”

  Damon wrapped a big hand around her breast. Instead of protesting, her big green eyes widened and she said, “See? I’m freezing.”

  Damon began squeezing her breast… not hard… but, enough to gauge her response. His thumb brushed across her nipple, and the softened little pillow tightened immediately. Daria looked down at his hand. “That only happens when I’m cold,” she assured him.

  Damon smiled. “There are other reasons that happens, AG.”

  “Daria,” she announced.

  “No, you are US18AG1427, and I am your Master.”

  Daria’s bound hands opened and closed in defeat. “Okay, okay. Can I have a blanket?”

  “Master.”

  “God,” she gasped in frustration. “Can I have a blanket, Master?”

  “No.”

  “No?” She threw her head in Phillip’s direction, completely ignoring the man fondling her breast. “Phillip, can you pick me out someone else?”

  “You win, Damon. 30,” Phillip chuckled.

  Daria looked down at her breast again. She was beginning to get a fluttery feeling in her stomach… not her stomach, exactly… but down there somewhere. “Would you stop that, please? It’s making me feel weird.”

  “Unusual description of it,” Damon replied, “but no.”

  “Eddie, how much of this is her, and how much is the tranque?” Phillip asked. Shit… I really don’t want to ship her to the facility.

  “Hard to tell, with her mental impairment. I have to assume that she isn’t used to drugs, so Damon and I might have to fool around with the dosage a little.” Eddie walked over to the foot of the table, and he slipped the two platforms securing Daria’s ankles up and towards her chest, bending her knees.

  Daria ignored him, and she continued to alternate between a fascinated stare at Damon’s hand making little indentions on her breast and tickling her nipple to keep it hard… and glowering up at him. When he took his eyes off her tit and caught her glare, she mouthed, ‘I want a blanket’.

  Daria felt something slippery and cold on her privates, and a hard thing was pushed against her… not against her… inside of her. “Oooh… it’s cold, it’s cold… ow, stop it.” She looked up at Damon with her eyes filling, “Make him stop it.”

  Damon squeezed her nipple, crushing it purple between two fingers. “Stop… owee.” She looked down at her bruising bud, and Damon twisted. Her bottom lip trembled and she began crying. “Stop it… you’re breaking it.” She had completely dismissed Eddie and the speculum.

  “Eddie, is it possible that she can be this naïve?” Damon wondered if the girl had been kept literally in a closet. It was 2036, and with the commercials and ads for slaves, how could her ignorance be possible?

  “I don’t know how naïve her mind is, but she’s never been fucked. Shit, she’s as tight as those other two,” Eddie replied.

  Damon began thinking of all of the possibilities of working with a canvas that had no preconceptions, no good or bad experiences… only what he taught her.

  Phillip had been thinking, too. His mouth fell open when he looked at her eyes again. “Shit, how could I be so stupid? No wonder she looks familiar. That bitch wouldn’t have… she couldn’t…” He thought a minute longer and walked up to study the girl’s face. “What is your mother’s name?”

  “Please make him stop, Phillip.” Daria’s bottom lip continued to tremble, while Eddie began to notice a slight gripping on the speculum.

  “Daria, what is your mother’s name?” Phillip demanded, a little more sternly. Her easy distraction was becoming irritating.

  “Vanessa. Vanessa Claudine Boudreaux.” Daria looked at her poor breast again.

  “I’ll be damned. I never knew that she had a kid. Did you, Eddie?”

  Eddie slid out the speculum. “There were a few months at the beginning when that other chick, Lilly something, showed up at the hearings and Vanessa was absent.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s possible. I never saw her with a guy, but even in those drab outfits…” Eddie’s eyes flew to the discarded shift on the floor. “Shit. Yeah, this is her daughter, alright.”

  “You don’t suppose she got herself knocked up just to plant a spy almost twenty years later, do you?”

  He was surprised when Daria giggled and said, “Bingo. If mom wasn’t OTR, she would be almost as smart as Mason Sanford,” she assured them.

  “You knew? You knew that she was raising you just to be a spy for that crazy lunatic organization?” Phillip asked.

  “Nope. Well, we figured it out about a year ago, sort of. We weren’t positive, or anything.” She smiled up at Phillip. “She might be OTR, but she’s committed to conquering the evil world of human slavery.”

  God, Phillip hated that stupid slogan. They chanted it at rallies, ranted it at hearings, and plastered it on bumper stickers all over their cars. Not so much now, but in the early days the phrase was used so often it gave him headaches. “Are your friends’ mothers Barbra Thomas and Lilly Jeston?”

  “Uhn, uhn. Nope. Lilly is Annie’s mom, but Lizzie’s mom is Doc Hancock.”

  Eddie’s face paled. “Daria, what is Doc Hancock’s first name?”

  “Nancy… but, everyone just calls her Doc.” Daria pictured the basement clinic in her mind, and she whispered, “You bastards don’t want to mess with her.”

  Eddie looked at Phillip, surprised as much at the news that Rodrigo’s contract was his ex-wife’s child, as he was at Daria’s warning. “Damn, Phillip. Her own daughter?”

  Daria floored them when she added, “Barbra had a little bastard boy so she gave him to his father.”

  Even Damon’s hand stalled on that remark. He said nervously, “I don’t think training her in the compound could possibly be as fucked up as what she’s been raised in.”

  Daria had no idea why she was telling them all this, but it did not seem important. Phillip only had to look at the contract that her mom had signed to find out who she was. She looked down at the hand resting on her breast, and she wished Damon would move his fingers again. It made her warm.

  Phillip walked down to Eddie and whispered, “Those weren’t the names on the contracts. Daria was listed as ‘Daria Kappas’. I don’t remember the other two, but I sure as hell would have caught Nancy or Lilly’s names on contracts.”

  “Well, this is one of the rare times that we’re actually doing contracted girls a favor. Wait until Mason finds out. Damn, I wish he wasn’t tied up with the SP mess.”

  “Master guy, you either have to keep rubbing me so I can stay warm, or get me a blanket. Annie says I’m a bitch when I’m sick.” Daria stared at his hand, willing it to move again.

  “I’m going back to the office to check the other contracts and the signers’ information on them. I’ll get hold of security to see if the names are aliases or if they’re using the names of other POHO members.” Phillip began to leave for the hallway, and abruptly stopped. He turned and grabbed the phone. “Noreen, the last three contracts… stop the payment for them immediately.” Phillip listened, and said, “Good. Don’t issue them, then.”

  Phillip look
ed up at Damon and Eddie. “For once, the lazy bitch’s procrastination has worked in our favor. She was going to transfer the money this afternoon.” Phillip wondered who would show up when the money did not hit the accounts. By the time a case could make it to court, he was sure that Mason would come up with something.

  “Damon, it will take me a bit to get all this hair burned off. You’ve got time to check your other girls,” Eddie said.

  “They’re good. I always set aside the afternoon to work with the new contracts,” Damon replied. He noticed the distraction of fucking with her tit had kept her from paying too much attention to what Eddie had been doing. It would be interesting to see how she reacted to the laser patches.

  Daria watched from a drugged detached perspective as the Doctor wrapped some kind of foil around her legs. Some patches were stuck under her arms, and he even laid one on her privates. She thought that it would be easier to just use a blanket, but if he wanted to stick the little metal sheets on her, at least it was a little warmer. The Doctor took the Master’s arm and pulled him over to the wall by the door.

  Daria was disappointed that there was not more to the covering, but before she could say anything, the Doctor flipped a switch and there was a flash from the ceiling. The men walked back over to her, and suddenly every place the foil was covering began to get warm… and then, burn. “Ow… ow… get it off. Get it off of me,” she screamed.

  “She’s not shutting down again,” Damon noted.

  “No, and she can certainly feel it.” Eddie walked to the cabinet, and came back with a bottle of pills. “Three times a day should keep her at the level she’s at now. You can fool around with backing off when you think she’s adjusting.”

  Daria was moaning in agony as the laser patches burned off her hair. It seemed forever until they began to cool, and her fists clenched and opened until the Doctor finally took them off her. Eddie stroked her forehead, and she leaned towards his hand. “What the hell was that crazy bitch thinking, to send her handicapped child through here?”

  “That’s one cold bitch,” Damon agreed. “It’s not like she’d be able to tell her anything… and to throw her in with the others just as a distraction…”

  “Yeah, well Barbra tossed her baby just because it was a boy and couldn’t be used,” Eddie reminded him.

  Daria quivered, “Mom said Barbra wouldn’t let another spear of evil inside of her again, so that’s why Lilly had Annie. I guess the blonde members drew straws or something to see who was going to get stuck with it, and that’s why Annie’s ten months younger than me and Lizzie.” Daria had calmed considerably, and she was staring at her pink legs. “Are they going to stay all red like that?”

  “No,” Eddie answered. “Damon, those women are dangerous. To manipulate…”

  “AG, what is a spear of evil?” Damon asked.

  Daria wiggled a finger of one bound hand. “God… you know. Mom says if all the spears were chopped off she wouldn’t have to work so hard to fight the evil world of human slavery.”

  Damon paled, and absently rubbed his crotch. “Weren’t there any men in the headquarters?”

  “Sure… sometimes. For someone to move to headquarters, they had to prove themselves by bringing a bastard in.”

  The way the girl said it with such detachment was unnerving to both of the men. “What did they do with them?”

  “They gave them a room downstairs. When they proved themselves more, they got to move to the second floor. Annie, Lizzie and I got the attic.”

  “They gave the men rooms?” Eddie asked in confusion.

  Daria smiled. “No, silly, the novice members. The bastards were chained in cages in the basement so Doc Hancock could work on a way to break their evil spears.”

  “What the fuck?” Eddie gasped. And I was married to that crazy bitch?

  Daria continued to chill them with what she considered to be common knowledge. It was common knowledge at POHO, even to the three isolated girls in the attic. “She finally figured it out. They just need more information on the commodity set up to deploy.”

  “Fuck me!” Damon bellowed. “Deploy what? And how?” Damon stepped back from the girl.

  Daria tried to shrug, but with her wrists strapped down the motion was minimal. “I don’t think they voted on it, yet. They were deciding between Spear Corroder and Evil Disintegrator.” Daria muttered, “Stupid names.” She looked up at Damon. “Can I have a blanket?” God, she was cold… and her mind still felt like it was someplace beside her.

  “What does this thing do?” Eddie asked.

  “Nope. Not until I get a blanket.” Daria sealed her lips in protest. She was still confused as to why these smart men did not know about Doc Hancock’s weapon.

  Damon walked to the cabinet, himself. If it took a blanket to get the information to save his cock… the hell with it. He covered her and her green eyes smiled up at him. “Thank you. It’s not as soft as Doc Hancock’s, but it’ll do.”

  “Master,” Damon reminded automatically.

  “Sheesh… Master.”

  “Daria… the drug?”

  “Oh… um, I don’t know if it’s a drug, exactly.” She looked over at Eddie. “I wasn’t very good in science, but Lizzie was. She thinks it’s like a virus.”

  “It can spread?” Damon panicked.

  “Duh… it would be kinda’ stupid to try to get a bunch of bastards to take pills.”

  Eddie and Damon were getting paler by the minute. “Daria,” Eddie almost whispered. “How does it spread?”

  “That was the tricky part. It’s what took Doc so long to get right. It had to be able to live in the warm wet depth of the cursed cavern and multiply without eating away at everything.” Daria looked up, and she thought that the men looked a little disappointed with her answer. Actually, their minds were frantically deciphering the ideological terms she was using… and they did not like what they were coming up with. “You know. Down there.” Daria lifted her head and her eyes got wide when she saw her privates were bald and pink like her legs.

  Eddie ran to the phone. “Rodrigo, get your new RG over to room two, and tell Terry to get that new BB over there also. Get them strapped down and then get the hell away from them. Wait for me.”

  The Doctor turned to Daria. “What does it do, Daria? What does Hancock’s virus do?”

  “I told you. It eats the bastard’s evil spear. I guess it hurts a lot, because the bastards in the basement would scream until their voices broke.”

  Eddie was about to tell Damon that they needed to get rid of Daria, too. “I used to feel sorry for the bastards. I snuck down and talked to one of them, and he wasn’t at all scary like mom said he was. She told me that he was just pretending to be nice so he could stick me with his spear. I don’t think so, though. He just seemed scared, but I still couldn’t let him go.”

  Eddie had put on new gloves and was back to swabbing her privates. “That tickles. You won’t find any in me. Mom said it wasn’t worth wasting it on an AG, and she wanted to see what happened to me in Greece.” She looked down at Eddie. “They only put it in Annie, because they didn’t want SHCI to figure it out. Pretty smart for OTRs, huh? Doc Hancock even has it figured out so that it dies and disintegrates once the air hits it, so that… um… that prick bastard she was married to, could not figure out how to destroy it.” Daria waved her secured hand. “Something like that. Doc Hancock could be a little scary.” Daria looked down at Eddie. “But, she did give us gowns with flowers and soft blankets.”

  “It works that quickly?” Eddie was trying to figure out that if it died in the air, then the man would have to be inside… wait a minute. She said the guys screamed for a long time.

  “No. In the beginning, I think it took about a week. Doc got it down to a couple of days now.”

  “I thought you said the air kills it,” Eddie said.

  “Yup. It dissolves into nothing. That’s why they were thinking of calling it the Evil Disintegrator.”

  Damon a
sked, “If the air kills it, then how does it have time to work once the man’s out of your pussy?”

  “What?” Daria was still very fuzzy, but she was fairly certain she did not have a cat. She looked up at him. “When I get to Greece, can I have a white cat? We weren’t allowed to have pets in headquarters, because mom said they were vile creatures who spread germs and could not live on food from our garden.”

  Shit, she’s had one fucked up life. Damon stroked her breast and she smiled.

  “If the spear is out, how come the air doesn’t kill the virus?” Eddie clarified.

  Daria thought for a moment, and cleared up enough to understand their confusion. “Oh… no. It doesn’t eat the spear from the outside. It goes up the bastards’ ammunition shoot… and I guess Doc got it to grow really fast with whatever it eats up in there. I only got to see one little spot when it got to the outside.” Daria wrinkled her nose. “It was really gross… all red and spongy with green ropey things, and it smelled awful. That was the bastard that I thought was nice, and I left because his screaming hurt my ears.”

  Eddie called Phillip, and he was back in the clinic fast enough to see the two men were still shaken. Eddie informed him of what Daria had said. Phillip turned to her. “Daria, have any other women brought the virus into the compound?”

  Daria yawned and her stomach growled. “When do we get dinner? I don’t like fish.”

  “Daria! Has anyone else brought the virus in?” Phillip was running his fingers through his hair.

  Daria’s eyes began to fill. “Please don’t yell at me, Phillip. I’m already scared.” She was beginning to get frightened as the drugs continued to wear off.

  Eddie noticed her eyes becoming clearer, as she studied the room and the men. “I gotta’ give her something before she melts down again.”

  “Keep her conscious, for fuck’s sake,” Phillip muttered.

  Eddie gave her a pill and a sip of water, which she took with no protest. It hit her almost immediately, and the green eyes calmed. “Daria, is Annie the only one who has the virus?”