Against A Rock

by Kalin Ringkvist

  She nodded.

  They watched him leave. He turned the corner and Floreina felt a shot to her heart as her implants released the blockages preventing her nervousness. She took a deep breath and looked at Mahran who stared back, wide eyed and almost perfectly motionless. “Let’s get out of here… ”

  “Agreed,” said Floreina.

  ______ ______ ______

  After several more hours of crawling and dragging, Mahran asked, “So where did you learn all this about hacking into station systems and finding sellers of capsuleer drugs?”

  Floreina unscrewed the connections to the air duct in their original hotel room. “My ex-boyfriend. When we were together he sort of got me started in this kind of thing. It was necessary for him being a Vitoc dealer on a station to know that kind of stuff… You can get away with dealing Vitoc on a planet’s surface where you have open areas without surveillance, but on a station you need to know the security systems and how people are tracked.”

  “Your ex was a Vitoc dealer?” Mahran asked. “Is he the one you were going to set me up with for my own supply?”

  “That’s right,” she replied. “He’s a good man.”

  The grate fell to the floor and Floreina dragged herself downward, dropping to the chair below. Mahran passed her the booster suitcase, and climbed down a moment later.

  Floreina lay for a long time on the bed, her arm wrapped around the boosters. Floreina then used the secure communications console on the desk to call the receptionist at the other hotel and apologize for the hole in the ceiling and transfer a generous amount of ISK for repairs.

  A moment later she ordered celebratory room service.

  They ate quietly but heartily. Mahran had a distracted look, often staring off into the distance, but at the same time had a gleam in his eye, like a child discovering the world for the first time, and he would come back from his trance to scarf down heaping mouthfuls of his dinner.

  As he finished the last of his meal, he finally asked about the thing that was hanging unsaid between them.

  “So I can go after this, right?” he asked. “This is it, right? You have what you came for. It’s worth more than a thousand of me… so I can go free now.”

  And Floreina just stared back.

  “We can just shake hands and I’ll head out, and you will release my brother soon after getting back to the ship…” Mahran stood slowly, staring questioningly.

  Floreina shook her head and got up from the table. The implants instinctively began blocking her nervousness and guilt, but she cut them off, seeing no serious risks in this situation.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “No…” Mahran shook his head and backed toward the door.

  “Don’t—“ Floreina started.

  “You’re not—“ stammered Mahran.

  “Stop!” she ordered. “Don't take another step toward that door.” And she moved toward him, simultaneously opening her control menus.

  “No!” His face turned red and his eyes tightened as he cowered away from her. “No, please no!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, slowly shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.”

  She took another step and snapped the control to shut down his nervous system. He gave a brief yelp, and his eyes dilated before snapping shut. His body went limp and he slumped forward into Floreina’s waiting arms.

  “I’m sorry, Buddy,” she said as she gently lowered him to the floor.

  ______ ______ ______

  Floreina took a deep breath as she punched the code into the hibernation chamber. She did not know how he would react to being deceived, or what kind of arguments he would feel appropriate to make.

  The door whirred open and Floreina reached in to give Mahran the injection. His eyes fluttered and finally opened. “Where am I?” he grunted.

  “You’re back aboard the ship,” Floreina replied calmly.

  As Mahran dragged himself from deep sleep, he croaked, “I thought you were going to let me go when we were done…”

  She gave one last glance around the cargo hold for other crew, and again, saw nobody. “I’m sorry I had to say that to you, Mahran,” she told him. “You gave me no choice.”

  “You lied to me?”

  “We are going with our original deal,” she stated. “I’m sorry, but you had no right to try and back me into a wall and blackmail me into giving you a better deal. That was unacceptable, and I think you knew it all along.”

  He hoisted himself up to a sitting position, groaning from the waking pains and weakness. Floreina stood above him, staring down. For a time he said nothing.

  “How could you do this to me…”

  “I did what needed to be done. I apologize for deceiving you, but you forced me into it; you brought this on yourself.”

  He crawled from the chamber, dragging himself to a pair of wobbly feet. He stood in just his boxer shorts, his skin glistening with sweat. His muscles trembled. “I trusted you…” he muttered. “I thought you were a good person… I thought you were fair… honest… and you lied to me.”

  He suddenly seemed to regain strength and his face shot upwards to stare into hers. “You lying whore!” he screamed.

  Floreina took a deep breath to quench the sudden anger. “Calm yourself, Mahran,” she ordered. “The hibernation is still affecting your mind, so check yourself before you speak, okay Buddy?”

  “No,” he shook his head, his face turning red and tightening. “You’re just like all the others… I trusted you. I thought you cared; that you actually had compassion in that cold Amarrian heart of yours.” The breath whistled through his nose as he shouted, the words echoing throug the cargo hold. “There’s no logic behind what you do; there’s only hatred. You aren’t protecting us; you’re lying to us and exploiting us… just exploiting any way you can, just like any other whore!”

  She sighed. “You’re treading really close to the edge here, buddy… Remember, I was still planning on honoring our original deal with your brother; don’t screw that up too.”

  “I’m going to inform the authorities,” Mahran stated.

  She scoffed. “And what exactly do you intend to tell them? How do you plan to contact them? What do you think the overseers are going to do to you when you start accusing a commander of things for which you have no evidence? And what do you think I might do to your family?” She laughed. He had no intention of doing such a thing, and they both knew it. He was too smart for that.

  But in the short run, he was still awakening from the hibernation, and dealing with the typical fragile emotional balance of the Minmatar. He was not quite able to control himself in all respects. “I hate you,” he sneered.

  Floreina just stared back, but noticed his fist clench from the corner of her eye.

  “I hate you!” he screamed. And he raised his fist to his shoulder, his entire body clenching, as though pulling itself apart.

  As his fist rose, Floreina’s combat programs sprang into action, ready to administer drugs and analyze motions. The slave control menu booted up for quicker access. But Floreina cut off the processes just milliseconds after they came active, leaving them open just in case.

  As she started forward to take control of the situation, Mahran’s arm clenched, twisted, and pulled backwards, as though fighting the urge to strike. But it didn’t matter. Her anger had already overcome her desire to end this peacefully.

  With her left hand she grabbed his fist; with her right she made her own and drove it into the side of his face. At the same time her leg curled around his and twisted.

  Mahran fell to the floor with a scream and a thud. Floreina allowed herself to fall alongside him, dropping to her knees. Mahran cowered away from her instinctively, like any well-trained Minmatar. She grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. Her other hand moved quickly to his neck and clamped down, her fingernails digging into his flesh.

  Her face moved to within centimenters of his cheek. “I try my best to be nice and compassionate. I
buy you luxury coupons out of my own pocket. I give you days off. I pad your permanent record with positive statements. I don’t think I’ve ever sent you to punishment for a single thing. I take you out on the station to experience the outside world. I let you talk to me practically however you feel, and I listen to whatever you might want to talk about… and after all these things, this is how you repay me?”

  Mahran cried out and struggled.

  Floreina clamped down harder and brought her face even closer, to rest her forehead against the side of his head. Mahran fell still, years of conditioning no doubt preventing him from fighting back.

  Mahran coughed and choked.

  “I do these things because I care about you,” she whispered. “I care about you and I love you… and I want us to have a relationship based on friendship… but if you ever raise your fist to me again, you will find my strategies rapidly changing.”

  “I just—“ he started.

  “Shut up,” she said. “You need to remember your place. And that’s partly my fault, and I apologize for giving you any misimpressions about what our relationship might be, and I apologize if I allowed you to feel like more of a person than you really are, but I thought you could behave, and be mature about it, and appreciate the things I’ve done for you. But instead you tried to back me against a wall after I had already moved forward with my plans, merely because you thought you had some kind of leverage, and you thought you could use my compassion against me. Well, that’s not how it works in these relationships. I am the Amarrian and you are the Minmatar. I make the deals, not you. The deals I choose to make are the valid deals, and none other.”

  Mahran shuddered and his face dropped to the floor.

  “You are my property; and you will remain my property until I decide that it is time for a change. Is that clear?”

  She paused for his response. “Is that clear?” she repeated.

  “Yes,” he choked.

  “Now I’m going to give you a couple days off,” she told him. “You do whatever you want for these two days, but while you are doing it, I want you to think about who you are and why you’re here and what your loyalties are. You think about why God put you in New Eden, and what he expects of you and your relationships with your masters and the rest of the crew of this ship.”

  Floreina released him and stood. She stared for a long time at the Minmatar curled on the floor before her. He began sobbing, his face clenched tight; but even so, she continued to one final statement. “You crossed the line when you tried to manipulate me. I trust it won’t happen again.”

  She stepped over him and walked away.

  But as she walked she had a strange urge, and found herself turning around. She stopped behind a crate, and rested against it to stare back at Mahran.

  She fell into a trance as she watched him, his cries seeming to seep past the normal analytical receptors of her brain toward something deeper.

  Mahran cried on and on, whimpering, his face lying flat against the floor and his body curled like a fetus… as though his life truly meant something…

  And Floreina simply stood and watched from a distance, transfixed on the emotion being displayed, and thought about their relationship.

  She had told him that she loved him. She’d never said that about a slave before, and it had just sort of come out all of a sudden, and while she saw it as part of her strategy, she realized that in no way was it a lie.

  She loved him; and the tears he cried now, and the drama they faced together, only served to solidify her feelings. She wanted to take him in her arms like a mother comforting a child, to kiss his bruises and make everything all better. But she held herself back from interfering with his learning process. This was all for his own good.

  Floreina watched and contemplated, entranced by the depth and beauty of the emotion, and the sense of life that lay before her on the floor of the cargo bay. His sobs carried through to her soul, as though he were a real person… a character with complexity of mind and emotion; a character capable of passion and compassion and obsession and lust, pain, anguish, loss… a beautiful character with ups, downs and the full range of human and animal emotion… a creation of God… a work of art… a character capable of loving and being loved…

  …Floreina watched…

  … and this wonderful creation belonged to her. Her prized possession: to love, to cherish and to do with as she pleased.

  This was love… in just one of its countless forms.

  ______ ______ ______

  “Ahoy, Viotro,” Floreina said. “Are you awake and around?”

  “Hello there!” he said. “You’re on a local connection? What brings you to my part of the station?”

  “I just wanted to come and see you,” she said. “I thought maybe we could go out dancing or something…”

  “Um… okay,” he replied.

  “You hanging out by yourself right now?” she asked.

  “Uh… yeah I’m alone.”

  “Excellent. I can be at your door in fifteen minutes, maybe a half hour depending on transport traffic.”

  “Great. I’m excited to see you.”

  Floreina made her way cautiously but quickly from the transport pod from her ship and slipped aboard another cross-station transport that would take her near her ex-lover’s apartment.

  She held the suitcase tightly to her chest, trying her best to appear casual.

  Finally she arrived at Viotro’s door and he let her in, taking a quick glance at her suitcase, then a much longer look at Floreina in her civilian clothes. His eyes wandered casually past the Amarrian officer sidearm strapped to her thigh and up past her shorts to the blood red dress hanging flauntingly from her shoulders.

  “You’re beautiful as always.” He smiled and held out a hand.

  Mildly offended, she ignored the hand and opened her arms to take him in a tight embrace, holding for several long moments before kissing his cheek. “Check this out,” she said, pulling away. She set the suitcase on his coffee table, looking down the hallway. “Is anyone else here?”

  “No,” he shook his head curiously.

  She opened the top and Viotro peered in. “I knew this wasn’t just because you wanted to see me.” His eyes widened as the nature of the package occurred to him. “The boosters?” He exclaimed. “I thought you were joking when you told me about this.”

  “So did I,” she replied.

  He put a hand to his head. A moment later he collected himself and flipped the switch to unlock the cargo, slowly slid the booster from its protective housing and held it delicately in his hands. “You actually managed to do it…” He shook his head and chuckled in amazement. “And you carried it across the station like it’s a sack lunch…”

  “So can you sell it for me?”

  He laughed, then sighed, as he gently guided the booster back into the slot. “Depends on the price, I suppose, and the time frame. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. You know me, Babe, I deal in Vitoc mostly and if the cops come for me I claim to be a peaceful abolitionist just supplying the poor escaped slaves with the medicine they need to survive.”

  “But you know people who make runs to low security space for these types of things…”

  “And they would want to charge me a huge cut for their services. How much were you looking to get for this?”

  “One million even,” she replied.

  His eyes widened. “That’s all you expect?”

  “So that you can afford to be careful and find a safe buyer, and you can keep the rest of the profit for yourself. I know how difficult it is to get out of high security space, so I’m looking for a safe deal through someone I trust. So what do you say, can you take it off my hands?”

  “I don’t have anything close to a million ISK,” he laughed.

  “But you can sell it for a lot more and get me the money at a later date?”

  “You’ll trust me with that?” he asked.

  She nodded.

 
Then he looked up suddenly. “I thought you were getting two of them…”

  She shrugged. “I have some ideas for the other…”

  He shook his head. “You know I love you…” He stared at the case. “I can give you twenty five thousand right now out of my pocket. That’s all I can offer until I can find a buyer, which might take months.”

  “That can work,” she replied. “Twenty five thousand can get me most of the implant upgrades I’ve been hoping for. I’m also going to be needing Vitoc services for another slave, as well as counseling to get him adjusted to the outside world.”

  He nodded. “That’s more along my normal line of work.” And he stared at the booster in the case.

  “So do you still want to go out dancing tonight?” she asked.

  “No,” he replied. “I’d love to go to the club with you, but not with this thing sitting in my house. I’m gonna take tonight to figure out how to deal with this.”

  ______ ______ ______

  Floreina glanced at the classic Scriptures quote engraved above the door to the training section. Slaves, obey your mortal masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve New Eden Herself.

  Floreina took a deep breath, not knowing why she should be nervous.

  She connected to the system as she walked, scanning the video feeds to find Mahran speaking in a conference room to a group of engineering slaves.

  “…I understand that things get hectic,” he was saying. “But you need to stop and report any problems you find. I know that we are all on strict timetables, but if there’s a problem, then a report needs to be filed immediately—“ He looked up at Floreina as she entered. “Master—“

  She waved him on. “Go ahead; I can wait.”

  “I was just finishing up.” He looked back at the crew. “Just remember that our masters aren’t ordering us to complete a job; they’re ordering us to make our strongest and most intelligent attempt at completing the job, while remembering that the ship as a whole is our top priority. As long as we put everything we have into it, always remain transparent, and never back down from a challenge, then we have nothing to be ashamed of. If we can’t do it after all that, then it’s our master’s fault for putting us here…” He smiled at Floreina. “…but you might not want to say it like that…” He waved them off and the slaves began rising to move swiftly from the conference room, most of them saluting as they passed.