The Future Looks Bright

In a deep and dark part of her mind her hope sat curled up and shivering, waiting until at last a chance presented itself. Every time slave Nikki was pleasured or punished it got colder and darker. Her hope had found a desolate hidden cabin in the furthest reaches of her consciousness and had stayed hidden from the rampant myriad of silver goddesses that danced around looking for that which she'd forgotten. Finally, alone and frightened, Hope received a package from some distant lost acquaintance. Hope opened the package and saw what she would need to escape this madness. In the box that sat at Hope's feet was opportunity.

It had been three months since Nikki had been transported to "Future World" to become her boss's personal slave. Her mind had been warped and changed by her incarceration and she'd taken to the job with all the fervor that she threw into any task presented before her. She had almost come to believe that she was in the future once or twice, but of course that was silly, time travel was impossible. Every so often something nagged at the back of her mind, but she couldn't quite place it. That day she remembered what it was.

She had been with her boss as his new favorite slave at an important meeting of the Corporate Masters. They were discussing getting new labor and some of their researchers had discovered that there would be a disaster at a naughty dance club. There plan was to grab all the beautiful and programmable people and charge them the "Saved your life" fee and put them to work. They were discussing them like they were head of cattle and it bothered none of the slaves in attendance to be referred to in such terms. One of the Corporate Mistresses in attendance was a woman about Nikki's size and she trusted her personal slave with all sorts of tasks. She wore a black suit with a black hood and a black cowl over that showing none of her skin to any of her equals. She would even hand her slave her personal control pad to hold it for her. Nikki asked her boss for a moment to collect some items he needed from his office and he gave her permission to go gather them. That's when she remembered what she'd been forgetting. Hope woke up and she followed the Corporate mistress and her slave out into the hallway when they excused themselves from the meeting for a short break.

Nikki followed a little closely as the two of them wandered over to the ladies room. Unlike a slave in a suit, she actually got to use the restroom. The slave’s suits removed what little waste they made with their small nutrition pills and small stipend of water each day. Nikki forced herself to not think about what the suit actually did with it as she followed at a further distance. When they reached their destination, Nikki pretended like she had always been heading to a nearby empty conference room. When the Corporate Mistress was safely inside the private restroom, slaves not allowed in, Nikki motioned to her slave to come across the hallway for just a second. The slave, very used to staying with her mistress, didn't comply at first, but after a moment relented. As she crossed the threshold into the conference room Nikki planted her foot in her path and grabbed her arm and pulled with all her might. The slave fell forward and her head contacted with the edge of a thick table in the room. Her head made a wet thock noise as it connected and she fell limp. Nikki dragged her over to a chair and put her in it and propped her arms up behind her like she was relaxing. Nikki looked up and saw some sculpture on the wall. It was based on the supposed nuking of New York with bent steel and melted slag. A pipe that had a melted end had been wired to the bottom of it and she hastily pulled it off the wall. She went and waited for the Corporate Mistress to come forth from the bathroom.

The Corporate Mistress eventually emerged and began looking for her slave. Not seeing her anywhere she began to track her signal and found herself in the conference room. That's when Nikki brought the steel pipe down on her head. It connected with a sick wet noise and she crumpled to the floor in a heap. Nikki pulled her legs into the room and searched her for her control panel. It was amazingly user friendly, but only responded to the Corporate Mistress's touch. Nikki used the mistress's finger like a stylist and used her to poke buttons. First she assigned control over the pad to herself and then removed her suit. It shrank into a large silver sphere and left her cold and shivering naked in a room, but she felt alive and free already. She took the pad and removed the mistress's suit from her. The woman before her was horribly scarred all over her body. Deep healed cuts and thousands upon thousands of needle scars covered her and marred the beauty that she must have once had. Nikki ordered the mistress's suit onto her and it slid up her leg like a thick black slug and covered her. For a moment she panicked as it covered her from head to toe, but then the suit accepted her as its new owner. Nikki felt bad for the former Mistress, but would not be discovered now. She ordered her own suit onto the injured woman and activated the gag on both of the women unconscious in the room. Nikki placed the former Mistress in a chair and activated the binding sequence on both the chairs. She hurried out of the room after locking it from the inside. She then rushed to where her new suit was telling her where the former owner's car was parked.

After ten minutes of walking briskly Nikki was getting nervous. Her boss would be looking for her now and he would soon find her old suit and wonder who had sealed her to a chair. Once he removed the gag the gig would be up, but at least if they woke up early they couldn't call for help. Nikki was slightly surprised by the AS Unit being active in the mistress, she guessed that she'd at one time been a slave as well. Perhaps she still enjoyed being dominated occasionally. Nikki shook her head as the voice of hope inside her told her it didn't matter and to hurry on. She found the car fairly easily and it opened to her touch. She sat down and the vehicle came to life. Lights and dials lit up and the engine purred on. Gripping the steering wheel tightly she cautiously pulled out and left the complex. Barely containing her excitement she tapped a GPS unit on the dashboard. It flared to life and asked in a gentle voice where she would like to go. "New York. Where's the nearest airport?"

"The closest airport is in New York," replied the GPS unit, "Shall I give you directions?"

"Hell yes!" replied Nikki, "I knew we hadn't left the country! Those bastards!" Inside the recesses of her mind Hope had emerged with the weapons of opportunity and was cutting the silver goddesses that persisted into bloody smears. Nikki's hope laughed manically as it went on a rampage, denying all the mental conditioning that had persisted. Hope also helped to remove all those horrible memories of doing terrible things to terrible people who in her mind deserved worse than death.

Soon she was on interstate 95 traveling at over one-hundred miles per hour. The road would take her right into New York and then to her apartment on the outskirts of Manhattan. She was so elated that she didn't really notice that there weren't many cars on the normally busy highway, nor did she ever really look at them. As she drove Nikki commanded her suit away from her head, the disguise was no longer needed.

As she approached the outskirts of the city the road became newer pavement and ran up and down rather steep hills. She wasn't thinking about how those hills hadn't been there before when she stopped the car on the side of the road and got out of the car. Staring in shock, she saw a city that was not the New York she remembered. It had glistening buildings that extended for miles into the sky. Where Manhattan Island was supposed to be was a 'C' shaped bay with large and shining ships floating lazily on them. A breeze blew her hair out behind her and she opened the passenger side door and began rifling through the glove box. A small and sleek gun fell out of the glove box and she ignored it. A moment later she found a rather ratty looking paper map of New York and unfolded it. Where New York City was supposed to be was a large circle of blue water. Manhattan Island was gone on the map, replaced by Manhattan bay. Half of Long Island had remained. The hills that she'd been crossing were left by debris and shock waves. She looked at the date on the map, 2043 edition. The map fell from her hands as the hope that had been fighting a wonderful battle was overwhelmed. A bright light went off in her head and the heat from the realization that she really was in the future vaporized the last vestige of sanity she had left. Nikki threw her head back and screamed at the sky and wept for humanity. She felt the AS Unit crawling up her throat to silence her. Nikki wasn't helpless this time and reached in her mouth and grabbed it as soon as it emerged. She threw it on the ground and for a moment it seemed confused. Before it could really understand what was occurring Nikki stomped on it and heard it pop and power down. She collapsed to her knees and screamed and cried and screamed some more.

Nothing was left for her to do. She reached into the car and grabbed the gun from floor on the passenger side.

She held it up and looked at it through her tears. She knew enough to flip the safety into the red position to make it dangerous. She held it up to her head and began to sob. She put it down and wept some more, was this really that bad? Her eyes snapped open as she heard an aircraft landing nearby. She might not be able to put a bullet in her brain, but she could put one through her heart. Hope crawled out of the rubble one last time as she stood up, spied her boss exiting the aircraft and she put the gun to her chest. She pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash of light and a deafening bang and her world went dark.

Nikki woke up. She was in a hospital. For a moment she had hope that she had been in a coma and that was just a horrible dream. Her boss appeared before her and sat down next to her.

"The Mistress you brained is very upset with you." he started, "I can do nothing to save you from what you've brought upon yourself. You have committed one of the worst offenses possible. The judge took it easy on you, but..." His voice trailed off as he looked away from her.

Nikki looked up at him, "How am I still alive?"

"All the slave suits are bullet proof. The suit you stole was just a converted model. It's no wonder she wore the thing, did you see her?"

Nikki nodded slowly and tried to sit up. She held up an arm and was not surprised to see it covered in chrome. Her lower body was being secured to the hospital bed by the liquid restraints they used and she sighed. "What happens to me now? Do we just go on and charge me thousands of dollars to work off?"

Her boss shook his head slowly. "No, your dollar amount will be suspended and interest will continue to accrue. It will be unsuspended when you finish your term with the Corporate Mistress you assaulted. She has you for five years. Then you will be returned to me to finish your time. I only hope that you won't be too damaged."

"Damaged?" she asked, starting to get nervous.

Her boss sighed and looked honestly sorry for her, "Yes, the punishment for striking a Master, any Master is... well you're going to be a blood doll for the next five years. Normally the sentence is twenty years, but I pleaded with the judge. I told him that you thought you were still back in 2010 and not yet used our time. Thank God he agreed."

Nikki turned white with fear. "What is a blood doll anyway?"

Her boss gulped deeply and looked around the room before continuing. "Your suit is altered to make it feed on your blood. With the exception of your eyes, every millimeter of your body will be pierced with small needles as it drains your blood continuously. The Vitadyne will keep your body working and healed, but every movement is agony. Nikki, I'm sorry." He got up, hit his control pad to make her hood cover her head and quickly left the room before she had time to soak that all in.

She tried to scream, but something crawled up from her throat and pulled her teeth together and inflated. She couldn't even cry properly. When she started beating the bed to make it let go it only grabbed her flailing limbs and held them fast. After an hour her new Mistress came in to the room and looked at her.

"In accordance with the ruling of the 18th district courts, you are mine for only five years." Nikki's monetary amount that showed on the heads up display changed into "4:365:23:59:59" marking the time remaining. "You are now my blood doll." Nikki's lenses became red and then the pain started. Agony unmatched crawled across her body. She looked at her hand as it became a deep crimson and strained against the bonds of the bed. Straining made the pain worse, but conscious thought was no longer with her as she writhed in the pain. Beneath her own hood her new Mistress smiled.

Quietly the counter ticked down one minute.