Calypso Slaves - Ghost Story

"You couldn't do anything more cruel," Enlil said, "no one ever quits anything on their first try. She will get through it, you will leave, sooner or later she will relapse. Having helped her through her first detox will only convince her that she is more helpless in the face of her second."

"What about Tanirt?" Cassie asked, "why is she kept in chains? She seems pretty cooperative to me. Probably safer than Giovanna."

"Tanirt has had her genes rewritten by the xenorex. They've been using genetically modified humans to infiltrate the government on Rho Geminorum, it appears to be the opening shots of a war," Enlil said, "one of those modifications is compulsive obedience to the xenorex species. During the surgery in which we attached your collars, we attempted to reverse that particular compulsion. We have no idea whether or not it's worked and if it hasn't she will attempt to sabotage the ship even at cost of her own life. She could end up killing dozens or hundreds of people. We're still working on a means of testing whether or not the compulsion has been successfully disabled without giving her a chance to kill large numbers. Anything less and she'll probably bide her time whether the compulsion is active or not, so we need to find some way to fake it. I believe I've mentioned our thin resources already."

"It's driving her insane," Cassie said.

"I can arrange to have her uncuffed in an isolation cell for most of the day when the other slaves are working anyway. I doubt it will help much, but it's something," Enlil said. "Do you have any ideas that won't endanger others?"

"Put Tanirt into an isolation cell with Lily," Cassie said, "Lily needs a few weeks to detox anyway, and Tanirt told me she likes to talk with her. It's better than locking her up alone."

"Lily hasn't done anything," Enlil said, "I can't lock slaves into isolation for convenience."

"You were gonna do it to Tanirt," Cassie said.

"I was going to ask Tanirt if she'd prefer it," Enlil said, "and I expect she'll say yes."

"Well, then, bullshit. Your entire operation is predicated on doing bad things to people because it'll be good for them in the end. How's this different?" Cassie asked.

Enlil said nothing. He sat down, steepled his fingers. "It's not the detox program I'd like, but it's the one I can afford," he said, "maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist, maybe it's time to make a compromise. I'll consider it. And I appreciate the help, you are much more familiar with these girls than I am. But. You're dodging the question."

Cassie looked at the locker, and thought of the staff deck outside. She could be one of them. It would be almost like home. It could be a new home. The bottom deck would never be like that. But she'd also be leaving Lily behind there, and even if she detoxed she was going to need a friend. A friend who went through what she went through. And Tanirt. And maybe others, in other cells. "I won't be on the bottom deck forever, right?" Cassie asked. "Slaves who work hard and be good get promoted upwards, right?" Enlil was silent for several seconds. "Commander?"

"That information isn't supposed to be available to people in your position. The basic structure is obvious enough after a few weeks, but the details are kept secret. Keeps slaves from gaming the system. Except, well...Our regulations don't really cover the particular position you're in. And I do hate rash action," Enlil said. "But I think you need to make an informed choice. Promise me you will not reveal any of this information to any of the other slaves, regardless of what choice you make."

"I promise," Cassie said.

"Yes. You can get yourself promoted to higher class. But not higher than second class. For reasons not important to this conversation, first class slaves do not, practically speaking, exist. Make your decision under the assumption that you will never be higher than second class," Enlil said.

"What's second class like?" Cassie asked.

"It's the staff deck with a lightsout and lockdown, basically," Enlil said, "and that information is also not to leave this room."

"How long will it take?" Cassie asked.

"No one is even considered for a promotion to fourth class for at least three months. Slaves who've been fifth class for more than three months but less than a year are only promoted if they've given us a very good reason to consider them obedient," Enlil said, "and it only takes longer from there."

"Are all of the promotions based on obedience?" Cassie asked.

"No," Enlil said, "obedience is necessary but not sufficient for third class and up. I'm not going to go into details but suffice to say I suspect you'll tick all the right boxes if you remain who you are."

"I...I know what the right thing to do is," Cassie said, "I just don't know if I can do it."

"Accepting my offer wouldn't be wrong, Cassie. You don't owe them anything," Enlil said.

"Is right and wrong just about debts and favors to you? Plutocrat," Cassie said. Enlil leaned back in his chair and his eyes narrowed. "I-I'm sorry," Cassie said.

"Don't be," Enlil said. "In any case, Cortez's professed friendship with you might not even be genuine."

"It doesn't matter," Cassie said, "I mean, okay, it matters to me, but not in the big picture. The right thing is what's best for everyone, no matter what they've done or how much I like them or they like me. And Lily will fall apart without me and Tanirt will fall apart without her so I know that there's at least two people who will be hurt if I leave and only one of me that will be better off. I know what the right thing to do is. I just...I can't say it."

"Then accept my offer," Enlil said, "if you can't bring yourself to decline it out loud I can't, in good conscience, hold you to your decision. No one on this deck would consider it wrong to accept."

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut, stamped a foot on the ground, and said "fine, I'll...I'll say it. I'll...Be your slave. For Lily and Tanirt and everyone else down there who might need a friend. I'll be a slave."

"Are you absolutely certain, Cassie? You can't back out of this later," Enlil said, "and you won't get any special treatment. Only the officers will even know this conversation happened."

"Please don't talk me out of this, sir," Cassie said, "I want to do what's best for everyone, whether they deserve it or not. Why even give me a choice if you'll only take one answer?"

Enlil sighed, stood up, and flipped the locker shut. "You're a good person, Cassie," he said, "I hope someday I can reward that with more than just praise."

"Thank you, sir," Cassie said.

"'Master' is the term for slaves addressing their owner," Enlil said, walking towards Cassie.

"Yes, Master," Cassie said.

"Good girl," Enlil said, chaining Cassie's hands above her head again.

"Why do I have to be shackled, Master?" Cassie asked, trying to keep the indignity out of her tone. Partly because she'd chosen this, and partly out of a now-familiar fear of punishment.

"Staff deck regulation for fifth class slaves," Enlil said, "exceptions have to be ratified unanimously by the command crew."

"Aren't you in charge?" Cassie asked.

"I've chosen to abdicate that power to rule of law except in times of emergency," Enlil said. "Even if we grant that I am so intelligent and so righteous that I am superior to any bureaucracy, it is still unfortunately true that I am very often not present and the lower officers have to function autonomously. Think of Mira. She wants to do good, Cassie. Hard as that may be to believe from your perspective, believe me, she does. But have you ever seen her give a punishment harsh enough to satisfy her?"

"No, Master," Cassie said, and suppressed a shiver at the spite with which Mira had whipped Lily, or beaten Andraste on the first day. Maybe Andraste brought it on herself, but Mira's dispassionate viciousness was still unsettling.

"It is the law that keeps her in check. And if I die and my command crew are killed, something which could happen after a single unfortunate drop, she will be in command. And she will follow my example. If that example is one of strict adherence to the law, she will continue to keep herself in check. If that example is one of rewriting the law as you please to better fit the situation, that is what she will do," Enlil said.

"I understand, Master," Cassie said.

"Good. I told you I had two offers for you, and that was one. Slave or not you're under no obligation to accept the second one, understood?" Enlil said.

"Yes, Master," Cassie said.

"I didn't buy you just because I wanted to yank you out of a slave ship that could've been much worse, although that was a happy side effect," Enlil said, "I bought you because you, and your cellmates, have a very special set of skills. Skills that make you effective, as a unit, in nearly any situation. Battlefield support. Espionage. Black ops. Domestic investigation."

"Industrial labor," Cassie offered.

"That too," Enlil said. "Now I won't demand that you fight a war for me. I will say that your homeworld is in danger, and that if I don't find some way of putting fingers in the dyke, it's going to collapse before I have a chance to consolidate and rebuild."

"You're asking me to...?" Cassie asked.

"You, specifically? I expect you to be the investigative and paranormal arm of the team. You're intelligent, analytical, and you have a solid working knowledge of some of the most forbidden subjects in the Dominion. You're also capable of summoning supernatural aid and fighting supernatural opposition, an ability that's totally useless up until the whole mission depends on it. And most importantly, you're trustworthy. I trust that if you promise to go back down to the surface and help people and then come back up to me, to this place, you'll do it," Enlil said.

"You want me to do this now?" Cassie asked.

"Within twenty-four hours, yes," Enlil said. "Waiting will only make things worse."

"And alone?" Cassie asked.

"Sometimes. I need to be able to rely on you. I'm not asking about a specific mission. I'm asking about a general willingness," Enlil said.

This decision wasn't half as hard as the last. "Yes, Master, I want to help," Cassie said.

"Good girl," Enlil said. "As for the specific issue we're facing now...Most of our forces are currently committed to fighting the xenorex incursion in Nova Byzanta. It's working so far, but if we pull men from there to any other problem, we run the risk of losing the initiative. If the xenorex mean war, this loss could give them a beachhead. If this is just a probe, losing to them could encourage an invasion. We've decided to commit ourselves wholly to preventing either outcome."

"Why aren't the planetary governments helping?" Cassie asked.

"Unimportant to your current mission, suffice it to say that the invasion is subtle enough that the governments are either genuinely ignorant or have found it more convenient to pretend it doesn't exist," Enlil said. "The real problem is a second invasion, targeting Toluca." Enlil had Cassie's interest before. Now he had her attention. "A Naraka cult operating somewhere out of the county has maintained a Hellmouth and they're in contact with a powerful demon. And no, I have not mistaken your shenanigans for a cult. Jeanette was working for Majestic Thirteen," Cassie's eyes widened, "and my spy in their local cell confirmed the obvious: There was no way Jeanette would actually complete the ritual. Majestic Thirteen thought they were safe, which is why they attempted to arrest you and Jack instead of bombing you from orbit.'

"The night of your arrest, my spy went dark, but my other informants in the area have been keeping an eye on general supernatural activity. The number of wisps has skyrocketed and unexplained disappearances have skyrocketed with them. The body count is approaching the triple digits already," Cassie tried to swallow but couldn't seem to manage it, "something powerfully supernatural is happening in Toluca. Someone other than Jeanette completed the Hellmouth. And a beachhead for Naraka could be just as dangerous as one for the xenorex."

"A beachhead for Naraka? What does that mean? I mean, Naraka's not united, not a political unit," Cassie said.

"Neither is the Trade Dominion. Just because internecine conflict is incessant doesn't mean they don't have a common enemy in us, or that the faction on the other side of the gate doesn't want to expand into an unsuspecting, poorly defended, backwoods county," Enlil said.

"But how do we know they're going to invade if there's different factions?" Cassie asked, "we can't know they're hostile, can we?"

"Well, there is the almost triple digit body count I mentioned earlier," Enlil said.

"Are we sure they're dead?" Cassie asked.

"We've found a couple of the bodies, yes. They didn't die quickly," Enlil said.

"How many?" Cassie asked. "How many people have died?"

"Twenty-six confirmed dead. Another sixty-three missing. Of those missing, going by previous years' missing person rates, only two or three of them are likely to be unrelated," Enlil said.

"Are...Are you sure they came in through the Hellmouth? Are you sure this wouldn't have happened anyway?" Cassie asked.

"This isn't your fault," Enlil said.

"I...If these killers are from the Hellmouth, I let them in, didn't I?" Cassie asked.

"You were wholly ignorant of what you were dealing with because information was intentionally kept from you by the Dominion," Enlil said, "you would have double checked the ritual if you had literature to double check, and you wouldn't have performed it if you knew there was a strong possibility of putting your home in danger. Curiosity is not a crime."

"Manslaughter is," Cassie said.

"Enough," Enlil said, "who is to blame makes no difference to how we solve the problem."

"Yes, Master," Cassie said, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Enlil said. "Echoshire's seen a drastic increase in missing persons. The police are baffled and our informants have reported that what appears to be covert investigators have been poking around the area, most likely Majestic Thirteen, but they left and the disappearances haven't stopped. Informants also report contradictory numbers of wisps in the area, almost always higher than pre-Hellmouth levels, but by exactly how much varies wildly."

Cassie needed to get the timeline on that. Wisps were a good indicator of supernatural activity in general because most people's ghosts sank into the ghostly otherworld of Mictlan almost instantly when they died unless either they were killed in some extremely horrible way or the border between worlds was generally weak in the area. Opening up a Hellmouth will satisfy the second requirement and cause wisp rates to skyrocket, but when the wisp population is going both up and down a lot, that usually meant something was going on with Mictlan, and that something was usually a poltergeist.

"We're still looking for leads on the cult. With a Hellmouth open, a large number of disappearances are to be expected, but the number in Echoshire is high even under the circumstances. It could be cult-related, and regardless it needs to be stopped before more people die," Enlil said, "we need you to investigate the disappearances and put a stop to them. Any questions?"

"How do we know it's a cult that completed the Hellmouth?" Cassie asked.

"We don't, necessarily. The rate of disappearances suggests a very rapid influx of minor demons. It's possible that Naraka is just particularly feverish right now, but we suspect that this was planned, that mortal cultists contacted their demonic masters and let them know a Hellmouth was about to open," Enlil said.

"Will I be alone?" Cassie asked.

"We hope to keep this a purely investigative mission," Enlil said, "our muscle is limited to Tanirt and Andraste. Tanirt might betray you and Andraste is...Indisposed. She's alive and uninjured," he hastened to add as Cassie's face was clouded with fear, Andraste was kind of a terrible person but executing uncooperative slaves was rather crossing a line regardless, "but that doesn't mean I expect giving her a gun and sending her to the surface with you would be safer than sending you alone."

"I understand, Master," Cassie said, "but what about getting help on the surface? I have some contacts in Toluca County, some of them would still be willing to work with me even after I was...Well, sent here."

"Who did you have in mind?" Enlil asked.

"Well, there's Jack. He might be involved with the cult that completed the ritual, but there's no way of knowing for sure," Cassie said.

"Whether you trust him or not is left to your discretion, but try to keep in mind that your life is at stake, and it could take months to recruit a replacement occultist, months during which Toluca will be a battleground between Majestic Thirteen and Naraka cultists. No matter who wins that fight, the population loses," Enlil said.

"Yes, Master. There's some others," Cassie said, "Neil, Amber, and Lionel were sort of...Apprentices, I guess. They didn't know much, but we used them for grunt work sometimes, like, if we needed to research every concert held in the county since it was founded, we'd get them to help to make it go faster."

"How deeply involved are they? In occultism and other crimes?" Enlil asked.

Cassie swallowed. "I...Master, you're not going to have them arrested, are you? Please, I didn't even think about...Please don't."

"No, I'm not," Enlil said, "answer the question."

"Well, I think they've been trespassing sometimes. Maybe they've been out past curfew," Cassie said.

"Toluca has no curfew," Enlil said.

"It does for minors," Cassie said.

"I don't want civilians involved, especially not teenagers. Don't go looking for them," Enlil said.

"Um...With respect, Master, I'm only two years older than them," Cassie said.

"You've already made a career out of pumping blood-crazed occultists for their lore and then selling them out to the police. Your 'apprentices' are considerably less involved and you are not to drag them deeper in," Enlil said.

"Yes, Master. Do you have a record of the reports of wisp activity, including where and when the data was gathered?" Cassie asked.

"Yes. I'll have the details waiting for you on the shuttle," Enlil said, "anything else?"

"No, Master," Cassie said.

"Very well," Enlil said. He stepped toward Cassie, and she looked towards the ground as he approached. "If you find evidence of an immediate threat to the population, call in support from Nova Byzanta. They will send a strike team as soon as they're able. However," he pulled a coiled bullwhip from his belt, tilting Cassie's head upwards with it. Her heart raced from the whip's proximity. "Those troops could be needed to fight xenorex at any second. You are risking other people's lives by calling on them, and if you do so, you will be whipped. Even if nothing happens in Nova Byzanta while they're gone. Even if the threat to Toluca is real. And if something terrible happens to Toluca that you could have prevented by calling them, you will be whipped more. If you come back from Toluca empty-handed, you will be whipped, in addition to any whipping you receive for calling the strike team or failing to call them at cost to the people of Toluca. But you are better whipped than dead. Better for you, me, and Rho Geminorum. Understand, slave?"

"Yes, Master," Cassie said, only barely managing to keep her voice steady.

"Good girl," Enlil said, replacing the whip on his belt. Cassie breathed a sigh of relief while he walked to the door and called Lt. Mira in to escort Cassie to the shuttle bay. "Do good work, slave," he said while Mira unchained Cassie from the ceiling and cuffed her to her waist chain, "Toluca could live or die on it."