It's My Party

"Yeah, sure Chico. It's about the note, isn't it?"

"Yeah. If you were in charge, what would you do?"

Bambino looked surprised at first being asked such a question, but then he smiled that Chico valued his opinion. "Well, Uno has to know about this, that's for sure. But… I can see your point too. We could get a lot of knowledge talking to these people." Bambino paused and then asked, "You're thinking of splitting the group, aren't you?"

Chico nodded. "Bambino, which group would you like to be in? You could be in charge of the muchachos heading back home, or if you want, you could join Toro and me. I'm thinking we'll go back down the green spiral."

"You and Toro, huh? Gee, what about all the women? What about Cassidy?"

"Oh, don't worry about Cassidy. She can go where you go."

"Really? Thanks Chico. I'd hate to split up." Bambino paused for moment. "Uh…"

"Yeah?"

"What about the pussies?"

Chico sighed and said nothing for a while. "Yeah. I'm still thinking about that."

"Ah…" A quiet minute passed.

Chico was beginning to feel exasperated. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Which group would you want to go with?"

"Do you need an answer now?"

Chico turned his head to look down the corridor for a moment, hiding his disappointment. "No, I guess not. Just let me know at breakfast. Talk it over with Cassidy if you want."

"Hey Chico, you don't have to insult me. I'm a compadre, Cassidy is just a…" Bambino looked at a loss for words.

Chico frowned at him. "You think of Cassidy as pussy?"

"Well…" Bambino looked confused. "Isn't that the new order?"

Chico nodded at him slowly. "Yeah, I guess it is." Their guard shift was almost over. The two men watched the corridors in silence until Chico went and woke Cassidy and Brandi.

Chapter 30.

The next day

Time: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 7:05 AM

"Interesting times," thought Chico philosophically. "It sure does feel different, not to be threatening the women with a gun anymore…" He estimated they were approaching the seven-kilometer mark in their trip from the spiral hub. His group was returning to Green Mall, with still more than thirty kilometers to go before the sky-bridge would come into view. They were only pulling a single sled, but they still had a very long walk ahead of them.

His party of nine was making exceptional progress, nearly four kilometers per hour. Chico paused to study the slaves' tired bodies and realized that it wasn't that they were holding back before. Their speed now came from the women embracing the purpose of their mission, and they were driving themselves to exhaustion. This was so different from yesterday when the women would beg him with their eyes for breaks.

A defining moment had occurred just a half kilometer ago. There was a small specialty store on the inside arc. Unknown to Chico, the exact position of its door was at the spiral mark 6,438 meters, directly across from a sensor node location and one sensor jump away from the Barnes & Nobel bookstore at 6,738 meters. The mall signage identified the specialty store's wares, great varieties of pretzels, but what caught their attention was a small table standing in the corridor by the locked door. The group quickened their pace as they debated what was on the table. And then they finally arrived and read the small note. "LEAVE BOTH BERSA THUNDERS HERE. -- MADISON"

Unknown to all of them, their conversation was being monitored by sensors directly across from them on the outside arc. Madison was also hiding upstairs in the store, with a Leophone and a bicycle and enough bottled water and wholesome food to last for a month.

"Hell Chico," Toro had commented dryly. "They know exactly what we're packing." He pressed his face to the transparent door and looked inside. "Neat! There's a whole section on chocolate-covered pretzels, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white… Hey Lynn, if I can get this door open, would you like a dark chocolate sourdough pretzel?"

As tired as she was, Lynn gave him a kind smile and replied playfully, "Sure! Dark chocolate sourdough is my all-time favorite!"

Chico though was not in a playful mood. "Moment of truth Toro," he said slowly. "We surrender our guns, Uno will kill us for sure if he gets the chance. We put our guns on the table, there's no turning back." He took a deep breath. "Damn. I was hoping…"

Toro noticed how tense Chico was becoming and mumbled, "Yeah?"

Chico didn't answer immediately. He looked instead at the six slaves. He had tried to show them some kindness, tried to take good care of them when they were his responsibility, but now they reminded him of a jury, silently passing judgment on him. He felt too ashamed to look them in the eyes. "I guess I was hoping for more time, more time to tell the women I was sorry."

"Did you ever rape anyone Chico?" Toro asked quietly.

"Yeah, these last few weeks, sure." Chico turned to his friend. "We all did." And then he whispered, "Didn't we?"

Toro shook his head. "I couldn't bring myself to do it. Britney though, I helped murder her."

"No you didn't. You just didn't stand up for her." Chico gave a deep sigh. "I didn't either."

"That's no excuse. Hell Chico, the woman was being murdered, and we didn't do shit. We both have a lot to answer for."

"Me too," whispered Brandi. "This past month, so much of it was a nightmare."

Toro glanced at Brandi and nodded and then continued, "If I can get back to feeling human again…" He paused for a long moment. "If I could get that, I wouldn't mind giving up my pistol." Another pause, and then a whisper that was a cry from the center of his soul, "or anything at all."

Lynn was standing nearby, the sled harness still strapped around her shoulders. She had enough slack in the straps to move. She came to Toro and put her hand on his shoulder and gently kissed his cheek.

And that simple expression of affection enabled Chico to decide. He ejected his magazine and then laid both his pistol and the ammo on the table. Toro followed with his pistol a second later. They looked around for a moment, shrugged, and then resumed their slow journey to the sky-bridge. Their walk was uneventful for the next six hundred meters, and then Brandi shouted, "Chico, up ahead! People!"

"Huh?" Chico had switched with Lynn and was taking a shift pulling the sled with Mandy and Heather. Chico had been lost in thought thinking about the pistol drop-off, and he had not been expecting to meet anybody for many hours.

His group stopped. Chico took out his binoculars and moved to the wall of the outside arc to maximize his view. Then he looked at the corridor ahead. Sure enough, people were walking alongside the outside edge to maximize their visibility. Three people were walking briskly towards them, almost jogging, less than two hundred meters away now, three women in fact.

"Should we keep going to meet them?" asked Toro who was also looking with his binoculars.

Chico shook his head as he saw one of the women give him a hand signal. "I think they want us to wait here." He turned to Mandy and Heather. "You can get out of harness."

In less than two minutes, the two groups met up. They stared at each other for a moment, and then one of the women began to speak. "Hello. My name is Fatima." She gestured with her arms at the two women by her side. "This is Aggie, and this is Ashley."

Chico nodded. "I'm guessing we don't have to introduce ourselves."

"We know all your names Chico, that is correct."

"So you must have met up with the women we lost at Rabbies Dram."

Fatima paused. "I won't answer questions like that, not yet."

Chico nodded. "Can I ask? What sort of position are Toro and I bargaining from? If we decide to part company, will our pistols still be on the table? Are you the leader of your group?"

Fatima shook her head. "No, I'm not the leader. And the guns you left on the table are already gone. We debated this point last night. We recognize that you came here in good faith, under a flag of truce. And yet… We abhor the decisions you've made Chico. I'm sorry, but the slavery and the rape of these women must end. It must! The abuse can not stand. Our conscience forbids it."

Chico had a sour taste in his mouth. "I expected as much."

Ashley spoke up. "Chico, we recognize that we're violating the norms for two warring parties coming together for negotiations. But perhaps this will help us reconcile. We will need to forgive you, and you will need to forgive us."

Toro spoke up. "Is that what this it's all about then? Forgiveness?"

Fatima frowned, and then her anger caused her to speak in a semi-shout. "Yes, forgiveness for rape and torture and murder, forgiveness without punishment. You men! How could you do it?! How could you allow yourselves to become such monsters?!"

Chico turned to Brandi. Her eyes were asking him the same question, and he tried to come up with a serious answer. "I'm not sure exactly. Maybe in part it was the drug we took, the first day we came here. I'm not trying to make excuses. We're still responsible for what we did. The drug though, it… it releases inhibitions. And the effect doesn't wear off. Have you noticed?"

Fatima replied, "Yes, we have. But we don't think of it quite like that. The drug doesn't release our inhibitions. We believe the drug in some profound way enhances mental clarity. It removes social veneer. We behave as we truly are."

Toro's eyes lit up. "Yes! I know what you mean. I've been wondering about the same thing for a month. The drug lets our true characters come out."

Fatima nodded. "That's right. It's easier to express truth, much more difficult to lie. But the drug did not hurt our free will. We can still choose to be who we want to be." She looked over the six slaves. "We can talk more, but right now, my group would like to get these women some medical attention, especially Holly and Lynn. Chico, Toro, and you too Brandi, do you surrender to us?"

Chico answered with his own question. "What are the terms?"

"There are no terms. But we have no plans for punishment. Just choose, surrender or not."

He took a deep breath. "What will you do with us?"

"Confine you, talk with you, work to integrate you into our society." Fatima looked back and forth between the captors and captives. "You six slaves can join us at once. You other three will have limited mobility for a while. I repeat, we're not doing this as punishment. We just don't want you free to turn on us while we're still at war with the remaining people of Black Mall."

Movement down the corridor behind Fatima caught Lynn's eye. "Look everybody! There're some kind of vehicles coming towards us!"

Fatima turned and was surprised to see Hannah, Ann, and Akiko rapidly biking with three empty side-cars towards them. Fatima's group had parted from them just a few minutes ago. If Chico and Toro had not left their pistols, the six women would have all returned to the Green Mall sky-bridge, and probably not made contact with Chico's party.

Toro and Chico both tried to give Ann and Akiko friendly smiles, but the women ignored them and Ann spoke to Fatima. "The rest of Chico's group, we guessed wrong! They're not returning to Black Mall. Jada said they just appeared at the sensor edge of Green Mall."

Chico felt stunned. Bambino was coming after him? That didn't make sense. It would be way out of character for Bambino to disobey Chico's order to lead the muchachos back home.

Fatima turned to Chico and asked excitedly, "You don't know about this?!"

"No!"

Fatima thought rapidly about the situation. They were only three hundred meters from Barnes and Nobel, while their adversaries probably still had six kilometers to go. She made a snap decision. "Chico! Toro! Brandi! Decide now!"

Chico looked at Toro and Brandi, and then spoke for all three of them. "We surrender!"

Fatima took a moment to lock eyes with each of them and witness their sincerity. "Excellent! Everyone, we're heading back to Barnes and Nobel. Unload your sled and fill up the side-cars. Holly, Lynn, and anybody else with trouble walking, just hop a ride on a side-car. Everybody else, grab something and let's go!"

Lynn wound up holding two sled harnesses while she rode in the side-car, dragging the sled behind her. Devoid of its cargo, the light sled was easy to pull. "My gosh, bicycles with side-cars!" she thought. "These people have such an advantage over us. Wait! What am I thinking?! I'm part of this group now. Now it's my team that has the advantage." She looked back at Toro who was walking rapidly with some others but not quite keeping up with the bicycles. He saw her staring at him and he waved and tried to smile.

"Such a strange set of emotions," Lynn thought. "Anger and gratitude, revulsion and affection, all at the same time. Do I love this man?" But then her ride pulled up to the bookstore, and the excitement and their need to hurry pushed the thoughts of Toro from her mind.

The bookstore was fabulously set up for their needs. and the group quickly filed inside. Shielded by high curving bookshelves that reached almost to the ceiling, it was easy to move the people and equipment to a part of the store that would be completely invisible from the outside corridor.

At last everyone was inside and moving out of view. Lynn paused for a moment and lingered by the two new women by the door. "Hi. I'm Lynn."

"Hello Lynn," nodded one woman. "I'm Emily. This is Madison."

Lynn turned. "Ah, the person who asked for the pistols?"

"Uh huh. They're here in this store now." Madison gave Lynn a kind smile and then asked. "Lynn, this is everybody, right? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I counted. There's nothing left outside. Your six people and everyone from us is here, all our cargo too. The corridor is clean."

"Okay, great." Emily then called out, "Jada! We're closing up!" She pushed the button in the recessed hole in the archway, and ten seconds later after the door finished its descent, she snapped a mushroom lock over the opening.

There was gap of several centimeters between the door and the lock, much different than the glove-fit of the doors around the other locks Lynn had seen. "Wow, that open space, it looks different."

Emily nodded. "It'll start to seal in a minute or so. Hopefully by the time the other men pass by, this will look just like any other door. Come on, I'll show you where the other people are."

Emily and Madison walked Lynn to the hidden side of the store, keeping a sharp eye for anything that looked out of place. Everything looked undisturbed.

Lynn gathered around a large crowd of people in the corner of the store. She couldn't help but notice a section of the back wall was open and leading to the bottom of a familiar looking circular stairwell. "My gosh," she thought. "This is where the entrance to Green Mall is, so close to the hub! What an advantage!"

Jada was working the monitoring system, and she called out a commentary to the crowd around her. "The party is approaching our sensor at spiral meter-mark 2642. They're making good time, four kilometers till they get here, ETA forty minutes." Jada zoomed in on a control, and Brandi shouted out, "Someone's missing. It's Bambino! He's not there. Oh my God!! Look at Cassie! She looks…"

She couldn't finish the statement. Cassie's hair was disheveled, she appeared to have two bruised eyes, dried blood had caked under her nose and her clothes were torn. She was under load, forced to carry a large backpack, and she was struggling to keep her torn jeans from falling down. "Those damn muchachos!" hissed Brandi. "What have they done to her?!" Brandi then gave a small scream. "Is that blood between her legs?!"

Jada turned to her roommate. "Emily, I'm wondering about Bambino. Can you go check the census counter?" Emily nodded and ran out through the back of the room. Jada took a moment to look at the new members of their society and then she stood up to face them.

"People, welcome to our group. That goes for all of you," she added, looking at the two men first and then at the new women. "My name is Jada, and I am currently second in command and also acting in command." She saw a number of thoughtful looks at this announcement. "Don't worry. These are temporary titles. We haven't had time to work on a permanent government yet. We'll explain later."

"I want you people out of here. Through that door is our Green Mall home complex. It's almost identical to what you're seen in Black Mall. This will be your home during your orientation. Then you'll be free to move around as much as we are." Jada turned back to Chico and Toro. "Guys, you too Brandi, you'll be required to stay here a little longer. Did Fatima explain this to you?"

Chico nodded. "She did. And we agreed. Are you saying we'll be free to wander the whole complex? I was expecting to be locked up in a store or something."

Jada stared at the large man for a moment and realized she recognized him. Charles… she couldn't remember the last name, but she had seen this man before in some of the intercollegiate competitions. He was on the University wrestling team. Jada wasn't sure, but she thought he might have been the team captain. She sighed and answered his question. "Yes, the mall with all the locks, it would make a gigantic prison system, wouldn't it?" She shook her head. "We debated this for hours yesterday. We're trying to accept you without any punishment for your crimes. Your detention is only"

Emily ran back into the store. "The counter, it ticked down to 015:100. The male census has dropped by one."

"Those shits!" whispered Brandi in a hiss. "They've killed him!"

Jada spoke up. "People! Please begin leaving. People from our group will guide you. First stop will be the medical complex. Aggie, take charge." She paused and added, "Akiko, please stay with me."

Everyone else started filing out the door. Chico and Toro locked their hands together and carried Holly between them up the stairs. Lynn was the last in line, and she paused in the archway. Ahead of her was the bottom of a deep circular stairwell, with a long row of people climbing up. Behind her was a rather plush bookstore, with a large table set up for the monitor displays.

"Lynn, could you close the door on your way out?" Jada called out.

"Actually, could I stay with you for a while?"

Jada paused for a second. "Lynn, you're walking with a bit of a limp. Ann and Akiko told us how you were caned."

"Yes, the day before they escaped. They cared for me that night."

"And they can do a lot more for you now. The medical facilities upstairs can cure your wound completely. Head on up."

"Oh, that sounds wonderful… but can it wait? The pain isn't bad, and I'd really like to stay."

Jada paused and considered. "All right. Close the door and pull up a chair."

Lynn closed the door and gave a small chuckle. "Actually, it'll be easier for me if I stand." She walked over next to her old friend and gave her a hug. "Hi Akiko! Nice to see you again!"

Jada looked up and smiled. "Akiko mentioned you two knew each other before… before we came here."

Lynn nodded. "Yes. We were both in the same data networking class, back at the University."

Akiko added. "And not just that. We were locked up together in Black Mall. We tried to look out for each other."

Jada spoke to Lynn. "This past week, Akiko has made monumental advances in our communications abilities."

Akiko blushed. "Jada, please…"

Lynn gave a small laugh. "Oh, I'm not surprised. She's a superb engineer. What'd she do?"