The Free Cities Ch. 01

A/N: This story is based on an adult erotic/colony simulation game called Free Cities, which can be found only a Google search away. It will contain themes of femdom, slavery, body modification as well as, in later chapters, gender transformation. I am relatively new to erotic fiction so any feedback would be appreciated, and if any readers are familiar with Free Cities, feel free to give suggestions as to where you'd like to see the future development of the story go.

It is the year 2037, and the past 21 years have not been kind.

When my parents were growing up, they basked in the sunlight of the end of the Cold War. Life could afford to be carefree and happy, and for a decade, a brief decade suspended like a mote in history's sunbeam, the world dared hope that the future would be peaceful.

We know now that their hopes were naive. I grew up to the backdrop of global alarm over climate change, dwindling resources, and looming catastrophe. Scientists and old world governments promised that the technological solution was just around the corner - new agricultural techniques to feed the booming human population, machines that could pump carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, ambitious Hail Mary schemes to settle Mars.

None of it came true. Technology marched on, and there were remarkable advances in food production and even new and pioneering fields like robotics and cybernetics, but the pace of this technological advance was far too slow to save everyone. Billions remain trapped on an Earth torn and fragmented, like so many chickens scrabbling and pecking at arid dirt just to keep themselves alive another day. Those old world governments that remain standing proclaim authority over desperate teeming cities surrounded by vast wilderness, but organised bands of criminals and mercenaries openly operate, ignoring the pointless voice of the helpless authorities.

As central authority crumbled, those who were rich or lucky enough escaped the collapse of civilisation and built worlds of their own in the form of immense arcologies that served as self-contained cities. They typically resemble great steel-and-glass shards jutting up out of the ruins of the old world, rising from the basement levels where the machinery that powers the arcology is stored, up through the petty commercial enterprises and the common residential areas, right up to the luxury of the arcology penthouse where the shard narrows to a single point.

Establishing an arcology is not a difficult thing to do, as long as you have money, land and labour to help you do so. They started springing up all over the world in the mid-2020s, wherever the central authority was tenuous enough that it either couldn't or wouldn't stop an attempt at secession, and they tend to be established in clusters - even within sight of one another - for ease and convenience of trade. No-one wants to battle their way through an old world bush war just to conduct trade with the next arcology over.

Free trade is the founding principle of the arcology system. The first arcology builders had it in mind that they were going to create some libertarian paradise; they called the network of arcologies the Free Cities, and enthusiastically proclaimed that the future would be decentralised and technologically driven. They succeeded in some of their endeavours - commerce in the Free Cities is fueled by a digital currency known ubiquitously as credits - but their paradise never quite came to pass. Just like any other human society since the dawn of time, an arcology is a good place to be on top, and a horrible place to be at the bottom.

At the bottom in the Free Cities are, of course, the slaves. There are no laws per se here, for the highest law in the land is the enforcement of contracts, in true libertarian vein. A landlord or arcology owner might include clauses in their contracts prescribing conduct that would have been considered "criminal" in the old world. Invariably, contracts were breached, and offended parties demanded recompense. Some arcologies experimented with indentured servitude. They found themselves swamped with desperate citizens of the old world, begging to sell themselves for a shot at escaping the nightmare world outside.

For some, slavery was an easy sell. For others, it was a desperate, difficult one, but the penniless, powerless outsiders who dared approach an arcology's gates were given a simple choice: sign a contract of slavery, or leave and take your final chances. More stayed than left. Thriving slave markets sprang up almost overnight, and the economies of the Free Cities boomed. Menial labour was always in high demand, but by far the highest prices were paid for the pretty young slave girls who were to serve their Master's pleasure, or else be sent to earn money walking the streets or serving in one of the arcology's many brothels and sex arcades. Some of the smartest accepted their position, and many times I watched a slave girl drive a ferocious bidding war by something so simple as the way she stuck out her ass on the auction block. Some were not so quick to accept their new lot in life, and the slave owners of the Free Cities were quick to find inventive ways to force their girls into line.

Arcology owners relished their newfound power to impose their own vision of society on their little private fiefdoms. Some saw themselves as carrying on the legacy of some great old world nation and styled themselves as such; others hearkened back to the grand, triumphalist styles of empires from millennia ago. Some arcology owners were wise, and invested shrewdly, and caused their own fortunes and reputations to grow. If you want to become popular as an arcology owner in the Free Cities, you must make sure your citizens have their basic needs provided for: you must keep the arcology growing and producing enough food for all, keep the economy and standard of living improving, and - crucially - you must make sure that all of your citizens have an outlet for their sexual needs and impulses.

You do that, in turn, by assuring that your arcology operates a wide range of sexual services and entertainments fit for any budget. The millionaires, the shareholders and wealthy investors must be able to call upon a classy, eager, well trained slut at any hour of the day or night, or they'll withdraw their investment and take it to an arcology where their needs will be better serviced. The respectable but not wealthy middle classes need brothels and clubs where they can go to fulfill any fancy they can imagine, for a price. Those who still earn their keep by the sweat of their brow, but remain free, often just want a wet hole to fuck to relieve the stress of a hard day's labour, and generally frequent the glory holes in the arcade or look for a street hooker.

My name is Lorelei Blackthorn. I was born in what was central Pennsylvania - I suppose it still is, in as much as the state borders have any relevance any more - in 2002, making me presently 35. I stand 5'7" tall, but I'm not above wearing a striking pair of heels to punctuate that with a few extra inches. My complexion is naturally pale, and I love the sharp contrast between my ice-blue eyes and the waves of long white hair that tumble down my back. I'm also proud of my D-cup breasts and my shapely ass, which have proven an asset to me in life more than once.

I was fortunate enough between about 16 and 20 to have made some lucky investments in cryptocurrency before that market collapsed, and to see the writing on the wall when everything in the world outside started to go to hell. At 23, I was able to buy into the imaginatively named Arcology X-3, the third of a cluster of six located at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay, about halfway between Philadelphia and Washington DC, and I quickly grew to despise the arcology owner, a weaselly little shit named Marshall Stone who may well have financed the arcology's construction, but he'd made his money through an insurance company that had dropped into his lap when his dad, who'd owned it, had suddenly died. The man himself had the business acumen of a dead squirrel and, tasked with running the equivalent of a small but wealthy first world country, quickly made himself very unpopular.

The one thing he was good at was pitting potential rivals to his control against one another, and so for years, he'd been able to keep other shareholders in the arcology stabbing each other in the back enough to keep the uncontested balance of power for himself. I spent the next three years keeping to myself, learning as much as I could about Free Cities contract law, and making a few well chosen investments so that I could grow my bankroll slowly enough to not attract any of the wrong sort of attention. I found out very quickly that it was a man's world out there, with men dominating every aspect of the business and economic spheres of the Free Cities, but there were ways in which that worked to my advantage; a man who underestimated me would soon find that there were bigger fish than him in this pond.

Word got out, as it was bound to do in such a tightly knit and enclosed environment as the arcology, and I suppose I really made a splash when I bought my first shares in the arcology. It was a tiny fraction, about a third of a percent, but I was entitled to attend the arcology's shareholder meeting and I don't mind saying that I turned a few heads when I did so. I suppose I would, being the only woman in the room, not counting the slave girls who kneeled or stood at attention by their masters' feet. I, being such a minor shareholder, simply sat in the corner and took notes, and let the whisperers speak for themselves.

The next few years saw me engaged in a war of attrition with Stone, as well as some of the other shareholders, but I showed that I could play them off against each other just as well as he could. I took advantage of some arbitrage opportunities that I had, I was successful in shorting some of his positions, and on a couple of occasions I simply got lucky enough to outguess him. If you want to rise to the top, you've got to have luck on your side, and my sights were set firmly on the penthouse at the top of the arcology.

It was after one particularly robust exchange that I saw him lose his temper with me for the first time. "I'm going to take you down to nothing, you bitch," he'd promised. "And when I do, I'm not even going to bother keeping you for myself. I'm going to put you in stocks with your ass and your mouth spread open for every last man in this arcology to get their rocks off, you just mark my words."

Anyway, it's funny how things work out, because when my mercenaries filed into his office on the last day of 2036, he knew there was no need to argue the point. There was no need to fire a single shot: as an arcology owner, if you find mercenaries trooping into your office single file as though they own the place, you've already long since lost the economic war. He took his fate pretty well, all things considered. Once he'd signed his share in the arcology over to me, he was escorted out of the building and quite literally put on a bus. It was a rusty, leaky contraption riddled with bullet holes, on its way to Baltimore or some other hellhole that had long since abandoned the pretext of civilisation. I was curious how he'd fare out in the world, considering he'd been isolated from it his entire life.

That's how it came to be that on the first day of 2037, I ascended the elevator to the top floor of Arcology X-3 alongside my lawyer and a girl of about 25, naked but for a narrow steel band around her neck. At 5'2", she was half a head shorter than me, and I could read the nervous anticipation around her, from the way her deep green eyes flickered around her surroundings to the way goosebumps stood up on her soft, unblemished skin. The documents she'd brought with her from her previous life showed that she was Canadian, but in those mono-lidded eyes and dark olive skin were clear markers of her Asian descent. I gather that she'd spent some time living on the streets, and a spell in jail, in the old world, which made her naturally grateful to have some modicum of sanctuary in the arcology, but she'd also had a series of owners in her time here and some, I gather, were harsher on her than others, particularly for her smart mouth, as she was unable to resist a bratty comment on occasion. I could see the traces of muscles in her arms and stomach, which were slight, but just enough to give some definition to her figure, and admired her C-cup tits and the puffy brown nipples that protruded from them, and the way her waist dipped to an hourglass just before her hips widened to give her a plump, curvy ass.

A slave girl, and in particular a young, attractive one, is quite a financial expense, but with Alice here, I'd gotten fortunate in taking ownership of her after I'd destabilized her previous owner's life and business dealings to the extent that he was only too eager to sign her over to me as part of the settlement. That was only a few months ago - good slaves are expensive, and I'd resisted the outlay while I'd been carefully managing my other business dealings, but in the past year, as I moved the pieces on my financial chessboard into place and it became clear that I was poised to take full control, I was unable to deny the necessity any more.

You see, slaves in the Free Cities are representations of their owners' power and prestige. Everything they do is understood to be in the name of their owner, and a well known slave can even acquire some measure of prestige of their own, but without at least one slave, your claims to be anyone will be taken a lot less seriously. I had started off by training Alice in how a slave should carry and conduct herself, and showed her off in meetings, kneeling obediently at my feet. Some new slave owners are keen to build their reputation by sending their girls out into the arcology to be freely used by the public, but for now, I kept Alice to myself, letting them look but not touch, knowing that I had a plan to take care of my own reputation.

I did give her her first taste of pussy, which she'd dived into with all the enthusiasm of the eager if inexperienced beginner. As I say, it had been several months and she was getting more and more experience almost on the daily, and I must admit that it's so nice not to have to pay for some special attention whenever I want it. All it takes is for me to beckon her over and open my legs and she knows exactly what to do.

As soon as the elevator dinged, the doors opened up on a luxurious office done out in heavy set teak and mahogany. The furniture was of finest plush leather and the deep pile carpet gave further credit to the magnificent opulence of the palatial office surroundings. Most stunning of all were the full-length windows that offered a striking view of the Chesapeake Bay below; it was a chilly but cloudless winter day outside, but the arcology's climate conditioning made it feel absolutely perfect against that incredible backdrop.

The lawyer, a wiry-framed man with wire-framed spectacles to match, set a sheaf of papers in front of me. "If you could initial here, Miss Blackthorn, and sign here... and again here... today's date... initial here again... and one final signature, if you please. Congratulations, you are now in majority control of Arcology X-3. This office is keyed specifically to your biometric information, and you may key anyone else into it as you please. This folder here contains a series of valuable documents pertaining to your ownership as well as your obligations and responsibilities, and you also take possession of this," he produced what looked like a jewelry box, from which he took out a sleek white earpiece and set it on the heavy executive desk before me, "which controls the arcology's AI command system. If that's all of the formalities over with, I shall leave you to your pleasures. Oh, and - congratulations, Miss Blackthorn."

I bade him a good day and watched him disappear into the elevator. For a moment, it was all I could do to sit back and take it all in. I'd spent years in varying stages of dreaming and planning for this moment, and now that it was here, I couldn't let my ambition stop. The arcology was in a run down state after years of mismanagement, and if I really wanted to make my mark, I had to transform this whole place.

It had been like this for years, however. I had a lot of work to do, but it could wait for at least an hour or two. I knew there must be a bulky wood and glass drinks cabinet in this office even before I spotted it, so I went to peruse the old owner's taste in liquor. I picked out a fine looking bottle of old world brandy - I couldn't say if the country that produced it still existed any more - and poured myself a generous measure over ice, sitting back behind the ornate desk to enjoy my refreshment. Alice had been stood at attention this entire time, and it was clear from her gaze that she was trying to take in as much of her surroundings as possible without giving away the fact that her eyes were wandering - I could hardly begrudge her that, though. It's not every day your owner becomes the most powerful person in the arcology.

"Alice?"

"Yes, Mistress?" she answered right away.

"Things are going to change for us now, probably quite a lot. I'm going to have to manage my image and reputation even more carefully than before, and you are going to be an integral part of that image, because whatever you do in public reflects not only on me but also now on the heart and soul of this arcology. I have more power over you than ever before, but that also means that if you play nice with me, I can make you very famous in your own right, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"Good girl. We have a lot of work to do, but right now, I'm celebrating." I took a sip from my glass. The brandy slid down my throat with a silky smoothness that expertly concealed the punch that it packed once it reached my stomach. "I'm going to sit back, and you are going to show me all that you've learned over the past few months."

I uncrossed my legs and beckoned Alice to crawl under the desk, which she did at a stroke, giving me a perfect view of her round ass as she did so. She kissed the toe of my black high heeled stiletto and began to work her way up the sheer stocking that highlighted the smooth shape of my leg, but I corrected her with a gentle word. "Mm, no playing around today, girl. I just want you to get your face in my pussy."

"Yes, Mistress," she said once more, reaching up to slide my panties off. No sooner had she done that than her face had disappeared beneath my skirt and I could feel the warm lapping of her tongue on my clit. She'd grown well acquainted with the folds of my labia and just how to lick and suck on my clit since I'd started training her, and she could have got me off very quickly if I'd let her, but I instructed her to slow down and take her time, wanting to savour the moment as well as my drink. Instead, I allowed her to take me through waves of pleasure, gentle at first and getting higher and wilder, before I grabbed her hair and pushed my pussy into her face as she instinctively reacted by fucking me with her tongue. As I reached the height of that maelstrom of pleasure, I climaxed with a moan and allowed her to fall back, my juices glistening on her face. Giving her a moment to catch her breath, I beckoned her up to me and kissed her, tasting the sweet evidence of my climax that flavoured her lips.

"What a good girl," I purred.

"Thank you, Mistress." Alice couldn't help a little submissive blush appearing on her cheeks. I felt warm and content from a mixture of the alcohol and the service I'd just received, and my gaze fell upon the earpiece that had been left upon my desk. I set it in my ear, where it immediately beeped and a crisp female voice sounded as clear as a bell in my ear.