Trapped: Chaos Core Book 1 (2 page)

“One more corner and
we’ll be on the right docking ring,” Sun said. “Almost home.”

Aspen got a sinking
feeling, used her communication screen to look over her shoulder and
saw that the four soldiers were slowly following them. “We’re
screwed,” she said as they turned the corner. “They’re here for
me.”

Sun looked at her
quizzically. “You’re an Academy girl, why would they be after
you?” The hallway ahead filled with soldiers, all their rifles
pointed.

“This is awkward, I
never went to an Academy,” Aspen said, looking for any other way
out of the hall. “Especially not the UCA Academy.”

“We have orders to
take you into custody, Aspen Dunewell, your master is paying a lot of
pips for your retrieval,” the lead soldier said using a scratchy
amplifier.

“You’re an escaped
slave?” Sun asked. “You could have warned me.”

Then she spotted it, a
handle that would activate an emergency lifepod. It was the only
option available to her. “I really meant to tell you a better way,
sorry, bye,” she whispered to Sun the instant before leaping for
the hatch. A bright white stun bolt missed her as she scrambled and
got her hand on the old yellow handle. It creaked and turned a
little, then she felt the excruciating shock of a stun bolt.

Aspen had numb feet,
hands that felt like they were asleep, she was laying on a chilly
metal table. She tried to lift her arms from where they were beside
her head but found metal restraints stopped them. The rustling of a
baggy one-size-fits-all suit that she’d only seen on prisoners and
labour slaves chafed. She opened her eyes and took in a processing
room, where stasis pods, gurneys with restraints and small cages
filled the room.

“Scan complete,
Commander Rahca,” A fellow in a green and white uniform said as he
watched a wall of readouts and icons. “Nothing in her that could
poison us, blow us up, and she’s in relatively good health. I
deactivated her dermal computer, healed some burns from a rifle shot
and took care of a small tumour on her liver. I’m a little
surprised, I thought these constructs were supposed to be genetically
superior.”

“Not this type,” a
woman with white hair and far too colourful makeup in a black and
green uniform said. The dashes across her chest marked her as a
Commander. “Welcome back to the waking world, Aspen Number Seven,
you’re a rare jewel.” She placed a hand on Aspen’s stomach
lightly. “Since the servant bots and pleasure models went crazy,
we’ve had orders to round up any runaway dolls we can find. Raises
a lot of money for the UCA, money that protects the citizens you’re
supposed to serve.”

“I’m a real person,
asshole, slavery is illegal in this system.”

“You may be human,”
the Commander said with a crooked smile, “but you were designed,
grown, then sold by a company as a product. A product that was
catalogued and claimed. Have always belonged to someone, and that’s
who we serve. Besides, the Kensan government has fallen here, the UCA
control this territory.”

“They still have
ships, officers, their laws matter,” Aspen protested as she tried
to look for an escape.

“Well, you can say
whatever you like, Aspen Number Seven, it doesn’t change where
you’re going,” the Commander said, holding her hand out. A small
black chit was handed to her, a dermal code reader.

Aspen tried to turn
away from the Commander. “Tighten the leg restraints so I can get a
direct reading.”

“Sure,” the short
technician said, making an adjustment to a slider at the bottom of
the table while leering up at her. She was forced to lay flat on the
table and the Commander placed the cold, small reader on her chest.
After three beeps it made a triumphant chirp, and the Commander held
up the chip. A holographic image of Aspen was projected, showing her
as she appeared full grown. Her height, one point five metres, her
weight was fifty-six kilograms, her hair colour was branded as
Delightfully Light Blonde, with the Cute n’ Curvy patented facial
and body appearance package. The Health and Longevity rating for her
model was a four point five out of ten possible marks. She knew all
this information already, but seeing herself boiled down to such
bare, marketable facts was still chilling.

“We were ruled as
free people in nineteen Core World systems, you can’t do this. You
protect at least a few of those places,” Aspen protested.

“You know what I’d
give for the beauty you have?” the Commander said quietly. “I
know you were grown, then educated using imprinting technology we can
barely touch now, but God, look at her skin, her youthfulness. They
locked you at twenty-one, didn’t they?”

“That doesn’t mean
they made me to last,” Aspen said, wishing she hadn’t. It was the
first time she admitted to being anything but a normal human for a
long time. “You know the law; you can’t deliver me anywhere near
Loso.”

“Oh, but your owner
moved to her estate in Herche, in the Kerr system, and we have to
follow the law there, where dolls are perfectly legal. You’ll be in
an obedience anklet before the day is over. Maybe some of that reward
can go towards a rollback for me, do you want to know how much you’re
worth?”

“Fuck you!” Aspen
spat at her face, sending spittle across the Commander’s eye and
into her hair.

“All right,”
Commander Rahca said, wiping her eye and smearing her cheap orange
makeup. “Activate the binders in her suit and throw her into her
friend’s cell.”

“Wait, you took Sun?”
she asked, shocked. “She didn’t do anything!”

“She assaulted three
of my soldiers, landed two of them in the brig using nothing but her
hands and feet. A few other crewmembers joined in and tried to keep
us from taking you, I don’t know where they got their weapons, but
they made a big mess trying to save you. They’re lucky they had
nothing but stunners, otherwise the charges would be much worse.”

“Let them go! They
were just trying to protect me, they didn’t even know I was a
doll!”

“It’s my turn to
say, ‘fuck you,’ you little bitch. I bet they’re going to put a
circlet on your little sculpted head and program all that defiance
out of you.” She marched from the room, leaving Aspen with the
technician. A pair of guards in dark green armour entered the room a
moment later.

“Okay, I have to say
this, it’s my job, so please don’t spit on me or anything,” the
technician said. “Anyway, you’re in a binder suit, which will
allow you to move normally as long as the little computer woven into
it doesn’t figure you’re doing something to try to escape, to
hurt yourself or others. If you do try to do any of that, or to
disobey any of these nice guards’ orders, it’ll go stiff then put
you into a seated, or prone position depending on what it catches you
doing. Got that? Good, now don’t waste your energy fighting, just
follow these guys.”

“Don’t hurt
yourself reviewing my scans,” Aspen said, looking at the life sized
nude images of her on the wall.

“Nice attitude,”
the tech said, turning away. “Take her to Dodin’s cell.”

“Put them in
together?” the guard on the left asked.

“Commander’s
orders.”

Aspen slipped off the
table, the cheap material was already starting to make her itch right
between the shoulders. Her attempt at standing still when a soldier
took her arm failed when the suit actually forced her leg forward in
step with his. “Oh yeah, and you’re going to notice that you have
to move with us while we have you slaved to our armour,” the
soldier said.

“So they can put you
on your knees whenever they want too,” Aspen said with a smirk.
She’d heard that the under suits soldiers in the UCA wore could
stiffen and hold them if they tried to escape the service. “Nice
navy, slave-soldier.”

He grabbed her chin in
his hand roughly, lowering his opaque helmet to eye level. “Dolls
don’t talk back. Shut up and move.”

This was what it was
like to be someone’s property, something Aspen remembered
all-too-well. A year and a half away from captivity wasn’t enough
to erase the memories she’d collected during her childhood and
adolescent years. Her urge was to resist, but binder suits didn’t
exactly allow for that, so she nodded as best as she could and
followed the soldiers, feeling tiny sandwiched between them. The male
one, who she would call Lolly, was at least two point two metres. The
female one, who she would call Pop, was two metres tall, give or take
a centimetre.

The walk there was
boring. Not so much as a porthole along the way, and no bored
prisoners or other typical brig sights or smells were visible down
the white and green hallways they walked. All Aspen could guess was
that they were on a ship, judging from the faint whine she could hear
from a gravitational compensator buried somewhere beneath her feet.

They opened a blank
white door and shoved her inside, nearly tipping her in face-first,
then the metal door slid shut behind her. “I’m sorry,” she said
to Sun, who was in a yellow binder suit, sitting on the bed to the
left. There was another small cot to the right and a flip-down
toilet.

“I can’t believe
you’re a doll,” she said. “I’m sorry, free clone? What do we
call your people now?”

Aspen knew that
dismissive rude mood, there was disappointment and anger beneath it,
and she couldn’t blame the Lieutenant she’d served faithfully for
a year. “You can call me Aspen,” she said, dropping onto the
opposite bunk and putting her head in her hands. “I should have
told you weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you?
Were you just waiting for me to see someone who looks exactly like
you?”

“Would you tell
anyone you were genetically customized as a product, grown in a
facility until you were the equivalent of an eight-year-old, then
sold to a Countess so she could put you in cute little dresses while
you served her and her guests? Besides, Aspens were a limited run,
seven of us for seventy-seven million apiece. They didn’t limit our
mental capacities, that was a big selling point.”

“Holy shit, no
wonder,” Sun said. “I overheard that you were important, but one
of the limited editions? I’m sorry, Aspen.”

The reality of what was
happening started to settle on Aspen’s shoulders, all the talk of
value and ownership was enough to bring all the memories back. She
was starting to shake and well up, but she knew she wouldn’t be
able to cry, her ducts were customized so that wasn’t possible.
Flashes of her life before rushed back – a mixture of boredom,
fear, and endless servitude. There was a little happiness, but the
companion who was responsible fore those memories was gone. “I’m
so sorry you got sucked into this, you should have just left me.”

Sun crossed the room
and knelt in front of her, laying an arm across her shoulders. “Hey,
I know you wouldn’t have left me. You’ve been my second for
almost a year, and I’ve never felt like anyone had my back more
than you.”

“You’re going to
prison, or to a work camp, maybe even hers, since the UCA can’t
afford to keep more than one prison open. They’ll probably sell you
to the Countess.”

“Why are you so
afraid of her?”

“There are only three
things you have to know about the Countess,” Aspen said, raising
her face from its nest in her hands and looking into Sun’s green
eyes. “First, she’s crazy. You don’t know what she’ll be in
the mood for from one moment to the next. Second, she does not
understand sympathy or mercy. The pain she causes other people isn’t
real to her. Third, and this is why she can boss the UCA around,
she’s so wealthy that she can afford to lose three of her moons,
move house across the sector, and buy governments without losing a
minute’s sleep. I’ve seen one of her vaults, and there was so
much molecularly stamped platinum in there that the thing was
cracking the granite base it was on.”

“How?”

“Her family, her
slave network and who knows how many heavy metal extraction outposts.
She even has manual labour farms where they grow coffee, vanilla,
cinnamon, all those extra-expensive food things that boutiques sell
as the genuine article.”

“What, does she own
Omni Natural Foods or something?” Sun asked.

“That’s one of the
big ones,” Aspen said. “I escaped when the household droids
turned on us. My companion was killed, I thought she was dead too, so
I took the opportunity and just ran. If she’s alive, and I get
within her walls, I’ll never be free again, so forget me. Forget me
forever and try to escape. I only have two years left anyway, but you
made one of ‘em better than I could have imagined. I liked serving
under you, even though our Captain was a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty
sure he sold you out,” Sun said, sitting on the floor at Aspen’s
feet. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Something he’d do
for a quick payday too.”

“I’m going to slit
his throat when I get free,” Aspen said, certain that it could
never happen. No one ever escaped from the Countess twice.

“Only if I don’t
shove him out an airlock first. Wait, back up, what do you mean, ‘you
only have two years left?’”

“Yeah, that’s the
problem with my model. We only last so long before we get really sick
all of a sudden and die. I’ve kept my eyes open for a gene therapy,
done research, but we haven’t run into anything that looks like a
solution, it’s pretty tamper-proof. They let us be as smart and as
healthy as any human, but for a limited time only.”

“There has to be
someone, or some lab somewhere that could do something?” Sun asked.

Aspen caressed her
friend’s face, cupping a cheek in her hand. “Thank you so much
for being good to me for a year, you know how much that means now,
right? When you don’t have much time, what you do counts. We might
have been thieving and smuggling, but I had so much fun doing it
beside you. I’ve got about two years left, and the only place that
might have a solution is the place where I was made. Problem is, New
Skin’s facility is deep in crazy robot territory, I’ll be
surprised if there’s a human alive in the Geist system.”