Which was true, but not quite in the way it sounded. I felt like I should be disgusted by this place, and part of me was. But at the same time, the respect all these androids showered me with felt kind of nice. As for having a pretty girl call me Mistress, and hint that she wanted to belong to me? I wasn’t sure what to make of the feelings that stirred up.
Lilia put her hand on my arm, and looked up at me with wide eyes. “Thank you, Mistress Alice. I knew you’d be a kind Mistress. Does this mean you’ll help? There’s quite a bit of money in the old Master’s accounts, if you want it.”
Darn it, I shouldn’t be wondering what her pretty pink lips would feel like against mine. I was supposed to be shocked and horrified, not… tempted.
Was that why people made serfs?
No. It was still wrong, and I was better than that. Maybe I did want to be in charge of something one day, and have people who’d look at me the way Lilia did. But if that ever happened it would be because I was so awesome I actually deserved it. Not because I’d crippled their minds to make them easy prey.
On the other hand, maybe I could do some good today.
“I’ll see what I can do, Lilia. Where is this place?”
The address she gave me was on the way back to the port, so it didn’t cost me too much time. We pulled off the service tunnel into a little parking bay just like the ones at the last couple of homes I’d visited, and I hopped out of the truck.
“Will this take long?” I asked.
“Only a few minutes, Mistress Alice,” Lilia said shyly as she climbed down next to me. “Unless you decide to take longer.”
“Alright. Ash, guard the truck.”
The little dragon swooped up to perch on top of the truck, his head craning around to take in the parking area.
Yes! Guarding! Grrr!
Smoke settled himself on my shoulder, and eyed Lilia suspiciously. She returned the look.
“Are those things dangerous, Mistress?”
“Only to people who try to hurt me,” I assured her.
“Oh. Of course. Um, I’m sorry Mistress, but household security is configured to keep out war machines. None of us have permission to change the settings.”
Well, that was annoying. I didn’t want to be separated from my dragons. Takeo Station seemed safe enough, but why take chances?
“Could I use one of these passwords to change the settings?” I asked.
“Certainly, Mistress. If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where they are.”
“Alright, I guess that will work. Smoke, guard the truck.”
Just in case, I told the bots to call for help if I didn’t come back within twenty minutes. Then I followed Lilia up to the armored door at the far end of the parking area. It opened to reveal a lift big enough to hold a dozen people at once.
“The manor is above us,” Lilia explained. “The elevator opens onto the servant’s foyer, and then we take the stairs up two floors to the offices. Some of my friends have set up a distraction to get Tria out of her office, so she won’t see you. She’s our accounts elf, so she’d have to try to stop you if she found you there.”
The elevator started to rise.
“She’d have to stop me, but you don’t? What’s the difference?” I asked.
“I’m a personal companion, Mistress Alice. The accounts aren’t my responsibility. The guards would be a problem, of course, but since the household isn’t on alert they’re going to be in their barracks instead of patrolling. They all know our situation, so they’re doing the best they can to let someone fix it.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
The elevator stopped, and we stepped out into what was obviously a security area. Sensors in the walls pinged us with active scans, although I noticed they weren’t nearly as thorough as the ones on the Speedy Exit. By the time we’d crossed the room the system had apparently decided we were safe, and the inner door opened for us automatically.
The ‘servant’s foyer’ turned out to be a roomy hall with a tile floor, the far end of which opened into some kind of living area. A couple of the tall, green-skinned types the locals called trolls were coming towards us from that direction, and I noticed Lilia seemed a little nervous as she greeted them.
The armored door behind us slid shut, and my access to the station network was abruptly cut off.
I frowned, but the first stun bolt hit me before I could even open my mouth. Everything went blurry and confused for a moment, and my legs stopped working. I fell, sprawling across the hard tile floor. Lilia hurriedly backed away from me, and two more stun bolts smacked into my exposed back.
They were coming from a sonic stunner mounted in a little turret above the door. No visible armor, but my muscles weren’t going to work right as long as it was shooting me. I let myself go limp, and pretended to be unconscious like any normal person.
Wait, I really was unconscious. How was I still thinking, when my internal diagnostics said my brain was completely scrambled?
Leave the mystery for later. I watched through passive sonar as the trolls rushed over to grab me.
“Good job, Lilia,” one of them said. “She didn’t suspect a thing.”
“Humans are stupid,” Lilia said dismissively. “Just bat your eyes and let your voice quiver, and they’ll believe anything you tell them. Better go with the full brainhack, though. She’s got an implant com, so just the puppet chip wouldn’t keep her from calling for help.”
“That’s a shame,” the other troll said. “It’s more fun to make them watch. You remember that security guy who came nosing around last month? Kirela’s got him stuck in a VR where he has to watch what his body is doing, and she can pop in for a little payback whenever she wants.”
The trolls had me pinned to the floor, and one of them was pulling something mechanical out of a belt pouch. Shouldn’t I be terrified right now? I could feel the fear lurking around the edges of my thoughts, but most of my mind was too busy to pay attention to it. Analyzing every detail of my situation while the milliseconds ticked slowly past, looking for a way out. I could break down in hysterics when I was safe again.
“Kirela wastes far too much effort on revenge,” Lilia sniffed. “It’s unprofessional. She could never pull off an op like this one. She’d start killing slavers halfway through and give herself away. What have you got, Jenki?”
Electronics have faster reflexes than organics. The turret was the biggest threat, so I’d need to take it out fast. I needed a weapon for that, and I didn’t have one. The stun pistols the trolls carried wouldn’t do anything to a machine, but they also had long knives on their belts. Modeling said their aerodynamics weren’t the best for throwing, but it could be done.
“She looks pretty close to baseline,” the troll with the gadget said. “I’m picking up an implant computer with a fancy com system, but no internal VR support. Lots of physical mods, but it’s all biological stuff. No cybernetics or built-in weapons. Her skull’s reinforced, but we can go in through the spine.”