The Rebellious Slave Ch. 01

"Well now, this seems to have gotten your attention, hasn't it, Callihistra scum?" Mr. Charthe sneered, and he purposefully ran the blade across her neck—gently though, so as not to cut. "I'm going to take a look at you now and you're going to be totally still for me, aren't you, slave? Nod if you understand." Kara nodded and, thankfully, he withdrew his blade. "Good."

Once Kara had stopped struggling, Mr. Charthe took a step back and began his inspection. There was no subtly in his demeanor and no politeness in his approach. His penetrating gaze began at her legs and then slowly took in every inch of her body, from the "V" in her cargo pants to her firm, round breasts. He paused only to look into her beautiful blue eyes and the coldness in his own expression made her wince. Then without any warning, Mr. Charthe seized the scruff of her jacket and began to cut it away, followed by her green medic's uniform and the bra underneath. Soon, Kara was nude from the waist up and her nipples were hardening in the frozen air, but her fury kept her warm. She wasn't about to let this man frighten her, just because he'd managed to tear away some of her clothes.

"Not bad," Mr. Charthe commented, viciously gripping one of her breasts, and Kara felt her eyes narrow—she wasn't too keen on being treated like cattle. "At least they're a solid handful."

That was the last straw for Kara. Immediately, she backed away and into John's chest, but Mr. Charthe was clearly used to this sort of reaction. Before she was out of reach, he slid his free hand—still holding the knife—past her navel and into her cargo pants, grabbing onto the mound of her pussy. Suddenly, Kara could feel the sharpness of his blade biting into her soft, sensitive flesh and she dared not move. Mr. Charthe gently squeezed and for a split-second only, she forgot to breathe.

"Better," Mr. Charthe mumbled, then he turned to John. "How much?" he asked, pulling his hand out of Kara's pants and pocketing his knife. "She's a pretty one and with a medic's license, certainly a smart one, too. I think I can get a good price." Kara kicked out at the buyer, hatred in her eyes, but Mr. Charthe managed to jump out of reach just in time. "And she's got a bit of fight in her. I have clients who like that sort of thing. Toys that don't break easy."

"Thirty grand," John insisted. "I'll go no less."

Mr. Charthe snorted in disbelief. "Come now. She'll clearly be difficult to work with, and her butt's a little flat. I'll give you twenty."

"Very well, twenty-five," John conceded, and Mr. Charthe nodded.

"I'll do that. Put her in the van and then let me look at the violinist. And for god's sake, try not to leave any more bruises. She'll be harder to sell on my end and if we're to keep doing business together, you and your men will have to learn how to handle your merchandise properly."

Now, Kara no longer struggled for the sake of appearing less sale-worthy. She struggled out of panic and as her flailing became more frantic, John started to lose control.

"You hideous, barbaric cunt!" he yelled, trying to wrestle her to the ground. "Calvin! Amy! Can I get a little help here?"

"You people are pathetic," Mr. Charthe groaned, and he rolled his eyes. "Here, I'll have my own man take care of it..."

Kara watched as a massive creature stepped out from behind the van. He was impossibly tall and impossibly bulky—a building of a man, really—with a belt of handling equipment that didn't look cheap and a silver, navy-blue uniform that looked even less so. The Martkorp logo—a sideways "V" enclosed in a little red circle—was stitched onto his chest and his boots were made of thick, black leather. John let go and immediately, Kara turned to flee, but her feet hit a break in the road and she fell onto the asphalt with a sickening thud, scraping up her shoulder in the process.

"Before she hurts herself, please," Mr. Charthe sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "And don't use a tranq, Coleman. If she goes on sale tomorrow, she has to get a physical today, understand? Catherine will kill me if the blood work doesn't go through."

From her position on the ground, Kara looked up and saw Coleman approach. His fingers skimmed across the items in his belt—a pair of cuffs, a GPS tracker, the tranq gun—and then stopped at the taser. As Coleman plucked it from its holster, Kara felt her eyes grow wide and her voice caught in her throat.

Shit! Kara thought, and as the taser whirred to life, she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. Shit, shit, shit!

"Out of the way!" Coleman cried.

As soon as John had stepped aside, Kara could feel it: the paralyzing, burning pain of electricity as it ran through her body, consuming her entire being. It was hard to breathe, impossible to move, and each nerve ending was on fire. Bright white light flashed before her eyes and then darkness followed. She twisted piteously on the ground, trying—somehow—to put a stop to the pain, and suddenly realized that she was screaming from under the gag. Then it was over and Kara collapsed onto the ground, where she lay helpless and trembling.

*******

Once more shackled, Kara sat in the back of the silver van, watching the trees fly by its tinted windows. Beside her and sobbing uncontrollably was the bound violinist, whom Mr. Charthe had also put on his company card. She was a young woman, probably in her mid-twenties, and big chested, with olive skin, dark hair, and bright green eyes. It had been nearly an hour since they'd started the drive towards a Martkorp processing center and she hadn't stopped crying since. It was amazing to Kara that her tears hadn't run dry yet or her throat grown sore, but she wasn't insensitive enough to say so. Instead, she turned her attention back toward the windows and watched as the trees eventually disappeared and gave way to grassy valleys and rolling hills, all tinted gold in the afternoon light. It was as beautiful as she'd remembered it. Gardok had once been famous for the parks along its borders and as long as she didn't look too far east, Kara could almost believe that there'd never been a war at all.

A short while later, they were turning off of the main road and up ahead, Kara could see a concrete building, largely unimpressive and surrounded on all sides by a tall metal fence. The place seemed a bit drab for one of the most renowned slaving companies in Isleydor. If it weren't for the big sign out front, Kara would never have guessed that it belonged to Martkorp. They'd probably laid claim to the building after Gardok had fallen and then remodeled it for their local operations. Kara scanned the perimeter of the property as they drove closer still, wondering what the place had been used for before they'd lost the war.

As they approached the gate, two armed guards waved the van to a stop and checked Mr. Charthe's employee badge before letting them through. Slowly, they circled around to the back of the building until they reached a plain, metal doorway and then the two slaves were escorted from the back of the van into a crisp, white room smelling strongly of antiseptic. Immediately, Kara knew that she was in a clinic of some kind. Beneath the blindingly white glare of the fluorescent lights, there was an exam table, an instrument cart, a rolling stool, and a sink alongside a set of metal cabinets. It looked exactly like the clinic where Kara had studied before the war, except that the exam table was fitted with restraints and there was a set of shackles dangling from the ceiling beneath a showerhead that was missing the rest of the shower. Hesitantly, the newly captured slaves stepped into the room, then the door was locked behind them and they all waited in silence, while Mr. Charthe smoked casually in the corner.

"Not in my clinic, Glen!" Kara suddenly heard the slamming of a second door behind her and turned to see a tall, white-faced woman in a lab coat snatching away Mr. Charthe's cigarette and then stamping it out. "How many times have I told you? It's disgusting!" Whoever she was, the woman was beautiful and flaunting long raven-black hair, cold dark eyes, and bright red lips. She wore an excessive amount of jewelry, Kara noted, most prominently a mismatched set of bracelets over each of her arms. Then the woman turned toward the slaves and instantly, her face fell. "Seriously, Glen? This—this—is what you have for me?"

"Look, it was the best I could do last minute," Mr. Charthe replied defensively. "The one on the left is a concert-level violinist. That's got to count for something, right? It's a selling point, at least. I'm lucky to have gotten what I did from Captly—"

"Wait, wait, wait...you went to Captly?" the woman hissed, and she clenched her fists by her sides, her voice quiet, but tense. "For god's sake, Glen, what the ever-loving hell were you thinking?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Mr. Charthe growled, and now it was his turn to be angry. "Captly, Inc. was the only other distributor in the area and this is what they had available, so I made do. If you wanted to be picky, you could have come along."

"Alright, alright...fine," the woman sighed, and the anger left her as quickly as it had come. "But it'll be embarrassing; they'll stick out."

"True, but not as much as two empty slots would. We've got enough high-value pieces to keep tomorrow's auction interesting and I sincerely doubt anyone will be disappointed."

"And what about this one?" the woman asked, spinning on her heel to face Kara. "Is she any good?"

"A military medic," Mr. Charthe mumbled. "But I got a good price."

"A fucking medic?"

Aren't you a fucking medic? Kara thought, but there was no point in saying it. Of all the stupid, ridiculous things to—

"Come on, Catherine, at least she's military," Mr. Charthe retorted, interrupting Kara's thoughts. "We'll make it work. Like I said, we've already got a solid twenty-eight high-value pieces on the block. It'll be nice to have a novelty or two thrown in for contrast. And if they don't get sold, we can raffle them off as door prizes or something."

It was at that exact moment that the violinist—who had been quiet since they'd entered the building, probably from sheer nervousness—decided to start sobbing again and Kara couldn't blame her. She didn't much like being referred to as a door prize, either. But it was also true that Martkorp had extremely high standards for their slaves, bordering on obsessive. Now that she thought about it, Kara wouldn't be surprised if all twenty-eight prized pieces being auctioned off tomorrow were world-renowned chef porn stars who had learned to play the piano in their spare time and could also sing opera, because why not?

"Alright, it is what it is," Catherine sighed, and she turned sympathetically toward the violinist. "Come on, honey. There's no need to cry. Here, have a seat." And as she pulled up a stool, the violist seemed to calm down and her sobs became sniffles. "Good girl. Just listen to me for a minute, alright?" Now, Catherine was crouched on the floor, at eye level with the violinist, and carefully wiping her tears away. "We aren't going to hurt you, I promise. We're just gonna have a quick look and make sure you're healthy, okay?"

From monstrous to motherly in no time flat, Kara thought, impressed. Not bad. Not bad at all.

"Coleman," Catherine hissed, gesturing toward the violinist. "Take that filthy oil rag out of her mouth. What those Captly people do to their merchandise is absolutely disgusting."

With unnerving gentleness for someone so enormous, Coleman removed first the violinist's gag and then Kara's, but still, she didn't dare speak, not without explicit permission. She belonged to Martkorp now and no amount of resistance would change that fact. There was no way she could escape now—not in a well-guarded processing center during a medical workup—but an attempt might get her locked up somewhere far too secure and far, far too dark. If they put her in a maximum security cell, any chance of freedom that still lingered would most certainly be lost to her. It would be better to fake compliance and patiently wait for an opening. Everyone made mistakes, even Martkorp employees, and that was the only certainty left to Kara now.

"Well, it looks like she's out of commission for a while," Catherine noted, and her eyes moved from the violinist to Kara. "So, we'll start with you—let's see your ID—Kara. I'll take the cuffs off if you promise to cooperate, but one toe out of line and they'll go back on. No second chances."

"Of course," Kara replied, hardly believing her luck. "I mean, uh, yes ma'm. Thank you."

If she had to endure this, Kara figured she might as well do so with her hands free. She might even be able to grab hold of some sort of weapon and hide it. Even a rusty paperclip would be better than nothing. With a nod from Catherine, Coleman undid the cuffs and Kara rubbed her sore wrists gingerly.

"Okay then, Kara. Pants off, please."

Still nude from the waist up, Kara moved her hands to her belt buckle and began to undo the clip, but then her eyes met Mr. Charthe's and she stopped. His gaze slowly roamed over her body, then paused at the "V" of her cargo pants and stayed there. Feeling suddenly defensive, Kara quickly redid her belt buckle and turned back toward Catherine.

"He doesn't have to be here, does he?"

"No, sweetie, he doesn't, but he wants to be here and you don't get to call the shots in my clinic. Now take the pants off, or I'll take them off for you. Glen will probably be watching either way. Your call."

Kara looked back over at Mr. Charthe, only to see that he was smiling at her. His triumphant grin was even more obnoxious than the hardon rising in his trousers, but she couldn't do anything except glare in return. Still seething, she let her pants fall to the ground and then her light blue panties. There was a puff of dark hair curling around her outer pussy lips and she cringed when she saw it. Before the war, Kara had always kept herself well-shaven, but there wasn't exactly time to tend to your groin when you were busy fighting for your life. It had been ages since she'd even held a razor in her hands and the little bush had grown back with a vengeance.

My legs must be disgusting, Kara thought, looking down. Yup. Disgusting.

"Alright," Catherine began, and Kara redirected her attention to the Martkorp medic. "Legs spread, hands behind your head, fingers interlocking. Don't move."

As she spread her legs, Kara could feel Mr. Charthe's eyes on her once more and flushed red with agony. She tried not to look at him or his horrible grin, but he made sure to stay in her field of view, taking great pleasure in her helplessness. Meanwhile, Catherine had begun to circle her, an inquisitive expression on her face and the end of her pen in her mouth. At first, Kara was unsure as to what she was doing, but after her first go around, Catherine began to mumble to herself and take notes on her clipboard. That's when Kara finally figured it out. Catherine was jotting down all of the damage she'd come in with, almost as if she were a newly rented apartment. Every imperfection—every scar, every discoloration, every unseemly wrinkle or bit of chapped skin—was exposed, explored, and then scrawled down until, ever so slowly, Kara could feel her dignity starting to slip away.

"Glen?" Catherine called, and she stopped by Kara's right side, where a nasty bruise had begun to color the skin. "You know I won't be able to fix this by tomorrow, right? But I guess I can bring down the swelling..." Gently, she traced the purpling outline with her pen and Kara winced. "Hmm, maybe I'll put in an order for some numbing cream, too. And now, dear, give me your hands." Hesitantly, Kara obeyed and as Catherine examined them, a disapproving frown spread across her face. "Glen, why are her hands and forearms all messed up? There are scratches...everywhere. Did she fall?"

"Maybe," Mr. Charthe shrugged, and Catherine raised an eyebrow condescendingly. "Look, she came in with that damage; it wasn't my fault."

"You didn't do an inspection before you bought her?"

"I did, but I admit I wasn't looking at her hands."

"Ugh, men," Catherine groaned, rolling her eyes. "And what about her shoulder, hmm? What happened there?"

"That one was Coleman's fault. He came at her a little too quickly and scared her. Unfortunately, the girl is a bit on the clumsy side."

"Of course," Catherine sighed, but she didn't berate him any further and instead turned back toward Kara. "Alright dear, put your hands behind your head again."

The inspection seemed to last forever. After a while, Kara's arms began to tire, but Catherine was dead-set on completing a full physical workup. Blood was drawn and, as uncomfortable as it was, they swabbed her for a full STD panel. They checked her heart, her lungs, her teeth, her vision...everything, poking and prodding in sensitive places while Kara was told to remain totally still. Then, there were the cosmetic corrections. In addition to extensive laser hair removal and a teeth whitening procedure, Kara was signed up to have some old acne scars lightened. All in all, that seemed like an unrealistic amount of prep-work for an auction that was supposed to be the next day, but Isleydor's medical technology was some of the most advanced in the Northern Hemisphere. That's what happened when you were the most imperialistic nation this side of the globe. As a rule, medical advancements tended to follow close behind military ones.

"And what about this?" Catherine asked, pointing to a thin, but prominent old burn along Kara's left calf. "What's that?"

"Fire and I don't mix well," Kara lied, trying not to sound too evasive, but thankfully, Catherine shrugged and moved on.

Well, maybe not thankfully.

"Hey, Glen!" Catherine spat, and he turned toward her, looking more and more irritable by the minute. "Does Dr. Fallon have any other appointments scheduled for today? We'll have to knock her out for the tracking implant and I want to embed a slow-release birth control unit, too."

At that, Kara flinched. She had known from the very beginning that a tracking implant was inevitable, but the reality of it all still terrified her. Even as a medic, she'd never be able to remove one of them on her own without risking serious injury and possibly paralysis. Martkorp implanted their devices along the spinal column on purpose, specifically so that they would be difficult to remove. If she ever did escape this hell, Kara would have to pay out the nose to get the terrible thing taken out and that was assuming she'd make it very far at all. Her new master would be able to program the tracking implant into their household security system.

"You a virgin?" Catherine suddenly inquired, and Kara was snapped out of the darkness of her thoughts and into the bright, fluorescent lighting of the clinic again. "Be honest now."

"No," Kara sneered, happy to be the bearer of bad news. "Believe it or not, I got quite a bit of action back in Gardok during the war. If you're surrounded by soldiers with fabulous asses and rock-hard abs, you take advantage of that perk."

"Uh..." Catherine's eyes suddenly lit up with shock and for a moment, Kara wondered if she might have gone too far. But then the woman started laughing. It was just a chuckle at first, but then it morphed into a full-bodied cackle. "Praise men with abs, honey! And there's no denying the power of a well-toned butt. Yours isn't too shabby either..."

Without warning, Catherine grabbed her by the ass and instinctively, Kara dropped her hands from her head and just...slapped her. It hadn't been intentional, but it didn't matter. She'd slapped the woman in the face—hard enough to leave an angry, red mark—and there was no coming back from that. Even Mr. Charthe looked appalled.