Conspiracy of Dreams

Chapter 1: Slave Furlong

The blue minivan was marked with the Silver Wolf Slave Advocacy logo. Inside were three people. Riding in the front were a man and a woman in fashionable business suits. Clipped to their jacket pockets were ID badges. Both were citizens—neither wore slave collars or Legal Resident wristbands. The naked man in the back wore a metal slave collar around his neck and was in the Nevada Department of Public Safety-approved 7-point slave vehicular restraint system. Metal bands on his wrists and ankles stabilized him in a semi-displayed position. A tight waistband and a pair of shoulder straps held him firmly upright and facing to curbside. The back of the van had been designed to transport eight slaves in safety and with minimal discomfort.

"How are you doing back there, Emmet?" The woman's badge gave her name as Holly Goodstone. "Are you okay?"

"I can't complain, Ms. Goodstone." The naked slave said.

"Health and welfare question, Slave Emmet," the man's badge was printed with the name Brian Waithwright, "are you sweating back there? I need to know that my air conditioning isn't making you sick."

"I'm quite comfortable, Mr. Waithwright. May I thank you for taking me to see my family?"

"You may, and you're welcome," the man said.

"RIGHT TURN 300 METERS AHEAD." Modern automobiles featured on-board navigation systems and robot drivers. "TURN RIGHT ON THE DIRT ROAD. FOLLOW IT FOR 5 KILOMETERS."

"Dirt road?" Brian asked. "Holly, you said that this was a high-tech medical research facility."

"It is. That really isn't a dirt road or I'd have to manually drive there. The navigator would still tell me where I was, but I'd have to do the driving—just like at the Virginia City Theme Park."

"TURNING RIGHT. SILVER ORB 5 KILOMETERS."

"Emmet, tell me about your last furlong," Holly commanded. "You watched your wife sexually service the entire first squad of the State College X-ball team. You were then used by some of the team yourself. Did Woodward Data Systems provide aftercare for you?"

"No, ma'am. That was taken care of by Master Hank's personal physician."

"WDS is supposed to provide all your medical needs," Brian complained. "I'll have to look into that."

"I've got it right here," Holly displayed a personal interface device that was trademarked Palm Slave. "Two weeks ago a Dr. Roger Kingbee received a deposit from the Woodward Data Systems for post-sex examination and after-care. Even though it was a house call Dr. Kingman received $29 for his visit which was donated to the Gorman Liverstall Slave Advocacy Agency."

"Our competitors!" Brian groused. "Well, we're officially off duty as soon as we deliver Emmet to his family. I've never been here before."

"Silver Orb is a small town of about 600," Holly answered. "As I told you in your briefing every free adult, citizen or Legal Resident, is a licensed prostitute. That includes the man we're seeing."

"An entire town of prostitutes."

"There's nothing shameful about being a prostitute. Hank Dalton owns the town but unlike most brothel owners is licensed as a prostitute and is available upon appointment." Holly huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. "Besides, you did come here for the orgy this afternoon. You will be having sex with prostitutes. We'll stay at my sisters."

"She just became a slave?"

"Last month. Right after her twins reached the age of consent—Becky did it so that she can become a slave advocate, too. We can ask to see the family vids tonight after the orgy—if you can stay awake, that is. That was quite a combination collaring party and birthday celebration! Becky was collared and her obedience training is almost finished. She's supposed to service seven men tonight. Wait to you meet Kelly—that's Hank Dalton's wife. Victor hired Kelly and Hank to service their kids. I expected Jewel to refuse to use her own mother, but I thought that all boys had no conscience when it came to their dicks. James said that he couldn't do his own mother even if she was a slave. You know what they say..."

"Slaves never say no," Brian frowned. "The kids are off limits—I hope."

"Unless you are a licensed prostitute hired by their parents," Holly tossed her head. "Children between the age of consent and adulthood may have sex with registered prostitutes in this state, but the children cannot BE prostitutes. And only adults may hire prostitutes."

"I understand that slaves can be hired out for sex only if their owner has a brothel license, had the required health insurance and the slaves used for sex are given a bonus that can be collected at the end of their term." Brian glanced back at Emmet. "If the company only uses the services of their slaves as an employee benefit, no licensing is required. Only when the slaves are used as prostitutes for outsiders—because the brothel business was legal here more than a century before the rest of the nation legalized prostitution."

"They call Nevada the Sin Capital of Capitallia," Holly scoffed, "just because they legalized prostitution and gambling way back in the Dark Ages! Nevada businessmen often will rent or lease prostitutes as part of their marketing budget. It is less expensive than making all company slaves prostitutes. Some companies do have one or two designated slave prostitutes—unlike other states in Capitallia where the slave can be used for commercial sex in direct competition with licensed brothels, escort services and street walkers."

"1931 was not the dark ages," Brian rolled his eyes. "They had radio and cars and electric lights back then."

"Not in Silver Orb! It was a dusty little commune of 200 souls back then, all members of the First Church of Earth. They were moon worshippers who pretended to be Christian to avoid prosecution. They still worship nude. The church is one of the places were nudity is mandatory in the town. The rest of Silver Orb is clothing optional, though most businesses have naked staff. There are only a handful of citizens and slaves in town, the rest are non-citizens. Hank Dalton bought the place 20 years ago and most of their business is medical research contracting."

"WARNING: NAKED PEOPLE WILL BE ENCOUNTERED BEYOND THIS POINT." The mini-van's navigator announced. "PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK."

"Automobile, stop." The mini-van coasted to a stop. Holly unfastened her safety harness and began disrobing as soon as they stopped moving.

"What are you doing?"

"Becky's household was always a naked one," Holly explained as she undressed. "She would sleep naked and didn't wear clothes unless she had to while we were growing up. Then she met her husband Victor and she seldom wore anything again." Holly rolled up her suit, blouse and tie. She wasn't wearing socks or underwear. Refastening the safety harness, Holly commanded the minivan's robot driver to resume. "Ah, that's better, Nevada permits breast feeding in public and free women have the same top-free rights as men, but there are a lot of Catholics and Mormons here. Larger cities will fine you for disturbing the peace except for designated zones. We all have to share the public spaces."

"You didn't tell me that you became a nudist."

"My slave time was spent here. I got used to being naked. I'm going to spend my next vacation here."

"Your son will really like that!"

"There's the scanner." The minivan slowed down and a voice announced that they had arrived at Silver Orb. There was a fading purple banner with a silver full moon, the words 'Silver Orb Naturist Ranch' in silver letters. Holly announced them without rolling down the windows—an old-fashioned comm box stood on a post in front of an unoccupied gatehouse.

"ENTRY GRANTED AT 1217 NEW YORK CITY TIME. THE LOCAL TIME IS 0917 AND THE AIR TEMPERATURE IS 32 GRAD," the voice of the minivan said as motorized gates opened up. "PROCEEDING TO 14 TRUCK FARM ALLEY, DALTON RESIDENCE. HANK DALTON HAS BEEN NOTIFIED OF YOUR ARRIVAL."

"This place still looks like a rustic old resort town or one of the communes left over from the USA days."

"It's supposed to, Brian. If you look at that building over there, the grocery store, you'll see that the exterior is artificially weather beaten. Hank told me that the Druidical cultists were non-violent to a fault, but manufacturing camouflage so that other people would think that there was nothing here worth stealing was okay. This place is also the manufacturing center for those crafts on sale back in Silver Springs. You can order original pieces that are not impregnated with RFID tags. Some people prefer stuff like that."

"But what if someone steals their unmarked stuff? Insurance companies will not insure items that are not marked. They even inserted RFID tags in unique art work at the museums."

"The items are not expensive. Why pay for insurance on things that wear out or that you will dispose of after use? We're passing the largest building in town. See that barn-like structure? That is the civic center. It is used for all school assemblies and for town meetings. There are church services there, too. The cultists prefer to worship in the open air. There's one of them now."

"Look at the size of the bush on that broad!" Brian pointed at a woman with waist-length brown hair. Her pubic bush extended up to her navel and covered her inner thighs half-way down. The woman had noticeably hairy legs and dark hair peeked out from her arm pits as she strode barefoot and nude down the street with a child holding on to each hand. The children wore Silver Orb school uniforms. The woman wore a gold torque around her neck. "She is a licensed prostitute?"

"The cultists are committed naturists. They think it is sinful to cut their hair. All the men have full beards too." Holly snickered. "You aren't prejudiced, are you? There are all sorts of exotic tastes in women. The hairy fetish market is one reason why every prostitute isn't a living, breathing copy of that Lilly doll little girls have been buying for nearly two centuries."

"The children are wearing clothes—isn't this a nudist colony?"

"They wear them to school. The Silver Orb Private Academy mandates school uniforms for children in grades 1-8. The lower grades can remove their clothing for recess, the upper grades generally have one nude class per day, everyone takes lunch naked, but learning to wear clothes is part of the education process."

"I remember how embarrassed I was when I had to shower with all the other boys," Brian reflected. "I would have just died of embarrassment if a girl saw me when I was 8 years old. I would blush if a girl flashed her panties at me. Being a slave for six months got rid of my modesty."

"Then why are you still wearing clothes?"

"ARRIVAL, 14 TRUCK FARM ALLEY, SILVER ORB, NEVADA. DALTON RESIDENCE." The voice of the minivan announced that the vehicle was in PARK and that the drive train had shut off.

"Are you going to undress here or inside?" Holly asked.

"Inside."

"Chicken!"

"Am not!"

"Prove it!"

The minivan had parked itself in front of a building resembling a warehouse. The front door opened and a tall naked man walked to the minivan.

"Holly, good to see you again. Thank you for bringing Emmet. Can you release him now? His children are eating breakfast. Their bus will be here in about a half hour."

"Bubbles," Holly said.

"HOLLY GOODSTONE, AUTHORIZATION CONFIRMED AND ACCEPTED." The minivan said.

"Release Emmet and open the slave compartment doors."

The doors on either side slid open and the buckles and straps released. Emmet sat there wearing only his slave collar. Slaves need permission for everything, even to see their families.

"Emmet, go into the house. You know where the kitchen is." Holly got out and stretched with her body half in shadow and half in sunlight. "This is going to be a scorcher again!"

"The high is predicted to be only 40 Grad today," Hank said as Brian got out of the van. "It got to 43 yesterday. This is a desert, a place known for high temperatures."

"Let's get inside before the sun gets us," Brian joked. "Besides, I could use a cup of tea after that drive."

The three free people followed Emmet into the house. Confronting the two slave advocates were a group of children in school uniforms lined up at the door. They wore empty backpacks and white short-sleeved shirts over a pair of purple shorts. Sandals protected their feet. Each child had a purple wrist band on their left arm. There were several naked adult women fussing over the children—and in a corner of the room observing everything was a short stout figure dressed in black.

Emmet was on his knees embracing two children dressed in school uniforms. The taller, older child was a boy and the shorter girl was telling her father that he didn't need to cry.

"Its okay, Lucy. Daddy is very glad to see you again." The speaker was a medium-sized young woman with large breasts and shoulder length brown hair. The bangs set off her chocolate drop eyes. Her name was Beverly Albertson, Emmet's wife. She wore only her Legal Resident identification bracelet. "You can see him when you get out of school."

"She can see her father at the assembly this afternoon," the speaker was the figure in black and she had a feminine contralto voice with a West Coast accent. "Sir, I'm Corporal Culp, Department of Youth Intervention. Which slave advocacy agency are you from? And why doesn't this woman have her Legal Resident bracelet?"

"Because I'm a citizen," Holly replied. "Holly Goodstone, Silver Wolf Slave Advocacy. This is my partner, Brian Waithwright."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. This town gives me the creeps with everybody running around naked." Corporal Culp shuddered. "It must be drafty in winter! I'm here with an inspection team. We'll be at school assembly. Emmet is going to talk to the kids here about stealing."

"Yes, we know what he did."

"My partner will meet me here and we will inspect all the child labor work spaces. I'm checking on the children here because there are surrogate mothers. You need to check them yourself. This town has not reported any crime for fifty-two years, just shortly after the war. I thought that they were covering up something," Culp shuddered again. "I'm sorry, but my momma brought me up modest. Ms. Goodstone—"

"Please call me Holly. I'm not really dressed for formality."

"Since you have no secrets from me you can call me Wanda. Why doesn't being naked bother you? I'm bothered. Is that a heart down there?"

"Yes," Holly stood feet apart and rolled her pelvis to display a heart-shaped tuft of red-tinted pubic hair. "I sculpted it for a party with my sister. Slave advocate organization officers are required to have been slaves for a minimum of six months so that they can better understand what slavery means to a slave. I was enslaved to Hank right here in this home. Being a slave includes spending a week in a brothel servicing customers just like any other slave prostitute. Silver Orb has its own brothel. No special consideration. After that, being naked in a nudist colony is anything but embarrassing. Here—see these marks? They're from a cigar. The client who did this to me was fined for slave abuse—just $50 that went to the brothel. I got a shower and some burn ointment. If he had requested a slave to burn, he could have gotten that for just $20. No, after my experiences I lost all false modesty. I had to have some memories modified so that I couldn't remember specific sex customers any more, but because I needed to experience slavery first hand for myself, I remember everything that was done to me. I just cannot remember names and faces. I can't even remember if it was a man or a woman—I said 'he' because most women don't waste their money on sex. They can get all the sex they want and even get something in return, a promotion, dinner, a few drinks—and that isn't classified as prostitution so long as no money is exchanged. It could have been a woman."

"What motivated you to be a slave? I could never become a slave."

"Nor could I, Corporal Culp," Hank interrupted. "I am a coward. As the only other adult in this house who hasn't been a slave, think about what you'd do if tomorrow you were enslaved. It can happen to the best of us."

"Not to me!"

"Sometimes good people have a run of bad luck," Holly said. "I wanted to help those who are forbidden to stand up for themselves. Slaves are livestock or pets—they have no rights. Yet they are entitled to humane treatment. Most are slaves for only a limited period of time, less than 10% of their expected life span. I became a slave advocate because someone had to stand up for the slaves. Someone had to make sure that those helpless people were not destroyed by their slavery. Someone has to make sure that the law isn't abused, that only people deserving enslavement or volunteering become slaves, and that the slave owners honor the manumission contracts and release the slave at the end of indenture with the agreed-upon financial package. I could become a slave myself and I would want someone to make sure that I survived being enslaved."

"Slavery is far more humane than the prison system it replaced," Hank glanced at Brian as he began disrobing. "There's a closet to your right, Brian. Do you need to secure any sensitive things like electronic devices or weapons?"

"I left them in the car." Brian said. "What were the prisons like?"

"I only visited them," Hank said. "I was a prisoner chaser when I was a US Marine and I took people to and from prison."

"I thought you were a commando," Holly said.

"Was. But what do you do with a commando between jobs? Emmet doesn't have a free ride, but he has a better life ahead of him when his indenture is over. Had he rotted in one of the old prisons for 8 years, he would have faced life with the stigma of being an ex-convict. There is no stigma to having been a slave."

"But Emmet STOLE from his employer." Corporal Culp's eyes were as big as poker chips and her brown skin purpled when Brian's trousers fell to his ankles. "He should have gotten life for embezzlement."

"Extenuating circumstances," the boy said. "Dad stole so that I could have a new heart. He was just borrowing until he could pay it back. I'm Danny and this is my sister Lucy."

"Hi," Lucy said with a shy smile.

"Time to go, everybody," a blonde woman with a Pixie haircut said. "School starts in 15 minutes."

"Bye dad." The boy said.

"Bye dad. Love you." The girl kissed her kneeling father's cheek.

"Bye kids. I'll see you soon." The children scampered into line and the blonde Pixie led them out the door.

As soon as the children left and the door closed, Beverly took her husband's ear between thumb and forefinger and pulled him to his feet.

"Come with me, slave boy," Beverly Albertson commanded. "I have an itch I want you to scratch. We're going to have to do this sometimes when you are free again—you being my naked slave boy."

"I don't understand white people sometimes," Corporal Culp commented as Beverly towed her enslaved husband out of the room. "You even have fake slave auctions."

"It is a way to cope with fear," Hank explained. "By playing at slave, by abusing brothel slaves citizens get to triumph over terror. They can say 'not me—I'm better than that.' We humans are petty little hypocrites and I'm no exception. By the way, I know about these things because my day job is psychological research."

In another part of the converted warehouse a slave and a Legal Resident walked on a gym mat and embraced, falling to the mat. The slave rolled on his back clasped his hands behind his collared neck. In seconds the woman was on top grinding her pelvis into the man. She reached between them and grabbed his erect penis, positioned herself and then fully engulfed his shaft in her sheath. She howled and threw her head back. The man tried to remain stationary as the woman leaned forward, her breasts hanging down in his face.

"Suck them! No hands! Use only your mouth." Beverly gasped. "I really love you even if you did something stupid."

Her panting quickened and she began bouncing up and down on her enslaved husband, raising and lowering herself on his meaty manhood. Emmet released her nipple and his jaw clenched shut. Face sweaty and contorted, every muscle in his neck taut, Emmet grunted and shook.

"That's right. Fill me up. Give it to me!"

Emmet gasped and his eyes rolled up. All the tension drained from his body and he went slack. Beverly smiled and her belly twitched. She gently lowered her body full-length against the dazed man, holding his penis in her vagina by reaching around her own meaty hams and pressing in with two fingers. It may have looked like she was fingering her own anus—but that was later, that was dessert. For several minutes she just held herself against her husband the slave and breathed deeply.

In the kitchen the adults were listening to the woman in the black uniform.

"I protect the innocent," Corporal Culp sipped some water.

"We do too," Holly helped herself to some cut fruit on a platter.

"The enslavement process has abuses," Brian wiped his mouth. "May I have some more tea, Susan? Thanks. I've uncovered three questionable enslavements already. I'm here on pleasure, visiting my partner's family, but I'm obligated to report any slave abuses I witness—I'm even empowered to intervene should I see something especially abusive, make a citizen's arrest and confiscate the slave."

"But you'd better be right, sir. Citizens should leave police business to the professionals," Corporal Wanda Culp shoved a carrot stick in her mouth and chomped down.

"As professionals you are limited in what you can to." Hank waved to the back. "Emmet Albertson was a programmer working for Woodward Data Systems. He was being paid a salary of $90,000 annually because of his skills and he was renting a condo in Reno and had health insurance and everything. One day Danny fell down while at recess on the school playground. After the HMO physician's assistant examined Danny, it was determined that Danny had a heart murmur. It was serious enough that immediate surgery was recommended. The specialist in Sacramento was the cheapest, but he wanted $500,000. Two things happened—the insurance company said that it would only pay for an end-of-life hospice for Danny and when Emmet objected, the insurance company refused to pay a dime. It was their way or the highway. Even the $5,000 bill for the initial emergency room visit was deducted from Emmet's severance paycheck. What's worse is that Emmet's bank account and credit cards shut off the moment he was fired."

"Emmet got fired?" Corporal Culp asked?

"Yes," Holly picked up the tale. "He was refused entrance to his work place. His landlord informed Emmet that he had to clear out of the condo by the end of the month—that was two weeks. Beverly lost her job for reasons that are not clear—but Nevada is a Right to Work state and even those workers with a contract can be paid off and terminated."

"What happened next?" Brian asked.

"Danny was still in the hospital. Emmet snuck in and kidnapped his own son—they wouldn't release Danny because the boy was too sick to move. It was a miracle that Danny lived long enough to get to the clinic in Sacramento." Hank paused to hold his audience in suspense. To pay the bills and to provide Beverly something to live on, Emmet dummied up his own enslavement papers. He sold himself for a 5 year period to the Eye Candy Ink advertising firm with $50,000 up front and another $50,000 upon manumission. Then Emmet had the doctor's bills paid off through his old company's accounts. He called Beverly to tell her when and where to collect Danny, that he was going to be enslaved at the advertising firm and that he loved her."

"I'd call Emmet 'hero.' Yes, he stole," Holly glared at Corporal Culp, "but he did everything he could to save his child's life. I looked into the case. The firing, the eviction, the frozen accounts were all to pressure Emmet into signing his son's assisted death certificate. Nobody wanted to pay a half million dollars to save a ten year old Legal Resident's life, even though Emmet had good health insurance."

"Emmet only thought that he had good health insurance," Hank pointed out. "The current system is a relic of the US National Healthcare Provision Act of 2013. Basically, it keeps people healthy, but if they get really sick they are a drain on the system and they are offered death with dignity. One of the bills before Congress right now is making that kind of fraud illegal. That health plan is still being offered by some HMO's in several of our states. Nevada is one of those states. There is another bill that is perhaps more important--a bill that all slaves be implanted with inactive digital bio implants."

"What's wrong with that?" Wanda Culp asked. "They're slaves and they need to be controlled anyway. Those implants can be removed when a slave is manumitted."

"The implants cannot be easily removed, Corporal Culp." Hank's offered his hand palm upward in supplication. "The federal slave control regulations only mandate that the slave be kept under positive control without using excessive cruelty. I could use a control belt and achieve everything that can be done with implants—and I can remove the external devices. There's even some modules which can be swallowed, inserted anally or vaginally—owners have options. Holly's slave breakers were the Night Owl Bondsman Trainers and they use the Jakefield Unitary System. When the Jakefield System is deactivated, they simply take the keys away, not brick the doorway closed."

"But my implants were removed," Brian said. "They told me so!"

"Mine too!" Holly added.

"They were deactivated but not removed. Deactivation consisted of removing the access codes, the key to your implants, from your owners' control. The implant technology was developed here at this lab--that's why we are so low profile, to discourage industrial espionage or worse. Your implants are the Jakefield Unitary System and the keys were simply removed from the owner's possession--unless he made a spare copy. Your controllers are supposed to be foolproof, but we fools are so ingenious. Especially when this fool made the tools in the first place. Holly, would you consent to an experiment? May I make you orgasm hard?"

"It won't happen," Holly insisted. "Fire away. My implants are gone. I spent two weeks getting them installed, being trained, and I spent three days being deprogrammed and having my implants removed."

"I experienced the same with Corey's Corrections in Sacramento," Brian added. "It took only ten days to train me and I spent four days getting my implants out."

"Implants fuse with your nervous system. Removing those imbedded nannites is more difficult and dangerous than removing cancer cells." Hank picked up a briefcase from the table and opened it up as he spoke. "I know what your control settings are. Your implant was shut down in accordance with slave regulations. Removing those implants has a small chance of killing you, and a larger but still small chance of leaving you crippled for life. If not fully removed, the digital bio implant will rebuild itself. It regenerates because it is a combination of nano-machines and gene splicing therapy to merge with your nervous system, to become an integral part of you. That feature was added so that the implants would be self-repairing and require no maintenance for as long as 1000 years. I wanted Holly to use an external collar. I only do the minimum with my slaves—those locator chips and a collar in public. Holly's organization mandated the Jakefield Unitary System and I don't know why. The control implants, those digital bio implants are expensive and can be abused. As long as I comply with the federal mandate that my slave is kept under control, I can chose external control devices or implanted ones. If I chose implants they have to be installed and activated by an independent company, one monitored by slave advocate groups. At manumission the slave's implants are merely deactivated, not removed. They are still there—and there is another bit of bad news for you."

"What?" Holly's face was pale. The message was sinking in because Holly trusted her former master's truthfulness and because she knew that he had indeed developed the slave control implants in the underground labs beneath Silver Orb.

"The way the human mind works makes you susceptible to my orders." Hank shook his head and frowned. "That was clear as mud. You were conditioned to obey me. You were a very obedient slave."

"Slaves obey. They have no choice."

"That's right, Holly. Did you notice that during your last three weeks I was deprogramming you? The fact that you disagree with me is proof that you still have free will and that you are not totally in my power. I still wish you had taken my advice to see a therapist because I worry about you."

"Hank except for Hell Week and a few customers in the brothel, my enslavement wasn't hard. You only did what was required for getting me certified as a slave advocate." Holly said. "You are a kind master, a gentle master."

"Do I have permission to make you orgasm, Holly?"

"Hank, could you make me do things against my will?" Brian asked.

"If I find your codes. With the right equipment and a few minutes I can."

"I don't believe you." Holly said. "You'd never hurt me."

"I would only do so with reason, Holly. As a free person you need not take part in this experiment."

"Go ahead. You won't hurt me."

Hank keyed in a long command. He looked up at Holly and depressed ENTER. Holly flushed and began panting. Her teeth chattered and she trembled, unable to speak. Holly's knees buckled and she collapsed writhing on the floor. Hank took his finger off the ENTER key and Holly's writhing ceased.

"You are a good girl, Holly," Hank Dalton told the woman on the floor. The tension leached out of her body.

"Susan, start after-care on Holly, please," Hank directed. "I admit it. I didn't expect her Night Owl Bondsman Trainers to be this rough. While she was my slave I installed some firewalls and implanted a few skills. Brian, if I ever suspect that you are using Holly's emergency recovery phrase to take advantage of her, I will figure out your implant codes and take control of your erections. Just imagine a limp noodle every time you want to have sex or unwanted erections during business meetings—or worse. You have been manumitted, but enslavement is forever."

"Hank, you have two unscheduled visitors in a sky car at the town gate," the house paging system announced. "They are Ned and an unidentified person here to talk about your late Uncle Sampson's estate. Identities verified."

Hank went from relaxed to alert immediately. His friendly open face closed down to a stony mask. "Please excuse me. Business. House, admit Ned and tell him to meet me at my office. I'll be there in ten minutes."

The large man moved out of the kitchen with dispatch.

"What is that all about?" Corporal Culp wondered.