2017-12-09 - spike - The New Shop 51

Author: spike
Title: The New Shop 51
Date: 09 December 2017

Chapter 51
That night, I was on a team of cleaning slaves. My job, mop out the wet rooms down on B4. All of them, everywhere and everything had to gleam for M to be satisfied.

I did, of course and unlike Perkins I didn’t resent it. I knew what slavery meant. It was the life I’d accepted and if my Master chose to put me on menial work, who was I to complain? I mopped, I polished, I put everything into it and by the time M came down to inspect it he nodded and pointed me at a cubical.

I shrugged and entered, immediately froze and got ten minutes of extreme pleasure as a reward.

Oh my god though, the program he’d selected. This one really dipped heavily above the pleasure/pain threshold. The price of selecting a pleasure level too high for me but I not only relished it, I loved it. It was the most extreme feeling I’d ever had.

Then, gym, workout, wash and called up to the first floor.

When I got there, Joel was waiting by the elevator. He pointed at the next mirror, swiped a card across the panel and led me upstairs, another swipe on the door opposite room one and into what looked like a cabinet the size of a display case. I instantly froze in place.

“Before you ask, blank. Body scan. Identify any potential health problems before they become them.”

I spent an age just standing there, I’ve got no idea how long before he returned and sent me back to the gym where I joined the line of blanks. Again, M patted half of us on the shoulder and we stepped forward and this time what he dropped at our feet…

“Dog training for everyone begins at the start of next week. It’s time you got a feel for it. Two days in the dog for you. The rest will get their two days starting tomorrow.”

I chuckled inwardly. Of course, it wasn’t the suit I was destined for, one of the sealable ones, just the front zip I was familiar with but oh god this should be fun. I wondered if I could manage to continue to pull the wool over M’s eyes as an inexperienced dog.

Could I do it convincingly, being so good at everything doggy now?

I’d find out in a few minutes.

As he began, shoving my legs in, then my arms, he paused to tap on his armband throughout. I can only assume names.

“Fang… Dex… Digby? Nah… What about this one… What… You’re a bright spark aren’t you boy… I think I’ll call you… Sparky.”

The moment the tail was locked in place it began to wag. Not because I liked the name, more the amusement of getting a second one.

Taking my cues from the Jerry Lewis School of being a clumsy bastard… I… think some of M’s turns of phrase are rubbing off on me, I fell, walked into others with little control, even fell over almost knocking M aside several times. Clearly I was having difficulty learning to walk.

I made it take until almost bedtime before I found the confidence to walk. Before I was dismissed to my cage for the night, I heard M, obviously intentionally on his part, speaking to twelve.

“That one’s useless. It’ll stay in that suit for two more days.”

Oh, I don’t think so somehow. I knew tomorrow was a Friday, for once I’d bothered to count the days. If I was going into a dog suit for a long time it was going to be sealed on. I’d reveal myself on Saturday.

Friday was much the same. I allowed myself to show competence at walking a couple of hours in and then proceeded to stumble about after attempting to run, this time really knocking M off his feet. I got a few bad dogs that day but it was good fun so I put up with it. By now, my status as gold had officially been restored but wearing a different core and hidden beneath another suit…

At midday, M called everyone back to the gym and lined us up. He blackened all their goggles and walked along the line for half an hour looking at the backs of their heads. Nothing, of course. Even my suit wouldn’t’ve responded cos I was a dog right now.

He began to look a little fidgety as he dismissed them again. He returned to the elevator, his head down.

He looked worried.

Training continued and I did allow myself to improve slightly. Running with a little control but often skidding to a halt and back pedalling or toppling over.

Again, dismissed to my cage that night and the next morning, I began as Sparky but I didn’t intend to stay him for much longer.

“One of you is not who you claim to be.” He was facing the blanks. The dogs, all of us, stood behind him. Perfect opportunity.

“Come on Eleven. Please, it’s clear something’s gone wrong. I know you like posing as a blank but this is taking the piss! Which one are you?”

Of course, they all looked at each other, a few even inched away from their neighbours a little. A spy in their midst? I imagine that was their thought at least.

I padded directly over to Slasher, sat beside him and nuzzled his ear. His tail shot up in surprise and started wagging furiously. Then Rascal’s started wagging too, followed by Duke’s. The others having picked up on the joke.

The four of us sat together for the rest of his angst driven speech.

“Q orders you to step forward.”

I took a step forward. Wouldn’t want to disobey Q after all. Slasher, Duke and Rascal did the same.

“This isn’t funny anymore! Dismissed to your cages, the lot of you!”

All the new dogs but me followed their human-object counterparts to the elevator, I just sat in my correct place. Beside Slasher.

Clearly he’d noticed one was missing. He looked back to see me sitting with my brother.

He walked over and tapped me. “Sparky was a bad name for you. I told you back to your cage!”

I nuzzled Slasher and stayed put.

“Bad dog! Back to your cage, now!”

OW! I bolted to the other end of the gym, collected a tracker that’d been missed by Dixon during his training, ran back and skidded to a halt so I was directly beside Slasher again. I dropped the ball at his feet.

“Tyson?”

My tail wagged.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, I was worried sick! Come on, back to get your core and out of that. Fucking hell though, how did you… Never mind, wait until you can talk, eh?”
* * * * *
“OK. Which one were you? I’ve completely lost track now.”

“Recycling centre, taken in Calgary. Oh god I would’ve loved to see the look on your face when you couldn’t find me among the blanks.”

“But… But you took the fob! And wasn’t your pleasure level higher?”

“What better way? Conceal every identifiable feature. Q knew. He loved the fiction I told you during my interview. Said that to me when we unveiled the illiterate one.”

“Just as well you were in that cage and spotted it. If you’d been in one above it might’ve gone unnoticed for days.”

“How’s he… Sorry, it doing now?”

“Slow, but it’s picking it up. Its miming’s improving too, making it easier to understand. We finally know why it didn’t know it wouldn’t be able to communicate too.”

“Let me guess. The man who recruited it said he’d learn but unaware it couldn’t read didn’t think it was necessary to mention reading was a big part of it?”

“Good guess. So you got to know them. I suppose you’d better interview them so you can tell them apart tomorrow, know which ones you did get to know.”

“And on Monday, dog training.”

“I think it’s safe to keep you human for a few more days until all the dogs are up to speed, you clearly don’t need it. God, you came across as a right numpty as a dog. Stumbling about, falling behind all the other dogs to such an extent I considered renaming you Thicky.”

“Well, I did want to conceal myself from you after all. Worked like a charm. Expect more of the same with the next batch.”

“What about that pleasure thing though?”

“Oh god that was intense. I liked it though, even with a mingling of pain in there. I’ve never felt anything like it. I might even ask Q to increase my threshold once in a while. Not permanently but for special rewards or occasions…”

M just shuddered. “Not for me. Oh god…”

“Who is that meant to be anyway? It sounded familiar the first time I heard it but…”

“No-one would’ve believed that in the last years in the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space...”

“What?”

“War of the worlds?”

“But that’s nothing like Tom Cruise!”

“Oh god not that abortion of a film! The classic musical version. Jeff Wayne’s version?”

“Err…”

“OK… He married Elizabeth Taylor about fifteen times. Richard Burton? Did Anthony and Cleopatra in the fifties or sixties or thereabouts?”

“No idea. Before my time obviously. It suits you though.”

M shook his head. “Youth of today…”

“What happened to the one who was still feeling pain that first day by the way?”

“He was. Small amount of tearing in the sphincter muscles. It was healing. It’s fine now.”

I winced. “Anyway, seems we’ll have some temp slaves to play with soon including the one belonging to Bethan.”

“How did… You were on display?”

“I was the one Joel demonstrated the suit’s freeze on. Opened the case, had her touch me before turning it off. Sent a shudder down my spine seeing her. She seems to be developing a sadistic streak. I could almost see the anticipation when she realised there was pain from the plug as well as pleasure. Glad I didn’t get his name as a dog.”

“Why?”

“Moonbeam.”

M gripped his sides, finally recovering enough to type. “Oh god, that’s a bad one. It does sound more like something a woman would choose though.”

“He might be a blank for a very long time. She knows he’s totally at her mercy in that thing. Threatened to not let him out until he won a race.”

“Her slave, her choice.”

“True.”

“How many more outside competitors have we got so far?”

“Five.”

“Bloody hell! Really? God, it’s going to be a struggle hunting down almost thirty. Even with four of us.”
* * * * *
For the rest of the day, I caught up on things I’d been missing as a blank, starting with a few hours in room one.

I started the chat client the moment I got there.

Ssp: Hello, Software support, how can I help?

11: Is that two again?

Ssp: Sorry, sir. Blank here. Two’s off doing something else right now.

11: Are you up to speed on what I’ve been doing, blank?

Ssp: Yes, sir. We’ve run the program through the simulator testing for extremes. We ran into a major problem when a large number of slaves were running.

11: Oh?

Ssp: They had to queue, sir. Before touching the panel. The simulations ended up fighting each other to get there first in order to avoid the shocks.

11: Shit! Thanks for that. Hadn’t thought about queuing. That’s definitely something that needs fixing.

Ssp: And you have a solution? We’ve been scratching our heads over that for a while.

11: Most obvious solution, reset the timer when the panel’s touched for all slaves destined to touch it. Only once per slave though, they still all need to touch it.

Ssp: That’s a good one, sir!

11: So, how long have you been a blank.

Ssp: Can’t say I’ve kept track, sir. I first put the suit on in 2019, sir.

11: Couple of years then. No identity crisis with you? Being identical to everyone else?

Ssp: Nah. I love it in fact. He even offered me elevation but when I said I loved being an anonymous rubber thing too much, he was fine to allow me to remain a blank. Happy to stay like this for the rest of my life, sir.

11: Heh, I can understand that. God I had fun among the blanks last week. Thanks for the update, I’ll get on to fixing that problem now. Any other software fixes to send my way?

Ssp: I’ll tell number two that you’re back next time he’s here.

11: I’m not sure how long I’ll be back. Nearly time for dog training again after all and god it’s going to be a good one.

Ssp: How could it beat last time? That was fucking excellent, sir! I’ve never seen anything like it. We were glued to the screen whenever we were off duty.

11: A lot more competitors and two more hunters. Don’t know what else Q has in store for us.

Ssp: Oh god, I can’t wait to tell the rest.

11: Best be off, got a lot of mods to write.

I closed the chat session and opened the development environment.
* * * * *
The voice coming from the computer that night sounded amused.

“So I see you located eleven eventually, M?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t even think about the dogs. The fact he didn’t reveal himself to me when ordered to…”

“Ah, but he did follow your orders, M.”

“Sir?”

“You told him to step forward. He did. Of course you were so focussed on the blanks in front of you, you didn’t think to look behind. Now for the order of business… Blank, formerly known as Perkins has arrived. I’m allowing it two days to speak to all but slug. Obviously slug has no means of communication anyway and never will again. Then it’s some intensive dog training before we shove it back into a transport pod and send it back to you.”

“Yes, sir. How did it handle the pod, sir?”

“It loved it. The moment it saw me it collapsed to its knees. I think it’s learning to accept what submission means. We’ll have a long conversation with it before we send it back to you. All the golds and silvers along with me. I think it’ll make a fine field agent.”

“That’s good to know, sir.”

“Now, eleven. You missed out on another chance to reclaim some of your pleasures last week. Did you get one?”

“One and a bit, sir. M rewarded me for my work cleaning the wet rooms, sir. Shoved me in a cubical for ten minutes on a very good program. As my pleasure levels were higher than normal, oh my god…”

“Yes, I noticed that. And you handled it?”

“Yes, sir. I’m tempted to ask for an increase but I think it might lose its appeal if it’s every time. Maybe special occasions, successful race, Christmas, your birthday, things like that sir.”

“And your birthday?”

“If you can keep track of it, it’ll be a nice surprise if one coincides with it, sir. I know for a fact in a few months time I won’t even know when it is, sir. Even if I’m in the same month as it.”

“Good point. Many slaves find that one of the hardest bugbears to beat, losing birthdays. It doesn’t bother you?”

“No sir. I imagine in a few years I won’t even know how old I am. Fine by me sir. M seems to have handled it well enough. Your birthday is the only one that matters now, sir. Not that any of us know when it is.”

Q laughed. “Very good, eleven. I’d not even considered that myself. Age? As long as you’re kept fit and healthy, it really isn’t an impediment. Now… I’ve studied weather reports for the coming month and it appears we may run into some problems with cold weather. We’re working on a solution to that now that will still allow the race to be run and may even improve it.”

“Oh god, make it even better? How, sir?”

“I’ll keep that to myself for now. I think you’ll appreciate the surprise. Now, Joel, report.”

“Takings have settled down but they’re still up from before the promotions. The dog suits are gaining a lot of interest, we’ve sold another four this week, sir, three of them fully equipped and also signed up for the race. That makes six outside competitors in total for the race, sir. Luke has downloaded the first episode and promised to play it in the club tonight. The cut off point’s been passed now for entry into this one.”

“Yes, any future application will have to wait. During the depths of winter it may need to be put on hold even with the modifications we’re currently working on. Either that, or the slaves may be transported south. Winter in the southern states isn’t as much of an issue is it?”

“No sir, very few if any of them ever see snow, sir. It’s a long way though.”

“Yes, it is still worth a little research. Best, nearest without the risk of any of the dogs getting buried in snow or dying from exposure, frostbite or thirst due to inability to find liquid water. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. This month the mods should be enough. I’ll only say this, the tail cores have received an update. Graphene’s the most wonderful material ever discovered. A plethora of uses and one of those is incredibly high capacity batteries. Those will allow the powering of a heating web. Full body. It should last for the duration of the race, we’re testing the first now. Q out.”

Heating too? God, this is getting better by the race. I wonder what else he has up his sleeves? I’d be sure to find out in a couple of weeks.