2018-01-09 - spike - The New Shop 59

Author: spike
Title: The New Shop 59
Date: 09 January 2018

Chapter 59
Removal of the suit was just a matter of standing there and waiting for the tube connected to my head to pump solvent in between the two suits. Of course, all I could feel was a slight increase in pressure and the liquid cooling me slightly, but after an hour, I felt the pressure suddenly release as the flaps sprang away from the main body of the dog.

Little more cumbersome than the zip but by god it felt better.

The stretching session went easier on me this time. I didn’t even need to be supported when I was finally let down from the suspension.

I think I must be adjusting to being half man, half dog.

I helped M out of the suit and strung him up too, massaging and kneading his muscles as always. He did need help to support himself for a couple of laps around the gym.

Slasher was adjusting too, he was up on two feet almost immediately, not even a need to string him up.

The moment his hands were free, he started signing.

“Fuck! Real shocker seeing you get shot like that, sir.”

“You don’t know the half of it. I thought I was dying. I’ve seen enough movies where people are shot and then start complaining about being soooo sooo cold… That’s how I felt. Fortunately it was just my coat blasted off rather than shock from internal injuries. It does prove one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We really are bullet proof when frozen. God, I can’t wait to see the final results. I don’t even know who any of the dogs were yet. Which one was Zeus? Which one was twelve? Which one Dixon?”

“Oh god, that was the best time I’ve had in my life, sir. I can’t believe Duke outdid me! I wonder what he’ll ask for as a boon.”

“One thing he can’t ask for. His freedom will be one thing totally off the table.”

“I somehow don’t think he’ll even think about asking for that now, sir. I think he’s adjusted. After being offered the chance to train one, he knows, trust is being placed in him, sir. I think he’s starting to love it here.”

I nodded. “Couldn’t agree with him more. Right, let’s get your brother, Duke and twelve out. Then we can start on the other dogs.”
* * * * *
It took the rest of the day to get everyone back on two feet. Even though, with each new slave freed we had another set of hands to help free the rest, then, everyone down for a much needed wash’n’flush.

The moment the last was done, everyone dispersed, free to have some fun.

M sat beside me in the rec room. “How are you?”

“Pissed. Irritated. Frustrated. How do you think? That race was epic and I missed well over half of it.”

He nodded.

“I want to work off my frustration on something and I think I know the perfect target.”

“Plan on beating up the blob? Little unsporting of you, eleven.”

“Let’s Skype sir, for permission, he’ll need to block their access while we do this anyway. I don’t want to beat the fucker up, I think it’s time we spoke to it. Psychological torture, much more satisfying. Maybe even get it to torture itself.”

“How?”

“Let’s see how things play out first. Where’s the laptop?”

“Upstairs, come on, we might as well.”
* * * * *
Q’s voice sounded amused when he answered the call ten minutes later.

“I’ve reviewed the logs, eleven. What torture did you have in mind?”

“We just gather everyone together who it hurt. Us six and Alpha. Tell it that its part in the game will only end when it’s experienced every single shock we experienced. How many did you take, M?”

“I managed to avoid them at first, got to the panel in time, then into the elevator and down to the wet room. Getting back was when it started getting bad.”

“Yes.” Q sounded annoyed. “They had blank and Thirteen going between two and three just to block the use of the lift by anyone else. Very well, I’ll tell Alpha to close the shop briefly and go down there the moment the last customer’s out and summon the rest… and the blob. I’ll also be on hand if need be. Q out.”

I wandered over to the display to see if there were any new developments among the players. The last message appeared to have been posted three days ago and was the end of an argument between the psycho, Kyle and that Vixen character. It appeared Vixen had been a moderating influence, countermanding Kyles commands when she thought it was too much for the blob. Him demanding she butt out. Her saying without her interference he would’ve killed it for real by now. Those two seemed to be the only remaining active members of that group.

I nodded. Good. Make it suffer but keep it from dying. Fine by me.
* * * * *
“Sit, you useless pile of blubber!”

The blob wobbled out of the elevator and looked, or at least it looked like it was looking.

I was losing my patience with it already. “Come over here, other end of the rec room and sit! NOW!”

As it approached it was clear it was seeing more. When it got about twenty feet away it froze at the sight of us. Six suited slaves and one human, sitting as a panel of interviewers might on one side of a desk with a single seat on the other. Well, almost. The desks were arrayed in an arc, so we could see each other. After all, Slasher and thirteen were mute.

“Final warning, if you don’t sit down now, by god I’ll make you suffer! And it’s not just pain we can inflict! Do it! Now!”

We’d modified the laptop for this encounter, removing any possibility it might attempt to hack a network connection. Now, it was utterly incapable of network function, the Wi-Fi card had been removed. It sat on a desk with the chair facing us.

I pointed at it and the blob finally pulled out the chair and sat down.

Then it noticed the laptop, already open into a text entry window. It typed.

“Please let me go! I’ve done nothing wrong!” sounded from the computer.

I stared at it. The nerve of it. “Nothing wrong? Let’s see shall we? You stole from us. You corrupted my work. You tortured us. No. We won’t let you go. In fact, the only way you will ever be free of the game you’ve been playing is to experience every single shock each of us endured at your hands.”

It recoiled so much at that the chair almost toppled backwards.

“I didn’t know!”

“Not good enough. We six, the ones in black before you. When we took you, we thought we were the only ones suffering those shocks. We’ve calculated how many each of us took. The grand total was around about one hundred and fifty.”

At that news it seemed to sag into its chair in relief.

“Alpha, sir? How many did you take?”

“I… How the fuck should I know? They were endless! If the pleasure hadn’t resumed I would’ve probably curled into a ball the moment I was unfrozen!”

“Sir?”

Q’s voice then. “Just working it out now, every ten seconds, did you say?”

“Once it got going, sir, yes. Thirty at the start and most of us managed to reset the timer at least once by touching a panel.”

There was a sound of tapping on a keyboard.

“Oh dear lord! Alpha. How are you?”

“How the fuck… Sorry, sir. I don’t know, sir. Still shaken by the experience, sir. Why? How many?”

“By my calculations…” The voice sounded pained. “Oh god. I’ll send someone to you. Tomorrow, temp suit. Not for long, but just enough time to give you a thorough scan in room two. You need to be frozen for it to be accurate. I want to make sure you suffered no permanent damage.”

The blob shifted uncomfortably in the chair at this turn in the conversation.

Alpha was clearly losing his patience with Q, almost as much as I had with the blob.

“Sir, please.”

“Well over seventeen thousand, Alpha. Six a minute. Sixty minutes in an hour. Twenty four hours in a day and it was forty-eight before we located and captured the blob. Before we were sure it had cracked eleven’s improved firewall encryption… Well, before it thought it had.”

Alpha sank onto the desk and started to sob.

“I know Alpha. As I said, I’ll send someone. A psychiatrist I own who specialises in post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s helped deal with a few slaves here who didn’t take well to it after a while. He’s treating the ex-con you sent to us right now. You need him more.”

“Thank you, sir.”

We all redirected our attention to the blob.

“How many has the blob taken so far?”

It reached for the keyboard again. “Stop calling me that!”

Alpha shot bolt upright and stared at the thing. “Why? It’s what you are. A bloated piled of whale blubber who’s no use to anyone!”

“It’s not my fault! It’s glandular!”

“Glandular! Fuck that. You’re just a lazy fucking pile of shit! How much did you eat? Eh?”

“It’s impossible to lose weight! I’ve tried!”

“Didn’t try cutting your supersized fries, fifty cheeseburgers and gallons of soda diet did you? No-one can get that fat if they exercise and eat sensibly!”

“My doctors said it was glandular! I tried their diets! None of them worked!”

“Oh my god I can’t wait to get you into the ring, you fucker! Sir, since it got taken… How much weight has it lost?”

“After the first week, I modified its diet. It now eats pure protein, minerals and vitamins. No carbs. No fat. Since that change, it’s lost one stone.”

“Stone, sir?”

“I… never understood why the Americans clung to the imperial measurements system but neglected to use the stone. Pretty standard before decimalisation in the UK. Many still use it. Fourteen pounds, Alpha.”

It was my turn again then. “Yes, you lost fourteen pounds. Your friend Kyle knows it’s you by the way. Everyone in that fucking forum does. That’s why it’s so empty now, they all unsubbed in fear weeks ago apart from him and Vixen. Those two are still playing with you. They know it’s their old chum codemaster receiving the shocks. And you’ll continue as their plaything until, as we said, you’ve received every single one of them!”

Q’s voice again then. “Ah yes, back to the topic at hand, eleven. Good. It has received a grand total of three hundred and fifty-four shocks so far. That still leaves over seventeen thousand to go.”

“Please! I didn’t know! I can’t take that! I want to go home!”

I tapped away. “This is your home. As we said, that game will continue until you’ve received every single one of them. That might take years, it might take months, you could even be free of it in a couple of days. It’s entirely your choice how often you receive them.”

“My choice?”

“Your friends control you. If you disobey, the program punishes you, correct?”

“Yes! And I hate it! I can’t… I’ve got to get to those panels!”

Q butted in again. “Well, your choice is simple. Obey me and my command is to take those shocks or obey your friends and the program and avoid them. If you obey your owner, you will be free of the game a lot quicker but you’ll never be a free man again. You are my property and that will never end.”

“Owner?”

“You’re a slave! Of course owner!”

“I’m not a slave!”

“What are you wearing, fool? Of course you’re a slave! It doesn’t matter if you were enslaved willingly as these were or utterly against your will as you were. I own you and you will never be free. Freedom from the game does not mean freedom from me! Once the game is over, we’ll continue to get that weight off you and train you to be a good, obedient slave.”

There was a rattle of fingers on a keyboard and the blob jerked upright as if it’d heard something. Obviously, it had. It scrambled off the chair and wobbled back to the elevator, slapping the panel. A moment later, it was gone.

“Thank you, sir. For letting me be a part of that.”

“It’s the least I could do, Alpha. The least I could do. I admit, that was rather satisfying. Now, before I go… Duke… Have you chosen your boon yet?”

Duke nodded and started to sign.

“Hand it the laptop, eleven. I don’t have a good angle.”

I chuckled, got up, grabbed it and handed it over.

“Sir. I can’t believe how much I’ve changed since you took me. Thank you, sir. For saving me from the misery that was my life. I’ve not only accepted this life now, sir. I’ve never been happier.”

“Very good. But I suspect we all knew that anyway.”

“Hah, true, sir. I think the final hurdle was when I was granted the chance to train one of the outsiders, sir. I like it, sir. I admit it, I love being a dog, but I’d like to help, sir. As a human, well, as a human object. I want to be number fifteen, sir. Make me silver. Make Slasher silver too. Then all the hunters will be named, sir.”

Q chuckled. “Well, I have always said slaves who impress are rewarded. Granted. For both of you. Fifteen and Sixteen. Welcome. Sixteen, how do you feel about spending the majority of your time on two legs?”

Duke handed the laptop over.

“Oh god, thanks, blank! I’ve… I thought… I do love being a dog, sir, probably just as much as Tyson but it’s nice to be out once in a while to talk. I can be with my brother, we can talk whenever we’re not training or hunting. I love it, sir.”

“Very well. Both of you took your punishments and turned them into rewards. Both of you have earned it, believe me. Your marks of ownership and numbers will be applied at your next cleaning cycle along with fourteen’s.”

Looks like M and me are sharing again. I’m more than happy with that. Imagine Thirteen and his brother will too. After all, only six cages upstairs and Alpha will want one to himself.

As if he’d read my mind, Q spoke again.

“Yes, I know. Now all the cages are full. After all, six numbered slaves, M, Alpha and Beta… You do need three more. They will be there soon, don’t worry.”