How long had she been in this room? How many hours had passed? How many days? Was the Trident Taskforce looking for her? Where were Bronte and Kara?
She pictured Mitch’s face. Pictured Ford’s. Pictured Hernandez’s. They would be beside themselves, but if she knew them like she thought she knew them, they would be looking for her. She believed it in the bottom of her heart. No matter how long it had been, they would keep looking. But how long had it been?
Salvi pulled on her restraints again. The woman in the red uniform turned to looked at her.
Erica.
“There’s no use fighting it,” Erica said, stepping toward her as Salvi continued to tug at her strapped wrists. “You’re here now. Might as well make the best of it.”
“The best of what?” Salvi spat, head throbbing.
Erica stared at her emotionless. “Your new life.”
“I already have a life.”
“Not anymore. That one is gone. Your new life is here at MasterSlave.”
Salvi’s eyes trailed around the relatively bare room. She saw a control panel by the door, but other than a bench and drawers along the wall beside Erica, a built-in console and the data pane in her hands, the rest was featureless.
“I’m a cop!” breathed through the pain. “My unit will be looking for me. They’ll be here any minute.”
“No, they won’t. Because you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“No, I disappeared inside Floor to Ceiling.”
“And that’s back in San Francisco,” she said bluntly. “You’re not there anymore.”
Salvi paused, not sure if she’d heard right, her head still throbbing. “What?”
Erica exhaled slowly as though explaining something to a child. “I’ll say this once. Your old life is gone. You’ve disappeared. They took measures to ensure no one could track you to our location. They found the tracking devices and they’re gone. No one knows where you are. Now, we’ve lined up a little plastic surgery and we’ll erase your tattoos, nice scorpion on your hip, by the way, and before you know it, Salvi Brentt will be dead and MasterSlave-24 will be born.”
“MasterSlave-24?”
“Yes. It’s been decided that you would be best suited to the Slave subsection. It’s the only way to beat the fight out of the feisty ones. Don’t worry you won’t know the difference. You’ll be high as a kite on Flyte the whole time.”
She felt more awake now, despite the throbbing in her head. Although she felt sick too, thinking back to when she awoke with Mitch after her night on Flyte; the gaping holes in her memory. “Fuck you!” Salvi spat.
“No,” Erica smiled. “That’s gonna be your job, honey.” She turned her back and moved toward a console, placing the data pane down on the bench. “You should be grateful they didn’t feed you to that monster that cut up your pals Caine and Chaney.” She glanced back at Salvi. “They chose to keep you alive, not kill you. Be thankful for that.”
“You betrayed Chaney,” Salvi said.
Erica shot her a dark look. “I chose the stronger team.” She turned back to her data pane.
Salvi’s breathing had picked up speed. She was trying not to panic. Trying to think straight through the pain in her head.
“How can you do this?” Salvi asked. “How can you help them do this to other women?”
Erica looked back at her. “It’s kill or be killed in this life, honey. You can be the hunter, or you can be the prey. They’re too powerful for me. It’s not a fight I can win, so,” she shrugged, “I choose to join them. And survive.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Salvi calmed her voice. “If you help me, I can protect you.”
“No. You can’t,” she said, twisting a knob on the console.
Salvi’s head fell back as the world seemed to spin and turn sideways.
“Feeling dizzy?” Erica asked. “Good… How about now?”
Salvi’s eyes closed as a wave of warmth rolled through her body. She exhaled heavily, unable to stop herself rolling with it.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she managed, panting and blinking heavily as she fought to remain alert.
“Testing your neural implants.”
Salvi’s body stilled. In fact, she was sure the whole world stilled.
She felt the throbbing at the sides of her skull and her eyes opened wide with fear. She turned to look back at Erica.
“M-my what?”
Erica looked at her and smiled. She pressed another button and the glass wall into the corridor clouded over into a mirror.
Salvi felt the blood rush out of her as she stared at her reflection.
The sides of her head had been shaved. Perched around her ears and spread out along her skull to her temple were neural devices. And where the devices connected with her skull, she saw dried blood. The devices weren’t pressed against her skin, they went through her skin, maybe even right through her skull and into her brain.
Subjugate-52 flashed into her mind.
“No…” Salvi breathed before her mouth formed a growl. “Get them off me!”
“No can do I’m afraid,” Erica said. “They’re permanent.”
Salvi looked back at her. “You’re lying!”
“Am I?” she said. “Neuricle Corporation don’t mess around, honey. They’re the best there is. That’s why we stole their tech. If they can keep those Subjugates in line, then we can keep our slaves in line too.”
“No, no, no…” Salvi felt a tidal wave of panic build, suffocating her lungs, as she pictured Attis Solme’s face, his smile, then Subjugate-52’s face and his killer blue eyes. Frankenstein and his monster. Now she too was a monster. She too had been subjugated.
“No, no, no…” she breathed.
“Of course,” Erica said approaching her again, “we’ve reverse-engineered the devices. They won’t stop you from feeling things, honey, they’ll make you feel them twice as much. And our clients tend to like responsive slaves.”
“No, no…” Salvi shook her throbbing head as tears stung her eyes and
