At the same time that Sue (alias Cookie) was talking to a cop at her bus stop Toni was having a conversation with a cop while waitng for the bus to carry her back to the women's barracks for the night. Toni was trying to get on his good side and wasn't having much luck. The guard was upset with her production. Toni was upset because she wasn't having any luck with the guard. She hadn't had any luck since being incarcerated.
It had been hot where Toni had been working in hay shed #33. Hay shed #33 covered an area 100 meters wide by two kilometers long. That was where hay was grown to feed the livestock in farmer John's main cattle shed. A shed was a large building constructed of silicon construction sheets to let the light from the twin suns in and keep the moisture in. Mosture outside in free air was as undesirable as letting a prisoner outside.
Toni, like all the other prisoners, wore a radio transmiter in a collar arround her neck. The shed she had been working in was flimsy. Anyone could just punch thier way through the nearest wall and leave. Toni knew that if she did leave the shed the signal from her collar would be picked up and set off an alarm. There was no removing the collar and there was no escape.
Basically Toni had three choices; 1) stay locked up in solitary confinment all day back in the women's barracks (which wasn't too bad--except for the boredom), 2) volunteer to be a human training aid for the police academy that surrounded the prison complex, or 3) work all day in the sheds. The sheds were the best way to spend your time. Aside from the collar and the work it was almost like being free again.
Toni had spent a good part of her life working in the sheds. She had first visited the sheds as a young man before her first revamp. She had been in for thieft when she was just sixteen. She had been on the juvie plan. Six months. At age eighteen she had served a year and a half for armed robbery.
When she had gotten her revamp/sex change at age twenty she had managed to stay out in the real world for four years until she was picked up for prostitution/running a brothel/tax evasion. That wasted another three years of her life. When she got back out she started on the same track that had already depredated so much of her time.
She probily would have been picked up again except she met a man, they fell in love, and got married. It was ten years later that her husband was locked up on a false charge of selling stolen property. To compound the error he was killed while serving his time, prison fight.
Toni probily would have fallen apart right then except for the son she was raising. The son who would die at the hands of the police durring a robbery attempt. That's when Toni did go to pieces. She spent two years at a mental asylum. The doctors had expected that she would spend the rest of her life there.
Her doctor remarked that she had never seen a patient turn arround like Toni had. The doctor theorized that Toni had some sort of mid-life crisis that had been so strong that it had forced her into recovery. It was like she just decided to get back together all in one day. Suddenly she was rational again. She became agressive and sure of herself.
CBs are a funny breed.
To some of them the constant segrigation they face will make them into small people who's only defense in life is claiming they either don't understand or they didn't hear or it wasn't fair or they don't know how. They always had some excuse ready for any confrontation.
On the other side of the coin are those who are hardened by thier life as a CB. That would be Toni. She had no excuses for what she did. Carried to the extreme this bullheadedness could be bad. After her release from mental therapy she was a hard charger. She made friends easily and was a leader in any crowd. She might have had a real future in front of her except she was dropped right back into the enviroment that had led to a life of crime. She survived by an assortment of ventures just barely managing to keep herself out of jail.
Then came the time for her second revamp. One might think she would ponder long and hard over when to get it and if she was going to remain in a female body. She had applied for her second revamp at the earliest possible moment. She wanted to remain female in spite of some gender confusion. The kicker was she wanted to be revamped down to outward age fiveteen!
After months of intensive testing she was allowed what she had asked for under a new experimental program. The fear had been that Toni was still unstable and had asked for something as far away from what she was as she could get. The psychological tests said she only wanted to make up for a bad start in life. Were the tests ever wrong!
Toni's gender confusion stemmed from the fact that she was constantly sexually awake. The old male part of her was primed by any nearby female and that included Toni herself--the female side was constantly being excited by the presence of any males. She was jealous of all females and she was also jealous of any males in the vicinity. She considered almost anyone arround her to be hers. Not nessisarily her lover, just hers. Her property. The fact that they weren't just frustrated her.
To add to Toni's confusion and frustration was the fact that females exhilarated her but offered her no release. The concept of two women in bed together was repugnant to Toni. She was excited by them but didn't want anything from them beyond mild hugging. A woman to Toni was just an appetizer for a man, a strong appetizer. She was locked up with 200 other women every night and everyday all the men she saw were guards.
The guard was upset with her production. Toni was upset because she wasn't having any luck with the guard. She hadn't had any luck since being incarcerated.
She was probily aware that it was all her own fault that she was locked up. She had been selling untaxed pills for Killer. He had told her the police had targeted her for surveillance. She had still been making her rounds. She had been picked up and Killer had paid her way free. She kept on selling the pills. Her friends warned her the police were still watching her. Her hardheadedness had forced her to continue. She had been picked up and given two years. It had almost been a relief.
***
The prison compound where Toni was being held housed perhaps 1000 female CBs, 5000 male CBs, 50 regular females, and 500 regular males. It was located in the center of Tower city's police academy which housed 15,000 police. The academy was located about 200 kilometers outside Tower city proper. 'Tower city' is sometomes used to refer to the central city inside the Tower colony and sometimes to the whole colony since what is said and done inside the city is what occurs throughout the whole colony.
Tower colony was established about 700 years back and encompases about two hundred thousand square kilometers of the planet's surface. A minute proportion of the whole planet, Seco. At that point in time there were no more than fifteen surviving colonies. Most, like Tower colony, lived in complete isolation from the others. It had been like that for 500 years.
Things were about to change. About 100 kilometers from where Toni was being frustrated her old employer had made a startling discovery.
It had always been a mystery why this idealic planet had been devoid of all life forms when the ship carrying the origional colonists had arrived from earth. Proof had been found of various animal and plant life had been found fosleized in many rock formations. At one time Seco must have been much like earth, covered with water and teaming with life. Somehow all of that had changed. It had to do with the hydrogen cloud. Killer had found the answer, he just didn't know it. Yet.
***
Killer had been one of the first colonists. It had been a time of great unrest. Everyone was trying to start his own colony. Instead of working together the colonists were trying to grab as much as they could. Political groups sprang up everwhere. Everybody wanted something different. They fought over everything. There was only so much to go arround so the fought for suplies. There was more land than they would ever settle and they fought over that too.
The planet was too kind to them. It had everything they would ever need or want, once they had thier water wells drilled.
It had been like a huge desert in appearance. Aside from the lack of moisture in the air the climate had been consistantly pleasant. The sand proved to be ideal, when mixed with soil from the mesas, as a building material. Metals had been a surprise.
They had thought that they would find large deposits and mine it like back on earth. They had cut the planet with huge open pit mines. It had been a blessing and a curse at the same time. There were few deposits. Instead the sand had all kinds of ore mixed in it. From any cubic meter of sand one could extract iron, zinc, copper, brass, and hundreds of other needed materials, and in about the needed proportions! It was wonderful. The problem was anyone could get anything that was wanted. No one had control.
People set up thier own colonies quicker than you could count them. The problem was the machinery brought from earth, there was only so much of it to go around.
Example:
Colony A is set up
There is a split meaning colony A is now...
COLONY A1 A2 A3
There is still just one ------------------------------
machine to make hot dogs-------------|here : :
| : :
| : :
Colony A2 decides to have a cookout | so they :
| get the hot dog maker :
--------------|here :
Now colony A1 says "Where's our hot | :
hot dog making | :
machine?" | :
: | :
: | :
Colony A3 says : | "It's our turn
: | to use it!"
: ---------------|here
: : |
X : |
Unfortunately they had more to worry about than hot dog machines. They had to worry about the high-tech machines that made steal, plastic, transistors, computer chips, ect. They had to worry about the people that knew how to run the machines and test what the machines made.
Thankfully enough good judgement was used to prevent destroying the machines. That would have been bad. It would have been even worse if the people were destroyed. There were only about 2000 people on Seco back in the beginning. That's 2000 varieties of the genus homo sapiens. A gene pool of 2000. Barely enough to ensure the continuation of the genus. Without enough samples it would be like everybody marrying ther sister or brother--inbreeding.
The early colonists fought each other--carefully. Careful to not ruin the chances for ther prodigy to survive. One way to eliminate someone was to put them in a capsule. A cryogenic capsule for later revival. Many people found them selves on the way to a capsule. Whole families were kidnapped in the middle of the night and frozen.
That's what had happened to Sue Ann Phelps (aka Sue Ann Tegor, aka Cookie).
That's what had happened to Sylvester Howard Hamrus (aka Killer). He had been twenty two when he had been frozen. It was not recorded by whom or for what reason. He had been revived by the leaders of Tower city after his frozen body had been purchased at no small sum. The city fathers were concerned about the birth rate among CBs. They needed 'fresh blood' to keep from becoming a minority. Killer was offered a deal--"Help us or we'll freeze you again!"
Killer had been an organizer before his stint in the capsule. He told his benefactors that he would help them by organizing the CBs and making them think he would lead them to freedom. He was turned loose to fulfill his obligation. Killer was helping himself.
He organized the CBs into an army of workers. They made pills and sold them first to build capital for killer. He used his profits from pills to start manufacturing booze. He remembered how it had been back on earth before he had ever been born. The way it was told on the video. Gangsters. That was the ticket.
He branched into prostitution and the profits got even bigger. The city fathers were thrilled with all the crime. They had increased ther numbers by one and hundreds of CBs were killing themselves.
It was a marriage made in heaven--they thought. Killer was just been waiting for the right time to take over. He dreamed of controlling Tower colony, maybe even all of Seco. He didn't want to be the man on top he just wanted to control the man on the top.
Finally his opportunity had arrived--maybe. He had been looking for places out on the desert to set up a new pill operation. All he had been looking for was a place to build and hide a medium sized building. He was exploring a rock formation that would hide any tire tracks his trucks might make. It was already a good location before he found the cave. The cave was about three to four meters high, three to five meters wide, and went straight back for nearly twenty meters. It was nearly perfect. Killer was beside himself with joy for having found it. He was about to leave when he noticed the crack along the wall at the very back of the cave.
The crack went in a nearly straight line from the floor to the ceiling. On close examination Killer found the crack continued along the roof of the cave. It was a door. The next day Killer returned with some help and they got the door open. What they found inside others had only dreamed about. It was a well lit clean series of rooms. At first Killer was afraid he had stumbled onto some secret base of operations for the police or maybe it was an abandoned command center for some forgotten colony.
He never guessed that he had found an alien artifact. Well, that is not quite correct. It was an artifact alright, but Killer was the alien. It had been built by the native inhabitants of Seco.
***
It had only taken a few days to discover. It might take Killer a lifetime to discover what it was. He had no way to read the instructions for starting the machine the natives had left behind. Killer knew he had something big, something that might make his dream of controlling all of Seco come true. He knew he had to be careful. If he could cipher out what he had and how to use it he would at the very least make a bundle on the deal. All he had to do was find someone who could figure out what he had. Not an easy task. He knew he could only trust the CBs, they had accepted him. The problem was most CBs couldn't read or write ther own language let alone decode an alien one.
He was probably his own best bet to figure out how to read the alien language. That was something that would never occur to Killer. He had a mindset that told him that whenever it came to getting work done the only way to do it was to find someone willing to do it for him. "To do your own work is to get bogged down in your own work."
He set his mind to the task of finding a CB capable enough to tell him what he had found. He had time. Whatever it was that he had found had been sitting there waiting for thousands of years. It hadn't even gotten dusty in all that time. Killer's biggest fear was that he would find the aliens to go along with the artifact. It was Tuesday.
***
It was Tuesday. I was worried that I wouldn't get to see Sid before I had to go catch my bus so I could make it to work on time. I had already been late to work twice since I had given my notice to Ed. Then too if I was late what could he do? Fire me? He had already offered me more money to stay--twice.
I had arrived early as usual. Sid and I had smooched for awhile but he had had to leave. Dick and I had worked some more on the apartment. It was coming along pretty well.
All the painting was finally done. I still wanted to do something about a better couch. We had found some wood laying in the alley behind the building. Dick told me he could maybe build a couch frame out of it if I would try to sew together the cushions.
It was a fair deal. I didn't know how to sew and Dick didn't know how to make a couch frame. What could be better? I admit it, I loved doing anything and everything to make our little apartment a little more like a home. Dick enjoyed doing favors for me. Sid on the other hand kept trying to figure out things to do away from home, things to bring in more money. He saw himself as the provider and protector.
I loved him. It made me feel good all over to be with him during those times when he would slow down enough so that we could talk. I had no doubt we would do well together.
Dick and I had been working hard. Finally I stopped what I was doing to cook us up something to eat. Dick loved my cooking. Actually it might have just been the idea of not eating out of a can. It didn't matter. I enjoyed doing things for both of my men. That was how I was coming to think of them. I just happened to be in love with one of them.
Dick was eating his soup and I had just sat down to enjoy mine when Sid burst into the room. I started to offer him something to eat when I saw the worried look on his face. Worried hell, he was downright scared.
"What's wrong Sid?"
"I fucked up! Man was I dumb!"
"About what? Are you alright?" I asked beginning to get alarmed.
"Yea Cookie, but I won't be for long. The cops are after me."
"What? Why? Did you do something?"
"Yeh, I bought a amp for my board. Turns out it was stolen. I didn't know until Mike got word to me that the police went to the bar and took all of my equipment. Dick, remember that last amp I got from that guy that came by the bus?"
"Yeh." Dick responded thoughtfully.
"What was his name?"
"Jimmy, I think. Jimmy or John. Is he the son of a bitch that stole it?"
"I don't know. I figure that if I can find him then maybe I can get out of this alright. I think I can get him to tell the police what happened. Do you know anything about him?"
I watched helplessly as Dick tried to think of anything that might help Sid. Finally Dick responded, "Naw, the only time I saw him was the two times he was with you. Didn't you say you met him down on Chelsey street?"
"Was that it? Good, I couldn't remember. Look I'm going to disappear for a few days until I can find that dude again and clear myself. You look out for things here. See ya'"
"Wait!" I shouted as I got my legs untangled from under me and stood up. "Turn yourself in. You know how the cops are. Don't take chances. Please Sid!"
"Sorry baby, if I don't find this guy and clear myself I'll have to go to jail for a long time. I can't do that now. I've got to get things straight."
I went to him and hung on to his shirt. I was crying. I didn't want Sid to go. I knew all too well what the odds were that he would get himself shot. He gave me one last hug and tried to push me away from him.
"Let go Cookie! I've GOT to go! Dick grab her! The police may be on ther way now. It won't take 'em forever to find out where I live now."
I felt strong arms grab me from behind but I held onto Sid. I had to save him. If went out of that door I might never see him again. Forcefully they pried my hands loose and Sid was gone. Suddenly my fear over what might happen to Sid turned into anger directed at Dick. I tried to hit him but he kept my arms pinned to my sides. I squirmed and tried to get loose from him but he held me easily. Sid was gone. I would not be able to catch him. I relaxed. The matter was not in my hands.
"Ok Dick, you can let me go now! I promise I won't leave."
"Get over there and sit on the couch."
"Well let me go so I can move!" I complained.
"No Cookie, you turn around and move."
I did as he told me to and he dragged me over to the darned couch and let go of me. I fell onto it. "You bastard!" I told Dick. He went over by the door to be sure I couldn't get out and put his back to it, guarding me. I called that poor man everything I could think of. I won't even repeat here all the mean things I told him before I had calmed down enough to see that he was already hurting just as bad as I was.
I looked at the man in shame. Why hadn't I realized that he cared as much for Sid as I did in his own way. They were buddies. Just because I was Sid's girl didn't mean Sid and Dick couldn't have an attachment too. They didn't have to be lovers to care about each other.
Dick looked up to Sid. Sid looked up to Dick. Where Dick was quiet and reserved to the point of being repressed Sid was just plain easy to be around and out going. Where Sid was playful and sometimes juvenile Dick was serious. They were compliments to each other. A left arm and a right arm.
"Dick...I'm sorry. I shouldn't be taking this out on you." I got up and went to put my hand on his shoulder.
"Sit back down!"
"Wha..what?"
"I know you are trying to trick me. You can't go yet. Just sit down and wait awhile. You can leave then if you want to. Just don't jeopardize Sid."
"Ok, I just want to help." I sat back on the couch as a show of cooperation. "Do you forgive me for calling you all those names?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does, the way I see it it's up to you and me to work together to try to find ways to help Sid, don't you think?"
"What are you talking about? All we can do is sit here and hope everything will be alright."
"No. We could try to find this Jimmy or John guy from Chelsey street.
"No, we'll stay here. If Sid needs us we'll be here where he can find us. The worst thing we can do right now is try to go out there to help. That'll only make matters worse."
"Ok Dick, you probably know better than I do. You tell me what to do and I'll do it."
"Promise?"
"I swear."
"Ok, we sit and wait. If we don't hear anything before long I'll go to the bar and see if Mike has heard anything, ok Cookie."
"Whatever you say."
The whole book in zipfile format.
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