Calvinus

Chapters 20-36

Chapter 20
Flight

Jack

Ashton was running along the damp gangways now, and the other boys ran to keep up. They emerged from a tunnel into some larger control room, better lit, and with display panels on the walls. Jack saw the words 'filtration & recycling' stamped on one panel, and "outflow" on another.

Ashton stopped by one of the panels and started punching some code into a login sequence and then pressing some buttons that lit up.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Come on, we have to hurry," was all Ashton said in reply and set off at a run again.

"You think they are going to come down here looking for us?" Jack asked, panting as he tried to keep up.

"Well, obviously… but its worse than that."

"How can it be worse?"

"Gonna miss our flight."

Jack stared at Ashton's back as the boy ran on, and shook his head. This was all pretty crazy stuff, but once he saw what the sewer rat had tucked away he had started to believe there was more to Ashton's plan than bravado alone. Inside the container there had been sealed waterproof bags, and although he had not had time to see everything as the other boy had rifled through the contents, checking all was there, he had seen the phone, as well as some kind of card crib sheet, that Ashton had just been consulting when he had been messing with that control panel.

They reached the sewer pipe they had been at earlier, the same one where this box was supposed to be hidden.

"This looks familiar," was all he said. Ashton glared at him, but without reason, Jack thought. He had not meant to be sarcastic or anything. Why were they back here again? He tried something else.

"So why are we flying?"

"Because, genius, we are in the middle of a desert, and if we try to walk home we will all be dead by tomorrow."

"So someone is just gonna…"

"Shut up! Do you think I have time for this? It's like this. We all have to crawl down that pipe. At the end, the grill unhitches and lifts upwards. There are no screws in it. After that you have to dive in, swim forward until you hit a wall and then swim upwards. That takes you into the main outflow, got it?"

"I guess," Jack replied.

"Good, because you are going first."

"Why me?"

"Because if you don't, I am leaving you behind, I swear it."

"And how do I know it's the real way out and you won't just go off and leave me when I am in there?" Jack asked.

"Will you fucking well get on with it?" Ashton growled in exasperation.

"I'll go," Joel said.

Jack watched for the reaction from Ashton. There was none. He did not mind who went first.

"No, I will," Jack said and pushed his way into the narrow pipe, but paused there, blocking the entrance but not quite going in.

"You know we can't really take the sewer boy," Jack said, not wanting to call him a rat or livestock, even if that was how the law saw him. "You didn't deactivate his collar yet."

"They don't use the collars on sewer rats, dumbo. They don't use the posts down here, and the place is meant to be escape proof seeing as there is no access to the surface down here."

"Then how the fuck are we…?" Jack started but Ashton kicked Jack's butt.

"You will find out if you get a move on!" was all he said, his voice an angry growl.

As Jack was worming his way up the pipe he heard Matthew ask a question.

"I didn't think there were any deserts in Fremont." Jack paused again to hear the answer.

"Hah, you think you are in Fremont? What, did you think they put their most notorious young offenders institution in their actual state? Don't you know anything?"

Jack did not hear Matthew's reply but it must have been in the negative because Ashton went on.

"Sacramentum is just north of White Sands in the Republic of Texas. Hey, Jackie boy, don't stop, we don't have fucking time."

Jack crawled on deeper into the tunnel and as he did so he heard the sounds of someone else climbing in behind him.

He had known, of course, that they were not in Fremont. He remembered the long bus ride here. Hours and hours leading deeper and deeper into the desert.

Didn't everyone know that Sacramentum was out of state? Wasn't that the point? The prison was in a legal limbo. It was on land leased by the Republic of Texas to the State of Fremont, and the Texan legal system saw it as being under Fremont law, whereas the Fremont constitution regarded it as out of state and not even one of the United States so it was not under their law. That gave the prison authorities free reign to do what they liked.

It also meant that yes, they were stuck in the middle of a huge desert surrounded by a hostile republic, and with Mexico to the south and west. There was really no place to go. No one had ever escaped from Sacramentum.

Jack hoped that this plan was a sound one, because if there was not a way out of here, then breaking out was going to be the easy thing. Staying alive in the desert was going to be harder.

He found the grill and tried to push it free. It was stuck, and he rattled it, tried to force it. He pushed upwards and his hand slipped, grazing his fingers. He growled, thumped the grill in frustration, and tried again.

At last it moved and he was able to slide it up as Ashton had said.

Jack climbed through into a dark space. He could hear water trickling and splashing into something below, but he could see nothing in here. It stank just as bad as the tunnels. He felt a terrible fear build up inside him.

What was he supposed to do? Jump into the dark and hope that Ashton was trustworthy. Since when had he thought he would trust Ashton?

"Come on," Joel whispered behind him.

"Easy for you to say," Jack whispered back.

"No it isn't."

Jack shrugged, a movement entirely lost on Joel in the darkness so he crawled to the pipe edge and tried to lower himself down.

He could not feel anything, even when he was hanging by his fingertips, and so, at last, he just let go.

The water was closer than he thought – he must have been almost in it and he dropped in with a splash.

Dive down, and forward he remembered and did so, and as he did so he felt the current snatch him.

Jack knew a moment of terror then as he fought the current, but it was too strong and he felt himself being dragged into an underground river tunnel. He held his breath and wondered how long he could do so. It felt like his lungs were exploding, but suddenly he slammed hard and painfully into a wall, and now he swam up.

Nothing. Where was the surface. He swam up some more, and then, as he was close to despair, his face broke the surface and he sucked in great gulps of rancid air, although despite the terrible smell, he had never felt so happy to be breathing in his life.

And that was when he realised that he was outside. He could see stars, and behind him was the Sacramentum prison wall, and he was floating in some large pond full of what definitely smelled like shit, and the dark scum all around him looked like it too.

Joel emerged next, looking panicked, and splashed his way to the edge of the pond. Then came Matthew and Ashton. Callum was last and Ashton looked back at him regretfully, like he wished the sewer rat had not made it.

"This is the shittiest escape ever," Jack growled.

"Suits you though," Ashton said, with a smirk. "Come on, what did you expect? A nice fresh river? Sacramentum recycles most of its water. We had to get flushed out with the solids into the evaporation lake."

"How did you know they were gonna flush then?"

"I pulled the chain earlier, remember? It takes fifteen minutes for the flush to work through. Looks like we caught it perfectly."

"What was that current then?" Jack asked.

"All the waste water gets pushed through a filter. Sediment sludge gets pushed up here, but most of the water gets pumped back to the main filtration system." Ashton explained, scraping sludge off his legs as he spoke.

"So what was to stop us being pumped back up with the water?"

"Oh you wouldn't have fit through the next filters. Of course if you hadn't swum up like I said, you probably would have drowned there."

"Thanks for the warning," Jack said. It was dark, but there was some moonlight, and it showed that Ashton was smiling.

"Anytime. Come on," and with that he waded out of the pond.

"There's a fence!" Jack remarked and Ashton shot him a look.

"Genius, you are. Its electrified too. Someone already considered the remote possibility of someone escaping through the evaporation ponds."

Jack was about to ask more but Ashton was already puling something from his canister. It was a small box, with an aerial, but otherwise unremarkable. Unremarkable except to Joel.

"Is that …?" Joel started to ask, but Ashton had placed the box by the fence and was running backwards now. He also had something else from his canister. It looked like an old mobile phone, and he was keying a number as he ran.

"Take cover," Ashton said, and then, amazingly he laughed, as he threw himself to the floor, and as the other boys followed suit, there was a loud bang, and a shock wave and the boys were sent sprawling as a shower of sand and dirt and shit rained down on them.

Jack's ears were ringing, but the first sound he heard after the spattering of the poo, was Ashton's mad laugh.

"Come on," he shouted, as he got up again, ran through a large hole in the fence and set off into the night. "We have five minutes max. Probably less."

***

Matthew

Matthew ran through the night with the other boys, feeling a mixture of terror and hope. The world had gone mad and beyond mad, and now here he was escaping from a high security prison in the middle of a desert in a country he knew nothing about, and didn't even realise he was in until half an hour ago.

What was he doing here? Would he wake up and find this was all a bad dream? Would he wake up to find Robbie wanting to go out and have a game of football?

He touched the scar around his navel. No, that was not going to happen. This was all too terrifyingly real, and he was escaping from prison, and from his sentence of castration and slavery.

It was madness.

He recognised where they were heading. He could see the mountains beyond, dark shadows against the stars, and in the foreground a dusty flat expanse of desert, dark grey in the moonlight. He had been here before. This was where Farad had raped him – his first rape.

That felt like a long time ago now. Certainly he had endured many rapes since.

Matthew shivered, but then he became aware of something else.

Because this was the landing strip that his flight had landed on, and there, sitting on the apron of the prison airfield was a plane. A plane with people unloading boxes around it, and a couple of lights flashing around to help them see. There was a plane and they were running straight at it.

"Ashton!" he hissed, pointing. Ashton looked and nodded.

"Well obviously! What did you think? That we were gonna make ourselves hang gliders?"

"They will see us."

"Let them."

Ashton kept on running and now someone from the plane was looking their way. Ashton did not let up.

"Took you long enough," one of the men said.

"Had to deal with a little box thief," Ashton replied and looked pointedly back at Callum.

"The message said four. You have five."

"Like I said, had a snag."

"Get in then," the man said and Ashton climbed into the plane, and beckoned the others.

"Is that it? We are just gonna fly out of here?" Matthew asked incredulous, and Jack snorted.

"You can walk if you like."

"Think I may want the air miles," Matthew replied. "But won't they know where we went?"

"Maybe. Hopefully they think we are incapacitated by our collars, right?"

"But they will work it out?" Matthew asked, climbing up into the plane.

"Won't the smoking hole in their fence be a small clue?"

"Sure they will. We should be long gone by then."

"They will know whose plane this is."

"Sure," Ashton replied, "but whoever's plane it is, they will be reporting it stolen pretty soon anyhow. In the meantime they just think it is the nightly delivery run. Planes deliver here at night, after everyone is meant to be locked in their cells, so you never see them, but you know there have to be supplies delivered right?

"Only I had an arrangement. All messages in and out of the prison get filtered right? but the one message that goes every day is the order list for the deliveries, so we had a code set up. I was able to modify the outgoing order by using a shell script I inserted that scans the email spool area. All I had to do was change the order as it was spooled and request four special delivery envelopes and my associates knew we needed a ride."

"Your associates," Jack said, darkly. They all knew what that meant. Still if Ashton's rather scary associates were breaking him out of that prison, they were all friends now.

Jack and Joel climbed up into the plane and the pilot sat into the front seat, and started flipping switches, making lights came on. The engine started to roar. There was a crackle of static and the pilot flipped a switch and spoke into a mic. Matthew only heard one end of the conversation but he could tell what was happening. The control tower had not cleared them for take off.

"You think they are on to us?" Matthew asked, looking nervously at Ashton. Ashton was looking towards the prison, and he could see people with torches running towards the plane. The pilot had seen them too and now he turned in his seat and shouted to Ashton.

"Five is a problem. Weight is maxed out with four and the cargo."

"You want to jettison the cargo?" Ashton shouted back.

"Like hell I do. Anyhow no time for that," the pilot yelled and nodded to Callum. Ashton looked at him, then back at the pilot and Matthew saw his lips curl into a nasty smile.

"No!" Matthew yelled, but too late. Ashton lunged at Callum who was still stood by the door of the plane, and the boy fell out of the door, landing hard on the apron. Matthew was standing up, ready to jump down and help the boy, but Ashton slammed the door shut and turned, shaking his head.

"Nuhuh," he said. "No heroics or you can join him."

Matthew scowled, and looked out of the window. He should do something, he thought, but he was frozen into inaction by one inescapable fact. If he tried anything, he would end up outside with Callum. If he wanted to escape this place, he had to stay in the plane.

He looked through the small window at the boy who was on the ground, writhing in pain, clutching his arm. The lights of the plane revealed blood on his face. The people running towards the plane were waving their torches, but the plane was moving now, starting to pick up speed.

"Hang tight," the pilot yelled, "This is going to be close"

Feeling guilty as sin, Matthew turned away, and looked out of the front window as the plane began to gather speed for take off.

Something flashed and there was a bang, and Matthew realised with terror that someone had just fired a gun. Then there was a second flash and a fist size hole appeared in the side of the plane just by the door.

The pilot yanked back on his controls and the plane lurched, whined in protest and left the ground. At once it lurched right and Matthew wondered if the wing would hit the tarmac. He held on, white knuckled to his seat and prayed.

Maybe there was a God in heaven, he thought, because the plane righted itself and rose high above the ground, leaving the prison behind.

Leaving the prison and the sewer boy behind.

Chapter 21
Deseret

Callum

"Well, well, what do we have here?" The warden kicked the boy kneeling in front of him on the tarmac and tutted as guards ran up to grab him.

They hoisted Callum to his feet, faced him towards the governor, squirming in pain, tears running down his cheeks.

"Stupid animal," the warden said and spat on him.

"You want me to shoot him?" one of the guards asked and pointed his gun at Callum's head.

The boy cringed, his eyes wide with panic, knowing full well the real danger he was in, even though he could not hear what was being said.

"No, we have to punish him but there hardly seems to be much point anymore… and we don't have any other sewer rats right now. If we shoot him then we have to service the recycling systems some other way."

The guard nodded, lifted his gun from Callum's head and the boy seemed to collapse from the relief of not being dead. Now they grabbed him by the arms and started dragging him back towards the prison. Callum writhed and kicked in pain, his arm aching badly from the fall, and the guards making almost no effort to keep him from further harm.

The warden watched Callum being dragged away and shook his head, before turning to look in the direction the aircraft had gone.

"West," he mused and then nodded. "Smart. If we tried to shoot them down over Mexico it would be a major diplomatic incident, and if we ask them to intercept the plane there will be repercussions too. The Mexicans are making enough fuss about a making the States pay for a border wall as it is."

The warden turned to face his second in command, who nodded. "Aye, they say that everyone coming over the border is a rapist, a terrorist, a thief or a murderer. I think we just sent them one of each."

The warden smiled grimly and nodded, before turning back towards the prison, walking inside without another word.

***

Ashton, Jack, Matthew and Joel

Ashton was fiddling with something in his seat, muttering darkly. He kept fidgeting, and Matthew looked around to see what was going on. He saw the boy playing with another small device, a ribbon cable protruding, as well as an aerial. It was attached by another cable to a tablet computer he had picked up in the plane.

At last there was a click and Ashton let out a satisfied yell of pleasure. Matthew saw his collar snap open. Carefully he removed it and then tucked it under his seat.

"How did you do that?" Joel asked, also looking now.

"Fuck, boy, haven't you realised that I am a computer genius yet?"

"Sure, but even a genius can't just remove a collar like that." Ashton pointed to the circuit board.

"I brought a little souvenir of the post with me," he grinned.

"Do mine!" Jack said but Ashton ignored him and crossed to Joel.

"Now my little bitch boys, let's get these nasty collars off you," and he fiddled for a while until first Joel's and then Matthew's collars snapped open.

"Can you get the cock cages off too?" Matthew asked.

Ashton frowned, put a finger to his mouth as though in deep thought. "Well, I probably could do that, on account of having a key for them. The thing is, Cumdump, I do think you look kind of cute in that cock cage."

"Oh come on!" Matthew said, "Please?"

"Well ain't you the polite one?" Ashton laughed. "Okay, sure. I can take the cage off, but you have to do something for me."

Matthew was about to ask what, but Ashton had stripped off the prison issue underwear and was pointing at his cock. Matthew shook his head, but Ashton's face turned dark.

"Cumdump, I have saved your life and your balls. You fucking well show your appreciation or, God help me, I am gonna dump you in some god forsaken hole where you will get so badly gan raped that you will be begging for the marshals to come pick you up and take you back to jail. Believe me, you do not want to make me angry, and believe me too, you are not my friend, you are my bitch. Now, suck me."

Matthew's face had turned darker and darker red as Ashton spoke, and he could feel his cheeks burning. He also felt very afraid. He knew the boy was right. He would be lost without Ashton. He suddenly wondered whether he would have been safer staying in the jail and taking his chances with Ninja.

There was nothing for it though, and he got on his knees and started to suck Ashton. The boy's cock was not huge, but it was big enough, and Matthew felt a familiar sense of shame as he played it with his lips, teased it with his tongue and gently inhaled the boy's meat, pleasuring him like he had been born to do this.

Ashton did not take very long to achieve a powerful orgasm, shooting Matthew's mouth full of cum, and then deliberately withdrawing his cock and playing it over the boy's mouth, decorating his chin with a glistening trail.

Matthew felt the eyes of the other boys, and even the pilot on him and felt very ashamed, but at least when it was done, true to his word, Ashton knelt beside him and unfastened his cock cage.

Matthew looked down at his small cock, hardly believing that it was finally free. He touched it and moaned as it squirmed under his fingers.

"No playing with it now, Cumdump. Time to get dressed," and with that Ashton picked up a bundle from the back of the plane and dropped it in the aisle. "Take your pick, we may or may not have your sizes."

Matthew looked at the clothes and each other for a minute. "We still have shit on us."

"Dried shit, yeah. Scrape it off. Sorry we didn't bring a plane with a fucking shower."

And so the boys scraped off as much dirt as they could and found tee shirts and shorts and some sneakers that kind of fit each of them.

"You can take my collar off now," Jack said, once he had dressed himself. "Who says I want to? It suits you."

"You want to, because if you didn't care that we look like a bunch of slaves you would not have helped us cover up our tats. Wherever we are going, you want us to blend in, right?"

Ashton looked back at Jack, his face angry, before transforming into a cheesy grin.

"See I knew you were too clever to be a bitch boy!" he laughed. "But I am not taking that collar off unless you say please."

"Please!" Jack said, his mouth drawn in a tight half smile.

***

"Guys, we have a problem," the pilot said, turning to face the boys.

"Whats up?" Ashton asked.

"Fuel is down too low. We are not going to make it."

"I thought you had fuel for four," Ashton replied.

"I did. I think one of those bullets must have caused a leak somewhere. damned lucky there was no fire."

"So do we dump more weight?" Ashton asked, and Matthew scowled as Joel turned white. Jack made a noise that sounded like a snarl.

"That won't help now. We are going to have to ditch."

"How far to San Francisco?"

"Too far. We are not even over California yet. Gonna have to change your plans," the pilot said and Ashton frowned.

"So we were going to San Francisco?" Jack asked. Ashton sighed and nodded.

"Okay, I guess I can tell you now. It's like this. With or without collars on, we all have Fremont tracker chips in our spines, and Fremont tattoos on our bodies. Some bigger than others," Ashton said, looking pointedly at Jack's chest, even though he now wore a top that hide the numbers that had been tattooed there.

"What that means," he went on, "is that none of us can go back to Fremont."

"Well obviously, but San Francisco?" Jack asked.

"I am getting to that. Listen up and quit interrupting. It is not just Fremont.

All the 19 United States of America would be a problem. Doesn't matter if its Minnesota or Maine or Kanawha, if we go to any one of the United States we are going to get sent right back to Fremont."

"What's wrong wth the confederacy?" Jack asked. "I would love to see Virginia, and they have no extradition treaty, right?"

"Sure, we could go to the confederacy, but they still have slavery there.

You want someone to put a collar back on you as an illegal alien?"

"They have slavery in California too. Hell they have it everywhere," Jack snorted. "We just have to not get caught."

"Not everywhere," Matthew said, thoughtfully.

"Pretty much everywhere. Like your little island home just voted it back in didn't it?" Jack retorted.

"Sure they did," Matthew replied, looking at Ashton who was half smiling and nodded for him to continue. "Vancouver island voted to take back control of people but the other new territories still don't have it."

"That's a long way from San Francisco," Jack countered.

"Yep, but container ships head that way all the time. We were going to hitch a ride."

"The refugee route? You know they police that. They don't let anyone get inside Pugit Sound who doesn't have all their documentation signed in blood and greased with cash. That is what I heard."

"Yeah, but with the right connections…" Jack stared at Ashton and then nodded.

"OK so we were flying to San Francisco to take a boat to sail north, and then what?"

"Then the nullo boy was gonna help us out."

"Me?" Joel asked, confused. "What was I gonna do?"

"We had to find the resistance network because they are going to give us all new identities, and they are gonna love us because they brought you home."

"You think?"

"I know it, bitch. And they can get the small tats off, although not sure about those big ones. They can neutralise the chips too. That is gonna be my payment for getting you back there and then, well then I go back with my friends, and you lot can take your chances making a new life fishing or something."

"Why do the resistance want me?" Joel asked.

"God, 22, don't be dense. You said yourself that your dad was big in the union…"

"The union, yes, but the resistance?"

"You are so clueless. Look, it's simple: powerful people want you, and you know a big secret. Your dad was pally with the resistance so, yeah, they are going to be over the moon to get their hands on you."

Jack looked at Ashton for a while without speaking, before slowly nodding.

"I guess that's not such a bad plan. Why did you bother bringing me and Cumdump along?"

"Matthew," said Matthew through gritted teeth, but the others ignored him. "Couple of reasons. One, I am all heart and didn't want you dead."

Jack snorted, shook his head and Ashton grinned.

"Two, I do actually fucking well care that those dorks from your stupid island, Cumdump."

"As opposed to the mob who already control it all," Jack replied.

"And that is the way it needs to stay. You don't want to go messing with the balance of things. Anyway I was hoping you two might come in useful somehow. Matthew maybe will. He came from the British New Territories, and lived in their stupid crazy mixed up society. He can come in useful. You… well you know which one of us was ballast if that was gonna help."

Jack frowned.

"Still something you ain't telling me," he surmised.

Ashton shrugged and Jack sighed, let it go. "Okay, so we ditch before we get to California… where does that put us?"

"Slap bang in the middle of the desert," the pilot said. "And before you ask, no, I am not coming with you. I am going to come down by the Colorado river. When we come down, I am heading upstream for the Cauldron, but you boys need to stay well away from that if you value your new found freedom. So I suggest you find the truck route North. Hitch your way to New Jordan. From there you go north. Get past the salt lake and you get into Oregon territory. That is a US territory so you need to be careful there. One run in with the authorities and you are likely to find yourself heading back to Fremont in a marshall's bus.

"If you are really lucky, you will get all the way to the border of the new territories. My advice is find the Snake River and follow that. The border crossing will be the tricky part but there are miles of unguarded desert on that border.

That's why Vancouver Island got pissed off about the immigration. You should be able to find your way across if you are careful."

Ashton looked stony face but nodded. It was clear he was not happy with the turn of events and Matthew was with him on that. A flight to San Fancisco and a ride on a ship was a whole lot easier than crossing a thousand miles of desert while making sure you didn't get picked up by the authorities, or worse.

The plane was losing height and speed now, and in the half light they could see the desert below, looking flat as an air strip, although when it finally touched down they could appreciate it was not nearly as flat as it looked. Still they ditched without crashing which was a bonus.

***

"This is where I leave you. Good luck," the pilot said.

Ashton nodded, "Yeah, you too," he said and then picked up his pack, slung it over his shoulders and started walking down the road. Joel followed after him and Matthew looked over at Jack, who looked back and shrugged.

Matthew picked up his own pack and followed. Ashton had got them this far, and he felt his neck, so happy to be free from his collar for the first time in months. He walked quickly to catch up with Ashton.

"How do we get to Victoria from here?" Matthew asked. "I mean, how far is it?"

"Victoria? about a thousand miles." Ashton said as he walked.

Matthew frowned.

"A thousand miles, do you plan to walk a thousand miles?"

"Not you as well! Stop asking me about the damned plan!" Ashton snarled but he still seemed to be faintly amused.

"Oh come on, it's not like we are going to go back and dob you in now."

"Not willingly, but if you get picked up, you will tell them the plan and ruin it for all of us."

Matthew shook his head, although he guessed there was a logic to that.

Still the logic went both ways.

"If you get picked up then we are all stuck then!"

"Sure, so don't let me get caught."

They walked on in silence for a while but then Ashton sighed and waved at the road they were walking along.

"This is Mexico. That way is Deseret, which is also part of Mexico, but where at least they are more likely to speak English. We travel through Deseret to reach the Oregon territory. If we take the desert road through Oregon territory we get the best chance of crossing the border to the British possessions. As soon as we do that, we can claim asylum there.

"You know the law in Mexico though?"

Matthew shrugged. "No, I grew up on an island up north."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. That island that stupidly left the union so that they could take back control of people. Okay so its like this – Mexico has an extradition treaty with Texas but not with Fremont. As Sacramentum is a Fremont prison, they won't send us back if they catch us. However, they do have slavery here, like pretty much everywhere else, and if they see our prison tattoos and our lack of papers, they will almost certainly declare us all legal slaves – especially as immigration to Mexico from any of the United States is illegal. They won't deport us, but they will lock us up and sell us to some god forsaken mine at the back end of beyond."

"Okay so this was a great place to get dropped off then," Jack said, walking alongside the others.

"We didn't have much choice, but it is a hell of a lot better than anywhere else. We couldn't reach California, the confederacy might have shot us down and any of the United States, or Texas, would all have sent us straight back to Sacramentum. Also the great thing about Mexico is this desert leads all the way north to the British possessions. We just have to deal with the little complication of the Oregon territory. Our best chance is crossing the fucking desert."

"So how do we do that?"

"Well to start with we have to hope we can hitch a ride. Truckers come this way heading for Oregon."

"They are going to just stop and give us a lift?" Matthew asked, incredulous.

"Hopefully not, although if it comes to that, we may let them fuck us for a lift. If that happens you had better hope they want a eunuch, Cumdump, because if they don't fuck Joel, they are having you.

"No I was thinking we would climb into the back at the next truck stop, and hope no one sees us."

"And where is the next stop?"

Ashton pointed down the road, and Matthew saw then, something like a small homestead a couple of miles away, shimmering in the heat haze.

"Oh!" was all he said, and Ashton grinned.

Chapter 22
Changes

Callum

"Subject is prepped and ready for surgery," Madison said into his mic, and then nodded to one of his technicians. Callum struggled against the restraints that held him to a coarse wooden outdoor frame, and Madison smiled. It was not exactly an operating theatre, but then, the slave was not exactly human either. A livestock boy was just a subject for his experiments, and he had one experiment that he needed to try that had been waiting to go.

Madison went up to the boy and looked into eyes that seemed to speak of a fierce intelligence. The boy looked back angrily, and opened his mouth, but could not make any more sound than a clicking with his tongue. Madison smiled at him. He would have liked to explain to Callum what he intended. He would like to have seen the boy's confusion, fear, and the deepening anger when he heard how he was to be punished for his disobedience, but Callum was livestock, and so could not hear. There was no point waisting his breath on the boy.

Madison took the boy's little flaccid cock in his hands and tugged it. The boy squirmed, eyes widening in pain. Well he would know worse soon enough. Madison turned to the technician, Palin.

"The slave is imprisoned for rape, and this was not already taken off?" he asked.

Palin shrugged.

"Well we will fix that now," Madison said, and picked up a scalpel from a low table of tools. Callum saw the blade and started to struggle more violently. "Hold him still, Palin."

Palin put hands to the boy's hips, holding him still as Madison pulled on the boy's cock, and then pushed the blade into the flesh at its base. He looked into the boy's face and revelled in that moment of shock, anguish, terror and then, of course, pain as the cut registered. The boy made a breathy voiceless scream, but Madison was intent on his work, and methodically cut around the base of the shaft, quickly severing it completely. He held the boy's severed cock up in front of his face and then dropped it into a petri dish, before picking up a syringe.

"This solution will quickly chemically cauterise the blood vessels, but it has another happy side effect. The nerves of the interior erectile tissue will be destroyed, ensuring that the slave is entirely unable to feel anything from his erectile tissue."

Madison injected the boy's wound carefully at several points until all bleeding had stopped and then he swabbed away the blood, admiring his handiwork. Callum was writhing and tears were running down his face.

"Oh I forgot to mention the pain. Like a hot brand, I am told, around the deeper nerve tissue. That pain can last for weeks, but never mind.

"Now the boy is entirely unable to achieve orgasm. We will let him recover there for a while, but then we will take him down for the brain surgery. We can fit the collar controller now though," Madison said and Robinson picked up a collar and fastened it around Callum's neck. The collar was tight and the boy looked discomforted by the choking sensation, but it was only a small distraction from the pain in his groin.

"If the surgery is successful, we will be able to stimulate this slave's libido directly in his brain. The collar will transmit the signals as we require, and will also have a probe to measure his responses. What we are trying to do is create an artificial libido. We are hoping the slave will have uncontrollable sexual desires which, of course, he is now completely unable to satisfy.

"It is very helpful that he has the rape memory. We know therefore that he has full memory of orgasm, and our hope is that we can give him the longing and need to achieve that again, but of course he will have no erectile response. Desire but no way to satisfy the desire.

"In phase one of the experiment we will simply measure his response to ensure that the procedure has worked. We will attempt to ascertain how much desire he has. Phase two of the experiment will be a study to see whether he can then be programmed to desire alternative sexual stimulation. We wish to see whether he will learn to take pleasure from sucking cock or being butt fucked, and whether he can be driven to desire these. If so, they will prove to be a satisfactory means of obedience training for other such slaves.

"There is, of course, the possibility this will drive him mad, but that will be no great loss."

***

Ashton, Jack and Matthew

"What's in the boxes?" Ashton asked as Jack rifled through a crate stacked in the truck they were hidden in. It was hot, dark and noisy, although there was some light from some high windows, just enough to see the space they were hidden in. The truck was almost full of wooden crates, and the boys had squeezed into a few spaces between them, and were travelling as comfortably as they could in the cramped conditions.

"Looks like animal food," Jack said, lifting a handful of brown pellets. He bit one and cringed. "Better than nothing, I guess."

Ashton watched Jack eat some more of the animal food, his face screwed up at the taste, although it could hardly be worse than Sacramentum food. After he had watched for a while, he unbuckled his backpack and threw a small package to Jack, and then threw similar packages to the others.

"What's this?" Jack asked.

"Ration pack from the plane," Ashton replied, with a laugh. "You fucker, you could have told me before I ate that muck."

"You looked like you were enjoying it, so I didn't want to stop you."

Jack swore again and the unwrapped the pack. Matthew unwrapped his own pack and bit into something that seemed to be made of pita bread and filled with some kind of cheese. It was no gourmet meal, but to anyone who had spent months in Sacramentum prison, and was now half starved and who had not eaten since the day before, this tasted like the world's finest banquet.

Matthew bolted it all down, and then found that there was also a chocolate bar in the pack.

"Chocolate," he whispered, and Ashton made as if to reach out for it. Matthew quickly slipped the wrapper off and pushed it all in his mouth.

Oh that tasted so good. Chocolate. He had not eaten chocolate since… since he had shared a Galaxy bar with Little Robbie. How long ago was that? It felt like another lifetime.

Ashton was eating his own chocolate bar, looking at them.

"I got another pack each and then we are out of food. I guess we can stay on this truck and take our chances with the animal feed, or else we can try to scav something at the next stop." he said.

"Where is the next stop?" Jack asked.

"Oh, let me just check my timetable," he sneered, and then, "I don't have a fucking clue. If, and its a big if, but if we stop at the Great Salt Lake, then thats gotta be a couple of hundred miles or more. Say its 250, then on this truck that will be what, five hours?"

"Well we are not gonna starve in five hours, I say we stay on," Jack said, and Matthew nodded his agreement. They had sneaked into the truck without too much difficulty but Matthew's heart had still been in his mouth when he did so. Ashton had chosen a truck with a tarpaulin cover, and unfastened it, before climbing in. Other trucks had big, locked metal doors, so this had been the only option. He did not know what they would have done if they had not been able to climb into a truck, and especially he did not know what would happen if anyone saw four boys messing around close to the trucks.

He did not want to repeat the experience, so yes, he would be happy to stay on board.

"There's a problem," Ashton said. "The road forks at the Salt Lake and we may end up not going north anymore. Even if we do go north, the border with the Oregon territory is pretty close to that."

"We have to cross the border though," Matthew pointed out, but Ashton shook his head.

"Trucks get searched for illegal immigrants on the border. Whether we stop at the Salt Lake or not, we need to get out there and find a better way to cross."

"And if the truck does not stop until the border?"

"Then we are fucked," Ashton replied.

***

Dear Robbie,

I don't know if you will ever get this letter. I don't even know if I will be able to mail it, but if I can I will. The only reason I can write it at all is because I found some paper and an old pencil in the truck we are stowed away in. Sorry about my writing, but it is hard to see although I found some light by a tear in the canvas cover. Also the truck is bouncing around a lot which makes writing hard.

I expect you are wondering how I can be writing to you at all. Last you heard I was being taken to prison as a terrorist, but we both know that was totally made up. They told me about my dad, but I don't believe that either. I know you never met Dad, but there is just no way he would ever hurt anyone. Please don't believe them if they tell you he did it. I know he never could have done.

Sorry about the smudge mark there. The paper must have got wet somehow.

Anyway I don't know whether it will be on the news or not back home, but we broke out of prison. Can you believe that? A real life prison break like in the movies! I can't really believe it myself, but there is this kid here, called Ashton. I hated him. I still hate him, because he hurt me pretty bad, but I guess he felt guilty for that or something because he took me along on the prison break.

There are four of us, but to be honest All three of the others are kind of creepy, or something. I mean, one of them raped some girl and killed her, and Ashton is the world's biggest arsehole, and there is this other guy, Jack, who – well I don't know what he did to get locked up but he definitely did something bad. I guess I am kind of scared by them.

Actually I am terrified. Not just of them but of everything. I am terrified that we could get caught any time and then, because we are in Mexico, they may send us to some mine or something and that will be the last anyone ever hears of us. I am terrified too that we could get sent back to Sacramentum. You know what they sentenced me to, and if I go back there I know they will do it.

Joel already had it done. In Fremont all rapists are castrated. Nullified is what they call it because they cut his dick off too. It looks terrible – there is just this tiny little nub left and he has to squat like a girl to pee.

Joel cries a lot, especially when he thinks no one can hear. I guess I would too if I were him. me?

God, Robbie, they want to do that to me too. Why? Why did they make up all that shit about Sorry for swearing. I guess in prison they don't care much about what language you use. I have been swearing a lot lately, but you would too if you were here, believe me.

I am glad you are not here though.

Don't get me wrong. I miss you, Robbie. I think about you every day. Thinking about being back with you is the only thing that stops me going mad. I know that's stupid, but that day down by the river – that was the best day of my life, bar none. I just wish we could turn back time and still be there, and none of this would have happened. That was the most amazing thing I ever felt.

They wanted to take it away from me though. They want to make it so I can never feel that again. God, no wonder Joel cries! I would if I knew I could never feel that again.

Some bad stuff happened to me in prison and it mostly just hurt. They had me locked up in a cock cage so I could not even touch myself at night. If I had dreams of you it just hurt really bad as my dick fought against the cage, but Ashton got the cage off and so the first thing I did when we stowed away on this truck was have a really good think about you.

Fuck, I did not mean to say all that. I am sorry Robbie, I did not mean to sound like some kind of crazy gay sex starved kid – only I guess maybe that is what I am.

I have had a lot of time to think about stuff like that, and I guess I am not so great a person, not such a great friend either, but don't forget that I am not a terrorist. I never did any of that stuff. I am sorry if you got in any trouble because of what they said too.

Anyway we are travelling north now, because we are going to try to get into the New Territories through the desert. We managed to sneak onto a truck at a truck stop. Ashton said that migrants do it all the time, but because we climbed on at a stop in the middle of the desert, that was why the trucker did not check. He says we have to get out before the Oregon border though or we will get caught for sure. Only he does not seem so sure about how we will know we are by the border – just that it comes sometime after the great salt lake.

We have been keeping an eye out for the lake as best we can through the rip in the canvas. We may be able to get out at a stop around there, and if so and if I can find a way to mail this letter I will.

Ashton reckons we can meet up with the resistance. He actually wants help from the terrorists. He says that's why me and Joel are important. Joel's parents were terrorists too, but in Fremont. Ashton reckons there is one big network of them, and if we make contact they can help us because of who we are and what we know. It frightens me though because what will they do when they realise I am not really a terrorist? and if the terrorists help us, won't that make me one?

I forgot to tell you the bit about what we know, but now I am running out of paper. Well there is this scary shit about the oestrovirus and some experiments. I will tell you more soon, but you won't believe it when I do. That is why Ashton said we had to escape.

No more room.

Yours Sincerely – no, Love,
Matthew. xxx

Chapter 23
Border

Transcript of a meeting between President May and Richard Desmond as taken by the private secretary of the President.

May: Richard, so good to see you again, I…

Desmond: I'll keep it brief. You need to speed things up, or I am going to replace you.

May: Now, as you know, the people decide who is the pres…

Desmond: Don't fucking mess with me. We need the immigration controls in place in a month, the surveillance laws by next week, the new slave laws within two months maximum. My associates will not be taking any mines forward until the whole legal framework is in place, and you can forget the Fremont trade deal too unless you speed up.

May: Richard, that is a lot of legislation to push through in a short time, You know we have to get it through both chambers of…

Desmond: Don't hand me that line. You are the president, what you say goes, so you will do it. Any backsliding and you are out, understand?

May: As it happens, the surveillance laws are on the way. I already signed the order this morning as well as the confirmation of the repeal of the human rights act. I think we can get your slave and immigration laws through without a problem.

Desmond: I knew I could rely on you. Now don't just think it, do it. Remember, what I say goes. Don't cross me or there will be untold anger from the people.

May: You mean from you.

Desmond: It is the same thing. Don't forget it.

***

Matthew

Matthew climbed down stiffly but quietly behind the other boys and dropped down behind the truck. He looked around, seeing mountains bathed in the golden rays of late evening light. They were at a truck stop, but one that must be close to the city on the Salt Lake.

How many hours had they travelled? It felt endless, and sure enough it had been morning when they had climbed on the truck and now it was evening. They had driven pretty much all day, except for a lunch stop when Ashton had judged they were still well short of the border. Now, however, they must be close, and fortunately the trucker had stopped for the night on the Deseret side.

"Is this the city?" Matthew whispered.

"Shh!" Ashton held a finger to his lips. The truck was parked up alongside some others, and towards the mountains there was an open expanse of desert. On the other side of the road there were buildings, and there was more traffic on the road, although Matthew could not see it well as it was obscured by the vehicle they were hidden behind.

Ashton pointed and the boys could see a roadside ditch. Jack looked, nodded and slipped away quietly in that direction, darting quickly between trucks and making a dash across an open area before dropping down into the ditch.

Ashton followed him, and Matthew looked at Joel, who nodded back to him and the two of them made a run for it.

As the boys emerged from between the trucks, a hand snaked out and grabbed Matthew by the collar, arresting his motion.

"Te atrape!" a rough deep voice said, and Matthew let out a yelp of terror before a hand clamped over his mouth. "Y tu sabes lo que has hecho."

Matthew tried to struggle, but the driver just let rip with more Spanish.

"Me entiendes?" the man asked, pushing Matthew against his truck. Matthew could tell it was a question but he spoke no Spanish. He had learned French in school, but that was not helping him right now. The man removed his hand from Matthew's mouth, allowing him to speak.

"I don't understand," he said, and then tried, "Je ne parle pas espagnol."

The man grinned and shook his head, then spoke in accented but fluent English. "You don't speak great French either," he laughed. "You sound like a Brit trying to mangle the beautiful tongue. You are a long way from home, guiri."

"I am from The New Territories. I just want to get home," Matthew ventured, his heart racing. Captured already, he thought. Would they send him back to Sacramentum? Or worse? He looked at the man, eyes wide, looking for some sign that the man had a better nature to appeal to.

"You want to go home, you pay for passage like any normal person. You stow away in my truck and you are just another illegal. What you doing stowing away like that?"

"Our plane came down in the desert," Matthew ventured. He did not want to tell the man the whole truth but he supposed half the truth was better than a total fiction. He did not think the man would believe him if he denied he had been stowing away. "We just wanted to get North. Please, I am really sorry but we didn't do any harm."

The man snorted. "No harm? But if you were in my truck when we cross the border, it would be me paying the fine. A thousand bucks a head. I saw four of you. You know what profit I make on this run? Not enough to cover the fines, let me tell you!"

"I am sorry sir, please! we got out before the border so… so no harm done. Please, could you just let me go?"

"Of course there is harm. What kind of mess d'you leave me? What about the extra fuel to carry you? You pay your passage like everyone else, and if you pay, then maybe I will let you go."

"But I don't have any money!" Matthew whimpered.

"Of course not. You were flying in a plane and you crashed, and even though that means you were rich and unfortunate, you managed to have no money and no brains after you crash, because if you have filed a flight plan, someone would have come looking for you and taken you to a hospital, but instead you decided to hitch a lift on my truck. You think I am stupid?"

"But it's true," Matthew started and saw the man's face cloud with anger so he let his voice tail off.

"You pay for your passage. You don't need money," the driver said and opened the truck door, flung Matthew up into the cab. "Get your clothes off."

Matthew turned pale and looked at the man, but the truckers face was dark and Matthew could see he would not take no for an answer. In any case, he was no innocent boy anymore. He knew what the trucker wanted and so he pulled his shoes off quickly. The problem was going to come when he took off his shirt, revealing what was underneath.

"Don't worry about your prison markings. You think I didn't see the one on your thigh already? You are just like any other immigrant – running away from slavery to what you hope is a better life in the weirdo abolitionist territories."

Matthew blushed and took his shirt off revealing his prison number. Then he pulled down his shorts.

"I have news for you, prisoner 20160623," the man said with a sneer as he unbuckled his jeans. "You are not gonna find what you want up north. You are gonna end up back where you came from, and then your life is gonna go from bad to utterly hellish. You are stupid, and you are totally fucked, which is what I am gonna do to you now too. Now get your mouth on my cock, and make it good. You will want it nice and wet before I push it in your cute little butt."

Matthew started to suck on the man, doing his best to satisfy him. He held the man's bare butt cheeks and pressed his face into the man's pubes. He could smell sweat and piss, and unwashed pubes, but he ignored that and sucked on the man, using his tongue as he had learned to do, to explore the mans shaft and balls. Maybe if he could get the man off in his mouth he could avoid the butt fucking.

The driver thrust into his mouth, and made noises that showed he was enjoying the experience.

"That's right, whore. You suck my cock," he said, holding Matthew's head by his hair. "You pay up for your passage and I reckon I will let you go. You are gonna get picked up. You are gonna go back to prison along with all the other boy scum, but I won't send you there. I don't need to cuz you ain't never gonna be free…

"Oh baby, yeah that feels good. I can tell you done this before, whore boy. Now turn over and show me your butt."

Matthew whimpered and did as he was told and a moment later a huge male cock penetrated him violently and painfully. He cried out and then moaned and sobbed as the man quickly thrust harder and harder, before erupting in a huge and powerful ejaculation, pumping his man seed into Matthew's exposed butt.

"Oh yeah, you are a nice ride. I liked your butt. Still pretty tight."

Matthew lay still, sobbing as the man panted his pleasure, gasping as his orgasming cock pulsed in the little boy butt. As the cock became flaccid it slipped out of his butt, and after a while Matthew began to dress again.

"Do you think," Matthew started, and the man looked almost surprised to see he was still there. "Do you think that… if we paid up like this more… you could help get us across Oregon?"

"Fuck me! No way! Get out of here you whore, before I change my mind and call the cops."

Matthew picked up his shoes, and slipped out of the cab without even putting them on, running for the ditch at the side of the road. Running hurt, but he did not slow until he was safely in the ditch and out of sight.

Where were the others?

Matthew looked around and his heart sank. The others had gone. They had left him. He was on his own.

***

Ignacio Santiago entered truck stop diner, still doing up his belt. He found a table and sank down into it. A waiter came over, a boy not much older than the one he had just fucked, and a slave too. Ignacio looked the boy up and down, and the boy looked back, knowing what was going through the customer's mind, or thinking he did.

Ignacio tutted, and ordered a beer and a steak.

"I won't be needing you to night, so never mind. I already had a nice little fuck," he growled at the slave and the boy scurried away gratefully.

The truck driver picked up an old magazine and started to flick through it, and then stopped, surprised, when he reached an advert. He squinted at it, then looked out of the window thoughtfully. He checked the advert again, and then said, In English:

"Well, I'll be damned."

On the page in front of him was a picture of Matthew in an advert for purveyors of school uniform.

Chapter 24
Whore

Joel, Jack and Ashton

"We have to go back for him," Joel said, but Ashton did not stop. The boys walked the length of the gulley until it disappeared into a culvert beneath a bridge. Only then did Ashton climb the side, and help the others up. Now they could look out on the city.

"Its… not bad looking," Jack said, and Joel looked around too. Not bad was right. In fact it was beautiful. The city lights, the glass fronted white stone buildings, all of it lay in the midst of a desert bounded by islands and the fabled lake. It was like a jewel dropped into the barren wilderness.

Joel stood beside him and looked too. There was not doubting that the city was beautiful, and Joel's heart ached to see it, thinking of everything he had thrown away in Fremont. This place was better than Fremont though, and he wished he had grown up in a place like this. Maybe then he would not have done the stupid stuff that had got him arrested.

Joel sighed. He was not going to be distracted, and so he tried again.

"We can't just leave him behind."

Ashton rounded on him and his face was clouded with anger.

"What do you suggest, bitch boy? Cumdump is in some jail by now, the stupid fucker, and tomorrow he will be back in Sacramentum. That means they know where we are too. If we try to rescue him we are all going back to jail."

"Nuh huh," Joel shook his head. "You heard what the driver said before he threw him back in the cab?"

"I already told you, I didn't hear anything."

Joel didn't believe him, but he didn't correct him either. He knew better than to flat out contradict Ashton. Instead he just said what he had heard.

"The man said he would make him pay for the ride and then maybe let him go."

"Maybe is maybe," Ashton snarled, "and maybe if we go back we all get sent back to jail. No, Cumdump is on his own now."

Joel frowned. The evening was warm, but night was coming. They had precious little protection against the elements, and precious little anything else for that matter.

They had found water, but all that meant was that Joel realised he was starting to need to pee again.

He felt the uncomfortable feeling of it, and knew he did not have long. Ever since his surgery he had been barely a step above incontinent. In the prison Ashton had just laughed at how much he needed to pee, and often had made him just wet himself. Out here he wanted to find somewhere semi private place to drop his shorts and squat down. It made him ashamed to think of it, knowing how he tended to dribble and make a mess when he did go. He clutched himself between the legs, feeling the sore spot where his boyhood had once been.

Ashton clearly had decided the sight seeing was over and headed off down a road now.

"Where are we going?" Joel asked, pushing the thoughts of pee away.

"Change of plan," Ashton answered.

"If they caught Cumdump, they know by now where we are heading, right?"

Jack nodded as though he had been thinking that way already. Joel supposed he had known this too, but had not wanted to voice the idea.

"So, border security may be tighter and you can bet the local cops will be asked to look out for three boy hitch hikers, right?"

"I guess," Joel said, gritting his teeth.

"So we are going into the city to get a job."

"A job?" Joel asked, frowning. Ashton did not answer and Jack shrugged and followed him. After a moment, Joel ran after them too.

***

"What is the job?" Joel asked when they stopped a while later in a back alley on the outskirts of the city, the last golden rays of sunshine just reaching them, and making deep shadows beyond.

"The thing is," Ashton said, looking thoughtful as he spoke. "They are looking for three runaway boys. What we need to do is blend in more."

That sounded sensible to Joel and he nodded his agreement.

"So, bitch boy, take your clothes off."

"What?" Joel shot him a look, and Jack squatted down on his haunches, his face fixed into a scowl.

"You are not serious. When they see our prison tats…" he said with a snarl.

"That's why I am not making you strip, fool!" Ashton shot back and then turned to Joel who was watching on in consternation.

"Salt Lake City is famous for its slaves. They have some sect here who have a whole theology about it. They have some of the best whorehouses in Mexico. People come from all over to use them," Ashton explained.

"So what? Jack's right. We can't get naked – people will see our prisoner numbers."

"That little thing? It's not like you were stupid enough to get your number tattooed across your chest," Ashton said amiably, but Jack's scowl deepened and he let out a low, menacing growl.

"Big or small, people are going to read it," Joel remarked.

"Let them." Jack said, and then pulled a pen from his shorts pocket. "Cumdump left this. It is all we need."

"Huh?" Joel asked.

"Get your fucking clothes off, and I will show you already," Ashton spat.

Joel slowly started to remove his clothes, feeling a familiar embarrassment as he dropped his shorts. He glanced at Ashton but the boy just huffed impatiently.

"Now hold still," he said when Joel was finally naked, and knelt down beside him. He started to write beside Joel's slave number, adding a couple of digits to the front and then carefully drawing over all the other numbers, before finally deliberately smudging two of them with his fingers.

Finally, for good measure, he wrote the word 'slave' just above the numbers.

"Why did you smudge them?" Joel asked.

"Listen up. No one is going to doubt you are a slave, because you are a eunuch, so the important thing is that you act like you are my slave, got it? You are my slave boy, and Jacky boy is my friend, or acquaintance or… some kind of dork who hangs around me too much because I have a nice slave boy.

"Thanks, how about I just be your owner instead?" Jack asked.

"Who asked you?" Ashton spat back. "So you tell anyone who asks that you are my slave boy and I just drew those numbers on you because I like them. I was messing around, right? And everyone can see they are just drawn on because look, the numbers are smudged."

"Nice touch," Joel conceded grudgingly, looking at the numbers. "But no one is going to believe you once the marks wear off or as soon as I have a wash."

"That," Ashton said, arms folded now, "is why we are going to get someone to tattoo the marks on. I will tell them that I want you tattooed and that the pen marks are the guidelines."

"Fuck that! I don't want more tats. You want to tattoo the word slave on me?"

"You want to go back to prison?"

"Why me?" Joel asked plaintively.

"Because you are the only nullo here, and because once we have you marked up, we need you to earn our keep."

"Huh?"

"Look, they are not going to mark you for free, and we have no money, no place to sleep, no nothing. So this is the plan. We are going to a whorehouse, and I am going to rent you out. In return they are going to mark you up with any tats they like, and then you are going to whore yourself. I get paid for the rental and that lets me and Jack find a spot to lay low and look for a way across the border.

"You are just gonna abandon me in a whorehouse? You think I am going to let you get away with that?" Joel asked, a sick feeling settling inside him.

"Not abandoning you. Look, you are important to some people. That makes you worth something too. All I need is time to find the right people and then we will come back and pick you up. Until then, I get rental money for whoring you out."

Joel did not feel particularly reassured, and he opened his mouth to speak again.

"On your knees bitch. It is time you started acting like the slave you are," Ashton growled and forced Joel to his knees. Jack watched on angrily, but he did not intervene.

Joel scowled but then sank to his knees. What choice did he have? He was a eunuch, and a fugitive naked and without anything to his name. There was Ashton's plan or he could turn himself in at a police station and get sent back to Sacramentum. Against that possibility, Ashton's plan made a crazy kind of sense.

Joel got tho his knees, bowed his head.

"Now just remember, if you serve them as well as you served me in jail, everyone should be happy."

***

"Does he have a valid medical certificate?"

"Of course he does. Only I left it at home."

"Oh you did, did you? Well we need to make sure he is certified disease free."

"I thought you had a test for that," Ashton said to the whorehouse owner, a thick set man with huge hands that looked large and powerful enough to strangle two people at the same time. This was the third whorehouse they had tried. The first one had sent them away with a flea in their ear. At the second they had been told that they did not rent slaves, but they had at least pointed them to the third establishment, an old fashioned and dilapidated house several blocks away where, Ashton was told, they were usually happy to take in waifs and strays.

As soon as they had arrived, Ashton could tell this was the one, with the proprietor taking in Joel's appearance in a single greedy look that settled on his castration scars. The man had tried to adopt a poker face after that, but Ashton was not fooled.

"So how much do you want for him?"

"A hundred bucks a night," Ashton replied without blinking.

Joel shuffled his feet nervously. "What? That is daylight robbery. You want me to make a loss on him?"

"You know you can get that back."

"Maybe, and maybe he gets one customer and then turns in sick. No, I will give you fifteen a night, and the tat will cost fifteen, so the first night is free."

"Come on, he is worth way more than that. Make sixty then."

"Twenty a night is as high as I will go. Don't push me, boy. It is twenty or nothing."

Ashton looked at the man and sighed. Twenty was a fair price but he had hoped for more. Slowly he nodded.

"Throw in the tats for free and we have a deal. And you can add any other tats you think will make him look better."

The man considered for a moment and nodded, held out his huge hand to Ashton, and shook.

"Deal," he confirmed. "Now let's get that dorky hair shaved into something more whore like."

***

Joel

Joel stood in front of the whorehouse owner once again, naked and his head itching a little and feeling strange from the new hair cut he had been given. On the plus side he had been allowed to shower in lukewarm water and felt clean for the first time since the escape.

Ashton had showered with him and used the opportunity to touch up the pen markings on his tattoo.

"So what is so special about this number you want him tattooed with?" the whorehouse owner asked, "0528-05-03-22. What does it mean?"

"It's my dad's mobile phone number. If he goes wandering, I want someone to know who to ring."

"You might want to actually write that on too then. If the finder doesn't know what the number is for they will probably not call it."

"Nah, it's okay, I think that is enough marking," Ashton replied.

"You might think so, but I think I have just the thing to make this eunuch more desirable. It's gotta be a lot of ink, but the ones with more ink have a novelty value. He will probably get twice as many customers for it."

***

When he had been tattooed on his thigh after his conviction, the needlework had been painful but bearable. The tattoo had been small enough. That was not his experience this time, however, as the tattooist slowly but methodically drew out a new design on him.

Joel winced as the needles lanced his skin, over and over, dyes injecting beneath the surface, discolouring him permanently. It hurt his flesh and it hurt him inside too, because he knew that this was a design he would carry for life. Tattoos could be removed by lasers, he knew, but no one would pay for that for a slave, and that was all he was right now.

He watched the word be tattooed over his hip. SLAVE, it said, and he knew that there was a truth to that. Maybe he would be free if he reached the new territories, but right now he was no more free than he had been in Sacramentum. He was still Ashton's bitch, and soon he would be a whorehouse whore.

He sniffed and blinked away tears, and the tattooist laughed at him and carried on his work. "Tat like this will make you popular with the clients," he explained as he worked. "Not many of the whores get a nice big tat like this, because the house owns most of the whores. Add a tat and you get a whore that everyone likes while he is new, but in time the novelty wears off and the tattoo is stuck.

"Seems to me your master was pretty stupid to agree to this. Give it a month and you will be useless for whoring. No one will want you and you will be stuck with this tattoo for life. You won't sell well if he decides to get rid of you."

Joel bit his lip. Ashton didn't care about resale value, because he was not legally the boy's property. Did he care about him though? Joel still bore Ashton's mark on his navel. Ashton had claimed him for his own. But then he had done the same to Matthew, to Cumdump. Would Ashton still want him after this? And if not, would he abandon him here?

But Ashton had said that he was valuable. He held onto that fact. He was valuable, and that was why all this had happened to him. He was valuable, so he just had to survive this and then Ashton would help him. They would get to the New Territories, where there was not slavery, and he could be free.

Free, but still a eunuch. Free but still tattooed and marked up as a slave. Joel sighed.

***

He was tattooed on the night they arrived, but after that he was allowed to sleep. It was a small mercy that he was not immediately set to work. Instead he was locked in a store cupboard with a single overhead bulb, a bucket, and nothing else, and allowed to sleep there. The tattooist had explained that some time was needed for the tattoo to settle down before he started work.

Breakfast was brought to him: some kind of porridge he supposed. It was tasteless but no worse than prison food. He was allowed to empty his bucket and then he was locked up again. Joel was bored as hell, sitting in the cupboard. He slept as much as he could, and time passed slowly.

He was served one more meal and then at last he was allowed out to shower and was handed a pair of panties by the whorehouse owner.

"Put these on, and let me see you dance," the man said.

The next hour was spent with Joel learning to act more like a whore. He had thought he knew it all from serving Ashton, but he found out there was more to it than that. He was shown how to carry himself, and how to act effeminate. He was taught how to sway his hips more provocatively and he had to tell the man all the ways he had been fucked and learned of several other positions he had not known about.

At last the man declared him ready.

"And now," he said, "I am going to be your first client. You show me how good you are. If you do it right then you can start serving the clients. Do it wrong and I whip you and then you serve the clients who like to hurt whipped boys. Get it?"

Joel swallowed and nodded. He pushed away his nervousness and started to go through the motions for the man, dancing and teasing him, and then, when he was picked up, kissing the man passionately.

Ashton had kissed him sometimes, but this was different. The man's face was scratchy and rough, and he smelled of man sweat and alcohol. Still Joel did what he was told and he closed his eyes, and their tongues met. He explored the man's big and muscled body with his fingers, caressed him with his legs. He felt fingers on his butt, felt his panties pulled away, dropped to the floor.

The man explored his castration scars with big stubby fingers, and still they kissed and cuddled.

Suddenly the man turned him, dumped him in a kneeling position on a crate, and pushed him against a wall. Joel felt his heart beat harder as he knew what was coming and sure enough a moment later a hard cock pushed against his butt. He put all his preparation into practice now, fighting the urge to resist the man. He closed his eyes and gasped as the man slid into him and the gasp became an involuntary groan of pain as he drove deeper and deeper…deeper than any cock had ever penetrated him before. The pain was terrible, but the man's passion was aroused and it was not long before he was grunting his pleasure, and Joel the whore too his first client's load deep in his butt.

There were three more clients that night before he was allowed to sleep.

"We started you light today," the whorehouse owner said, slapping his butt. "Now go down to the cellar. You are sleeping with the other slaves from now on."

Chapter 25
Oregon

"Ah, Iain, come in, come in. Take a seat. Now, give me an update."

"Well, as you know, we have been making great progress dropping the benefits bill. So far we have deported nearly 10,000 people and declared all disabled people fit for work…"

"You know I am getting flack for that. There was one person in palliative care who you…"

"Yes, yes, but it was fine. We just found that he had American parents, so we declared him an illegal immigrant. All the records of whether they were here legally had long since been destroyed, so another scrounger bites the dust."

"And the justice portfolio? I saw a confidential briefing today from Fremont. I take it you saw it too?"

"Yes, of course. Most troubling. Most troubling indeed. How they could manage to lose one of our terrorists and the boy Johnson was so interested in… very strange! I thought escape was supposed to be impossible."

"Do you think it could be an inside job?"

"Do I think…? Well… I mean we all know Johnson is a liar and totally amoral, but is he that devious? I don't see how he could have been… or do you mean the terrorists?"

"I don't mean anything. I was just asking for an opinion."

"My opinion is they had better damned well catch Taylor's bastard. We don't want any loose ends there."

"Indeed. That could lead to some inconvenient truths."

"Oh don't worry, I think I know how to spin truths."

"Let's make it so we don't have to, for once, eh? I am granting you full access to Tempora. I want you to find him, and I want you to make sure there is no public sympathy for him when you do. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, Mr President."

***

Matthew

Matthew climbed out of the drainage culvert and shivered. The night had been unexpectedly cold, and the culvert had offered precious little protection. He had snatched a little rest but mostly he had been to cold to sleep.

Now dawn was here. The sun had some warmth even at this early hour, but he still felt almost numb with cold. He was tired and dirty and very very hungry. Hungry enough that he might have considered chewing on some road kill if he could have found any, but if anything had died on this road recently then carrion birds or rats had already carried it off.

He could see the truck stop, a little way off, and in the other direction there were the buildings that marked the limits of the city here. He decided the truck stop was safer, and walked back towards it, and working his way around the back of the diner area, looking for dumpsters or some place where scraps might be thrown out.

Sure enough there was a dumpster here, and it smelled rank. Matthew fought his gag reflex and forced himself to open it up and look inside. Bad smells meant bad food, but right now any kind of food would be welcome.

There was not much there though.

He tore open a black sack and found animal bones, but they had been picked almost clean. He sucked on them anyway, and looked for more. There were empty milk cartons with tiny flakes of dry yellow cracked cream, and there were empty beer cans.

Another sack finally turned up something that would staunch his hunger for now: some raw potato peelings. He began to wolf them down hungrily.

"Hola, amigo, you ain't gonna find no food in there."

Matthew started, jumped so violently that he banged his head on the dumpster lid which then fell closed on top of him, looking for all the world like the dumpster had just tried to eat him. He pushed his way out, ready to run, but as he turned he saw that the only person there was a scantily clad skinny boy who was doubling over in laughter now. Matthew smarted, but he pushed the feelings aside. "I'm hungry," he said.

"Ain't we all?" the boy replied. "Which is why we don't throw out the good stuff."

"I got potato peelings," Matthew replied, holding some up.

"They're in there for a reason," the boy said, turning up his nose. "Look, they are green."

"So?"

"So you eat them, you get sick!"

Matthew looked at the peelings and frowned. He dropped the remaining peelings back into the dumpster.

"You sure of that?"

"How much did you eat?" the boy asked.

"I dunno. Some."

"Then you are some likely to get sick."

Matthew swore and the boy giggled again. Matthew looked at him and swore again.

"You have a number on your chest?" the boy asked now. Matthew looked sharply at the boy and his hand went to his chest, although he was still wearing his tee-shirt. How did the boy know that?

"What's it to you? Who are you, anyway?"

"Me? I am just the esclavo here. I work the kitchens, serve the tables, serve the customers – you know what I mean? Who are you?"

Matthew shrugged, and the boy giggled again.

"You wait here. I bring you something. I bring you food, yes?"

Matthew's stomach rumbled. He was definitely hungry still, but he was not sure about waiting here. Being caught by a slave boy was one thing, but he did not want to be caught by the boy's owner.

"Wait here, I will be quick."

Matthew watched the boy dart inside through a kitchen door. He edged away from the building, but his sense of caution that told him to run was defeated by his hunger and he waited.

A few minutes later the slave boy emerged and at once Matthew saw that his caution had been well founded. Behind the slave boy was the trucker who had fucked him last night.

Matthew backed away. The man was blocking the way to the gate he had come through into the yard, but there was a fence he thought he could climb. He was about to make a run for it when the man spoke.

"Matthew Taylor?" he said, and Matthew faltered, looking around in surprise to hear his name used.

You are Matthew Taylor? this Matthew Taylor?" he asked, holding up a magazine. Matthew saw a picture of himself dressed in school uniform, smiling happily. He remembered the day the photo was taken. That had been a happier time.

The man said something in Spanish and handed the slave boy a note and the slave boy flashed a grin and scampered away, leaving the two of them alone in the yard.

"I was hoping I would find you again. You dropped your letter in my cab yesterday."

His letter? Matthew's hand went to his shorts pocket, and he could feel at once that it was gone. His letter that he had written to Robbie? The man had it? He felt a rush of apprehension as he tried to recall all he had written in it. This man would know everything about him now.

"You don't have to be scared. I want to help you."

Matthew swallowed and looked hard at the man. His butt was still sore from his fucking last night, and so he felt like there was no reason to trust the man. On the other hand, this man had let him go after that, when he could have just turned him in. If he hadn't done that yesterday, would he do it now?

The difference was that now the man knew who he was. Now the man had read his letter to Robbie.

"In my truck there are is a space in the cab by the engine. It is hot in there and small. No adult could get in the space, but a boy your size can fit, just. Because it is hot the border heat sensors can't see into it. If you hide in there, just as we go through the border, I can get you into Oregon."

"Why?" Matthew asked, feeling a sense of relief, despite his reservations. "Because I like you. I like you in this uniform. I like you with your balls and little dick. Also I don't like those cunts and what they are doing up north. I will get you to Oregon, and maybe I know someone there who you should meet."

"Someone there?"

"We discuss that if he says he will meet you. If not, it is better you don't know."

"And you will just do that because you feel sorry for me?"

"Hell no. You pay your way too!" the man said, grabbing his crotch meaningfully. Matthew felt a wave of revulsion, but also hope. He looked at the man closely, trying to work out if he could trust him.

"My name," he said, "is Ignacio. Most people call me Nacho, but while we travel together, you can call me 'sir'. I like 'sir'."

Matthew looked at him a while longer and then slowly nodded his head. "Yes sir."

***

"Border soon. Time for you to get in your hole," Ignacio said, pulling open the hatch by his feet that he had shown Matthew earlier. Matthew felt a tug of fear, but this was the only way. He crouched down and wormed his way into the tight space. He could only fit in there if he pulled his knees right up to his face, and wriggled his way into the gap. The space was an inspection hatch for the electrics and he was surrounded by wires and the smell of oil. The place saw stuffy with the hatch open, but as soon as Ignacio closed the door it was like sitting in an oven. A loud oven.

Matthew felt like he was suffocating. He had never been placed in the hot box at Sacramentum, but if he had been then he might have been less frightened now. As it was he was not sure he could survive in this space, even for the time it would take to cross the border.

The truck did not seem to slow down for a while. Ignacio had explained that the truck stop was still two hours short of the border, and for much of that time they had followed the salt lake. Now, however, they were in the desert, and it was hot outside and hotter in the tiny cavity that Matthew hid in. He found it hard to believe that there would be much of a border in this god forsaken place, but Ignacio had assured him that it was well policed.

In time the truck did slow down, and then it would edge forward and stop again. Matthew supposed they were in some kind of traffic queue. He wanted a drink, and he also did not feel so good. His stomach was cramping, maybe from the bad potato peelings.

Ignacio had fed him some bread before they left, which had abated his hunger a little. He had given him water too, and made him wash as well as drink.

"Don't want you stinking my truck," he had said. He had also explained how he had asked the truck stop's slave boy to look out for him.

"I knew you won't go far," he said. "I knew your friends left you."

Matthew still smarted at that betrayal. Not that he had any right to expect anything else. They had been through an escape together, but none of them were his friends. Well maybe Joel, a little. Joel had opened up to him and they had talked together, but Joel was Ashton's bitch. He knew his place, and there was no way he would stand up to him.

Matthew wondered if being castrated was what made Joel submissive. Would he become like that if they recaptured him and carried out their threats?

He told himself that would never happen. They would never capture him. And if the worst happened he would sooner die than let them turn him into a eunuch. And if they did do that to him, he would never be the submissive little bItch that Joel had become.

He told himself that, but he had to admit that he did not know what would happen. And here he was, travelling with a man who would only give him passage if he agreed to sleep with him. How was that so different to Joel? Was he Ignacio's bitch boy now?

Matthew shivered despite the heat. He waited quietly and at last heard voices and knew they were at the border check now. The truck had stopped and he imagined the inspection that Ignacio had said would take place. Heat sensors, sniffer dogs, maybe even people opening the truck and inspecting the contents. He crouched in his hidey hole and prayed that Ignacio had been right that it was a safe space.

Matthew did not pray much. Not anymore. He used to pray at school because that had been expected of him. He had sometimes prayed at other times too, but right now he was remembering every prayer he had been taught and making up a bunch of other ones, praying that he would not be caught.

The truck began to move, and Matthew's prayers became more positive, and then at last, after maybe another ten minutes of driving, the cover of the hatch was opened.

"Safe now. Welcome to Oregon."

***

Ignacio pulled the truck into another truck stop around midday.

"You like hamburgers?" he asked and Matthew nodded, making to climb out of the cab. He could see the hamburger joint across the car park, but Ignacio wagged his finger.

"You stay here. I will bring it."

True to his word he arrived a few minutes later with a brown paper bag filled with the delicious aroma of fast food.

"Of course you like hamburgers. All boys like hamburgers," Ignacio smiled. He took one paper wrapped hamburger for himself and then handed the bag to Matthew. Matthew tucked in, closing his eyes, and savouring the familiar flavours, that tasted so much better than any time ever before. He had thought he would never eat this stuff again, and he had missed it so much.

When he was finished eating and. licking his lips clean, he saw Ignacio looking at him intently. Matthew blushed and tried to smile, although he did not like the look.

"Time for payment," he said, and unfastened his belt.

Matthew sighed inwardly, but outwardly he tried to keep his smile, as he pulled off his shirt.

Ignacio climbed into the small truck bedroom area and beckoned him. Matthew quickly slipped off the rest of his clothes and followed him in.

***

Matthew lay against Ignacio, snuggling close to his warm bare chest. His butt hurt, but Igancio's cries of joy still rang in his ears, and there was something comforting about them and the way the man held him now.

He had been fucked by Farad and fucked by the boys of Sacramentum, but not since that one time with Robbie had anyone held him and snuggled him afterwards, and told him how much they liked him. That meant something to him, lost and orphaned as he was, and hated by the world and abandoned by the closest thing he had to friends.

This man had helped him, and seemed to actually like him, and as long as he stayed with him, he was taking Matthew closer to Robbie. Closer, but he could not get too close. There could be no return to Vancouver Island. That place was lost to him now. His best bet was one of the other new territories. Fitz had been deported to one of them, to some place called Kelowna. That was where Matthew thought he would try to get to. Kelowna, and to join up with Fitz.

How much would Ignacio help? Matthew didn't know for sure, but as the man held him and spoke sweet nothings in his ear, he thought maybe he had found the one man who could help. He had got him into Oregon, so there was just one more border to worry about.

As he lay against the man, Ignacio began to stroke his penis, and Matthew felt it get hard. He liked the touch and closed his eyes.

"You are still hairless," the man observed, stroking Matthew's smooth pubic area.

"They gave me an injection," Matthew said, "to stop… you know, stop me getting hair until…"

"It will wear off. You will soon be a man," Ignacio said, kissing him and Matthew squirmed as the man began to rub him ore vigorously.

It did not take long before Matthew's passion erupted in a series of gasps as he thrust his hops forward into the man's hand.

"You liked that?" Ignacio asked.

"Mmmm," Matthew agreed, snuggling against the man again, feeling sleepy. He had not slept much the night before, and so now he drifted off.

***

Matthew awoke later to find himself still in the truck bed, but the vehicle was moving now. He blinked for a while, trying to remember where he was, and then he remembered everything. He moved and his butt ached as a reminder of the seed Ignacio had placed in there earlier. He lifted the covers and saw he was still naked.

Matthew looked around for his clothes and did not see them.

Eventually he climbed off the bed, looked through the partition at the driving compartment, expecting to see his clothes on the passenger seat there, but he did not see them. Ignacio was driving and humming some song as he went.

"Where are my clothes?" Matthew asked. "I threw them out. They smelled bad."

"What?" Matthew asked. "What am I supposed to wear now?"

"Nothing. Or maybe I buy you something cute. Why do you need to wear clothes?"

Matthew looked at the number blazoned across his chest and then back up at the man, who continued to hum and drive.

"If anyone sees this number on my chest…"

"Lots of slaves have numbers. Fremont numbers mean nothing here. People will just look at you and say, he is a slave."

"But I am not a slave."

"Of course you are a slave! You got made a slave when they sent you to that place, yes? And now you are my slave."

"I am not!"

"Until I let you go, yes you are."

"That was not the deal," Matthew objected.

"So sue me. Sorry, you can't do that. You are a slave. Slaves aren't allowed to sue anyone."

Matthew bit his lip, and was silent for a long while. At last Ignacio relented.

"I still take you to the man I told you about. I did not lie to you. I just keep you for a few days. Maybe a week. I have to make some deliveries but soon I have to pick up a load for the New territories. You be my slave until then, and I let you go when we get across the border."

"Can't I just be…"

"Don't argue. You are my slave. If you are good I give you freedom. If not, I sell you to slave dealers. Got it?"

Matthew sighed and nodded.

"I did not hear you."

"Yes sir," Matthew said.

"No, not sir. You are my slave. You say yes, master."

"Yes… master," Matthew almost choked on the words.

"Good slave. Now put these on, I want to take pictures of you in them," Ignacio said, pulling a package from the glove compartment and throwing them at Matthew.

Matthew opened the package and found the kind of underwear boy whores wore. His face coloured, but he did as he was told, slipping the briefs on.

"Now you look like a good slave."

"Yes master," Matthew said again, unable to meet the man's eyes now as Ignacio pulled the truck onto the road shoulder and fished out his camera.

Chapter 26
The Godforsaken Land

***

Jack and Ashton

Salt Lake City was a curious place. It was in Mexico, but the inhabitants claimed it was in a state called Deseret. Although the Mexicans did not officially recognise Deseret, they allowed the city a great deal of autonomy, and it had become something of a melting pot because of its history.

Years ago a man called Joseph Smith had been driven out of the United States for his heretical religious views. He had founded the community in Deseret, which was even then part of Mexico, but the Mexicans had proven more tolerant and allowed the community to grow and establish itself.

Now the city boasted a huge number of the followers of Smith, and historical tolerance of religion had encouraged settlers from all over the continent, meaning that Nearly everyone spoke both English and Spanish and many other languages were spoken too.

Of course, many said the real draw of Smith's religion was the teaching on polygamy. It was official church dogma that a woman could have as many husbands as she wanted, and this was an attractive proposition for free heterosexual men where there were so many more men than women.

Another popular teaching of the church had been on slavery. While slavery was almost universally accepted by churches everywhere, many denominations and sects had curious views about what a man could or could not do with his slave. Not so this church. Apparently a new scripture had been revealed by the angel of the Church which spoke of the curse of Ham, a reference to a passage in the Bible that condemned the children of wrongdoers to a life of slavery. This was interpreted to give divine authority to judicial and debt slavery of boys, who would become the slaves of slaves. Slaves of slaves, it was revealed, meant they had no rights at all. As such the city had become an important centre of boy prostitution and the slave trade.

Jack had vaguely known much of this before today, but he had been given a crash course in the subject as he and Ashton had sat in the bar of the whorehouse, spending some of the money they got for whoring out Joel on a cheap meal. As they ate they were propositioned twice and then an over friendly and slightly drunk client had regaled them with the whole tale.

"And that is why you should just let me fuck you both," the man had finished up, his eyes wandering towards Jack's crotch.

"We are not slaves."

"Says who? If you act like a slave you are a son of Canaan. That is what they say here. It ain't so bad you know, being under the curse."

Jack stood up.

"No thanks," he said, and walked out. Ashton followed him.

"Well that was smart, dork face. He was good for information," Ashton sneered.

"He just wanted to get my clothes off," Jack retorted.

"Yeah, well that's a problem, knowing how many tats you have, including that big one on your butt telling people to send you back to Sacramentum."

"Yeah, and whose fault is that? So if you know how to get that taken off…"

"It happens I was thinking about just that. Come with me," Ashton said and headed off down the street. Jack frowned but then set off after him.

Soon enough they arrived at a tattoo parlour in a seedy looking part of the town.

"You are not doing a Joel with me. I don't want more tats, okay?"

"Shut up for once," Ashton shot back, and then walked inside.

The room was dark, blinds being pulled down to keep the sun out. It smelled of smoke and beer, not unlike the bar they had just eaten in.

"Fuck off, boys. We don't tattoo kids unless it's slaves."

"I heard you tattooed anyone," Ashton replied.

"Heard from who?"

Ashton did not answer, but looked around as if checking to see if anyone else was listening, but the only person in this room was the owner of the parlour, a heavily tattooed man who clearly had worked to double his canvas area by enlarging his body through a life of overindulgence.

"We don't want marks, anyhow. Heard you can maybe take some off?"

The man frowned, squinted his eyes at the boys.

"Maybe that is so, but if you got yourself a mark, kid, then like as not it is because you are a slave, or…"

"Yeah, or…"

"So you don't want to go to some nice clinic I take it."

"Don't think that would work for us," Ashton replied.

"Let's see it then."

Ashton waved to Jack. "Show him," he said.

Jack frowned but pulled off his shirt. The man looked at his chest and whistled. Then Jack pulled his shorts down to show the one on his butt as well as the one on his thigh.

"Sacramentum boys eh? You know it's illegal to take those tats off."

"Sure, illegal in the United States. In Mexico, not so much."

The man laughed.

"Well it is still expensive."

"How much?"

"Gonna take several sessions. Based on the size of those, I would say 500 a session."

"You are kidding me. We can give you 25."

"Get out of here," the man said, and when Ashton made a move for the door, he added, "250, and I am killing myself."

"We can get 100 pesos. Take it or leave it," Ashton said, his hand poised on the door handle.

The man looked back at them and sighed.

"First treatment is 100. After that we will see."

Ashton smiled and opened the door. "We will be back with the money tomorrow. Can we have the session then?"

"Sure. Then you have to wait six weeks before the next one."

"Six weeks?"

"We can try in four maybe. Depends on your body and how quickly it absorbs the ink once the laser breaks it up."

***

"So where the fuck do we get a hundred pesos from?" Jack asked when they were outside.

"That is where you come in, Jack Sprat. You are a thief right?"

"So are you. What, you want me to steal it?"

"I am not a thief. I am a hacker. Well yeah, I stole some money that way too but that's not gonna work here. Not until we can get me online."

"And you think I can just get us some money just like that?"

"I know it, Jackie boy. That's your job now. You have to get the money for your treatment, and more. We need money to get on the net too. Once I am on the net I can contact some people to help us out, but we need money. Two hundred should do it today, but we will need more after that."

"And where am I gonna find two hundred pesos?"

"Don't ask me. You're the thief."

***

Two hours later Jack dropped three wallets in front of Ashton, back in their seedy hotel room. Jack looked up from the TV, which was showing a televised church service, and grinned.

"I knew you could do it," he said with a smile.

Jack just scowled and pulled his shirt off, and threw himself on the bed.

"Yeah, well, as long as this tat comes off. You sure we can trust him?"

"Hell no! That is why we have one treatment here and then get the hell out of this god forsaken place."

Jack looked at the TV and smiled.

"God forsaken?" he asked, pointing at the service. "You getting religious on me?"

"Fuck, no. There was nothing else on. Anyhow you need to see this stuff if you want to understand the people here."

"Why understand them? I thought we were leaving."

"We are," Ashton confirmed, but he kept watching the TV, which had begun to air an appeal for donations, promising blessing and prosperity on anyone who donated at least a hundred pesos.

"I am in the wrong game," Jack remarked. "That is where the money is."

"Pity then that you got the curse of Ham," Ashton remarked snidely.

"Yeah, until tomorrow. Then its coming off."

"Then it starts to come off. It ain't gonna fade to nothing in one session."

"Whatever," Jack said and watched the TV huffily.

Chapter 27
Whores

Joel

Joel snatched the bowl of food and scurried away to a corner of the shared cell before tucking in hungrily. He watched the other slaves warily, knowing they would as soon snatch his food from him as not. It was not that they were unfriendly, they were just all half starved, and the first law of the whorehouse was look after yourself first.

Joel had discovered that the hard way after his first night's work. Taken back to the shared cell, he had been given a single blanket and shoved inside. A moment later someone had snatched the blanket from him, and when he had tried to complain, there had just been laughter.

He recalled how his eyes had adjusted to the dark and he had come to see the other five whores in the room, each occupying some part of the floor of the small room. The only place left to lie down was right in the middle of the room, next to a stinking hole that Joel realised was an open drain.

He lay down by the drain, shivered and sighed. Not so different from prison, he supposed. His butt hurt badly, and he could smell the sweat and aftershave of the men who had fucked him, but next to the stink from the drain, that was not so bad. Still, he found it hard to push away the images of what he had been through: the fingers exploring him intimately, the bristly kisses, the taste of cum in his mouth and the pain of powerful entries by adult cocks in his butt. He could feel the semen up there too and thought maybe it was dribbling out. He hoped it was just semen and not blood.

Joel had lain awake most of that first night, coming to terms with what he now was. He had spent a long time thinking on the stupid things he had done that got him sent to prison, and how that, in turn had led him here. He thought about Johnson's visit, and the revelations about his parents. He thought about Ashton, and wondered whether he loved the boy or wanted to kill him. He wondered if Matthew was back in jail now, and being punished for his escape… or worse. He wondered what had happened to the sewer rat boy who had failed to escape with them.

He had probably slept a little, but he did not feel like he had, and then the next day had begun with work, cleaning up the whorehouse, followed by more lessons, this time from one of the older boys, on how to make yourself irresistible to men, and then eventually to a brief meal and washing before a new evening of whoring.

The second night he had served fully eight clients, which apparently equalled the record. He also gained some bruising to his neck and his first love bite on the second night from two less careful clients. The bruising had been accompanied by his near strangulation, an experience that had left him sobbing in terror, which appeared to be what the client had wanted as he had then seeded Joel's butt with his hot cum.

The third night he was given just three clients, but on the fourth day he started earlier. "It's the weekend," one of the other boys had explained. "Clients come in any time on a Saturday or Sunday."

So now it was Saturday, and Joel was eating what the whore boys called lunch, but was served mid afternoon and consisted of little more than bread and some kind of thin and salty broth. Already he had been fucked twice today, and he knew that it would be busy again tonight. He was not going to lose his food to any of the other little thieves around him.

The food they were given was not enough, but sometimes a client would offer them more. The first time this had happened, Joel had nodded eagerly when one of the men had offered him a sandwich. The man had laughed, then fucked him painfully, and then pulled himself out of Joel's butt before wiping his cock on a sandwich he had brought in with him. He handed it to Joel, and of course, Joel had eaten it, his face a picture of gratitude, even as he inwardly cursed the man.

Peanut butter and cum jelly was never going to be his favourite.

Still he knew how to play his part, and with the number of clients he was getting, Joel was not going to starve. He looked at the smallest whore in the room – Jay – and thought that the same may not be true of him. He had lost his food, after a few mouthfuls, to Isaiah, the oldest boy in the room, and he was now looking around dolefully. Jay was scrawny, and he did not get many customers, being cursed with being both too experienced and to skinny all at once. It did not help that someone had taken his teeth out. That made him a good cock sucker, but kind of messed up his looks even more.

Still, Jay had his cock and balls, which was more than Joel had. He tried to tell himself that Jay should think himself lucky, and he was the cause of his own misfortune. He tried to tell himself that some men would pay well just to cut those off him, if he were to ask for it, and that might make him more desirable.

Joel tried to tell himself that, but all he could see was the starving boy in front of him, so eventually he pushed his half finished bowl at the boy.

Jay needed no second bidding, and leaped on it, swallowing the broth hungrily before anyone else could take it from him.

"That was stupid," Isaiah said.

"I know," Joel agreed. "I do stupid a lot."

Isaiah laughed, and the atmosphere relaxed in the room. The boys chatted a little, joked, discussed clients, and then all to soon they were being fetched out because four men had just arrived wanting a good time. "No rest for the wicked," Isaiah said.

It was true, Joel told himself. He was wicked. He was being punished. He deserved everything that happened to him.

***

Matthew

Matthew woke up to the sound of laughing and swearing outside. He sat up, and the chain that held him to the bed rattled. No one outside noticed, or if they did they did not care. The voices came closer and then the cab door opened and Ignacio peered through the curtain to the sleeping compartment. He stank of stale smoke and drink.

"Got a job for you, slave boy. Come on out."

Matthew gave his his chain a pointed look and Ignacio gave a sheepish smile before fumbling with his keys. His hands were unsteady and it took him a while to get the right key into the lock, before finally removing the chain. Outside there were sounds of grumbling, laughing, and someone shushing the others.

"Come on slave boy, you going to dance for us."

There was sniggering as Matthew emerged from the cab. He could see now there were four men, including Ignacio. They all looked rough, and had all clearly been drinking. One of them could hardly stand up.

"This is my slave boy," Ignacio said and one of the men wolf whistled.

Matthew considered protesting the claim, but what was the point? He was dressed only in the white briefs that Ignacio allowed him, so they could all see the number tattooed across his chest. They might believe he was not Ignacio's slave boy but no one would believe he was not someone's. It would not take them long to find the QR code on his thigh that contained all his details, even if they missed the fact that he still had a Sacramentum embedded in his upper spine.

No it was safer to play along. Ignacio had promised him he would take him to Canada, and whether he could be trusted or not, the trucker was still his best chance – his only chance.

So it was that Matthew meekly stood beside Ignacio, and bowed his head submissively and then allowed the men to lead him into a function room at the motel they were stopped at.

Earlier that day they had completed a delivery to a place unimaginatively called Bend and Ignacio had been paid. He had then fuelled up the truck and driven out to this motel nestled in beautiful mountains.

"Vacation," Ignacio had announced. "We have to be in Portland on Monday, not before, so we get the weekend off.

A long weekend, Matthew thought. They had crossed into Oregon on Wednesday, and now it was Thursday afternoon. He had asked what was to stop them driving up to the New Territories now?

"Bad idea," Ignacio had said, frowning and shaking his head. "New Territories are still far from here, and the border is very defended. You need papers to get across."

"Why can't I do it like the Oregon border?" Matthew asked.

"No, too dangerous. New Territories are very worried about immigrants, they look very hard. They don't want slaves coming in."

"But they don't allow slavery…"

"Exactly, so all the scrounging, thieving slaves come and take their jobs and social security. They no like that. They turn slaves back at the border and if they catch me taking you across they give me a huge fine or even put me in jail."

"They won't catch you…"

"Don't you tell me what they won't do. How many times have you been across that border eh?"

Matthew had frowned and fallen silent for a while before asking when and how they were going to get over the border.

"Monday we pick up in Portland, then we go East. Spokane first and then some other places. There are lots of deliveries but soon we will get to see a man I know. He will know how to get us across."

"Who is he?"

Ignacio had looked at him hard for a while as though wondering whether to take the conversation further. Before he had said anything though, he opened a bag he had brought back with him from the gas station and pulled out a leg shackle.

"First you put this on. You are my slave till we get to Canada, and so you gonna look like one and act like one."

Ignacio had fastened one end of the shackle to Matthew's leg and the other to a bed post in the back of the cab. Matthew hated the feeling of shackles on him once again, but had known it would be stupid to resist. Only when that was done had Ignacio explained further.

I looked you up in the papers. They say you are a terrorist, that is why you went to prison."

"I am not a terrorist," Matthew objected but Ignacio held up a hand to silence him.

"They say your dad was in the resistance, and they executed him for bombing a shopping centre."

Again Matthew was about to protest, but Ignacio glared at him.

"They say he was part of the group that want to set up a holy state and overthrow the secular governments. They say he believed there should be just one holy state from sea to sea."

"I don't…"

"If that is true, I can help you. You see…" Ignacio said, and he leaned in closer to Matthew, and spoke the next words very quietly. "I think he was right."

After that Ignacio had packed up his things, thrown Matthew a burger and then gone off to the motel, to meat some friends of his, leaving Matthew to his thoughts. Matthew had pondered what that meant, and realised that his best hope now lay in Ignacio thinking he really was a terrorist after all.

In time, with nothing else to do, he had fallen asleep, only to be awoken by the four drunks, and now here he was being marched to the motel function room that had been set up with little more than a pole, and some low lighting in it. Matthew looked at the pole and then at the men.

"Dance, slave boy," one of them prompted.

"I don't know how," Matthew answered, but Ignacio angrily pulled a sheet of paper from his jeans pocket, unfolded it and showed it to him.

"Yes you do. Do it like this."

Matthew sighed when he saw the pictures he had modelled dancing. He was no professional dancer, but the photographer had shown him some moves on that job. He reluctantly went to the pole and started to dance.

"Oh yes, he is cute. You want to sell him to me?" One of the men asked.

"No, he is not for sale. My slave boy, but today we all fuck him."

Matthew shivered but kept dancing.

He kept dancing when one of the men tugged at his underwear. He kept dancing as the underwear came away. He kept dancing as they laughed and whistled, and he would have danced all night if it could have put off the inevitable, but of course it could not. He stopped dancing when one of the men grabbed him into an embrace and then forced him to his knees, and all thought of dancing was chased from his mind as the man's cock found his mouth, and then thrust its way past his lips. He found his face buried in the man's pubic hair, but from here on in he knew full well what to do, and he pleasured the man like the whore he was.

The man ejaculated into Matthew's mouth, and wiped cum over his face, and then a second man too him, and this time forced him onto his face and penetrated his butt.

The third man pissed on him, as he was being fucked. Matthew was not sure if it was deliberate or simply because the man was drunk and needed to go. The piss ran down his back and into his hair, and then as his butt was seeded, the third man lay down beside him and pushed his cock into Mathew's mouth.

Ignacio took the place of the second man now, and a moment later Matthew gasped in pain as the second huge cock that night penetrated his boy hole. He nearly bit the cock in his mouth, but managed to stop himself. Now he was fucked at both ends, and it seemed that bothe men ejaculated at almost the same time, filling his butt and mouth with cum together.

***

Ignacio allowed Matthew to shower before he returned to the cab and was locked back in. He supposed it was because he stank of pee, but still he was grateful to have the warm water washing away as much cum as he could. He scrubbed at the stupid tattoos, but of course they would not come off.

Matthew let the water run over his face and cried for a long time, before finally Ignacio fetched him out, telling him he had had long enough. Then he took him back to the cab and locked the shackle back in place.

On Friday Ignacio was gone for most of the day, but when he came back he was tender with Matthew and the two made love in the cab. Matthew played his part dutifully, but he told himself that he hated Ignacio. He hated the man who had made him a slave and a whore. He shushed the small voice that told him that Ignacio had not made him a whore, and that he was just a whore that the man had found. He silenced the hopeful voice that said maybe Ignacio was trying to help him.

No, he hated Ignacio, and the love making was humiliating and it hurt. His butt ached as Ignacio poured his seed into him once again.

And when it was done and the two of them cuddled in the bed, and Matthew rested his head against the strong man's warm chest, he told himself that this meant nothing. Ignacio was just a man who was exploiting him, and he did not care for him at all.

When Ignacio kissed him good night and he fell asleep in the man's arms it was not Ignacio he dreamed of holding him, but his father. His father who was dead now.

Sunday came and Ignacio vanished again, leaving Matthew alone, but this time he switched the TV on before he left and handed the remote control to Matthew. Matthew smiled, gratefully, having been unable to reach the TV yesterday because of the shackle. Now at least he would have something to pass the time.

He smiled at Ignacio because the man expected it, and not because he liked the man. No, he did not like Ignacio. He did not miss him as he went out. He did not long for him to come back, and he certainly didn't want to snuggle into the man's arms once again, listening to him speaking soothing words about how wonderful Matthew was. He was above all that. He knew better than to fall for it.

God, when would Ignacio be back?

Matthew watched the television impatiently.

***

TV

In the news today, Vancouver Island confirms new security powers. The human rights act is repealed. Slavery is confirmed legal once again. The court rules the president's treaty with the state of Fremont is legal and valid. Meanwhile the purge of government continues, with three more top figures stepping down, and news that the former Finance Minister has been arrested for alleged corruption. This is the sixth government Minister to face arrest since the revolution, and observers point out that all six had argued for remaining in the New Territories.

On this side of the border, there have been riots in Portland as The New Territories are accused of dumping their social problems on Oregon, by filling Pugit sound with gun boats which are turning back economic migrants and escaped slaves. In one incident last night a migrant boat was fired upon and at least eighty migrants are believed to have drowned. The Oregon government have demanded answers from the New Territories, but initial reports suggest the shots were fired from a gun ship of the now breakaway state of Vancouver Island.

***

Callum

Callum woke up with his hands between his legs and groaned, his fingers closing on nothing but the empty space there. His dreams had been filled with lurid images, and the most powerful of all was of him holding JD down and penetrating her. The image was a strong one and he had recalled exactly how it felt, that moment when he had slipped inside her and she had been powerless to resist him as he had thrusted again and again before reaching that moment of powerful climax. He could remember how it felt, and more than anything he wanted it again. He felt an fluttering in his stomach, a longing desire, an overwhelming urge that demanded his attention. He was desperate to touch and rub his penis, but there was nothing there to touch.

This was worse even than the cock cages. They could hurt as they denied a boy his pleasure, but even as they did that they still gave a boy an assurance that, although imprisoned, their boyhood was alive and working, and ready to jump into action at a moment's notice if the cage ever came off.

No such relief for Callum. Instead he felt all the passion that the cages inspired, but where they had pain, he had nothing. He touched the scars between his legs, but any vestige of erectile tissue there had been destroyed. He had all the desire of a horny boy on the verge of adolescence, maybe more so, and yet there was no way to release it.

The door of his cell opened and Callum blinked into the light beyond. Someone was silhouetted there, and they were speaking.

Callum did not understand the words but he could tell words were being spoken. The tone was mocking.

Now someone came closer and fingers touched his nipples.

Callum gasped, and moaned. Involuntarily he thrust his hips forward, and he could tell the man was laughing again. Touching his nipples awoke a raging torrent of desire in him, and Callum moaned, again aware of what had been taken from him.

After that he was led back out into the sewers, to take up the work he had vacated when he had tried to escape.

Chapter 28
Passports

Matthew

Days on the road rolled into weeks, and Matthew began to fall into a routine as Ignacio drove across the vast Oregon territory making a series of deliveries.

The trucker would talk to him sometimes but he also seemed happy with his own company.

Matthew supposed he had been alone long enough that he did not feel the need to share his company with his passenger. Instead he would spend long hours listening to the radio.

Ignacio liked bad music, and favoured Spanish language stations. Although Matthew started to pick up a few words here or there, he did not understand those, but occasionally there would be no Spanish stations in range and then the trucker would turn to an English one instead.

In that way Matthew began picking up tidbits of news. There were a lot of news reports about tensions in Pugit Sound. Refugee boats were being deliberately sunk, organised crime had been trafficking people, there was some blazing diplomatic row between Vancouver Island and the New Territories, and Oregon too. Religious terrorists had shot dead a politician and blown up bombs in a shopping mall in some place called Edmonton that opened on a Sunday.

Matthew realised that Ignacio had not been lying to him when he said the Canadian border was too dangerous just now. It was clear that this was the worst time in history to be trying to cross that border. It comforted Matthew to know that Ignacio had told the truth, but it also terrified him.

How was he ever going to get to the safety of the New Territories?

Other times Ignacio listened to political discussions, and spent a lot of time shouting at the commentators, usually in Spanish. The trucker spoke mostly Spanish when he was agitated.

Matthew sometimes tried speaking to the man. He discovered that Ignacio had no wife, no children, nor any other close family. He did not let on much, but he had gone quiet after Matthew had asked about that and his expression had been dark, his attitude broody for some time after.

There was perhaps more to it than the man had let on, but in any case, Ignacio was well suited to the trucker's life, having no deep roots tying him to any one place.

For the most part Matthew was chained up in the bedroom area behind the cab. There was length enough in the chain for him to reach into the cab and talk if he wanted, but it was uncomfortable, so more and more he spent the time sitting in a corner of the bed, waiting for the next pee stop where he would be allowed to stretch his legs, and, if there were horny men around, to earn his living.

Matthew had become increasingly proficient in that role, and Ignacio had been pleased with the extra money he was earning. Matthew was not pleased with the work – indeed he dreaded it – but he was still glad he had pleased Ignacio. He should not be happy, he knew. Ignacio had no right to make him do that stuff, but still when he saw the man's smile, when he earned himself a long hug from the man, he could not help but feel pleased too. He was good at something. Ignacio told him so.

And then there were the evenings, when the driving for the day was done. Ignacio preferred to eat late, and before he ate he would spend the time with Matthew, climbing into the back of the cab. Matthew would undress him, and the man would explore his body, and tell Matthew how beautiful he was, and how he would protect him from the evil new regime who wanted to hurt him, maim him, destroy his future.

"They will never hurt you," he promised, and there was something about the way the man said it that made Matthew believe him.

Ignacio would hold him, his large muscled body pulling him close, joining with him, Matthew knew that here was a man who he could trust. Yes he was a man who had chained him up, and who was happy to use his body, but Ignacio had not lied to him. Ignacio knew so much more than he would ever know. Ignacio would get him across the border.

It was not just the fact that trucker had been honest with him – it was more than that. Even though the man had been happy to make him a whore, Matthew knew that he cared for him.

Matthew knew that Ignacio loved him – he told him every day as he penetrated Matthew's butt. He told him how special he was, how perfect, and because Ignacio had never lied to him, Matthew believed this too.

Ignacio would fuck him and then they would shower together if they could find one, after which Ignacio would go eat, and bring Matthew back some food when he was done.

The precious times when Ignacio held him were special, and if Matthew was lucky he could even curl up and sleep in the man's arms at night. Still there was plenty of time that he spent alone, and in those times Matthew would read road maps, greatly improving his understanding of the geography of the continent, or he would wade his way through the only English book in the cab: Moby Dick.

Moby Dick was a terrible story, he decided. It started off okay but then it just went on and on and on about everything that no one in the world ever wanted to know about whaling. He decided that it was a bit like the story of his life in the truck though. This was the kind of story someone would write if they spent all their life in a boat, not talking to anyone, and right now he was spending all his life in this truck, not talking very much either.

Call me Ishmael, he thought to himself.

***

TV News

In the news today, the Vancouver Island legislature has now approved the new slave laws and the repeal of the human rights act. Leader of the opposition, Jeremy Fisher, has agreed to form a coalition with the new government, and will vote in favour of all legislation in return for a commitment not to dissolve the legislature altogether. Fifty members of his party accused him of betrayal, arguing that the new arrangement made the legislature nothing more than a rubber stamp, but all fifty are currently under investigation on treason charges, and their property and families have already been seized.

***

Jack and Ashton

Jack entered the hotel room and flopped on the bed.

"How much did you get?"

"Another hundred, give or take,"

Jack said and held out a roll of banknotes.

"You are getting lazy," Ashton said, looking with distaste at the money.

"No, I am getting recognised. I can't keep working the same streets and malls. Have to keep finding new spots and they are getting farther away."

Ashton snorted and bent over his laptop. The computer and net access had cost a lot, but Ashton kept wanting more and more money. Jack was getting tired of it. Yes they had gone back and had the first laser treatment, and yes, already his tats were fading, but otherwise Ashton seemed all to ready to let things slide.

They had been here weeks now, and every day that Jack went out to find more money he ran the risk that he would be picked up by the cops, and that would only end one way.

He had managed to get some better clothes out of it. Ashton had been angry when he did that, but then he had just demanded better clothes for himself too. Jack had complied, picked some stuff up for him at a store, but he kept the best stuff for himself.

"So when do we get out of here?" he asked, looking over at Ashton. Ashton looked up but he seemed distracted, like he was still thinking about whatever he was doing on the net.

"You said we were going after we went back to get the tats lifted, but its almost time for another treatment." Jack continued. That session had been weird. The man who ran the tattoo parlour was kind of strange, although not unfriendly. He had taken The boys into a back room and then picked up a laser that looked like a giant pencil attached by a tube to a machine. He had messed with the machine a bit, and then the whole process was kind of like being tattooed again, only with the laser.

"Hmm…" he had said when he first started firing the laser, and then "that's odd."

"What's odd?" Jack had asked?

"Not to worry. Let me just tweak the settings," and he had fiddled with some dials and carried on painting the laser slowly over his marks.

It did not hurt like the needling had, but it was hot and uncomfortable and had left him itching and sore. Jack did not much relish the idea of doing it again, but he could see the difference already. If they could actually get the tats off then the future looked a whole lot better.

Jack looked over to Ashton who was typing away again.

"Are you even listening to me?" he asked, exasperated. Jack looked up again and grinned. "Sure I am, Jack Sprat. Take a look under the pillow. I left you something."

Jack frowned and lifted the pillow, half expecting a dog turd or something equally gross and stupid, but what he saw was something much more welcome. He picked up the small document book and flicked it open.

"A passport?" he said, his voice barely a whisper, but Ashton was looking at him again and smiling.

"Got us all one. Not cheap, but not so hard to get if you have net access and know who to contact."

"So who did you contact?" Jack asked, flicking through the pages. "And why California?"

"You think I am going to tell you who?"

Jack shrugged. No, of course Ashton would not tell, but he could guess. Ashton had some kind of mob connections. They would know someone who could make a false passport. He looked at the picture that Ashton had taken the other day on the computer, but now looked just like a perfectly good passport photo. That was cleverly done, he thought.

"As to why California, its like this: The news is bad up north. Like really bad. I know the plan was to get on a bus and cross the border to Oregon, and then cross the state to the New Territories right? I had it all planned to take a cruise along the Snake River. But border crossings are bad right now, and you can bet they know to look for three boys with slave tats too, to send them back to jail. I got word that its best not to cross just yet, and when we do, we have to be legit. They are gonna get suspicious of two kids and their slave bitch riding without an adult. You know they will check for tats then, and we need to bring the whore when we go."

"Joel?"

"Is that his name? I couldn't remember," Ashton said, with a sly smile. "Yeah, turns out he was telling the truth about resistance connections. The resistance want him back so he has to come with us." Ashton said, his mouth twisted into a curious smile. Jack thought it always looked like Ashton was mocking him. He so wanted to just hit the boy in the face, but he supposed that would not work out so well in the long run.

"If the resistance want him back, why don't they just come and get him? It's not like they can't get into Mexico, or Deseret or whatever this place is called."

"They are already here. Some guy from California, thus the passports. I am going to be his son, you are going to be his nephew. The whore is going to be our slave."

Ashton tossed another two documents over. One was another California passport, with Ashton's picture in it, under the name Aaron instead. The second was a slave travel document – a livestock passport, and inside that was a picture of Joel, apparently taken in the whorehouse, although Jack did not know when Ashton had arranged that.

"So this guy is going to take us all the way to the New Territories?"

"That's right. The resistance really want that whore. Gonna save us a heck of a lot of walking."

"So when do we leave?"

"That's the bad news. No time soon. We have to get the tats off completely before we can go, and we have to do something about the chips in our spines too," Ashton replied, his grin suggesting he did not think the news so bad. "So on Monday we are gonna get our next laser treatment, and you are getting some spinal surgery."

"Just me?"

"Got mine done today," Ashton replied and lifted the hair from his neck to show a tiny scab at the base of his neck. "Keyhole surgery – hardly leaves a mark."

"From the same place as before?" Jack asked, and Ashton nodded.

"You said we can't trust him," Jack frowned.

"Changed my mind. Turns out he moved here from California."

Jack looked at Ashton, his frown deepened, and he arched his eyebrows. Ashton looked pretty amused, and that just made Jack screw his face up some more.

"You are not trying to tell me that…"

"Just remember to call him Uncle Ben. He will like that. Now, I need to go fuck the whore again. Want to come?"

Jack looked at Ashton, opened his mouth and then shut it again. He wanted to to angry with Ashton, but fact was he was feeling pretty horny himself. Horny, but not horny enough to fuck Joel. He told himself he was not like that. He waved Ashton away, and only when the other boy was gone did he lock himself in the bathroom for a little private time on his own. He was not going to tell anyone what he was thinking about when he did that.

Matthew

"This is Tomasket," Ignacio said, pulling the truck up into a large parking lot in what looked like a very small town. "I take you to a friend here."

And with that he unfastened Matthew's chains and helped him out of the truck. Matthew walked in circles for a moment to work off the cramp he was feeling, but Ignacio was already walking away and so he had to quickly follow him.

"Who is it? Who are we meeting?"

"You will see," Ignacio said. He led him down a side street and then knocked on a door. There was no answer, and he knocked again. Matthew thought that they might have to turn around and come back another day, when suddenly the door opened.

"You are early," a man said in a gruff voice, and beckoned them in.

"I made good time," Ignacio said with a shrug.

He pushed Matthew in ahead of him.

The room they went into was dark, stuffy and smelled of smoke. Matthew blinked and looked around. The man who had opened the door was looking him over now, like a buyer inspecting an animal. At long last he gave a low whistle.

"Well, you are going to make some people very happy," he said, and Matthew blushed, looking at Ignacio. Ignacio barked a laugh and shook his head.

"Not like that, boy," he said with a laugh. "He means people who want you back in the New Territories. Now I have to go away for a few days, maybe some weeks. When I get back, you will be ready for us to go over the border."

"You are going away?" Matthew asked, looking at the other man in consternation now. "Without me?"

"For a while. I have to make deliveries in Mexico. Too risky to take you over the border again. Safer you stay here. In a few weeks, I will come back and we will cross the border to the New Territories. It is not far from here."

"Why can't we go now?" Matthew asked. He did not think he was being unreasonable. If the border was close, he could be dropped across it and then Ignacio could make his deliveries after Matthew was safe and making his asylum application.

"You are not ready yet. You need papers, need some other stuff. This man, Leo, will get you ready and when I come back, we go over the border together. You and me, we drive to Osoyoos. I have deliveries to make in Kamloops sometimes. I take you to Kelowna like you wanted – it is on the way.

Matthew looked nervously at the other man. He was being left with a stranger, and he realised it was not just the stranger he was scared of. He was scared because Ignacio was going away without him. He was scared because he did not want to lose Ignacio, like he had lost everyone else he cared about.

He tried telling himself that he did not care about Ignacio that much, but he knew he was fooling himself. Ignacio had made him into a slave and a whore, he told himself, but another voice in his head was saying no, he had already been those things. Ignacio was the one who showed him that he could be a slave and a whore and still be someone special. Ignacio was going to help him, and save him from all that, and make him free. Ignacio truly cared about him. He knew that now. Just being here at this moment proved that once again. Ignacio was trying to help him, and he was doing it because they were in love.

Matthew surprised himself with the thought, but once he had thought it he could not deny it.

He could not hide from the fact that he loved Ignacio and Ignacio loved him, and neither of them wanted to be parted.

"When I get to Kelowna, will I ever see you again?" Matthew asked after a while. He looked at Ignacio, his eyes wide and plaintive.

"I make deliveries in the New Territories a lot. I even come to Kelowna sometimes. I will see you again," Ignacio replied, and his voice was quiet. Matthew could see he was touched by the question. Their eyes met and Ignacio held Matthew's gaze for some moments before the boy looked away, blinking quickly.

"You won't be long in Mexico?"

"I couple of weeks, three maybe. You need that time. Need time to get your papers and stuff or you will get arrested at the border. If they stop you there, they will send you right back where you came from."

Matthew nodded. All was quiet for a while, and then, spontaneously, Ignacio took Matthew in his arms, squeezed him in a bear hug, ruffled his hair, and then looked down on him, his voice unsteady.

"You be good now for this man. You do what he says and I will be back soon."

Then Ignacio lifted Mathew's face, and kissed his lips and held him in a tight embrace, before turning and leaving the room. Matthew stood there, watching the door for some time before the other man in the room coughed, and he looked around, as if startled that there was anyone else still there.

"So, you are Matthew Taylor," he said at last. "You can call me Uncle Ted. Tomorrow we have work to do. We have to get you new clothes, take photos, make you a new identity. Also, there are some people who want to meet you."

Matthew frowned and instinctively shuffled and held his butt.

"Not for that. You are more important than you know. Your father, they say he was a warrior for God's kingdom."

"I don't know if…"

"Believe me, boy, yes he was. He did not kill those people though. The Cricket Green Mall massacre… that never even happened. He killed no one but he was in the fight."

Matthew bit his lip and nodded.

"So you, you are important. They sent you away to be punished for crimes you did not commit. There was a challenge in the courts but that is all over now. The law and the government all failed you. They made up some terrible crimes for you, said you are very dangerous. It is all lies, but the bigger lies people tell, the more people believe. They believe you are what they say.

"That is why you are important now. You are important because people believe you are these things, and if they find out you escaped, and if they find out that you are with the resistance in the New Territories, then more people will know that resistance is possible, more people will join, more people will stand up against the oppression.

"So we have to get you back to the New Territories, and the army of God are going to help you. Tomorrow a man is coming here who knew your father. He will pay for your new identity.

When Ignacio returns, your papers will say you are his nephew and they will wave you across the border."

Matthew nodded, slowly, feeling overwhelmed by all he was hearing. "So," he said at last, "No one is going to fuck me?"

The man grinned.

"No one will fuck you, but when we take your photos, you are going to pose nicely for me.

Maybe even give me a blow job. I have to take my commission, you see?" Matthew frowned and nodded. He was in no position to argue.

Joel

Joel sat miserably in the cell. Miserable did nt even begin to describe the despair and emptiness he felt right now. His butt ached badly – the worst it had been in weeks. He was hungry and he could not get the taste of cum out of his mouth. Ashton had come to him today, and he had dutifully allowed himself to be fucked. He told himself it was duty, but there was something reassuring about Ashton, even when he was violent – which was often. Ashton liked the boys he was fucking to be in pain, and specifically he had wanted to remind Joel who had claimed him in Sacramentum. Joel held his navel scar, which seeped blood now from where Ashton had prodded and poked it, his fingernails biting into the sensitive flesh there. That had hurt, but Ashton had not stopped there.

"I should have taken your eye out," he had breathed into Joel's ear as he had poked a thumb into his eyeball. Joel had shrieked, and earned a punch in the stomach for that. After that, Ashton had explored his castration scars in the same violent way.

"You are just a fucking little rapist whore boy. Not even a boy anymore," he had laughed, spitting in Joel's face as he had poked, massaged, and prodded Joel's scars. That had been bad enough but then Ashton had moved his head down there. Joel had felt a tongue, and although he had precious little feeling down there now, that had almost felt good, but a moment later Ashton had bitten the scars and spent some time worrying them with his teeth as Joel howled in pain.

That had made Ashton hard. It was weird. Ashton had been kind of hard as soon as he undressed, but he only got really stiff when Joel was shrieking in pain. And it was only after he had been very hard for some time that he finally allowed Joel to lay him on his back, and straddle him like a whore. Only then could he enter Joel's butt and fuck him hard before unloading himself inside the boy.

Despite all the pain and all the humiliation, Joel was sad to see Ashton go. The boy left with hardly a word and no notion of how much longer he had to stay in this whorehouse. It seemed like he had been here forever already.

After Ashton had gone, the whorehouse owner had told him to get downstairs and dancing. Ashton was a freebie, and freebies did not pay the bills, he had been told, and so he had to serve four more clients that night, and the last one of them had been huge and almost as violent as Ashton.

Now he sat miserably as Isaiah entered the room, the last of the boys to return for the night.

Isaiah, however, was less miserable than usual. In fact he seemed positively happy.

"Hey boys, look what I got," he said, holding out what looked like a white paper bag. Joel looked at it, his stomach rumbling. If it was food then it was not much, and he doubted Isaiah would share. It wasn't food though.

"What is it?" Jay asked. In the half light the other boys looked at him with withering expressions, but Joel thought they probably had the same question.

"Happy pills. Enough for everyone," Isaiah said. He passed some white pills out to the boys, who quickly popped them in their mouths. Joel looked at the bag doubtfully. He had never known Isaiah to share anything before.

"What gives?" he asked as Jay was the last of the other boys to help himself to a pill. "Why are you being nice?"

"I am always nice."

"Yeah?"

"Always."

"You never gave any food away," Joel pointed out. "That's different. Food is food, but happy pills. Well if your client gives you happy pills, you share them, right?"

Joel still looked doubtful, but already the other boys faces were turning to smiles. "What kind of pills are they?"

"I dunno. E? Something like that."

"You want me to take pills when you don't even know what they are?"

"Suit yourself," Isaiah said, and took a pill, popped it in his mouth. His eyes were fixed on Joel as he swallowed, and then he sat back, and seemed to relax happily against the wall. "Oh man that is good."

Joel watched him for some time. All the boys were murmuring now, making happy noises.

The bag was on the floor in front of Joel, inviting.

His butt ached. He was a whore, stuck in a whorehouse, tired, hungry and probably going to die a whore's death soon enough. He had not seen the sun in weeks, and his life sucked as bad here as it had in prison.

Joel was fed up. Ashton had used him and left him again. Anyone who knew him thought he was a rapist. He had no fucking cock or balls, dammit. He was just a whore who could never find any pleasure in life. He was sore, tired, hungry and bored and he hated the taste of cum. He hated every part of his life right now.

Some part of his brain told him this was a bad idea, but since when had he started listening to that small voice anyway?

Joel reached for the bag, took a pill, and popped it in his mouth.

It did not take long to take effect, and boy, did it take effect. The rest of that night, Joel knew the most powerful sensations. He felt ecstasy, and other emotions too. He had visions of rainbow worlds and weird monsters. He felt love like he had never known it before, and felt the most intense feelings he had known since his castration had robbed him of the power of orgasm. Joel knew his first trip, and it was beyond amazing. At some point his brain had simply overloaded and he had passed out or fallen asleep.

Isaiah

Isaiah watched the boys around him tripping, and then, at last, when they were all pretty far gone, he had put the pill he had palmed back into the bag, and then he had stowed the bag under a loose floorboard. He grinned. The client was going to be happy about that, he thought, and lay down to sleep.

Chapter 29
Drugs

Jack and Ashton

Jack and Ashton had been in Salt Lake City for well over two months now, nearer three. By now he knew the city very well, and he thought he understood Ashton pretty well too. Still, he was anxious to get moving. Staying in one place was not a smart move, when you were wanted for breaking out of prison – albeit a prison in a different country.

Ashton spent loads of time on his computer, allegedly arranging their escape, but half the time when Jack came in he found the other boy watching a movie, or playing games. He seemed to be bone idle, too, only going out when he wanted to visit the whorehouse, which he did far too often for a boy his age.

"They say it makes you go blind," Jack had said, on one occasion where Ashton said he was off to rape his whore again.

"Only if someone pokes you in the eye really hard," Ashton had retorted.

"Why are you always so horny?"

"I'm a teenager," Ashton replied and Jack had looked at him and frowned. He supposed Ashton could be a teen, although he could easily pass for twelve too, and he said as much.

"That's the Sacramentum drugs. They try to hold back puberty but they mostly just keep you hairless. Can't switch off the human brain, you know. Also the downside of the treatment is it makes you even more horny when the drugs start to wear off."

That made sense. Jack had never felt so horny in his life, but he was not going to admit it.

What he did in the bathroom was private.

Sometimes over the past month they had gone outside and hung out together. There were amusement arcades that they visited, and they had been to the cinema, and even visited some of the historical sites like the big temple. That had been Ashton's idea. Jack was not keen on religion, but Ashton seemed pretty comfortable with it. Still, he had managed to steal a fat wallet stuffed with cash in the temple, so that had not been a wasted trip. Ashton had been pretty mad about that too, which was an added bonus.

"You don't steal stuff when I am with you, you turd," he had said, but Jack had ignored him and bought fried chicken for lunch. It always amused him to see the Fremont Fried Chicken chains here in Mexico.

So all in all Ashton and Jack were not exactly getting on, but they had an understanding that worked between them, and a lot of that was because Ashton had really come through with this tattooist guy.

So now here they were, walking into the dingy parlour for their third session to get the tats removed.

"Hey Uncle Ben," Jack said cheerily and there was Ben, smiling his quirky smile, amused by Jack's greeting.

The last session had gone well enough though, with the weird Californian tattooist applying the laser treatment again and then performing a surgery to take his chip out. That had been scary, because he knew there was a risk with any surgery on the spine, but as Ashton had already had it done, he had let it be done without complaint. He was not going to show any fear to Ashton.

It had hurt a little, but not too bad, and true to Ashton's word, the tattooist had performed the extraction with some kind of keyhole surgery. It had seemed to take him a while, but eventually he had pulled something free, dropped it in a dish and then applied some kind of filler.

"Dea1d centre of the C5 vertrebra, attached to the process. Well aimed by whoever shot that one in," he had said. Jack was not sure what that meant, but as long as the chip was out, he did not care.

"So can they track us with the chips?" he had asked as Ben had dressed the wound.

"Not here, they can't. The chip is just an unpowered transponder. If it had a battery it would probably leak and maybe kill or paralyse you.

Instead it just sends out an identity code every time it receives a powerful request signal. That is why it needs the collar too to track you."

"Then why did it need to come out?"

"Because on the border they will wave a security wand over you and if a transponder responds from your neck they are going to start looking a lot harder at you."

That had made sense, of course, and now it was out and after a month of healing there was hardly a mark to see where the surgery had taken place. He had looked at Ashton's neck and unless you knew what you were looking for you would miss it entirely. As it was, there was little more than a mark like an injection site.

His tattoos had also faded a lot more. From a distance you might not even see them now. That had been quicker than expected, and as he pulled off his tee shirt for Ben to see he could see that the tattooist was also surprised at the amount of fading.

"The prison tattooist was a cowboy," he said, his face creasing into a smile. "It should take six months to get a tattoo like that off, but this one is going to be invisible in a few more weeks if we do today's treatment right."

Jack followed him through into the back room where the laser was and hopped up onto the bed there, lying back. Ben started to fire up the machine, adjusting some settings, typing some numbers into a control pad.

"What do you need to set?" he asked curiously, as the man prepared the equipment.

"All inks respond to specific wavelengths. We need the ink to absorb as much laser light as possible to vapourise it. It's a good thing your tattoos are black – they absorb the light best and that is partly why they respond so well. It probably also helps that they were quite new, but mostly they are breaking up quickly because they were never put on by a professional. The ink is simply not deep enough. Those tattoos would have faded a fair bit on their own."

Jack nodded and watched as the man slowly began applying the laser to his marks again. When his chest was done he dropped his pants and lay on his front and allowed the man to work on his butt and thigh. That was quite a break, he thought, having the tats come off so easily.

"So in a few weeks these may all be gone?"

"Invisible to the naked eye, yes."

"And then we can go North?"

"Then we take a bus all the way to the New Territories," Ben confirmed. Jack smiled.

***

Jack and Ashton, and Joel

Two weeks later and the marks had indeed faded to almost nothing. Jack was amazed and delighted, and Ashton too had declared himself satisfied, said it was time to fetch the whore back again. He had served in the whorehouse long enough.

That made sense. The whorehouse owner had been up front that Joel would have a novelty value that would wear off, and it was not like they needed the money anymore. The only reason they had not fetched him back earlier was that two boys together would attract a lot less attention than two boys with a eunuch slave in tow.

There were other slaves of course. When Jack worked the malls he would see slaves waiting outside for their owners to finish shopping. Most of the malls here were socially conservative and so did not allow slaves inside. It had been the same at the temple, with slaves waiting for their owners outside. In the streets you could see slaves with their owners all the time. Not everyone had slaves, but a few people had a lot of slaves. However, what would draw attention to Joel was the sight of two boys with their own eunuch. That was not unknown either but it was pretty rare. Eunuchs were not common outside of the whore houses or stables, and where they existed they were mostly left indoors. Both boys knew the importance of not drawing attention to themselves so they had left Joel in the whorehouse.

If Ashton was fetching Joel then it meant they were nearly ready, and that was pretty exciting for Jack. He looked again at his tats. He could still see the slightest smudge where they had been, but it was easily missed. A couple more weeks and even that should fade away.

The door opened and Jack turned, but even as he did so he saw Ashton push Joel forcefully through the opening and the boy sprawled on the floor. Jack looked on in horror, and then the smell hit his nose too.

Joel looked like shit, and he did not smell much better.

"What the fuck?" he asked, before Ashton slammed the door behind him and then kicked Joel in the ribs. The boy had lost weight, was all skin and bones, and now he retched on the floor.

"The little shit is a junkie," Ashton said and kicked Joel again.

"Stop that," Jack said, inserting himself between the angry boy and the miserable eunuch on the floor.

"How are we gonna get a strung out junkie across the border?" Ashton roared. "Get out of my way, I am gonna kill him."

"You can't kill him. We need him."

"Says who?"

"Says you. The resistance want him. You said so. If you kill him, you think Uncle Ben is just gonna walk us over the fucking border?"

Ashton glowered, Jack held his gaze, and behind him he heard Joel retching still and making pitiful noises. The silence between the boys grew, and then at last Ashton sighed.

"Fine, you are in charge of him," he said and turned and flopped onto the bed.

Jack felt an overwhelming desire to throw himself on top of Ashton and to smash his stupid face in. Why did he have to deal with the snivelling smack head behind him? Why did he have to be the voice of reason here? Why did he have to take all the risks and do all the shitty jobs?

Jack balled up his fists, closed his eyes, counted to ten, and then, just to be safe, he counted to ten again. Only then did he slowly turn and help Joel to his feet.

God, the whore was so light. Had they even fed him in there? He was sobbing and shivering as Jack led him to the shower. He switched on the water and then decided the only way to avoid contaminating all his clothes was to strip down and get in the shower with Joel. That would also hopefully prevent the eunuch from drowning in there, which seemed like a distinct possibility, the state he was in.

Jack washed him, dried him, led him out and handed over some left over fast food from lunch. Joel attacked the food like a starving child, which made sense. After that, Jack led him to the bed.

"Oh no, he is not coming in the bed. Put him on the floor," Ashton demanded, so Jack grabbed a pillow and a blanket and wrapped the shivering boy up in a corner there.

"What have you been taking?" he asked. Joel looked back at him blankly, so he asked again and then a third time.

"Happy pills," Joel had said. "Have you got any happy pills?" Jack shook his head sadly.

"What do we do?" he asked Ashton, but Ashton was watching TV and ignored him.

"Joel," Jack said to the eunuch, "I am going to get some proper food. You try to get some sleep, okay?"

"I need happy pills. Please… get me some pills."

"I am going to get you food," Jack said again.

"I will suck you. Let me blow you off. You can fuck me… just… just get me some pills." Jack got up and headed for the door.

"Don't let him hurt himself," he said as he went outside to get something to eat. Ashton just waved an arm and carried on watching TV.

Jack came back half an hour later with burgers and shakes. When he entered the room, he thought at first that Joel was asleep in the corner, but then he saw he was not asleep. He was lying there with head down but eyes open, lost in a drug dazed bliss. Was that a dribble of cum around his mouth? or was it just drool?

"What the fuck happened in here?" he asked angrily, putting the food down on the floor and kneeling beside Joel to check on him.

"Junkie boy needed something. I got him something to shut him up."

"You got him something? Why? We need him off that stuff! You can't go giving it to him. What were you thinking?"

"Who said we need him off it?" Ashton asked, sporting his most annoying smile.

"You said it yourself. We can't get him across the border in this state…"

"Since when were you a drugs counsellor?" Ashton interrupted him.

"You don't get off drugs by taking drugs," Jack snapped back.

"Let the fucking resistance sort that out. We just have to deliver him."

Again Jack fought the almost overpowering urge to jump on Ashton and fight him. He could tell that was what Ashton wanted. The boy had been spoiling for a brawl since they had met. He closed his eyes, breathed. There was another question.

"Where did you get the drugs?"

Ashton pulled out a paper back from his pocket, and lifted a pill out, held it up, and then put it away again.

"One of the other whores was supplying him. I confiscated his supply."

"So do you even have any idea what they are?"

"Nope, I am guessing its some blend. Maybe smack but seems like he has weird dreams too. Seems pretty strong stuff though, coz he went off right away."

"You," Jack said, fighting down his anger, "are a class A prick."

"And you are a cheap failed little thief, a stupid cunt who got himself sent away to jail and has no fucking idea how to handle it."

"We are not in jail now," Jack replied.

"But you are still a cunt."

That was it! Jack could take no more and threw himself onto Ashton, but Ashton was ready for him. He did not even see the blow coming, and certainly had not known that Ashton was holding a stun gun under the bed covers. A moment later thousands of volts of electricity surged through his body and Jack collapsed to the floor. He lay there twitching as Ashton rolled him over and sat on his chest. God, it hurt, but worse was the panic as his body refused to obey the commands of his brain.

"Now let's get one thing straight," Ashton said, his face hovering so close above Jack's face that he could feel the warmth of his breath, and smell stale meat. "I am in charge here. I got us out of Sacramentum, I got us here, I am gonna get us across that border, and all the way to the fucking New Territories. You, I only brought you along as a fucking foot soldier. You are a thief, and now, now you are the whore's prime carer. Your job is to keep it alive until we get to the New Territories, and then, if you do it right, you get to walk away and make a new life.

Jack glared up, his body still twitching, but slowly he could feel his limbs begin to respond to him again.

"Now did I make myself clear?"

Jack glared back, did not answer. Ashton's hand closed around his throat. Jack felt the hand squeezing and gasped, but at the same time, feeling was coming back to his limbs. Ashton leaned closer, putting his weight into the stranglehold. As he did so, Jack rolled onto his left and his right hand came up, connecting with the side of Ashton's face with a very satisfying crack.

Ashton groaned, instinctively reaching for his face. The moment the hand was off his neck, Jack rolled again and then the two were wrestling on the floor.

Ashton was a geek, Jack told himself as he started to lash out furiously, raining blows on the other boy. He was a geek, sneaky, clever, nasty, but no fighter. This was his world now, and Ashton was going to pay for what he said.

He saw the boy reach for the stun gun again, and grabbed his wrist.

"You are going to regret this," Ashton hissed, but Jack answered him with a knee to the gut. "No, shit-for-brains, you are gonna regret it. I am gonna give you a taste of your own medicine. Call it karma," Jack hissed reaching for the fly of Ashton's shorts, and unfastening the button. With one hand he tried to wrench the shorts down, but Ashton was not done yet, and wriggled, and bit Jack's arm.

Jack swore, but the move had unbalanced him just enough. They rolled again and Jack banged Ashton's hand against the floor. The stun gun fell free, and Ashton rolled and dived for it, Jack riding on top of him again, and pulling at his shorts.

"You think you are so hard, Ashton, but you are nothing without your goons to fight your battles for you. You are just a stay-at-home geek boy. You think you can beat me? Pah!"

A moment later Jack felt a pain in his crotch, as Ashton had grabbed his balls. He let out an animal howl of pain and range and turned to headbutt the geek boy, but Ashton had anticipated the blow and feinted away.

Jack grabbed and caught Ashton's hair, pushed his face to the floor, and then got astride him again, sat on his back, with Ashton face down.

"Let's… get this… straight," Jack panted. "I am… not your… bitch boy. You… do your… own fucking work. From now on… you are my… bitch."

Ashton growled and struggled, his hand shot out to reach for the stun gun. Jack saw the move and pushed down on his left leg so he could kick the device further away with his right foot. Too late he realised that this was a feint by Ashton, who waited for the shift of weight and then put all his energy into pushing upwards, unbalancing Jack.

It was in inelegant move, but it had Jack falling, and in a moment Ashton threw himself on top, grabbing Jacks face and pushing it downwards into the floor. Jack felt a howl of pain as his head cracked against the ground. Then Ashton was ripping at Jack's shirt, pulling it up over his head. It only took a moment for Jack to fight his way out of his clothing, but in that moment, Ashton had reached the stun gun and with a howl, Jack felt the thousands of volts pass through his back once again.

Now Ashton started to undress him as Jack quivered and shuddered in pain. Quickly, Ashton pulled all his clothes off, and then held the stun gun right up to Jack's penis.

"You were not my bitch boy. Now you are," he said and pushed the stun gun to Jack's cock, discharging it again directly into his boyhood. Jack screamed and squirmed in agony, but Ashton was not done. He rolled Jack onto his back, pushed his unresponsive legs back painfully, and then pulled down his own pants.

A moment later Ashton was lying on top of him, his mouth close to Jack's ear.

"You so had this coming, bitch boy. Now, this is my fucking work," he said. A moment later Jack gasped as he felt Ashton's cock push hard into his butt. He tried to move, to get up, to fight it but Ashton held him down, his hands squeezing tight around his throat, choking him.

"You are nothing. I told you that you are a cunt, and now you are my cunt. You are mine. You get that?" he asked as he fucked Jack's virgin butt. Jack set his face angrily, said nothing. Every attempt to struggle met a violent response, but he did not stop struggling, would not give Ashton the satisfaction of thinking he would take this like the miserable whore or like Cumdump.

He would not give Ashton any reason to believe that he actually liked it.

It did not take Ashton long to cum, shouting his pleasure as he unloaded into Jack's butt. Jack squirmed in pain, and the humiliation as the boy withdrew, leaving hims with a sensation of the boy goo inside him.

Why did his cock have to stand up like that?

"I am taking a shower," Ashton told him as Jack lay there, on the ground, his head throbbing, nose bleeding, his sore butt leaking, and shivering uncontrollably. "When I am done, you can go in there and wank yourself off like you always do, but when you are done you are sleeping with the whore."

When Jack finally did return from the shower, Ashton was back on the bed, and started watching the TV again like nothing had happened. Nothing except he looked pointedly at the floor.

Jack went to lie down next to the whore, but it was a long time before his thoughts settled enough that he could finally get some sleep.

Chapter 30
Matthew Waits

Matthew

"That's right, now tip your head back, and…"

Click. The camera flashed and whirred. Matthew smiled and posed. He knew how to do this. This was familiar stuff, and familiar was good.

"Now take the shirt off and we will do some in the conservatory," Leo said. Matthew frowned, but not because he was afraid of Leo. Leo took photos but never anything more. Matthew felt safe with Leo.

No, it was what taking his shirt off revealed. Matthew climbed out of the old trailer he had been sitting in, slipped the shirt off, and there was his stupid slave tattoo once again. Leo had said tattoos could be removed, although it would take a long time. In the meantime it marked him out as an escaped prisoner from Sacramentum. It marked him out with the number they had given him. 20-16-06-23. The number of shame.

"Don't worry," Leo said. "We can airbrush that out. No, wait… I have a better idea. Let's make a feature of it by putting some shackles on you."

Matthew nodded, but he was not much happier for the re-assurance. Yes, they could airbrush out a tattoo on a picture, but he was still marked with it. The slave photos, with the shackles, felt like the real him now.

He sat down in the conservatory and Leo started taking photos.

Leo was his minder while Ignacio was away, and he was not bad company. Sometimes taciturn, he still had a gentle streak and would come back from shopping trips with new clothes, or books. Once he came back with a lego set, and Matthew had spent many happy hours since constructing lego spaceships and cars.

One thing he never demanded was sex.

Matthew thought Leo liked him that way, and he would probably have obliged the man if he had asked. Matthew had lost many of his inhibitions about such things. Leo did not ask though, but he did take photos.

"It's not every day you get a famous model staying with you," he said. "But I won't publish anything until you are safely back in the territories."

So Matthew played along with the photo shoots, and counted the days.

Ignacio had been away for weeks now. Longer than Matthew had expected. He longed for the man to come back. He missed Ignacio so much. Leo was good company, but Ignacio was the one who had saved him, brought him here, and who loved him.

When would Ignacio be back?

He hoped it would be soon.

Chapter 31
Article 50

Matthew

Matthew threw himself into Ignacio's arms and the trucker laughed and held him.

"I told you I would come back," he said, his voice shaking, whether from laugh or because he was overcome by emotion, Matthew was not too sure. The boy hugged him and held him tight, and for his part he was crying freely. Ignacio was back. At last he was back.

"I missed you," was all he managed to squeak out between sobs. Ignacio ran fingers through the boy's hair, and then kissed the top of his head.

"I missed you too, chico," he whispered, and then put a hand on each side of Matthew's head, turning it so that their eyes met. "I will never leave you again," he said and pressed his mouth to Matthew's and kissed. Matthew returned the kiss passionately, even though he knew that was a lie. Ignacio was going to take him across the border and leave him in Kelowna. He had promised it, and now it would happen. Still, the intention of the man's words was clear. Ignacio cared for him, wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with Ignacio. He would come back and visit, and they would be happy. He would be free. He would see his friends again.

"Are you ready to leave?"

Matthew nodded. He looked around at the small room that had been his home for too long now. There was little enough to take with him. He had read the few books here many times over. His bag was permanently packed, other than the clothes he was wearing. His lego set would be left behind, but there would be new lego in Kelowna. His new papers were tucked away in a pocket of the holdall.

The papers had arrived a couple of weeks ago, brought by a member of the resistance. In all the time he had been in this safe house, he had only seen two people other than Leo, the man who ran it. Two days after he got here a member of the resistance had turned up, explaining he needed to take some photos for documents, and also explaining that he could not stay long and there could not be frequent visitors. Suspected members of the resistance were monitored, and if the location of the safe house were compromised then they were all in danger.

Leo had taken extra photographs after that photo shoot. Matthew was familiar enough with modelling assignments and had played along, and that was how he had got back into modelling again. He was also familiar enough with taking his clothes off now not to object to the extra shoot that Leo had insisted on – and then, after Matthew had thought Leo would never touch him in any way like that, he had shot another way, in his mouth. Matthew did not like the taste, and Leo was not Ignacio, but he did not object.

That had become a frequent feature of his last few days, but true to his word, Leo never fucked him, and Matthew never complained. Leo was not Ignacio, but he was nice enough. as well as the books, lego and games, he had brought some cards. Still the best present had been the day Leo had turned up with a box of Lego, which had been pretty cool. Matthew had made all kinds of things with that Lego.

Then eventually the second man from the resistance had turned up, bearing false papers for Matthew that would, he said, get him across the border.

"Just keep your shirt on," he had said.

Matthew had looked at the document: a New Territories passport with a new name. Joshua.

Josh. He was to be Josh when he crossed the border.

After that the resistance man had wished him luck, and explained that he had arranged already that Fitz's family would sponsor his asylum application and take him in. He had a home to go to and people who wanted to see him there.

And now here was Ignacio ready to take them there.

"We can leave right now?" he asked of Ignacio. The trucker nodded. "Will we be in Kelowna tonight?"

"It is not that far to Kelowna," Ignacio said with a sad smile. "You are so keen to say good bye to me?"

"No!" Matthew protested. "No… but I want to be there. Let's go."

"Let's go," Ignacio agreed, and he picked up Matthew's bag and carried it out to his truck. Then he helped Matthew up into the cab, pinching his butt.

"Matthew, before we go, I want to fuck you one more time."

Matthew smiled, and climbed into the bedroom compartment, started to strip, realising that this was the first time he could remember Ignacio calling him Matthew and not just slave or boy. As soon as they crossed that border, he realised, any pretence of his being a slave would be gone. He kind of regretted that. There was something special about the way Ignacio forced him to do things that Matthew liked, so it was almost with a twinge of regret that he undressed his lover one more time and felt himself forced back on the bed for an hour of love making that left his butt sore but saw him shoot his first load of jiz since he had gone to prison into Ignacio's hand.

"You are growing up," Ignacio whispered in his ear as Matthew was consumed in that moment of desperate and powerful release. He felt the strangest sensation in his cock. He had had throbbing dry orgasms for a long time now, but the Sacramentum drug had held back any further development. Now he felt his body pump something out and it felt so perfect, so powerful. Yes, he was growing up. Yes, yes, yes!

He was growing up. Yes, it was true. He realised he had turned 13 recently. He was not noting the days, but his birthday must have passed. He was a teenager, and he had shot cum, and soon he would be getting hairs down there too. He was going to be a man. A man like Ignacio.

The love making ended with the longest and tenderest hugs that Ignacio had ever given him, and all Matthew could think was that if he had to stay with this man forever, he would think himself lucky.

***

"There it is. That is the border," Ignacio said.

Matthew looked ahead and saw that there was a structure built across the road, like a toll booth, and service roads leading off to the side. It did not look so very different from the entrance to a turnpike, except that the booths seemed more sturdy, and he could see various police vehicles in the slip roads.

On one side was a large glass fronted building, and Ignacio was looking at that too. "Duty free is big business here. That mall is one of the most popular places for shopping this side of the rockies," he said.

Matthew looked at the mall and Ignacio carried on talking about it.

"They built half on each side of the border, and a pedestrian border check point right down the middle. You can save a load in tax or make a killing on exchange rate differences just by walking through the food court and waving your passport," he said. "Kids love it too because there is a rollercoaster right there in the mall that crosses the border several times each ride."

That did sound kind of fun. A rollercoaster inside the mall? Maybe one day Fitz's parents would take him here and he could try it out.

They were still travelling towards the border, and Matthew realised that they were moving pretty fast.

"Shouldn't you slow down for the border?" Matthew asked.

Ignacio didn't answer. Matthew saw someone ahead waving his arms frantically now, the sign to slow down. He turned to Ignacio.

"We are going too fast. Shouldn't you slow down?" he asked again.

Ignacio responded by pressing his foot to the floor and the truck began to speed up. "Slow down. What are you doing?" Matthew said, his voice high pitched from the fear that had seized him.

"I promised you, Matthew. I promised. They will never get you. They will never hurt you."

Matthew made a lunge for the steering wheel and Ignacio's fist collided with his head. He fell back, stunned.

"No," he shrieked, and now Ignacio had turned and wasn't heading for the border crossing itself anymore but straight for the glass fronted mall. There was a bang as the truck drove straight over a grass verge and then was heading down the parking lot outside, straight for the doors with the big "we are open 24/7" sign.

"God is great," Ignacio shouted, one hand closing around a cross on the dashboard. Matthew saw them heading for the door. Another second or two and…

There was a loud bang and the windshield exploded. Another bang and something hot and damp spattered Matthew. Two more bangs and the truck was spinning out of control, even as it rapidly lost speed. A moment later it toppled onto its side and there was a terrible noise of metal scraping and crunching along the tarmac, before it came to a stop.

Matthew must have passed out for a moment, but when he was next aware of anything, he felt something lying on top of him. He reached out, and his fingers closed on Ignacio's arm, warm and sticky with blood. Then Matthew saw his head, what little was left of it, and puked.

"Clear," someone shouted.

Moments later someone was poking a gun through the remains of the windshield, pointing it in Matthew's face, and a voice was screaming "Get out. Get your hands up."

***

Mathew was ordered to strip naked before being loaded onto a plane. There was a small airfield right by the border point, and a small plane already waiting, along with too many police. He was numb with shock, hardly taking anything in. The flight back to Sacramentum was noisy, but all that was going on in his head was noisier still. Ignacio was dead. He was alone again. He was going back to Sacramentum.

"Foolish of him to have scanned your QR code," a man said, sitting next to Matthew, presumably to guard him. "The code requests specific data from the web. As soon as we had a hit on the data we only needed to track down where it had come from. We found your friend's phone pretty quickly after that. Found out where you were months ago."

Matthew did not answer. All he could think was that Ignacio was dead and he was heading back to Sacramentum. Sacramentum, where… where what awaited him?

"We waited to see what he would do of course. No point in picking you up until you had flushed out the terrorists for us. We uncovered a whole nest of them. Religious terrorists too. One staters. Nasty lot, they are."

Matthew said nothing. He stared straight ahead. He did not want to listen.

"You know that truck was filled with explosives? We saved your life, you ungrateful pitiful whore. That terrorist was going to blow up Border City Mall. Hundreds, maybe thousands would have died. You would have died too.

Matthew tried to tell himself it was not true. Ignacio would not do that. Ignacio loved him. He had said he would protect him.

No. He had said that he would not let them capture Matthew. Perhaps that was not quite the same thing.

"The plan to blow up the mall was our idea you know? We followed your friend when he went south, intercepted him in Deseret, laid the seeds of an idea. We got him the explosives too. So easily manipulated, you religious types. It is so easy to make you do exactly what we want, and you know what? you think its because God told you to do it." The man spat out the last words, his disdain obvious.

There was silence for a while. Matthew did not bother argue he was not a religious terrorist.

Sure he had gone to a church school, and yes, his dad had apparently been one, and yes those were the people who had been helping him. He was still not really one of them.

He didn't understand. Why had Ignacio done that? What had driven the man to want to kill him and all those people? Even if these other people had persuaded him, he had still wanted to do it. Why?

"Are you going to kill me now?" he asked at last. "Fuck, why would we do that?"

"Because you just told me stuff you don't want people to know. And then there was all of that stuff about the Oestrovirus…"

The man laughed and shook his head.

"Oh, so naive. There are other ways to make sure you don't tell any secrets, you know."

***

"And now, the Today programme on Vancouver Island Channel Eleven, with Christian Jonesford and Geoff Welles."

Intro music plays and the camera pans in on the news anchor.

"Welcome to today's news programme. In the news today, Matthew Taylor is recaptured. The terrorist had killed a truck driver and was intending to drive the truck, filled with explosives, into Border City Mall. Details are still emerging of a string of other atrocities by the young terrorist, but first we go live to the Sacramentum medical facility where penal medics are about to enact his earlier sentence, under Article 50 of the new constitution and that was recently confirmed as legally binding by the Supreme Court."

A camera cuts to a view of a conscious and terrified boy strapped down with his legs wide as a surgeon approaches with a knife.

"Under article 50 of the new constitution, Matthew Taylor is to be castrated, nullified and, in line with Fremont practice he will also be processed as a livestock slave. His ear drums will be punctured, his vocal chords will be surgically modified so that he cannot speak, and he will be branded.

"We remind our more squeamish viewers that this is a mercy developed by the state of Fremont for an incorrigibly dangerous boy who would otherwise merit a death sentence. The mercy is far greater than he accorded to his many victims.

"Now, as we see, the surgeon is about to make the first incision…"

***

Farad leaned forward and turned the sound up on the television. The screams from the boy had been partially muted to allow the voice over, but were still clearly audible as he thrashed and tugged at his restraints, clearly in a great deal of agony, and distress.

He had come in looking frightened but also angry. Now the anger was being stripped from him, leaving only the terror.

Farad put his hand down the front of his pants and started to rub himself. Oh yes, this was what he had been waiting for. It was months overdue but he still could remember the feeling of Matthew's virgin butt, so very tight as he had penetrated it. He still remembered Matthew's screams and cries for mercy, even more shrill now than they had been then.

"No, No, NOOOO… please, please, stop, please don't… Oh God, pleeeeease!" he was screaming as they pulled a testicle from his scrotum, and cut the clamped cord which sprang back where it had come from.

Matthew's eyes were a picture that told the story perfectly for Farad. That perfect look of terrified horror, now replaced with the screwed up face of a boy in absolute and perfect agony.

No, Farad corrected himself, as the second testicle was cut away to the accompaniment of a terrified squeal, and then the sobbbing of defeat and loss. Not a boy in perfect agony. A boy no longer. Matthew Taylor was now just another eunuch, and soon he would be livestock.

Farad kept rubbing himself and it did not take long for him to cum. He closed his eyes in ecstasy at the thought of what he had created. How long had he looked at pictures of Matthew the model boy and imagined this perfect moment when his balls would be cut from him. As Matthew screamed and howled in desperation and then an agony of despair as the knife plunged again into the root of his penis, Farad reached orgasm, shooting his load to the music of Matthew's misery.

***

All the boys in the school had gathered around the TV set to watch Matthew's punishment. The general feeling was that he had never been one of them. Matthew was an imposter, a terrorist who had been a danger to the school and had nearly caused untold deaths of innocent people. He deserved what he had coming to him, but still the teachers would not have approved if they had known the boys had sneaked into the common room after hours to watch this. They had televised it after 9.00 just so that small children would not be watching, but the boys did not think they were small children anymore. After all, if Matthew was old enough to be a terrorist, they were old enough to watch TV.

Robbie watched too, although he did not share the general assessment of Matthew. He heard the build up where they described his crimes. He had badly injured a guard breaking out of Sacramentum, they said. He had become a thief and fallen in with drug dealers. There were suspicions he had committed several armed robberies and maybe was even the shooter who killed a security guard in one. And then he had fallen in with the terrorists and been caught trying to bomb a shopping mall with a truck full of explosives.

Robbie heard it all but he could not believe it. Everyone else believed it, but he never would. Matthew would never do those things. Never.

He forced himself to watch as they prepped his friend for surgery, and watched in horror as he realised they would operate on him without putting him to sleep first.

He forced himself to watch as they began to cut away his friend's manhood. He heard the jeers and cheers of the other boys watching, and he heard Matthew's screams as the voice over explained everything that would happen next.

At last he could watch no more, and he ran from the room, his eyes blurry with the tears that ran down his face. He found the dormitory, lay down and cried.

It was a long time before he could sleep, and then his dreams were haunted with the recollection of Matthew's terrified and desperate screams. He would never, in all his life, forget the way that Matthew had been reduced to begging for mercy, and howling in despair as he had been emasculated, his back arched as the surgeon had released the pressure he had used to hold the boy down, once his severed penis was free and held up for the camera to see.

***

Matthew

Matthew lay awake, staring at the ceiling for a long time. He could not work out where he was, what he was looking at. Come to think of it, he could not recall his name. All he knew was that there was a crack in the ceiling tile above him, and his crotch was sore.

Eventually he summoned the strength to explore his crotch, but it was all bound up in padding, like he was wearing some kind of diaper. A diaper. He knew he should feel embarrassed about that.

There was something else too. He knew there was something wrong. Something happened. What was it?

He could hear the muffled beeping of equipment, like he was underwater. He tried to turn his head to see, but it was like the muscles were asleep or like his head was made of something very heavy. He tried again, and now his neck responded a little, and he saw a bank of equipment. Medical equipment. He was in hospital. Yes of course, he was in hospital. Had he had an accident?

Why did his crotch hurt so much? And his skin was sore too, all over. Why was he so sore?

He lifted his arm. Where he was sore there were streaks of black on raised skin.

That was not right. That was so not right.

What was his name again?

He concentrated hard. It was almost there. He had almost had it. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When he next woke up, he did not know how long he had slept but he was still in the same room. His crotch was still very sore. He opened his mouth to call out, but no words came out.

His throat was sore too. He wanted a drink. Where was everyone?

Where was Ignacio?

A face jumped into his memory. Ignacio. He saw Ignacio, and then…

Suddenly with a rush all the memories flooded back into his mind as the sluice gates of memory were released.

Matthew remembered. He remembered everything. He remembered his name, and Ignacio, and the time on the road, and the tender moment. He remembered his capture, and the surgery.

He remembered the moment that a man had held down his head as he screamed in desperation, and a metal probe had been pushed into his ear. He had remembered the terrible feeling of the metal biting deep into his ear canal and the sudden terrible sharp pain, and the loud bang, like a gunshot right in his head, and the terrible ringing sound. He remembered the probe pushed into the other ear, and the moment when the second bang had gone off and his hearing had permanently been destroyed, his eardrums shredded and cauterised.

He remembered the probe pushed down his throat, making him want to gag, making him desperate that he could not breathe. He remembered the sharp pain as his vocal chords had been cut or injected with serum or whatever, putting them beyond use for the making of sounds.

And of course he remembered the scalpel that had cut away his scrotum, and then his balls one at a time. He remembered how his cock had been cut away too, and then held up to a TV camera like some bizarre trophy.

He remembered how he had been turned onto his front and then a red hot brand had been pushed into his butt. He remembered the smell of his burning skin and the excruciating pain of it and the surgeries too.

He did not remember how it all finished. He supposed he had passed out at some point after the branding. He did not remember the tattoo guns needling his flesh, but he knew now that they had been hard at work. He could not see all his new marks but his skin was sore all over.

Matthew lay still, and silent tears ran down his face.

He remembered one thing more. He remembered Little Robbie, and a time in the park where they had shared something wonderful. He remembered how it had felt, how special it had been to achieve orgasm with his friend. How it had felt skin on skin. He remembered tender moments with Ignacio too, but nothing had been as special as that moment with Robbie. He remembered how it felt as his cock had throbbed and pulsed and he had known a moment of perfect happiness.

Matthew remembered it all, and knew that it would never happen again. Je remembered the powerful feeling of shooting his first cum, but now he knew he could never feel that ever again.

That was the will of the people, he had been told. The will of the people. The will of the people had taken away his rights, his happiness, his future. All gone.

The will of the people was that he should be punished, and so his future – all his hopes and dreams – had been robbed from him.

Matthew closed his eyes and sobbed.

Chapter 32
Seemann

This chapter of Juvenile Injustice is not really a story chapter. Rather it is a small tribute to Matthew, and it gives him a theme song. There is a song, originally by Rammstein, but it was covered by Apocalyptica, a version I prefer (despite the weird facial expressions in the video!). The title is Seemann. This song speaks of the sense of being all at sea, and the dark and bad weather are closing in. This is an allegory for despair in life, light is fading, time seems to stand still, and tears are running down your face.

Seemann lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Publishing Group
Translation Muzikum, Submitted by walter

Chapter 33
Crossing

Ashton, Jack and Joel

The bus pulled up at the border a couple of hours after it had set off from Salt Lake City. The border here was not up to much, as this was basically a road through the desert, but there was still a parking lot and a small duty free mall, some restrooms and a customs hall.

"Sorry folks," the driver said. "Security is tight at the moment so you all have to get off here and clear customs. I will pick you up in the parking lot on the Oregon side of the the border. We leave in an hour so you just have time to pick up some duty free."

He then repeated that in Spanish and people began to file off the bus and walk towards the duty free mall or a few walked quickly to the customs hall to get to the head of the line.

They had been expecting this of course, and the boys walked down the length of the bus, Jack behind Ashton and Uncle Ben, and leading Joel out into the sun and desert heat.

Joel was sweating but also shivering despite the heat. Jack knew the signs well enough now, and cursed Ashton again for not trying to detox the eunuch before they travelled. There had been time. They had waited another two weeks before travelling. Two weeks in which Jack's tats had finally vanished, and in which they had used most of the remaining pills that Ashton had acquired to keep Joel high and quiet. They had given him half a pill this morning, long enough ago that he was more or less with it by the time they had boarded the bus. He had seemed like just another obedient slave boy, although being a slave, they had made him sit at the back.

Now, however, they were about to cross the border and the boy was beginning to show the all to familiar effects of withdrawal.

It was scary enough crossing the border with fake papers. It was downright terrifying to be doing it with a strung out slave.

"Ashton," he said, as they walked across the parking lot.

"Yes, I know," Ashton snapped back. He turned to look at Joel.

"I'll take him into the restrooms, give him some more stuff. Just enough to calm him down.

We will wait in there until he settles down and acting kinda normal, then we will go on through."

"You want me to do that?" Jack asked.

"Fuck, no. I am in charge of the pills," Ashton replied. Jack had not expected any different. Ashton had kept that bag with him at all times, a closely guarded hoard. He had the pills hidden somewhere now on his person, and Jack did not like to think about where. There were only a couple of places you could hide pills from inspection as you walk across a border checkpoint.

Heck, Jack could only think of one place, and he didn't want to be fishing them out from there. "You know if they have sniffer dogs or something, you are done for."

"They don't. You cannot get enough drugs through the pedestrian route for them to care."

"Still, we are all stuffed if you are wrong."

"No, because you and Uncle Ben are going to cross first. You go while we are in the restrooms, and when we come out I cat lost and helpless and that way we get fast-tracked through coz they know my dad, Ben, already went through and he tells them he thought I had gone ahead. Okay?"

Jack shrugged. It sounded more dangerous for Ashton and Joel, but that was better for him. He would cross the border with just Ben, one man, one boy, not two boys and a eunuch that might match the description of prison escapees. For once Ashton had suggested something that actually kind of worked better for him.

Jack

They lined up in the customs hall and Jack watched Ashton take Joel into the restrooms. The line moved pretty quickly, people chatting amiably to each other. Ben pretty much ignored Jack, but Jack supposed he was just nervous. When it came to them the border guard checked Ben's documents, and waved him through a metal detector. Jack handed over his passport and went next.

The detector went off.

Jack froze. He was sure he was not carrying any metal, other than the buckle of his jeans, and they had said that would be fine. A border guard stepped closer.

"Nothing to worry about, son," he said as he waved a wand over Jack, looking for metal. "These things go off all the time, I am sure its nothing."

The wand beeped as it moved behind him, close to his neck. The guard looked at a screen and frowned. He looked at Jack curiously, and then back at his screen again.

"Could you step this way please?" he asked.

Jack looked at a side room he was being directed to. He looked around, ready to run, but there was another guard nearby, looking at him, his face formed into a frown. Jack felt his heart lurch. He looked at Ben.

"Sir, if you could wait for your son over here please," a third guard said.

"Oh no, he is not my son," Ben said with a shrug of his shoulders. "He is just a boy travelling alone, happened to be sitting near me on the bus."

The guard frowned again, and looked at Ben.

"Could I see your passport again?" he asked, and as Jack watched, Ben handed over his passport – the same one he had just shown minutes before, but now something was obvious that Jack had missed just now. Ben's passport was not for the State of California. He was travelling on a Mexican passport.

"And you never saw this boy before today you say?" the guard asked.

Ben nodded. "He said he was up from California and heading home," Ben confirmed.

"Liar!" Jack said, and Ben looked at him. There was a glint of something in his eye, but his expression just looked confused, pitying.

"Is he in some kind of trouble?" Ben asked.

Jack knew the moment to run was gone, if it had ever been there. A hand closed on his shoulder and he was directed to the room.

"Now, I am sorry, but I have to ask you to take your clothes off," the guard said.

Jack tried to play innocent and dumb.

"What?" he asked. "I don't want to get naked."

"Don't worry," the guard said. We will turn the lights down low and no one outside can see in.

Jack frowned, but at least the tats were gone. There was nothing for them to see there. He pulled off his shirt and then dropped his pants.

"I am sorry, but the underpants too please," the guard said.

Jack frowned, tried to protest some more, but the guard just waited patiently until he finally gave in and dropped his underpants. Now he was stood in the room, his back to the guard, completely naked. Something was wrong, but there were no tats. He told himself that without the tats, they could not know anything, could not prove anything.

And then the guard switched on the blacklight, and Jack nearly peed himself when he saw what the guard saw.

"Blacklight tattoos," the guard said, "don't come off with laser treatment because the ink does not absorb the laser light. You maybe did not even know they were there if the tattooist immediately covered them up with some black ink not so deep in the skin.

Jack looked at his glowing chest, and was aware of his glowing thigh and butt too. "Looks like we have a package to return to Sacramentum Juvenile Penitentiary."

Chapter 34
Twice Crossed

Ashton and Joel

Ashton looked at the eunuch with contempt. He was squatting in a corner now, a look of contentment on his face, drool running down his chin, a pitiful waste of space. If it were up to him, he would just leave Joel here and walk out of here. He had his passport, so why bother with the excess sub human cargo?

The resistance wanted him though, and that was important. The plan was the plan, and he had to execute it just right. He regretted the need for it, but he would just have to take his junkie bitch boy along with him.

Ashton pulled out the Californian passport and slave papers from his pocket, and while Joel lay placidly on the floor, he carefully tore out the identifying pages and dropped them in the toilet, and then flushed them away. He pushed the covers of the passport under the lid of the cistern.

Once done, he reached into his pack and pulled out two more documents. A Mexican passport and slave papers. He flicked through them one last time, and nodded in satisfaction.

"Come on slave, time's up," he said and pulled Joel to his feet.

The pathetic whore boy staggered and then stood unsteadily. Ashton slapped his face a few times.

"Act alive, damn you. Follow me, don't say a word, and whatever you do, don't puke."

Ashton led Joel out to passport control. The line was shorter now, everyone from their bus having long passed through. Ashton showed his passport to the border guard.

"Travelling alone eh?" the guard asked.

"Oh no, sir, I am with my dad over there," Ashton said, pointing towards Ben who was waiting nearby.

"Ah yes, Aaron, your dad was telling me all about you and your boy. Training him up as a ponyboy right? Off to a training ranch near Portland?"

"That's right, sir," Ashton said politely, looking at Joel who seemed spaced out, but also like he could not understand what was being said, which would be right for a livestock slave. The guard seemed unconcerned, although he did have one more question, which he asked in Spanish.

"There was another boy travelling with you, is that right?"

"No sir," Ashton said, spotting the trap, and answering fluently in the same language. "No, it's just us, but there was some gringo boy from California who was chatting to us on the way. He was kind of weird though, especially his accent."

"Go on through then," the guard said, and Ashton led Joel through the security scanner.

The scanner did not make any noise, and the guard frowned, still staring at the boys.

"There was an incident with that boy," the guard said, "I hope you don't mind, but we just need to do a final check," he said and reached for the security wand.

"Yes sir," Ashton said as the man waved the wand over them, pausing especially close to Ashton's neck. Ben came closer.

"Is there a problem, officer?" he asked.

The border guard checked very carefully as he moved the wand around, but it did not make any sound, and the readout was clear. He looked at the boys for a moment and then turned to Ben.

"No sir, no problem here. Have a nice day."

Ashton took a step forward but then the guard put a hand on his shoulder, pointed at Joel's thigh.

"I wonder if you could tell me what that number is for?" he asked, pointing at Joel's tattoo. "It's my dad's phone number, in case he gets lost," Ashton replied, smoothly.

The guard nodded, and let Ashton go. The boy walked towards Ben, Joel in tow. A moment later a phone rang and Ben reached into his pocket. He looked at the ringing phone and then at the border guard, who smiled, raised a hand, and hung up.

"Just checking," he chuckled and Ben smiled back and put his own phone away.

Ashton, Joel and Ben left the passport hall and climbed back onto the bus. Minutes later they were heading north once again, through the dusty roads of southern Oregon.

***

"I never want to do that ever again," Ashton said, burying his head in his hands. Joel could see that he was shaking, although he was very confused by everything that had just happened. Then again he was pretty confused about a lot of things lately. He had been in the whorehouse so long that Sacramentum was starting to feel like a bad dream… or maybe not such a bad dream, because the whorehouse had been pretty bad too.

After he had taken the first happy pill he had thought things were better. That experience had been pretty special, and the next day of work had not seemed so bad because he knew that Isaiah had more pills. It quickly tuned out, however, that Isaiah had only considered the first pill to be a freebie. After that he had to earn the additional pills, handing over his food, or sucking off the older boy.

By the end of that week he knew he had made a terrible mistake, but it didn't matter any more. He needed the pills, and Isaiah had them. He would do anything to get his nightly fix.

Ashton had been a frequent enough visitor too, and his sessions had been no less violent, no less painful, no less humiliating. Ashton would comment on his appearance too, about how thin and sick he was looking.

"Do you think you could get me some happy pills?" he had asked Ashton once, and Ashton had punched him in the stomach, and then pissed on him, then forced his cock into Joel's mouth, and cum without saying a word, after which he walked out. Joel had taken that as a no.

Isaiah's client kept providing him with pills though, so Joel managed to get his fix, even though he had to pay dearly for it. He did not like to think of some of the most humiliating things Isaiah had made him do. He did not think he would ever forget the taste of shit. It made him puke, but at least he got his pills.

Not too long after that Ashton had come to get him, and things had got a little better. Jack actually seemed to care about him, and he had got food and water, and a chance to shower.

More than that, he understood they were heading north again. They were leaving this god forsaken place, and he was heading to people who had known his parents. That was what they had told him, but where was Jack now? They were across the border and in the bus and Jack was gone.

Joel listened to Ashton talking with the weird man they were travelling with, but a lot of it was over his head. He had missed so much in the time he had been in the whorehouse, and in any case he could not seem to concentrate on very much.

Joel shivered and tried not to think about the pills, but his brain was doing the downer thing again, and he felt morose and scared. He needed the pills to take the feeling away. Why was Ashton giving him so little at a time?

"Your rendez-vous is at Pocatello. You need to get off and walk towards the snake river. Its a few miles, but not too far. I am staying on," the man was saying to Ashton, his words quiet.

"Yep, that's the plan. I am guessing the safe house is at Twin Falls, but they are keeping quiet about it."

"You have everything you need?" Ashton nodded.

"How did you get the slave number to match my phone number?" the man asked.

"I hacked the cell tower exchange routing for the border towers. Took me weeks to get it right, but I cracked it because of the operator hand off – they have to handle Oregon and Mexican carriers here. I sent the update this morning, but the next operator update will blat it out. I am glad there was no carrier update already."

"I have no idea what you just said," the man said, and Ashton gave him a tight smile before looking at Joel.

"Go to sleep, bitch," he said. Joel closed his eyes and without even meaning to, obeyed.

Chapter 35
Resistance

Ashton and Joel

"This is him?" a voice asked, incredulous, and Joel looked blearily at the man in front of him. Ashton nodded, and the man looked closely at him, like he was inspecting a joint of bad meat.

"Is he on drugs?" the man asked, sniffing Joel's breath, touching his hair, pinching back his eyelids and staring into his eyes.

Joel blinked and tried to look away. The light was too bright as it was.

"Yeah, the stupid fucker got some stuff from a whore and has been using."

"And you let him?"

"I am not his fucking keeper," Ashton spat, "I was doing everything I could to get us over the fucking border. I had to steal and get money and find someone to get us passports and do everything I could to get us over the border, and so I left him where I thought he would be safe, only he stole some of my money from me, and then used that to buy drugs. He damn nearly ruined everything."

Joel blinked. That did not sound right. That was not right at all. He opened his mouth to speak, but Ashton glared at him as if daring him to contradict the story. Joel thought about it, but did it matter?

Ashton gave him the happy pills now, so he did not want to upset Ashton. Still one word did slip out, almost by accident. "Jack?"

"Who is Jack?" the man asked.

"No one. Well, I think that was the name of the whore who sold him the drugs," Ashton said and Joel screwed up his face into a pout. No, Jack was nice. Isaiah was the bad one. Not Jack.

Ashton had it wrong.

"Do we know what the drugs are?"

Ashton pulled out a bag of happy pills and showed them to the man. "Not sure, but I think it is Hypo."

The man threw his hands into the air and let out a frustrated shout.

"Fucking hell! Hypo? How the hell did he get hold of Hypo? Of all the fucking drugs to get addicted to…"

Joel frowned. He had heard of Hypo. It was a designer drug, and rumour had it that the supply was totally controlled by the mafia. The formula was a tightly guarded secret, and although it had started off cheap, the price and availability had quickly ramped up as more people started using it. Hypo addicts were crazy. It was one of the most addictive drugs out there and had psychotic effects too.

Were his happy pills Hypo? How would Isaiah have got hold of Hypo? It was surely too expensive for anyone just to hand over to a whore boy. It made no sense.

The man was looking at Joel, aghast. Joel tried to look back but he couldn't. He looked instead at the ground and thought he would quite like another pill now. God, it was cold. Why was it so cold?

"There is another problem," Ashton said, pointing at the drugs he had handed over. "That is all I have left. Two days worth. After that he is going cold turkey."

Joel looked in alarm at Ashton and then at the man holding the drugs. His face creased with anger, and he glared back. Joel cringed, feeling the man's scorn like a physical thing. He dropped his gaze, feeling ashamed, but also very worried. He needed his happy pills. He needed them.

"The plan was we wait here a month until everything is set up. We can't do that with him going through withdrawal. God, Hypo withdrawal is… we need to get him to a hospital for that. People die from it…"

"I know," Ashton shrugged apologetically, although he did not sound apologetic. "That is why I had to string him along to get him here. I hoped… I hoped you would know what to do."

For the first time since Joel had known him, Ashton sounded like a little boy, unsure what to do next. He had lowered his head and looked miserable, scared. At least, anyone who did not know him might think so. Joel knew Ashton pretty well, and so he was not fooled.

"We can't stay here. Not now. Look," the man said in a more conciliatory voice, "get him inside, and take a shower. We will fix you something to eat and then we can see what's what. I'll have to contact some people, but maybe we can step up the agenda a bit."

***

Joel

Joel did not notice when he was loaded into the back of a car the following morning, Ashton sitting up front. He was pretty out of it for much of the early part of the journey, having been given his daily fix. The first part of the journey north was a surreal mixture of powerful hallucinations and contentment, but before the journey was done he was shivering again from cold, despite the desert heat.

"Where are we going?" he asked and Ashton sighed. "If I tell you, are you gonna remember this time?"

"I dunno. Did I already ask that?"

"Only like a thousand times," Ashton replied.

"Oh," Joel said and looked around. He could see through the car windows that they were still in the desert, travelling along a long straight road. The same man he remembered from the safe house was driving, in the front passenger seat was Ashton and beside him sat Jay. Joel blinked and looked again. Jay? But he hadn't been here a minute ago.

As Joel watched, Jay looked at him, grinned his toothless smile and winked. Then he held a finger to his lips. Joel watched him and then looked at Ashton who was looking out of the window. ignoring the smaller boy.

"So where are we going?" Joel asked. Ashton sighed.

"Like I told you the last six million times, we are heading to Kennewick. Gonna get you some help there."

"What help?" Joel asked, confused. Jay shook his head and Joel looked away. "Look, if I tell you, I am telling you once. You forget this and it is tough shit, got it?" Joel nodded.

"Okay, so when I was in Salt Lake City I was able to contact the resistance. We arranged we would get you to a safe house in Oregon and you would stay there for maybe a month while they set a load of stuff up and checked some things out.

"You see, what you told me back in The jail – that was serious shit. That was the most serious shit in the universe. I mean, someone wanted your body to weaponise the oestrovirus! That was like… well it doesn't get much worse than that."

"That's why we broke out," Joel said. "To stop them getting me, right?"

"No, I broke out to stay alive, because some cunt did not keep his mouth shut. Remember?"

Joel nodded. His head was aching and he was feeling a little travel sick. He would probably vomit soon he realised. He did that a lot these days. He swallowed and tried to concentrate on Ashton.

"You can't trust him," Jay whispered, and Joel frowned, looking at the small boy.

"He can hear you, you know," Joel said, and Ashton looked around sharply his eyes seeming to focus on Jay. Jay just shook his head and laughed.

"Only you can hear me, Joel. You are special. That's why they want you. You are special." Joel nodded, and repeated it. "I am special."

"Special kind of stupid, yeah," Ashton said. "Anyway, so when we got to Salt Lake City and I got myself online, I could contact the resistance. Not that you can just look them up and email them. I had to get an introduction first, which is where the church came in. You see, these religious types, they are all against each other, but if you talk to them you can find the ones that don't like the slave laws. There is a little heretical sect there that argue for abolition, and with a bit of work and a bunch of religious TV, I found their name. Then I contacted them, got talking, and eventually I got put on to the resistance. Took a lot of work, but I got there in the end.

"Once I contacted them, they were very interested in your story. It turns out that the resistance themselves have been working on a cure for the oestrovirus. That sounds stupid, I know. I mean, the resistance are just a terrorist group right? But it turns out that there was this famous scientist in Fremont who found out how to make a cure already. That kind of goes with your story right? That they already had a cure but were not telling anyone?

"So this scientist was majorly pissed off because they invented a cure but were not telling anyone. He tried to publish a paper and it was squashed by state secret laws. They wouldn't let him tell anyone, so in the end he sneaked out of Fremont. He couldn't get a permit to just leave so he had to contact the resistance who helped him get all the way out of the states and into the Oregon territory.

"In return for helping him, the resistance wanted him to make the cure. He was happy to do it, because the resistance want to make the cure available when its done. The problem is, he knew how to make the cure but he still needed someone who was the child of a mother who had survived the oestrovirus. Apparently that is the key – the cure is already in you, it just needs unlocking."

"See I told you that you were special," Jay said. Joel nodded and smiled at the smaller boy. He swallowed again. He did not feel so good. He could do with another pill.

"Can I have a happy pill?" he asked.

"No, because I gave you the last one earlier," Ashton said.

"He is lying," Jay said.

"You are lying," Joel retorted.

"No, that's how you messed everything up. You see, this scientist is supposed to be setting up a lab that he can use. It's not something he could just do overnight, especially if you are doing it in secret. The resistance had to divert nearly all its money and resources into it and they were putting it all together ready for you… ready in about a month. You were supposed to stay in a safe house until then. They would have sorted you out with papers and all sorts. But you went and ruined the whole thing by getting yourself addicted to Hypo. And now… now we have none left, and so we have to take you to the lab early because its the only place they can look after you."

"Look after me?"

"Coming off Hypo is dangerous. You need some other drugs, and probably a crash team. You have no idea how dangerous it is to come off Hypo."

"I don't want to come off. I just need some more pills," Joel whined.

"I don't have any."

"Liar," Jay said.

"Liar!" Joel repeated.

Ashton shrugged and turned away. Joel watched him for a while. "He is a dick," Jay said.

"I know. I hate him. He hurt me a lot," Joel replied.

"Who are you talking to?" Ashton asked.

"Don't tell him," Jay said.

"No one."

Ashton looked at him again and frowned. Joel tried to stare back… but just then his stomach lurched and without any further warning he vomited all over the car floor.

"Holy shit," the driver of the car shouted angrily. "Not again!"

Chapter 36
The Lab

Joel

The arrival at Kennewick was a confused jumble of images to Joel. The van stopped and he was carried inside a big whitewashed warehouse. Then he vaguely remembered a shower, and was there food? He could not remember eating any but he thought there may have been. There were lots of faces, one of them was even a woman who had smiled at him. There was a bed, and a room full of equipment, and darkness, and then he had vomited again and pissed himself. More showers and he was cold. So very cold. Through it all, Jay was there. Jay watched, and whispered to him, and then laughed at him too. He was starting to think Jay was not so nice either, and in the darkness Jay's eyes had glowed deep red.

Later still and it was light, and people were there. He met someone – a bearded man with a smile who ruffled his hair and asked him some questions. Joel could not remember what he answered. Then the man went away, but Joel did not much care. All he knew was that he needed a happy pill badly and these people were not giving him one. He shouted and swore at them, promised to have sex with them, begged them and cried like a baby, but there were no pills.

This was hell. Jay confirmed it. Jay told him he was not special after all.

"You are a dick, a stupid worthless cunt," Jay would say, and more and more he sounded like Ashton – so much so that Joel had to check that it was Jay after all. He shouted at the small boy to go away and leave him alone. Then he shouted for someone, anyone bring him some happy pills.

He was still shouting when there was a bang and the room filled with smoke. There was a shout, and Joel sat up, staring at the resistance man who had brought him hear and had been watching over him. The man stood, but there was a loud bang and blood fountained across the room as a man dressed in uniform rushed in, and then pointed his weapon at Joel.

Joel started to choke on smoked billowing into the room. He scrabbled his way into a corner, and covered his ears as more men stormed into the room, carrying guns, shouting, yelling at him to get down. There were cracks, bangs of gun shots, screams and more shouting. Someone grabbed him by his ear, forced him on his front, and then cuffs were fastened to his wrists.

The noise went on a little longer, and then the men returned for him and dragged him outside, threw him face down in the parking lot. He saw other people trussed up, kneeling with hands bound or lying face down. He saw the bearded man who had visited him earlier lying on his back, eyes wide and staring, crimson circles peppering his chest.

People were sobbing, shouting, screaming.

He saw Ashton watching, and then more people poured out, dragging dead bodies. Jay squatted beside him, telling him he was stupid, a failure, a moron. No one else paid any attention to Jay. No one else seemed even to notice him. Him and Ashton too.

Where was Ashton now? Joel looked around and saw him sitting on a wall, eating an ice cream from a cone and watching curiously.

"Ashton?" he called, and someone kicked him in the head. Joel thought nothing more for a long while after that.

***

"Mission accomplished," Ashton said into a phone held to his left ear as he licked the ice cream off the fingers of his right hand.

"So I hear. Good work Ashton," the warden of Sacramentum Penitentiary said into a phone from half way across the continent. "As agreed, your records have been expunged. You were never a prisoner here."

Ashton smiled, sucking his fingers again.

"I heard that the Redemption State terrorists had found Matthew, were going to try to get him into the territories," Ashton said.

"Yes, we know. It is not a problem. It is all taken care of."

"They took the rapist alive."

"He is not a problem," the governor said. "Thanks to you that is. So this is goodbye, Ashton. Don't let me ever hear from you again."

"Or what?" Ashton asked.

"You don't want to push it. Just stay out of Fremont, okay?"

"Yeah," Ashton said. "I intend to. Just a pity I can't have my mates out too."

"The deal was just for you."

"Of course," Ashton said, and hung up the call, grinning broadly.

The anti terrorist squad were mopping up now. Ashton watched as Joel, stripped of his clothes once more, was loaded onto a prisoner transport. Well he had not kept this freedom for long, he mused. Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away, whistling.

***

BREAKING NEWS

Breaking news as police and special forces confirm a major operation today closed down a terrorist drugs operation in Kennewick. Multiple arrests were made, and rogue scientist turned drugs lord, Martin Miller, is confirmed dead. In a statement the Minister for Internal Security stated that this operation has decapitated the terrorist organisation known as the Freedom and Democracy Army. Coming up, we interview security experts to discuss the end of the terrorist threat.

Epilogue

Joel

"Useless prick," the warden said as Joel was fitted up for his new collar. "Kick him downstairs with the others. Keep him alive though. We need him alive."

Joel was led down into a dark service corridor, a heavy door clanging shut behind him.

"Say good-bye to the sun, boy. No one who goes down here ever comes up again," the guard laughed and pushed him into a foul smelling corridor lined with cages. "Say hello to your new home – the basement."

The guard shoved him into a dirty cell that stank of pee and shit, lined with nothing but a hole in the floor. The door clanged shut, and Joel was left alone in the dark.

Alone except for Jay, the demon boy.

"Cunt! stupid useless bitch boy. Loser!" Jay said, over and over.

Joel curled up in a ball and rocked back and forward, tears running freely down his cheeks.

Jack

"Welcome back," the warden said to Jack as he entered Sacramentum prison once more. "Let's get you x-rayed and fitted up for a new collar, shall we?"

Jack seethed as he went through the processing all over again. After all he had been through, here he was, entering Sacramentum prison once more. It had all been for nothing.

The heavy collar was fitted, and a guard punched some code into a hand held device to activate it. There was a click and whir.

"Now you know the score with the collar," the warden said. "It is keyed to your chip, so don't try to remove it. Don't go out of bounds unless you like strangulation."

"My chip was removed," Jack said.

"Seems fine to me," the Warden said. "Look, you can see it on your X-Ray. Just one chip, exactly where it should be, and it is still transmitting your slave number correctly."

Jack looked at the screen and felt his anger grow deeper. He had been pretty sure Ashton had double crossed him somehow. Had they known about the UV tattoo? Jack remembered the moment that Ben had stopped, surprised and adjusted his equipment. What about the surgery then? Ben had pulled something out of his neck, but then what was that chip in there? And then there had been that moment on the border when it turned out that Ben was travelling on a Mexican passport and had disowned him. Jack had thought that was just quick thinking at the time, had not blamed him, but now…? now he suspected that the whole thing had been a set up.

But what had been the point? Why break him out of jail and go to all the trouble of getting his tattoos removed, just to get him sent right back inside? What was Jack's game? Did he do all that just so that Jack could steal him a bit of money? It did not make sense.

The warden was still talking, and Jack looked up from the image of the X-ray.

"You have been retried in your absence of course. No need for you to attend, as it was a formality only. You had quite a list of new crimes to consider. Escaping a legal jail term, damage of government property, illegal removal of a penal tattoo, multiple counts of theft, travelling on false papers, illegal entry to a foreign state, handling class one controlled substances.

"I probably don't need to tell you that the court found you guilty on all charges. Your sentence has been increased to a full life tariff. Your name has been deleted from the register of human births, your human records have been expunged. You will serve a two year sentence here in Sacramentum and thereafter be sold as a slave.

"Now hold still while we fit your cock cage. I hope you enjoyed any chance you got to jack off, because there is a pretty good chance you will never do it ever again in your life. Definitely not for the next two years at least."

Jack frowned and looked at the governor. He thought he should keep his mouth shut, but if he did he would not know the answer to the most important question he had now. What was th epoint of caution, anyway, in the face of this shitty future?

"What about the oestrovirus thing? Aren't you going to just kill us anyway?"

Stupid, he thought. Stupid to say that out loud. He was starting to berate himself when the warden threw back his head and laughed.

"Oh Jack, lad, how naive you are. You believe that tale?"

Jack frowned. He thought about it, then shrugged, and finally nodded. "Yes, I think I do."

"So some junkie boy, a whore, a rapist, a eunuch who is off his head and no doubt suffering all kinds of paranoid delusions, tells you that he is visited by none other than the former president and current foreign minister for a foreign country thousands of miles away. He tells you that this famous and very important person told him about this terrible conspiracy to weaponise the oestrovirus, and that to make it work, only the very same junkie boy's body would be good enough. He told you this fantastic story and you just believed it?"

"He wasn't on drugs before we broke out."

"That is not what our records say. We show him as being an addict on arrival, and he was undergoing treatments for it."

"That's a lie," Jack said, angrily.

"If it were, Jack," the warden said with a nasty smile on his face, "who would believe it, eh? Think about it. Who would ever believe scum like you and him?"

And with that the warden left and Jack was taken into the prison, past the jeering crowds of other boys, to begin his new and extended sentence.

***

"I thought we would be seeing you again," a voice said from behind Jack as he stood in line at the prison canteen. He turned and saw the familiar face of Ninja. He was grinning broadly.

"Couldn't stay away from the great food," Jack said with a shrug, turning away, but a moment later Ninja was out of line and standing beside him.

"Don't turn your back on me, noob."

"I am not no noob," Jack snapped back.

"You will always be a fucking noob," Ninja retorted. He pushed his face closer and spoke quietly, close to Jack's ear. "You got something we want."

Jack frowned and shook his head.

"I got nothing. They took all my stuff away when I got arrested."

"Told you that you are a noob. Get to the toilets after you are done here."

"You are not fucking me!" Jack shot back, his face set dangerously. "You try it, and I will kill you."

"You forgot the last time you tried, noob?" Ninja glared at him, and Jack glowered back. The stand off lasted several seconds, but no more, before Ninja smiled, poked a finger into Jack's navel and then ruffled his hair.

"Don't worry. We are not gonna fuck you. Not this time. Maybe not ever if you come through for us."

Jack was not convinced but he collected his food, ate it quickly in a corner, and when he was done, he got up to go, with little intention of going to meet Ninja. It did not matter though because As soon as he stood up, the other of Ashton's former henchmen, Christian, stood up too, and casually fell in step with him. Jack looked up at the taller boy and sighed, allowing himself to be led to the toilets where Cumdump had earned his name.

Once there, Ninja and Christian quickly forced him into a cubical. Jack started to struggle.

"Fuck it, I told you that is not going to happen," he spat.

"And I told you that is not what we want," Ninja replied. "Now hold still," he said, and pulled something out from under the cistern lid. He unwrapped a plastic bag and pulled out a hand scanner like the one that a guard had recently used to check his chip.

"What is that?" Jack asked. "What does it fucking look like? Knitting needles?"

Ninja held the scanner close to the back of Jack's neck and pressed a button. There was a long beep, and then a smile spread across Ninja's face.

"Ashton, you fucking genius," he said, and held up the scanner for Christian to see. Christian smiled too and made an approving noise.

"Okay noob, we are done," he said.

"Done? done with what?"

"You can go. Go back to being a noob. Stay out of our way. Don't ask questions."

"Or what?"

"Is that a question?"

Jack pushed his way past the boys and out of the cubicle, before turning back and looking at them.

"If I tell the guards to scan my chip, won't they find what you just found?"

"Try it and see," Ninja grinned.

"But if I tell them you did that…"

"You end up dead. Now fuck off before we just do it now. We don't need you now."

***

Flashback: Ashton

Ashton sat in the hotel room on his own. Jack was out again, so he pulled the dismantled collar from his backpack, the one he had removed on the plain flight. He attached the receiver system to his computer that he had been building. The parts had not come cheep but he had his income from Jack to pay for it. He was a pretty good thief it turned out.

Once set up, Ashton fired up the application he had been working on, and was gratified when the collar connected up. Now he started working on the firmware again. Yes, the firmware upgrade system would provide exactly the attack vector he needed. He was almost ready. The hard part was paring back his code so that it would all fit in the 16 kilobytes of memory available in the RFID chips.

He had solved that problem though. All he needed to do was to have his rootkit available on the web somewhere ready for download. He had been prodding and poking at the Sacramentum system, and although it was locked down pretty tight, he had made an interesting discovery. There were signs that someone else had broken into the Fremont prisons systems in the past. Not many signs. They had covered their traces pretty well, deleting all their code, closing all their backdoors, and the security from the Fremont side had clearly gone up too, but there was a flaw: the hacker, whoever it had been, had caused prison systems to access data from outside, and Ashton had found the telltale traces in the log files, along with IP addresses, port numbers and query strings.

Everything he needed to do the same.

Now he was ready. He could not break in from outside, but he knew exactly how to get the collars to download their new firmware from within the system. All it took was some DNS cache poisoning and the collars would simply ask the wrong server for the firmware. He already had the security certificate to sign the code.

A couple more hours of work saw him perfect his code, and now all that remained was to download it into the chip he had just had extracted from his own neck. Ashton placed the chip close to the near field device and initiated a write.

The same day he had stolen the Sacramentum public key, Ashton had helped himself to an RFID reader. The readers were smart devices, so they could be coded to send a specific request that would initiate the read of the hidden data in this chip. He had already done that before he began his escape attempt. Ashton's code would trick the reader into sending DNS messages to the DNS server in the prison. The prison systems were well secured from the outside, but kind of trusting of their internal systems and devices. As soon as the data was read, the collars would start to query a server that they thought was internal but would actually be external. The collars would find the compromised firmware and download it. Within 48 hours, every collar would have uploaded the new version, and then the rest of his program in the reader could be used to gain full and unrestricted access to their program interface. That was pretty easy as there was already code in the readers to do that – all he had done was defeat the security protocol that prevented unauthorised use of the interface.

That was why he needed Jack. More than his ability as a thief, Ashton needed someone he could send back into prison with the code in place. Someone who would ensure the collars were compromised before the last stage of his plan was executed.

When Jack had got back later, it was time to tell him about the surgery to have his chip removed. Ashton recoded his own old chip with Jack's prisoner number, and then picked it up and looked at it. Yes, Jack would have his old chip removed and this improved one would take its place, complete with its very special payload.

He would pretend that Ben was with the resistance of course. Fact was that Ben was just part of the same organised crime network that he had always been a part of. People called them the mafia, although that was not really who they were. Mafia were regional – Sicilian. Ashton and Ben worked for a family business, like the mafia, but their boss was not Italian, he was English. Richard Desmond by name.

It was better that Jack thought Ben was with the resistance though. He would not suspect anything then. Not until it was too late.

Ashton grinned. The great thing was that once the chip was done, he could carry on hacking and modifying the downloadable firmware until they made their move. Plenty of time to make a few more improvements.

As it happened there was one last update that he would add the day after Jack attacked him.

***

Present: Ashton

BREAKING NEWS

Breaking news: We are getting reports of a large scale prisoner escape at Sacramentum State Penitentiary. It appears that a major system failure allowed all the inmates to simply walk free. Only one collar activated the emergency protocol, disabling its wearer, and that was on a recently returned former escapee.

Owing to the prison's remote location, most of the inmates have been located and rounded up. However two remain at large, and we are advised that they are both considered dangerous, and should not be approached.

As this is the second escape from the notorious Sacramentum prison in a year, and as there have never been any successful escapes in the past, the warden of the prison is expected to tender his resignation shortly. A statement from Fremont Department of Corrections states that the department is eager to crack down on the loose and liberal regime that has led to this turn of events, and will impose a stricter regime shortly.

***

Ashton turned off the TV and smiled.

The End