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FREEDOM: Class Warfare
Part One
The Beginning of the End
By Razor7826 (Copyright 2008)
Thoughts? Encouragement? Email me at Razor7826@hotmail.com. I’m always interested in hearing from my readers.
This story in no way reflects the views of the author. It is intended for the eyes of legal adults only.
“There is no such thing as a free society unless consenting adults have the right to manage their own lives, even towards actions widely agreed upon to have long-term, negative consequences. The thirteenth amendment to the constitution forbids involuntary servitude, but it places no limit on a person’s ability to consent. If they chose to make a legal agreement with lifelong implications, it is their right as a human being to make that decision for themselves.”
-Supreme Court Justice Eugenia Wight, Majority Decision for Fitzgerald v. Oregon.
“Please, don’t do this. You have no idea what you are exposing yourselves to by signing that contract!”
“Do you really need to proselytize? Now, of all times, Father Wilson? They’re adults now. They have every right to make legal agreements that they feel are beneficial to them.”
John Wilson, the principal of Seven Saints High School, slammed his fist into the conference room table. “You’re a sick bastard, Peter. You want to see horrible things happen to your students.”
He chucked. “No, John. I want to see terrible things happen to your students. Mine will win. They always do.”
“This is preposterous!”
“This has happened countless times before, John. The rules have been developed and refined for the fairest game imaginable.”
“Is that what it is to you? A game?”
“That’s what it is to everybody. Don’t you watch the news anymore?”
Father Wilson turned to the girl beside him. “Judy…”
The redhead stared straight across the table at her rival. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. “Sorry, Mr. Wilson, but there are some things that need to be done.”
His voice waivered erratically as yelled at his prized student. “You can’t throw away everything!”
Judy Goodheart looked away from her teacher and closed her eyes. “There’s just so much to gain. I can’t pass this opportunity.” She turned to the arbiter that sat at the edge of the long conference table. “Give me the pen.” She took it from the middle-aged woman’s hand, found the appropriate X on fourteen page document, and signed here name:
Judith Olivia Goodheart
“There. Now it’s your turn, Elizabeth,” she said as she threw a winning smirk across the table at her lifelong rival.
“Thank you, Judy. At last we can prove how inferior you are.” The pompous and arrogant heiress took the pen from Judy’s hand and signed her name opposite her rival’s:
Elizabeth Montgomery Monseto
Elizabeth placed the pen neatly on the table and slid the contract back towards the arbiter.
“Thank you, girls. I’ll have to transcribe a copy by hand and present it to each of your teams personally. You have until then to make your case for the game.”
“It isn’t a game!” yelled Wilson, rising to his feet and leaning towards the government agent, his face red with rage.
Principal Peter chuckled under his breath. “How is it not a game? It has teams, rules, and goals. The only thing that makes it seem any different is the stakes.”
Judy ignored Peter’s words and rose from the table. “Come, Father Wilson, I’ll need your help convincing them to join my side.” Together, they exited the conference room, the teacher following a few steps behind his student.
“What have you done, Judy?”
“I did what was necessary.”
Wilson placed his forehead to his palm. “I… I’ve failed you Judy. I thought I was a good teacher, but anybody that is willing to bet their freedom for some money is a failure of a student.”
Judy brushed aside his concern and continued, “Are you going to help convince them to join my cause, or not?”
“I would never encourage a human being to gamble their humanity.”
“Fine. But I hope you will be happy with the consequences.”
The fifty-one year-old priest held back his tears and followed his prized student, struggling to say anything that could make a difference. However, words failed him. The deed was done, and the lives of his students had already slipped far beyond his control.
The senior class of Seven Saints High School gathered in the gymnasium of their rival school, situated just a mile away from their own small campus. Two of her friends ran up and asked how the meeting went.
“The rules have been finalized. Elizabeth and I are the first signees. Now, the question is, how many of you will join us in this war?”
“How can you think this is a good idea?” yelled one of the boys from the back of the crowd. “I hold no interest in owning slaves!”
Another voice from the corner yelled out, “And rape? Are you serious? Those students might be insane, but we’re good people! The entire law is an abomination.”
One of the smaller girls in the front of the crowd chimed in, “And what of us? What makes you think we’d be willing to sign up when we know what is coming afterwards?”
Another voice, this time from one of her closest friends—Julia Wurtle. “This isn’t like you, Judy. You’re a good person; why would you be interested in owning slaves?”
“I’m not, which is why I intend on selling them. Their families— every single one of them-- are rich. Can you imagine the price they’d pay to spare their daughters a life of slavery? We can charge anything we want for the captured girls. Most of us are at this school because we’re poor. We have no hope of an easy life, or even attending college, but if we win this simple game we will have the resources to pull ourselves and our families from the gutter.
“I’m not going to downplay the risk here, but how long do you think we can live in our current states? The world is dying around us, and now that we’re adults we finally have the tools necessary to fix our lives. Everything is getting worse, but this can solve all of our problems.”
Rachel Gritz pushed her way to the front of the crowd. “You’re losing it, Judy. We’re not a bunch of stupid gang bangers that will risk our lives fighting little wars for piddling rewards.”
“This feud has gone on long enough. They treat us like dirt every single time they cross our paths, but we all know that they have it wrong. We’re the superior ones. Smarter, kinder, more cunning—we have everything you need to succeed in life except a massive trust fund. However, in the middle of the game, wealth will mean nothing. It will be an even playing field. We’ll win. I know it.”
The senior class of Seven Saints High School broke off into smaller groups, each discussing the rules and risks of the sadistic game. They had all grown up as witnesses to such atrocities, the first generation in nearly two hundred years to witness legalized slavery, but none had ever truly considered participating in such an event. An industry had risen over that cursed ruling, and each and every one of the students was raised to believe that the entire institution of slavery was an abomination.
But, that was not enough to deter those young students. Hundreds of thousands had played with their lives since Fitzgerald v. Oregon, and more would continue as long as they had the freedom to do so, no matter how grave a mistake it would prove to be.
+
Elizabeth Monseto and Principal Peter Goldberg exited the conference room. A servant girl stood outside the door with her head bowed.
“Come, Tracy,” commanded Elizabeth. Her slave followed silently. The dog collar around her neck was barely visible behind the tangle of brown hair that draped her shoulders, but the gleam of the metal nameplate was visible when the light hit it just right.
The Principal locked pace with Elizabeth’s quick gait. “So do you think you’ll be able to recruit enough people to match their team size?”
“Certainly. There’s no doubt that they’ll be the limiting factor. For all they say about being as good as us, they are nothing but a bunch of poor and dirty cowards that aren’t willing to follow through with their threats. No matter how many they field, we can match it with stronger, bigger, and faster counterparts.”
“At the very least, we’ll have that bitch Judy.”
“Of course. I know how long you’ve pined for her body, and I have full intentions of following through with our deal. You’ve helped us start this little war, and you can share in the spoils.”
He chuckled. “They have no idea what is coming.”
Elizabeth too laughed at the thought of their impending victory. Her wide blond curls bounced up and down on her shoulders as her body shook from the boisterous laughs and her 36D tits shook beneath her tight red sweater.
She and Peter barely had to persuade the others, for the students of Rowan Preparatory Academy did not have the same reservations as their rivals. Born in the first generation since the legalization of contractual servitude and fueled by the classist views of their wealthy parents, the senior students of the wealthiest high school in the state knew their place in society.
And-- more importantly-- knew the place of the poor.
“I take it many of you will be joining me in this brief little war.”
Most of her classmates grinned and nodded. She, along with many of her classmates, already owned slaves, or at least their parents did. Not a single one of them didn’t had not envisioned an expansion of their private stables, each of them mired in their own juvenile lust for dominance.
One of the boys spoke up. “Why would they do this? What are they up to? Did you ever think that maybe this whole game was their eventual plan, that they have something in mind?”
“This game has always been my intent. From the moment we escalated the rivalry by vandalizing their school, to when we pushed it to the breaking point by slaughtering their mascot, I’ve always had this endgame in mind. They are worthless trash, but unless we do this, we can do nothing but look down at them with contempt. Can you imagine the satisfaction of owning them as slaves? Of having them kneel at your feet with sadness and misery in their eyes and knowing that they’ll never be free?”
Without breaking her eye contact, Elizabeth commanded “Here, Tracy.” Her slave approached from behind and took her side. “Kneel, Tracy.” And she knelt. “Tell us how you ended up like this, Tracy.”
Tracy began her story. “I… I was a college student. When my financial aid was pulled, I needed something to cover my expenses, so I responded to an ad in the paper.”
“And what was that ad for?”
“A game show. There was a million dollar reward for beating my competitors, and the contract made it clear that only the lowest score would lose their rights.”
“And what happened on that show?”
Tracy began to choke up. “I… I was in second place the entire time until the final round. I… I bet too much and ended up in last place. The floor dropped out from beneath me… and… and I was surrounded by men…”
“And?”
Tracy could not continue. Tears streamed down her cheeks and sobs choked her words.
“We all hate the students of Seven Saints High School. They are arrogant, condescending, and fueled by supposed moral superiority. Look at the wreck that Tracy has become in a mere six months. Can you imagine that bitch Judy Goodheart in the same position, pleading to be sold back to her family?
“But what if we lose? We’ll just end up like her,” said Jamie Black, pointing at the crying slave.
“No we won’t. Don’t you see the beauty of it? While we want them to be our lifelong slaves, they want to play the game with their patented noble intent, nor matter how foolishly imbalanced it may be. They know that our parents will pay anything to get us back. They want us for ransom.”
“Ransom?”
“Yes. They have no intentions of keeping and defiling us. They just want to sell us, knowing it’s the only chance they have to get rich. There is no risk to us. They probably wouldn’t even take the opportunity to fondle us.”
“Huh?” asked one of the girls that drew closer as the tales became more optimistic.
“Nuances of the rules. We’ll get into that later.”
Elizabeth Henrietta Monseto had made the case to her people. She was certain they would win. Visions of Judy Goodheart submitting to her power once and for all danced in her mind and made her wet. She retreated to the restroom, slave in tow, to relieve her anxiety.
+
The arbiter lectured the students of Seven Saints first. From Elizabeth’s guess, she was about fifty years old. Her hair was graying, but her skin was still tight. She wore a wrinkled pantsuit, as if it were required of her government work but she didn’t care to make it look any nicer.
“I am here in accordance with section 8, paragraph 7 of the Contractual Servitude Management Act, requiring the presence of a government official to ensure that all signees are of legal age and that they understand all ramifications of the contract.”
“By signing this contract, you will become registered in a game of ‘Capture Collar version 4’, as administered by Property Management Technology of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Each participant will be locked into a Model 4 Capture Collar. Removal of the front tag will result in the injection of a long-lasting muscle relaxant, of which can only be cured by game administrators at game’s end, or by reinserting the tag into the appropriate slot. Any participant whose tag is removed becomes classified as a ‘loser’
“All losers immediately enter a contract for Class-D servitude with the remaining players, with each remaining player at game’s end having an equal right to the contract. The contract is for life, and has no explicit limits except for those required by state and federal law. The contract is specified as transferable, and does not expire with the death of the original contract holders.
“All signees must be over the age of eighteen at for least fourteen days prior to the signing.” She continued with the nuanced rules of the game, as specified by Property Management Technology. The boys and girls of Seven Saints High School listened intently, the majority of them unfamiliar with the specifics of the game and still unsure if they would gamble everything they had over a simple game.
When it came time to sign, only Judy’s closest friends and associates stepped forward. “Nobody else is with us? It goes without saying that any of you that lose will be released the minute we win.”
Mindy Holding stepped forward, fiddling with the hem of her skirt. “What makes you so certain we’ll win?”
“We’re smarter than them, that’s why. This isn’t some arranged sports match, this is a careful strategic war game. Just as we crush the hell out of them at every academic competition, we’ll win this game and spend the rest of our lives living in luxury.”
“You’ve gotten greedy, Judy,” said an unknown voice from the crowd.
“So what if I got greedy? The odds of failure are so slim that you’d be foolish not sign up.”
Only a few more stepped forward to sign the contract.
“How can you let their behavior slide? How can you not be itching at the opportunity for revenge? They’ve mocked us for years, vandalized our school, killed our mascot, and all you can do is sit back and watch? You’re all cowards. Now is the time for us to put it all on the line and show them that their wealth doesn’t make them better.”
By the time Judy had finished coaxing her classmates to enlisting in the game, sixteen students signed that sheet of paper, every one of them a fool. They had crossed a line that should never be crossed. But, that is the nature of risk versus reward. For the boys and girls of Seven Saints High School, their futures were on the line. Win, and they would live the rest of their lives in luxury, knowing that their slaves would be repurchased at any price from their parents. And, if they lost, they would become the personal playthings of their rivals for the rest of their lives. Any observer would think them insane for playing with such brutal risks, but such is the folly of youth.
Judy Goodheart smiled with pride at her powers of persuasion. She had lied to her teammates about her intentions, but it didn’t matter. Their victory was an absolute certainty.
Or so she thought, completely unaware of the days and nights of unspeakable travesties that awaited both sides.
+
The senior class of Rowan Preparatory Academy did not require such persuasion.
“They won’t even touch those of us that lose,” Elizabeth promised. “They think of themselves as too pure, too nice to ever do something so low. We risk nothing doing this. Nothing. Our parents will have their checkbooks ready the moment we lose, as if that would ever happen.
They had no problem matching the number of signees. The surplus allowed them to pick the biggest men and fastest women. It was an insurmountable advantage—or so they thought, for their opposing team had picked brains over all else. In a game of war, strategy would prove to mean far more than the wealthy students had ever imagined.
And, with the final signature, the two teams met face to face, Seven Saints versus Rowan Preparatory. The feud of two women had come to a head. Both teams were certain of victory, completely dismissive of the ever-present risks. Like drag racers ignoring oncoming traffic, those unfortunate boys and girls could not see what was staring them in the face.
Half of them would pay the ultimate price for their naiveté.
+
“Why do we have to wear our school uniforms?” griped Julia Wurtle. Her uniform was two sizes too small, a hand-me-down from her older and shorter sister.
Judy pointed to the cameras mounted to the ceiling. “Whoever wins gets rights to the video footage. Some people have a thing for uniforms.”
Julia turned her back to the camera and finished dressing, hiding her privates with her hands as if somebody were watching her in the tiny second-floor bedroom. Once it was made all nice and neat, she exited into the foyer and down the stairs to the central hall of the lodge.
The eight boys and nine girls that comprised the team gathered in the central hall of their main cabin, where they were greeted by a team of representatives from Property Management Technology.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. May I ask which of you is considered the ‘Queen’ for this week’s game?”
“That would be me,” said Judy Goodheart as she stepped forward from the crowd. She wore the Seven Saints uniform in perfect order: the long green skirt that descended down to the ankles, the dark green vest over the white undershirt, and the black armband that signified her status as class president. The only deviation from the normal outfit was a good pair of running shoes, a necessity for the war game.
“If you’d like to sit down, Miss,” said the technician. She looked to be about thirty years old. She wore a pure black shirt and black pants, with no markings save for ‘PMT’ in small white letters above her left breast. The technician grabbed a red collar from the box and locked it around Judy’s neck. “This woman is your Queen. She is your life. If she loses, you all lose.
“Now, you’re probably wondering what it means to lose. Well, I’ll show you.” The black haired technician turned and nodded to a short blond girl in the same uniform as herself.
The blonde girl wore a black collar, much like the ones reserved for the rest of the Seven Saints team. She looked as young as the rest of the participants, but had a busty rack barely constrained by her corporate T-shirt. Judy looked into the girl’s soul dead eyes and could tell she was a slave. She was not here willingly.
“You are still in the game until the moment your tag is removed.” The technician waved her hand around the one-by-two-inch tag like an expert show girl. “Once it is removed…” she paused, grabbed the tag between two fingers, and yanked it from the clip. A hissing noise emanated for the collar and its wearer immediately collapsed to the floor, flat on her face. “…A fast acting, long lasting sedative is injected into your neck.”
While the technician continued, her associates—all well-toned men—went around the room locking black collars around each students’ neck. Once fastened into place, each collar shone with a slight green light next to the metallic tag.
The technician bent over and grabbed the fallen slave girl. She sat on the floor, her legs spread in a V, and pulled the limp girl so that she leaned against her owner. “While under the effects of the medicine, you will feel everything but have very little voluntary motor control. Note that you will be considered a loser the moment your tag is removed, so everything is fair game.” The technician grabbed both of the slave’s tits in her own and squeezed.
The blond slave girl moaned and rolled her eyes, but she offered no signs of resistance aside from the occasional muscle twitch.
“The only ways to undo the relaxant are at the game’s end, when the winners will be given the antidote, or by reinserting the tag into its place. While the losers metabolism should slow where they won’t need food, they will need water. If their vitals show dehydration, we will send a message to the team leader. Failure to remedy the problem will result in confiscation of the loser until game’s end.” The technician grabbed the numbered collar and slid it back into the clip. Another hissing noise sounded off and the slave girl slowly regained the use of her body.
“If your Queen’s tag is taken, you have six hours to return the tag before the entire team losses.”
“During the game, only sanctioned weapons supplied by Property Management Technology will be allowed. While designed to supply non-lethal, debilitating force, there is the potential for greater harm if used improperly. In the event of life threatening injuries, PTM representatives will stop the violent activity and remove the injured participant from the game. If the violator is deemed to have acted with intent to kill, PTM reserves the right to remove their tag, and, if deemed necessary, turn the violator over to local authorities in accordance with state law. Remember, your actions are being video recorded at all times, and PTM always cooperates with state and federal authorities in matters of law enforcement.
“Once both teams are considered ready, you have three hours to strategize and build defenses. After that, the game will officially begin and will continue until a winner has been determined. You will be given limited food and necessities as a means of forcing a timely conclusion.
“You’ll each be given a printout of the rules in case you need to go over them after the game has begun. Just keep in mind that only non-lethal force is allowed, and that a player is only considered as having lost once their tag is removed.
“Property Management Technology wishes you the best of luck in the game.”
Mindy Holdings stepped forward. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
The technician smiled. “Sorry, but you’ve signed the contract. The only way out of here as a free woman is by victory.”
“No!” She sprinted for the door, but the male technicians blocked her path and grabbed her arms. Thrashing about, she kicked and screamed, but the guards held her perfectly such that none of her kicks or punches landed anything but glancing blows. They waited until she tired herself out, then dropped her back to the floor.
“If you run out of bounds, you automatically lose. You’re in this to the finish.”
The boys and girls of Seven Saints looked to each other, finally accepting everything that the game meant.
Judy Goodheart, now wearing her Queen’s collar, walked to the front of the crowd and officially commanded her troops for the first time. “There is no need to fear. We’ll win.” She smiled, but beneath it she hid her own fears. While she portrayed nothing but extreme confidence when persuading her friends to join the war, there was an ever present sliver of doubt. What if they lost? What if she led all of her friends to their doom?
It made her sick to her stomach, but she swallowed the terror and hid it.
“We’ll win. We have to.”
+
One mile away, through the unbeaten summer woods of Camp Judgment, was another lodge, exactly like the one where the students of Seven Saints were being lectured on the rules of Capture Collar. Though the scene played out mostly the same, the mood was far different.
Elizabeth Monseto watched the demonstration with a grin on her face, wondering what sad tale had let the poor redhead into being a unwilling employee of Property Management Technology. She still looked like a teenager, hinting that she was one of the game show contestants trying to earn money for college. Very few young women outright sold themselves for the benefits of their family; that sort of selflessness takes a certain kind of maturity that youth often lacks. However, potential rewards with improper risk analysis drew tens of thousands of sub-twenty year old women into slavery each year.
Elizabeth had no pity for them. Born just one year after the Supreme Court decision, she had been raised her entire life in a world with a clear power structure. It was a world that her parents had always desired, a world where they could truly be better than others. Their house was filled with slaves. Some degenerate gamblers, some loving parents that sold themselves to ensure health and education for their children, and some outright stupid lovers that believed in total power exchange without realizing the fickleness of love.
But that is why they were poor, she convinced herself. The wealthy rose, while anybody that would dare lose a bet, have kids they can’t support, or blatantly give somebody their lives deserved everything they got.
Elizabeth knew that each of the Seven Saints students deserved their inevitable fate, but what of her own team? She looked around and analyzed them, one by one, wondering is there were any weak links to be willfully pruned early on.
“Property Management Technology would like to wish you the best of luck in the game.”
The technicians opened up the stack of cardboard boxes and left the students to peruse their contents.
Elizabeth lorded over the items like a treasure trove. She had seen the weapons used hundreds of times in the fantastic and enthralling videos that resulted from games like this, but she never had the opportunity to use them in person.
The first box held low-voltage cattle prods, strong enough only to briefly stun the victims. They were of varying lengths, all black with comfortable plastic grips, and emblazoned only with white letters reading ‘PMT’. Two of the seventeen were basically pole arms, over four feet in length, while most were just over a foot long—melee weapons to use when all else fails.
The second box held stun guns—hardened plastic pistols with two tethered diodes where the muzzle would be. Though offering much better range than the cattle prods, Elizabeth knew they were less reliable, but still appreciated their utility.
And the last box held packing tape—the preferred bondage of Capture Collar spectators and players alike.
“It’s all yours,” commanded Elizabeth, turning over the boxes and letting her team scavenge whatever they wanted. She did not believe they needed strategy to win.
It would prove to be a grave mistake.
+
Three hours later, the sirens sounded. The sun had set hours earlier, and a hundred miles away the students’ parents were coping with news that their sons and daughters had put their lives on the line for foolish and childish reasons.
Judy Goodheart stood on the second floor of their lodge and stared into the darkness through a floor-to-ceiling window. Far in the distance, another light glimmered. She knew it was the enemy headquarters.
It was two days past a full moon and scant traces of moonlight filtered through the tree cover. All was quiet, and she did not know if Rowan Prep would be the first to attack, and if so, how soon it would come. However, their arrogance and violent tendencies gave her a good idea of their initial strategies.
Silhouettes flickered against the blue-tinted forest. Judy flinched her wrist, a signal to her friends that something was coming.
The shadows inched closer until they were just outside the seemingly unguarded entrance to the lodge.
A flash lit the forest.
Screams echoed in the night.
The plan had worked. The first raiding party of Rowan prep had blindly stumbled across a puddle of water and been communally shocked by their waiting enemies.
Within seconds a raiding party swarmed out of lodge, flashlights in hand. They pounced on the stunned enemies and plucked the tags from their necks. One by one, the pneumatic hiss of the sedative injection could be heard as each of the Rowan Prep students went limp.
The war had its first losers.
“Good job, team,” said Judy Goodheart to her friends as they dragged their new slaves on the floor behind them. “Tape them up and store them in the middle room.”
Six of their enemies had already been defeated—four men and two women, over a quarter of their team. Judy returned to the lobby and dragged her two commanders away to discuss strategy; strategy had proven to be their strength, and it would continue to be so.
+
Within an hour, the following day’s plans were established. It was getting late, and it was unlikely that the Rowan Prep would think send another attack so quickly, especially when they did not know the fate of their first.
Judy Goodheart returned to the holding room to check in on her captors. One by one, she checked their eyes and pulse and fed them a slight amount of water which they gulped down happily. However, when she made a full round, she froze. Somebody was missing. “Where… where did Michelle Graves go?”
None of her teammates knew. However, two of the boys that were supposed to be resting were missing from their cots.
“Find Greg and Lincoln. Now.” She thought she was managing the team properly. She thought she was doing everything right. She thought they were all on the same page as to their intents, but she thought wrong. The boys were doing something they had agreed not to, and it sickened her.
A scream came from one of the back rooms. Judy sprinted back into the central lobby and towards the scream. Delores Clamp stumbled out of the room, her skin pale, her lips trembling. Judy sprinted past her, into through the dorm room, and into the back room.
Greg Berry was on top of Michelle Graves, humping violently. His pants rested in a pile on the floor next to the bed, while Michelle was completely naked except for the collar around her neck and the packing tape that silenced her lips. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she did nothing to fight off her attacker, her arms just resting limply at her sides. Lincoln Lee stood off to the side holding a camcorder as he recorded every minute of her violation.
Judy was shocked that such a deed could be committed by the two men. They were the smart, nerdy kind—the type of guys that were always polite and thoughtful. She stared at Michelle’s tits sway with the violent thrusts. “Greg… Linc… how could you?”
Lincoln turned towards Judy, keeping the recorder focused on Melissa but covering the speaker with his hand. “Psychological Warfare, Judy. Rape the captives, and let those arrogant fuckers know what were doing. Send them the videos and let them know that the same will happen to them. It will unsettle them, which is when we strike. They have to watch and listen to whatever we send to their central monitor, even if it’s the defilement of their closest friends.
“That…”
“You said it yourself: the reason we’ll win is because we’re smarter. We know tactics and strategies that they could never possibly come up with.”
“But… but this is so wrong!”
“Sorry, Judy. When everything is on the line, I’m not going to sacrifice our only advantage out of moral qualms.”
+
Elizabeth Monseto was getting worried. Where was the raiding party? The plan was simple—to find their guards and overpower them, one by one, until none remained. Her team was physically superior, after all, so how could the plan not work?
By midnight, even her teammates were complaining.
“What’s happening?” nagged Fiona Fiore
“We better not fucking lose,” said Will Powers, pounding his fist into his other palm in a needlessly vague and unguided threat.
“Please, please. Give it time. I’m certain we’ll hear back from them any minute.”
But in her heart, she was not so sure
+
Sometime during the middle of the night, the TV screen turned on. It was a video message from the other a team.
A video of Michelle Graves being raped, her limp body sandwiched between two naked men. Her tear filled eyes gazed into the distance, ruled by wherever her head tilted after each violent thrust.
The camera turned. On a cot in the corner were the distinct flaming red curls of Lauren Sandina. A man held her thighs underneath his arms and rammed into her repeatedly.
“Liz!” screamed Fiona Fiore, also awoken by the distant moans of their friend.
“Oh… oh my god…” said Trevor Gates, craning his neck up to the screen, his jaw slack at the sight before him.
“I thought you said they wouldn’t touch us!” yelled Pauline Winters, her voice quivering at the fate of her friends.
Elizabeth didn’t know how to respond. Her entire plan hinged on her enemies’ noble intentions, believing the goody two-shoes of Seven Saints High School would never bring themselves to rape another person or to own another human being as a slave.
But the evidence was right in front of her. She had thought too highly of her rivals. And, if they broke her assumptions in a matter of rape, could her other assumption also be wrong? Could they really be playing for keeps, with no intent of selling the rich kids back to their parents?
Her stomach dropped. For the first time in her life, she seriously considered the possibility of being used as a slave for the rest of her life. All of the indignities that she submitted on to Tracy, back at her… for decades.
Elizabeth stumbled back into her room and cried. She could never let her team see her like this. Never. She was one of the ruling class, one of the eternally strong bastions of leadership that others needed. Crying? No. Not her.
+
The students of both schools went to sleep, shocked at how quickly their morality had been abandoned in the face of adversity. But it was only the beginning. There was far more sorrow and suffering in store from the students of Seven Saints and Rowan Prep.
To be continued…
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