Chapter 5: In with the new

Fast forward two days of sleeping and watching b-rated movies and I was back in the soundproof box awaiting my next client the conversation that the clerk had with me this morning kept playing over in my head.

“Good morning Keyla.” The clerk had said

I wasn’t used to being greeted so promptly so I automatically knew it was probably bad news. “Morning” I said with a wave.

“I’m afraid I have bad news” Called it. “The suit that you usually use failed its durability test while you were away and so we have sent it off for repair. So we are giving you an older suit. It’s not rated for your durability so you are going to have to play it safe.”

“What’s the suit rated for?” I asked.

“With a normal consort it’s rated to 200lbs. but since you are a petite model its rated for less than 125lbs. And it also has hand controls instead of the eye controls. So please do be careful.”

Great. Hand controls suck because if something happens to the arm of the suit you lose some of the suits functionality. I assumed that they must have pulled this suit out of the archives because they needed the numbers for the day. “Jesus Janice that’s less than a what a child weighs.”

“I know but it’s the only suit we got and frankly we are down to five people today and you are really needed due to the fact that there are so many people out on leave.” I looked at the nametag pinned to the ladies shirt to make sure that I had gotten it correct. I smiled to myself to see that I had remembered the name as Janice picked me up gently and placed me next to the suit. As always the suit closed around me and I moved my fingers to start up the suits interface. The older models were nice in the fact that they didn’t the HUD’s didn’t completely obscures your vision with information but that’s about were their luxuries ended.  I looked at myself in the mirror to see the thin wires running through the suit. That was the one of the other reasons why this model had been done away with was because it wasn’t clear enough and nine times out of ten you could tell the consort was in a suit because something always glitched out. I did not miss these things one bit. I ran through touching my different fingers to my palms to get used to the control layout again. The suit chirped at me to tell me that the defenses had been disabled or removed and I silently swore at myself. Janice picked my up and placed me into a cage. “Don’t worry Keyla, I’ll make sure that the person you go out to is gently before we even let them take you home.”

“Thanks,” I said giving her a fake smile. I wasn’t worried about the person who would be taking me home; I was worried whom they might have at home.

I snapped back to the present because the box I was in had shifted. I looked up to see a woman who looked to be in her late thirties. She had mouse brown hair that was frizzled on the ends and looked like she had just ran a brush through it before coming here. The stress lines on her face said that she had kids and was trying to figure out how to fit some time in for me and not them. I smiled at the thought that I was going to be someone’s guilty pleasure but the smile faded quickly as I realized that she had kids and it could be a very bad scene if one them got ahold of me.

“Do you plan being extremely violent to the consort?” Janice asked.

“Oh heavens no.” the woman flushed as I assumed she was thinking of the events that were going to transpire this evening. My grin got bigger and I couldn’t help but assuring her that it was nothing to be bashful over.

 “Some casual role-playing and not much else. I doubt I have the energy for anything else these days” the lady joked and my smile faded a little. As much as I liked being a consort the ones who ‘didn’t have much energy these days’ were always boring. But boring was good considering that I doubt this suit could take anything more exciting than being accidently stepped on.”

“How long are you planning on keeping her?”

“Is three days okay?” I sighed and turned my mic off to tune out the rest of the official business. When the woman picked me up I turned my mic back on.

“Well if you didn’t already hear my name is Jenny.” She said as she walked out to a mini-van that from the looks of it had seen better days.

 “My name is Keyla,” I told her.

“Well Keyla, I’m going to be honest. I don’t know how much time I will have between the two jobs, to spend with you but you can come with me to work, well that might not be a good idea because my night job is kinda hectic, but my evening job is okay.” She said as I got set in a cup holder and Jenny started the van.

“What’s your night job?” I asked.

“I’m an emt. Most days it can be just wait around with no calls but you never know.” She checked her watch. “Shit, I have to get going. I’m going to drop you off at my house and as long as you stay in my room my kids should leave you alone. I’m sorry that this is how our first night is going to be. But I will make it up to you tomorrow.” She winked and I giggle to myself at the fact of how corny some people could be.

Fifteen minutes later I was in a room that was messy but looked like it wasn’t used much. Jenny had told me that her kids’ names were Mickey and Sasha. They were fraternal twins and at the age of 18 she couldn’t wait for them to graduate and move on to college. I knew that they shouldn’t be a problem unless one of them had a thing for people like me. Jenny left in a rush and I was left pondering what I should do.  Could watch TV but being six inches tall the TV’s were hard to see due to some technical science of how my eyes perceived the world of digital electronics.

I sighed to myself as I heard a door slam somewhere in the house and a female voice rang out shouting “Mom we’re home.” I thought about flying out to greet them but then thought better of it because I could tell it wasn’t something Jenny wanted to tell her kids.

I flew down and landed behind the Micro Inc. overnight station, which sat on the vanity that was across the room from Jenny’s bed. I would’ve gone into the station but a pile of folded clothes sat on top of it. Guess I’m sleeping in the suit tonight I thought as tried the camouflaged mode on the suit but it chirped at me saying it was broken.

“I heard something in her bedroom.” I heard who I assumed was Sasha as they huddled outside Jenny’s door.  Fuck me. I thought to myself as I tried to look for a better place to hide. The room was littered with clothes but other than that everything was on the ground and the bathroom and closet doors had been firmly shut. I could’ve hidden under the clothes but being under a pile of dirty laundry only to get stepped on didn’t exactly please me. I know the suit had a GPS tracker built into it but other than that I didn’t have any means to contact Micro Inc. it would take the event of my death in order for them to dispatch a team to Jenny’s house and I didn’t plan on dying tonight.  I had been to caught up on thinking about hiding and staying out of sight that when the door swung open and the lights flickered on I was levitating in the middle of the room.

“Well shit,” I said out loud.  As a girl and a boy stared at me, I thought about bolting but Sasha while on the short side stood in front of her brother who pretty much had to duck in order to get inside the bedroom.

“Oh, shit? That isn’t a very nice greeting.” Sasha told me.

“Sorry, you startled me.” I said as flew down and landed on a bedpost.

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you.” Sasha said as she walked forward to close the gap between the door and me. “Somebody else is.” She said as she lunged at me and I dashed to the side.  Sasha stumbled and then smiled at me with a crooked grin. “You can run all you want, we have tools to catch you. But I don’t think you want us to do that? Do you?”

“I’m always on for a chase.” I said as I set the jets to full blast and zipped over Mickey’s heard. I flew down the hallway almost faster than Mickey could run. About the time I reached the living the room I felt a jolt run through the suit and the screen blacked out and I fell like deadweight to the ground. I landed with a crack and I felt my shoulder dislodge. “Fuck me” I said as I tried to move the deadweight of the suit. I cringed at the pain that was singing through my body as I tried to recover from the zap of the Taser. I only managed to roll over when I saw the bottom of yellow Nike fill my vision. The shoe slammed into and ground me into the carpet. The suit was creaking against the weight and cracks weight rapidly spreading across the HUD. I couldn’t breathe as the weight against me had crushed the chest plate into me. It rocked back and forth once causing both my shoulders to make a ghastly crunching sound before Sasha pulled her foot off of me. Nausea over took me but I clenched my teeth together and the feeling passed. I felt myself being hoisted into the air before set down on a table. Sasha’s green eyes peered into mine.

“That wasn’t much of a chase now was it?” she asked me. I shook my head slowly as the Nano-bots worked on trying to piece back together my shoulders. She looked at my shoulders to and saw the blood seeping through my shirt where the suit had cut into me. “Oh my god did I hurt you?” I glared at her. By the tone of her voice I could tell she was mocking me. “I told you we had tools to catch you. My brother and I are pro’s at this. We’ve been catching your kind for over four years now.” The suit booted on with a chirp a sparking noise, but I still couldn’t feel anything past my shoulders.

“That’s an older model Sasha.” A deep voice said as I looked over at Mickey.

“How can you tell?” she asked and then he pointed a finger at my shoulder which one of the wires had broken and the Nano-bots were working to try and weld it back together. “No wonder she went down without a struggle. The patch that you put into the router totally disabled her defenses.”

“Would you guys mind filling me in on what in the hell is going on here?” I asked trying to keep my voice calm. The thought that they had hacked into the onboard system scared me a little more than it should.

“You want the low-down or the gory details?” Sasha asked. I opened my mouth to respond but Sasha kept speaking. “That was a rhetorical question hun. What’s going on here is simple. When Micro Inc. perfected the shrink-suit they made a game changer but you already knew this. Gone was the days of using Barbie dolls as playthings, now you can have your own miniature human to fuck around with. It also changed how giantess media was done. If you could figure out the encryption on the suits, you could see what the consort sees, because every suit has a built-in camera to report abuse of course. So people started to hack the suits, to take the footage and edit out the boring bits and then sell it online. And that is what’s going on here. My brother and I take one of you guys to school with us and sell what you see. Unaware of course because that’s what sells the best. Most of the films are about 45 minutes long because that’s the length of a class period. It’s just what’s been requested the most. We use to do most of the film ourselves but you can only do so much to a consort before the footage starts to look the same. But throw one of them into an unknown classroom and everything changes.  Every consort reacts different to being trapped in a seat or a stuck in a hallway during the break between classes.” She smiled to herself.

“How do you get away with this?” I asked as I sat up slowly testing my arms and the different buttons on my palms.

“Simple, we give the consorts a portion of the check. Most of them don’t report the others and us just simply disappear. If you know what I mean.” I heard her brother giggle at that reference.

“Yeah, I got it.” I shivered as I looked at the power meter in the corner of my screen. It read 81% and wasn’t climbing.

“So, what is your name? I’ve been so rude not even introducing myself.” Sasha turned to me. “I’m Sasha and this is Mickey, but you can call him Mick.”

“I’m Keyla,” I said.

“Last name dearie. For the database.” Sasha asked as her brother typed something on a tablet

“Renolds.” I said.

“Wow, mom got a good one,” Mickey blurted out.

“Exactly how good?” Sasha asked.

“She’s a professional. Been out more than 300 times, each time ending with a positive customer review. This girl has been in the request list for months. We put her into a film and we can charge some serious cash. People have been offering to rent her out and then send her to us, just to have her in a ten-minute clip. Think if we put her in a full-length clip. We’ve scored the mother load Sasha.” He said glanced me over.

“Just one problem Mick, her suit isn’t that strong. She’s rated 125, 150 at max. We put her into an unaware clips and she’s going to perish.” Sasha said.

“Hmm, that is unfortunate. Don’t we have any spare suits?” he asked.

“Right, don’t interfere with the casualties, and no souvenirs. How are you so sure what she rated though?” he asked.

“When I stepped on her, it cracked the suit.”

“But you had just tased the suit. None of the supports were functioning.” He countered.

“It’s an older suit. It doesn’t have the tech the new ones do; I mean look at the wires in it. When this suit dies it takes the core a good fifteen minutes to come back on and I’m not even sure it has a damage mode. I mean we could film and sell it but if she dies and Micro Inc. comes across the footage, we go to jail for murder.” Sasha said the tension in her voice clear.

“They don’t watch our films anyways.” Mick tried to argue.

“They do, but we haven’t done anything illegal. Nobody has died on film and so we haven’t been punished for it. But if we send her out there without the suit she needs she is going to die.” I stared at both of them. Sasha was tense from the shoulders down and Mickey had his head cocked to one side trying to figure out a way to make it work.

“Do I get a vote in this?” I asked trying to contain a smirk.

Sasha gave me a glared at me and I felt the confidence leak out just a little. I opened my mouth to say something but was cut off. “One more peep and I’ll kill you myself.” Mickey said. He turned to Sasha,  “Lay down the ground rules with her and keep her away from me. I’ll try to work out a solution by tomorrow morning.” Mickey turned and thudded off to his room.

“Ground rules: You will only speak when spoken to. You are allowed to roam the house but will stay out of Mick’s and my room. You will not try to escape. You will not vandalize the house. You will not try and contact anyone outside this house, which includes Micro Inc., and our mother. If you have an immediate need you will hover in our eyesight and wait to be acknowledged. Any violation of these rules will result in fifteen minutes of torture and I would say by the current state of your suit, you better hope it’s me you piss off and not Mickey. Do you understand the ground rules?” Sasha asked.

“Yes ma’am.” I said.

“One more, you will call me mistress, I don’t expect you to be speaking with my brother but if you address me call me mistress. Understood?”

“Yes mistress” I said. I didn’t do well with titles like that but on the flipside I didn’t want to know what kind of torture she could think up.

“You will wait here until supper. I will bring the overnight station out so you have a place to sit down and rest but I don’t want you flying around until we get things figured out. I know your life shouldn’t matter to me but I don’t want to go to jail incase something bad happens to you, and I’m sure my mom would be pissed if we said that another one escaped again.” Sasha turned around and walked out of the kitchen before coming back and setting the overnight station on the counter.

 I flew up to it and it opened before closing around me. I didn’t look forward to what Mickey might come up with in order to make the films. I could see it in his eyes that all he saw me as was a dollar signs and when I gave him sass he didn’t like it. I hit the button on my hand and the suit unfolded around me and I laid down on the temporary bed that came with the kit to try and keep my mind off the thoughts of what could possibly happen tomorrow if they decided to go through with the film.