I am moving this story to Archive of Our Own. Fanfiction Dot Net is too difficult to post to.
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Neal slipped into the elevator, giving the young slave managing the buttons a tight smile. Goanup, wasn't it? Something ridiculous like that.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Caffrey," the boy said, making Neal grimace. Being called 'Caffrey' by rebel slaves like Alec Hardison or Carl Hagen and liberationist freaks like Mozzie or Nate Ford was one thing, but now he had fellow slaves—good, obedient slaves—calling him 'Mister'? It was starting to feel like he was running a con.
"Hi, kid," Neal replied, fingers slipping into his pocket to play with the photo Mozzie had dumped on him. Maybe he *was* running a con, pretending he didn't give a damn about Mistress when what he really wanted to do when he saw that picture was scream her name from a rooftop. Or her title, anyway.
"Usual floor, sir?"
Neal sighed. As if this mess with Mistress combined with the crazy emotions of the past week wasn't confusing enough, now he had a young slave treating him like a free man. It was a felony to impersonate a free man, and he was riding up to the damn floor that arrested slaves for that very crime.
"You do realize I'm just some agent's effling, right?" Neal said, not giving a rip at this point what the kid thought of him. "You can drop all of the 'Mr. Caffrey' crap."
Goanup's face went red—well, redder than it already was, all covered in freckles and surrounded by orange curls—and he bit his lip, looking uncomfortable.
"Actually, sir, um," he cleared his throat. "I may have accidentally overheard Agent Hughes telling my master that you're basically an agent now." The boy gave a sheepish grin. "He may have also told Master how 'that smiley button boy of his' had better call you sir and hit the buttons for you and give you anything else you want, whether it's compliments on your hair or a blow job on the roof, 'cause he's pretty sure you're going to sue him for damages if he doesn't fix 'this giant fucking mess.'" The boy made quotation marks in the air, blushing even redder. "His words, not mine."
Neal stared at the boy in disbelief. "Please tell me you're joking."
Goanup shrugged, looking embarrassed. "No, I'm fairly sure that's what he said to my boss." He gestured around the tight elevator. "It's kind of hard *not* to hear what people say in here."
"Great," Neal muttered, rubbing tiredly at his forehead. "Because having the entire building gossiping about my non-existent lawsuit against the head of Vice Collar is exactly what I need in my life right now."
"Tough day?" Goanup asked, and Neal made a rude noise.
The boy laughed. "Yeah, I understand." He paused. "You know, I had a kind of crazy day yesterday, too." His voice was just a little *too* casual, and Neal frowned.
"Really?"
Goanup nodded. "Yeah. My master took the Bobs home with him last night. Something about fixing the plumbing in his basement? I dunno, but they locked up maintenance before they left, which is where I usually sleep. So I figure, hey, what the heck, I'll just sleep in the elevator. I mean, it's warm and the carpet's not too scratchy."
Neal nodded, not surprised in the least that the asshole who headed up maintenance didn't even bother to give his slaves mats to sleep on.
"So that's what I was doin'—sleeping, I mean—when about eleven o'clock or so the elevator door opened up, and there was Agent Fowler from the Office of Professional Responsibility, climbing in." The kid bit his lip, glancing up at the camera set into the corner of the elevator, then he took a step toward Neal, tilting his head just enough that his lips would be invisible to the lens. "Like I said, he's from OPR, but the funniest thing happened when I stood up to hit the button for him."
"Oh yeah?" Neal said, though he didn't have a clue where this was actually going.
The slave's adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, nodding. "He tells me he's not going to his normal floor, he's going to Vice Collar."
Neal's brow furrowed. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah. And he does. Go to Vice Collar, I mean. He goes, and he stays maybe thirty minutes or so, then he comes back to the elevator, but now he's got his phone out. Like I said, it's hard *not* to hear stuff in here, and his phone, well, it was on speaker."
"So he was talking on his speakerphone," Neal prompted when the boy paused, having absolutely no idea what the point of this story was—much less why Goanup felt the need to share it with Neal—but interested nonetheless.
"No," Goanup said, shaking his head. "He wasn't talking, he was listening. Listening to your master while he talked to some guy named Jack about somebody called Feathers. He sounded really whiny, not like Agent Burke usually sounds and definitely not like someone who knows he's being listened to by OPR. He told that Jack guy that he has a teensy tiny dangle wangle and that he needs to take Mr. T-Rex and shove him up his butthole, whatever that's supposed to mean."
Neal would have laughed if he weren't busy contemplating what, exactly, Goanup's words meant. "Wait a second, are you saying that this Agent Fowler *bugged* my master?"
CHAPTER CONTINUED AT
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