Epilogue

The day in Bethlehem was very gloomy, an overcast of clouds hiding the sun with a salty breeze pushing up and over the waves of the South Pacific. The temperature in the air was just right though. It wasn't hot nor was it too cold outside which was perfect for the cat-suit she was forced to wear by her mistress Emile. The black Lycra hugged her lean, poorly nourished frame perfectly and something felt kind of homey about the get-up, like she'd worn these clothes all of her life. It was definitely a better fit than the ugly garbs she had been forced to wear over the past year and a half, a slave's uniform made of scratchy, re-purposed material that suffocated the pores of what she imagined used to be perfect, soft, olived skin. Skin that had remained blotchy and dry until Emile had upped her ranks amongst the slaves.

When Emile found her all she had known of life was a Paradise experiment. She was hooked up to a machine, suspended above the ground, her eyes pried open and head wired up to a computer projecting her dreams and memories onto a screen when the mistress freed her. Those grueling experiments had wiped away everything she knew of herself, she didn't even know her own name until Emile had uttered it.

Maddie. That was her name. It sounded foreign to her tongue when she repeated it that day after her mistress, but there was something familiar about it-something tender and bittersweet. She didn't know whether to trust Emile or not that day, but she had no other choice.

At first she was a servant just like all the others, scratchy uniform and all, but then Emile began pursuing her intimately. And when you're seeing the boss you reap the benefits of a daily bath and better clothing. What first began as innocent flirting between her and the mistress quickly flourished into-well she didn't know what it was. They saw each other both physically and socially but they also saw other people. Well Emile mostly saw other people and Maddie sometimes slept with one girl who reminded her of someone. Every time she played with the woman's long braids she felt something in her come alive. It wasn't a feeling of love either, admiration maybe, but definitely not love.

Maddie wasn't capable of feeling love, at least she thought not, her memory span did only stretch back about eighteen months. Still, with her heart void of such an emotion, she had her suspicions about her lovers, the Mistress and the Braids. But that was the one advantage to having amnesia or as Braids referred to it, a 'deleted' didn't know who genuinely cared about you and who was playing you for a fiddle. That was, for some odd reason, a memory or feeling that had survived the trauma of the Techno experiments; Distrust and betrayal. Emotion where she felt like she needed to put up a wall, which she did now as she headed up the street to Emile's office.

They were based in the deserted city of Bethlehem, right near the Harbour, though Emile's operations stretched around the entire area. Maddie had just stepped outside the motel where she worked closely with Mistress, as she saw a new boat docked in the Harbour. It was the third within a month and she could clearly see new slaves were being unloaded and led to Branding.

Curious, Maddie went back inside heading to Emile's office. Outside the door she froze, hearing the angry snare of her mistress. "What do you mean there was a problem with Fleur Isle?"

"We lost a ship ma'am and slaves, including the crew," came the voice of a man who clearly feared Emile, the way his voice wavered as he spoke. "Commander Ved and General Jay were amongst the slaves lost ma'am. They orchestrated the escape."

Maddie listened in quietly, eavesdropping on the conversation. More slaves meant that too many were still dying from the 'great sickness'. She often wondered how long it would be before it was not limited to just those slaves sent to surrounding territories, but to everyone in Bethlehem as well.

"The Blond brothers?" Emile snarled, snapping Maddie out of her thinking. The Mistress sounded both terrified and angry.

"We only acquired their identities after the fact, ma'am, from two ex-Pirates we've recently captured who say Fleur Isle has become a hot spot for strays. Mall Rats and now Technos. They spoke of an anti-dote ma'am."

The click of the mistress' tongue and long, talon-like claws tapping on the table were all too familiar to Maddie. They both excited her and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up at the same time. The last time she had heard that frightening combo of clicking tongue and nail, a man had been fed to a shark. She started to leave, afraid that would now be this man's demise, but then her name was mentioned.

"I can use Maddie," Emile explained, "Her files indicate she knew the Mall Rats. I just knew my little pet would come in handy. She's our ticket to revenge. The brothers and those Mall Rats aren't going to know what hit them. We've already burned down their precious mall."

Use me? she thought. Mall Rats? Why did that name sound so familiar? Were they her friends? Probably not, but Emile had said she knew them. But why was her mistress using her in this plot of revenge against them?

Maddie backed away from the office door quietly but quickly, heading up to her room, feeling of assertiveness now sweeping through her veins at the speed of light. And something else too, a new feeling where she had the overwhelming urge to crack a whip. It seemed like something she would do and the mere thought felt even more at home than the cat-suit.

So Emile wanted to use her in a twisted, little plot? Well-two could play that game!