Lottery
Chapter 4
By Mark J. Silva Jr
Mark hung from his arms, stripped and gagged. Ozland was angry, and that was an understatement. Mark had been caught red handed at the slip-grav driver, accessing its service manuals. Ozland had totally lost it. Mark had been in trouble before, a month earlier Heather had beaten his ass with a paddle, leaving him in tears. Up to the present moment, that was the worst he had ever been beaten.
Mark heard the whip crack. Ozland had chosen a wet whip that was soaked in salt water. He could hear Heather trying to talk Ozland out of it. She explained Mark didn’t have the wetware to handle the pain, or to heal right. But Ozland wasn't hearing any of that.
Mark was to have received four lashes, but after two, he had blacked out. Ozland got even more pissed, and went nuts, beating Mark until the old whip lost its tip. She stood there, and as her temper cooled, she realized that Mark was in real trouble. His blood was flowing, and wasn't stopping.
* * * *
Mark opened his eyes and found himself looking at the floor. He tried to move and found he was strapped down to an oddly padded table, that had a hole in it for his face. And the pain? Oh, his back, arms and legs were on fire! Mark couldn't help it. He started crying from the pain.
Someone said something, but Mark couldn't understand them. He was in so much pain he just couldn't focus. Then, the pain faded as Mark's whole body went numb.
“Is that better?” someone said.
Mark choked back the tears as he replied, “Yes. Thank you, Madam.”
“You shouldn't have broken into that lab, Mark.”
It was Lisa's voice he heard now, and Mark started crying once more as he apologized. The reason why he had needed that information didn't matter, now. It was the fact that he had screwed up.
Lisa shifted the table, so Mark was at a forty-five degree angle and could see Lisa's face. She reached over and gently touched his cheek.
“We are going to fix this mess. When we are done you will explain, in detail, why you broke into a weapons lab,” she said, and then softly slapped Mark's face.
Mark listened as she spoke with a few doctors as to what was to be done. The basic fact was that his skin was shredded, and an infection was starting to set in. The easy fix would be wetware and nanobots, but that was out of the question. Then there was dermi-seal, and letting it heal, but that would leave horrible scarring, and could cause issues with Mark's natural range of motion. No, it was going to be a lot of surgeries and even more pain. In the end, though, he would look and feel almost as though it had never happened.
Lisa returned back into Mark's view, and pinched his nose.
“If you hadn't had your life just about whipped out of you, I would paddle you myself for the trouble you've gotten into! Don't think this is over yet.”
Mark heard the door open and close and then a woman he didn't know stepped into his view.
“Hello, Mark. I'm your doctor and we are going to take real good care of you. We need to check for nerve damage, now. That means we have to counter the pain meds. This is going to hurt a lot, but we have to make sure the nerves are in good working order.”
The pain returned with a vengeance. It wasn't long before Mark was once again in tears. He could hear the doctor talking to some others. Once in a while, he felt them do something. After what felt like forever, a nurse sat down in front of him. She gently stroked his face and told him it would be better, soon.
* * * *
It had been six weeks and Mark was now standing in his room, facing Lisa, to answer to her.
“…sent in requests for the manuals, but was denied access over and over. Then I requested to see the unit myself and still I was denied. I explained I only wanted to see how the unit created the slip field. Yet again, I was denied access,” Mark said.
“You know your not allowed weapons system access. Why was it so important that you get access to this system?” Lisa asked.
“I have an idea for making a slip field bubble, and using it to expand the memory storage for anAI. But, I can't find a way of generating the field. None of the databases I have access to, have that information in them.”
Lisa couldn't see Mark wanting to make weapons, and Robin was worried about Mark's sudden interest in a weapon system. Mark's behavior had gotten erratic. He was worrying the medical staff. He was suffering from cabin fever and one of the doctors had thought maybe he was going to kill himself with the system.
But no, he wanted to make something with the slip field. Lisa paced around Mark who stood nude and rigid in place. There was still a few visible scars that he would have to live with, but otherwise, he was doing much better.
“What did you do to the security system?”
“I replaced the power management routine with one that would cycle my access, constantly.”
Lisa looked over at one of the post's techs at the side of the room. The look on her face was one of surprise. They had been trying to fix what Mark had done, but no one could find the cause. They would delete his access, but then it would reappear. They firewalled his access, and it would still come back. They even wiped out the whole security core routine, and did a fresh install, and it would just reappear once more.
Mark thought in different ways. It was what had made him such a major asset. It was why she and ONI had spent billions of credits on him. So far, they had tripled their investment!
“We found it, but Madam, we can't remove it,” the tech said.
“Why not? What did he do?” Lisa asked.
Mark stood silent.
“Madam, if we remove it, all power will fail. It is in the primary coding. Somehow he hard-coded it in,”
The problem with a savant like Mark, was computers and AIs didn't stand a chance against him. He could rip open their most secret systems and would soon have them singing Kum-Ba-Yah. She could have all the access doors welded shut. He couldn't reprogram a weld. But then again, he could reprogram a maintenance robot to open it for him.
Every computer and tablet had been removed from Mark's room. Even the Holovision had been removed. A simple call button was the only thing electronic that was left.
“Mark, can you remove it?” Lisa asked.
“Yes, Madam,”
Lisa walked around Mark once more and stopped right in front of him, “What do you need,”
“Tech April's tablet will work, Madam.”
Looking over at April, Lisa nodded her head. April looked horrified! This was her personal tablet! She had seen what Mark could do. The idea of giving him access to her personal files and codes just scared the shit out of her.
April reluctantly passed Mark the tablet. Before she had even backed away, Mark passed it back. She looked at it, and read the status over. The access coding had changed and was now fully in spec.
“How?” she asked, but Lisa interrupted his reply.
“You will not do that again, Mark. When someone tells you 'no', and you believe that they are wrong, you will let me know! You will tell me about it, and tell me why you think they are wrong. If and ONLY if I agree with you, will you be granted what you had asked for. Now, you wait here. I'll go verify that everything is fixed.”
April and Lisa left the room leaving Mark alone in the room, Vicky and Tina had been taken away, as part of his punishment. He knew they were safe, and being well taken care of, but they had also removed all his clothing from the room, and the bedding.
The room was getting cold. Winter had set in. Looking out the slider, Mark could see that it was snowing.
Lisa felt sorry for Mark. He worked hard, and only wanted to know something about slip fields. But, he had really screwed up, this time. Yes, she would have never have whipped him. It had scarred him for life. But he had compromised post security, and possibly even post safety.
Part of the issue was their fault also, the doctors watching over him warned Robin and Lisa that Mark needed a break. He needed a few days rest and to get out of the post and relax.
Robin flat out refused, his safety was her responsibility and she could not keep him absolutely safe off of post.
“Did you find what he did to fix it?” Lisa asked April.
“Well. From what I can see, he turned on a light. That was all I could find,”
“A light? So if we had switched on all the lights we could have fixed this ourselves?”
“No, Madam. The light he ordered 'on', doesn't exist; but the computer accepted the command, as if it did.”
'Fucking genius!' Lisa thought as they headed for the maintenance shaft that Mark had entered before.
After a half hour it was clear that there was no trace at all of what Mark had done. His vanishing act trick had to been planned so he could have hidden the record, fully. It would have worked if it wasn't for the other AI.
Then Lisa got a panicked message from Heather. It simply said: 'Come fast, they're killing him.'
Since no location was given Lisa assumed it was Mark's room, she sent order for a group of Marines to meet her in his room and a dashed out heading the same way.
The scene in Mark room when Lisa entered, was of four Volon slave Masters were beating Mark with leather straps. She screamed out an order. One of them looked at her like she wasn't even there. Then the first of the Marines entered the room. Lisa grabbed a pistol from her, and blew the head off of one of the slave masters.
This brought the other three to a sudden stop.
Volon's are stupid, single-minded beings. They followed orders to the letter, as if they were laws of nature. But, why were they in Mark's room, beating him senseless?
Mark was on the floor, red raw spots on his back were shining like beacons, on his lily white skin.
'He needs more sun,' passed through Lisa's mind, oddly.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Lisa screamed at the closest slaver.
“Slave broke rules. We must teach it to listen.”
“He was already punished! You do not belong in here! Now get out!”
“Punished, yes. We teach him. Slave is faulty. We have to teach him follow rules.”
BOOM!
Another dead Volon! The other two looked at each other and decided they would come back later.
“We will return, later.”
“NO! If you come back, I will have you executed on the spot!”
Lisa watched as the medics entered and started checking Mark over. The leather belts had left welts but had not done any real damage. They had just caused lots of pain. The problem lay in the fact that slaves have wetware, and that wetware would tune out most of the pain, making it manageable. But Mark was unaltered! he didn't have the luxury of turning down the pain.
Moments later, she heard Mark's breathing even out. He was now sleeping. The medics moved him to the bed.
Turning to Heather, Lisa said, “Get his pets and bedding, and get the temp back up, in here. He is done with his punishment.”
“Of course, Madam. I will get everything taken care of, right away,” Heather said.
Then Lisa turned to her Marines.
“I want guards outside of his door until I say otherwise, if those slavers come back, shoot them on sight.”
As Lisa turned to leave the room, Tina was the first to appear in the doorway. Vicky was close behind her, carrying blankets and bedding.
No one had to tell them anything. Mark's bed was made, and he was tucked in, with Tina under the covers warming him up. All was done silently and quickly. Then Vicky turned to Lisa, “May I get him some warm food, Mistress?”
“He will be asleep for several hours. When he awakens, you can get him anything he desires,” Lisa answered
Then she looked over at Mark once more and made up her mind, “Vicky, make sure he has something to wear for a day at the beach. Better get some lotion, too. He'll probably get a sunburn, otherwise.”
* * * *
The beach was packed, but if you looked closely, you wouldn't find your average beach goers. No, the beach was filled with two hundred and three Marines, enjoying some 'armed R and R.' If you looked closer still, you'd find one male and two bunnygirl pets in the center of the group.
Mark had never been to a beach. He didn't even know how to swim. But, being outside felt so good! Even if he was surrounded by Fleet Marines he couldn't have been happier. The welts had mostly faded away. With the meds he was taking, Mark wasn't feeling any pain; not even when Lisa grabbed his nipple and twisted it, to wake him up, because he was snoring so loudly!
“Your going to sleep your day away,” Lisa said.
Mark sat up and smiled. He couldn't help but smile. Lisa loved the look of a smile on his face.
“Go play in the water,” Lisa said.
Mark looked at the inviting water of the fresh water lake, and at the hundreds of Marines, every one of them females.
Today, he was embarrassed by one other fact. There wasn't a swimsuit, anywhere, that would fit him. So, he was at the beach, naked. Worse yet, was that Lisa had given the soldiers permission to play with Mark in any way that wasn't harmful.
So, Mark just looked at the water. The last time he went to play in it, he hadn't made it thirty feet before someone decided to play with him.
It was fun, but after the ladies where done with him, they decided he needed to cool off. So, they had tossed him into the water where it was really deep. It was at that moment that everyone discovered Mark couldn't swim.
Mark heard the whip crack. Ozland had chosen a wet whip that was soaked in salt water. He could hear Heather trying to talk Ozland out of it. She explained Mark didn’t have the wetware to handle the pain, or to heal right. But Ozland wasn't hearing any of that.
Mark was to have received four lashes, but after two, he had blacked out. Ozland got even more pissed, and went nuts, beating Mark until the old whip lost its tip. She stood there, and as her temper cooled, she realized that Mark was in real trouble. His blood was flowing, and wasn't stopping.
* * * *
Mark opened his eyes and found himself looking at the floor. He tried to move and found he was strapped down to an oddly padded table, that had a hole in it for his face. And the pain? Oh, his back, arms and legs were on fire! Mark couldn't help it. He started crying from the pain.
Someone said something, but Mark couldn't understand them. He was in so much pain he just couldn't focus. Then, the pain faded as Mark's whole body went numb.
“Is that better?” someone said.
Mark choked back the tears as he replied, “Yes. Thank you, Madam.”
“You shouldn't have broken into that lab, Mark.”
It was Lisa's voice he heard now, and Mark started crying once more as he apologized. The reason why he had needed that information didn't matter, now. It was the fact that he had screwed up.
Lisa shifted the table, so Mark was at a forty-five degree angle and could see Lisa's face. She reached over and gently touched his cheek.
“We are going to fix this mess. When we are done you will explain, in detail, why you broke into a weapons lab,” she said, and then softly slapped Mark's face.
Mark listened as she spoke with a few doctors as to what was to be done. The basic fact was that his skin was shredded, and an infection was starting to set in. The easy fix would be wetware and nanobots, but that was out of the question. Then there was dermi-seal, and letting it heal, but that would leave horrible scarring, and could cause issues with Mark's natural range of motion. No, it was going to be a lot of surgeries and even more pain. In the end, though, he would look and feel almost as though it had never happened.
Lisa returned back into Mark's view, and pinched his nose.
“If you hadn't had your life just about whipped out of you, I would paddle you myself for the trouble you've gotten into! Don't think this is over yet.”
Mark heard the door open and close and then a woman he didn't know stepped into his view.
“Hello, Mark. I'm your doctor and we are going to take real good care of you. We need to check for nerve damage, now. That means we have to counter the pain meds. This is going to hurt a lot, but we have to make sure the nerves are in good working order.”
The pain returned with a vengeance. It wasn't long before Mark was once again in tears. He could hear the doctor talking to some others. Once in a while, he felt them do something. After what felt like forever, a nurse sat down in front of him. She gently stroked his face and told him it would be better, soon.
* * * *
It had been six weeks and Mark was now standing in his room, facing Lisa, to answer to her.
“…sent in requests for the manuals, but was denied access over and over. Then I requested to see the unit myself and still I was denied. I explained I only wanted to see how the unit created the slip field. Yet again, I was denied access,” Mark said.
“You know your not allowed weapons system access. Why was it so important that you get access to this system?” Lisa asked.
“I have an idea for making a slip field bubble, and using it to expand the memory storage for anAI. But, I can't find a way of generating the field. None of the databases I have access to, have that information in them.”
Lisa couldn't see Mark wanting to make weapons, and Robin was worried about Mark's sudden interest in a weapon system. Mark's behavior had gotten erratic. He was worrying the medical staff. He was suffering from cabin fever and one of the doctors had thought maybe he was going to kill himself with the system.
But no, he wanted to make something with the slip field. Lisa paced around Mark who stood nude and rigid in place. There was still a few visible scars that he would have to live with, but otherwise, he was doing much better.
“What did you do to the security system?”
“I replaced the power management routine with one that would cycle my access, constantly.”
Lisa looked over at one of the post's techs at the side of the room. The look on her face was one of surprise. They had been trying to fix what Mark had done, but no one could find the cause. They would delete his access, but then it would reappear. They firewalled his access, and it would still come back. They even wiped out the whole security core routine, and did a fresh install, and it would just reappear once more.
Mark thought in different ways. It was what had made him such a major asset. It was why she and ONI had spent billions of credits on him. So far, they had tripled their investment!
“We found it, but Madam, we can't remove it,” the tech said.
“Why not? What did he do?” Lisa asked.
Mark stood silent.
“Madam, if we remove it, all power will fail. It is in the primary coding. Somehow he hard-coded it in,”
The problem with a savant like Mark, was computers and AIs didn't stand a chance against him. He could rip open their most secret systems and would soon have them singing Kum-Ba-Yah. She could have all the access doors welded shut. He couldn't reprogram a weld. But then again, he could reprogram a maintenance robot to open it for him.
Every computer and tablet had been removed from Mark's room. Even the Holovision had been removed. A simple call button was the only thing electronic that was left.
“Mark, can you remove it?” Lisa asked.
“Yes, Madam,”
Lisa walked around Mark once more and stopped right in front of him, “What do you need,”
“Tech April's tablet will work, Madam.”
Looking over at April, Lisa nodded her head. April looked horrified! This was her personal tablet! She had seen what Mark could do. The idea of giving him access to her personal files and codes just scared the shit out of her.
April reluctantly passed Mark the tablet. Before she had even backed away, Mark passed it back. She looked at it, and read the status over. The access coding had changed and was now fully in spec.
“How?” she asked, but Lisa interrupted his reply.
“You will not do that again, Mark. When someone tells you 'no', and you believe that they are wrong, you will let me know! You will tell me about it, and tell me why you think they are wrong. If and ONLY if I agree with you, will you be granted what you had asked for. Now, you wait here. I'll go verify that everything is fixed.”
April and Lisa left the room leaving Mark alone in the room, Vicky and Tina had been taken away, as part of his punishment. He knew they were safe, and being well taken care of, but they had also removed all his clothing from the room, and the bedding.
The room was getting cold. Winter had set in. Looking out the slider, Mark could see that it was snowing.
Lisa felt sorry for Mark. He worked hard, and only wanted to know something about slip fields. But, he had really screwed up, this time. Yes, she would have never have whipped him. It had scarred him for life. But he had compromised post security, and possibly even post safety.
Part of the issue was their fault also, the doctors watching over him warned Robin and Lisa that Mark needed a break. He needed a few days rest and to get out of the post and relax.
Robin flat out refused, his safety was her responsibility and she could not keep him absolutely safe off of post.
“Did you find what he did to fix it?” Lisa asked April.
“Well. From what I can see, he turned on a light. That was all I could find,”
“A light? So if we had switched on all the lights we could have fixed this ourselves?”
“No, Madam. The light he ordered 'on', doesn't exist; but the computer accepted the command, as if it did.”
'Fucking genius!' Lisa thought as they headed for the maintenance shaft that Mark had entered before.
After a half hour it was clear that there was no trace at all of what Mark had done. His vanishing act trick had to been planned so he could have hidden the record, fully. It would have worked if it wasn't for the other AI.
Then Lisa got a panicked message from Heather. It simply said: 'Come fast, they're killing him.'
Since no location was given Lisa assumed it was Mark's room, she sent order for a group of Marines to meet her in his room and a dashed out heading the same way.
The scene in Mark room when Lisa entered, was of four Volon slave Masters were beating Mark with leather straps. She screamed out an order. One of them looked at her like she wasn't even there. Then the first of the Marines entered the room. Lisa grabbed a pistol from her, and blew the head off of one of the slave masters.
This brought the other three to a sudden stop.
Volon's are stupid, single-minded beings. They followed orders to the letter, as if they were laws of nature. But, why were they in Mark's room, beating him senseless?
Mark was on the floor, red raw spots on his back were shining like beacons, on his lily white skin.
'He needs more sun,' passed through Lisa's mind, oddly.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” Lisa screamed at the closest slaver.
“Slave broke rules. We must teach it to listen.”
“He was already punished! You do not belong in here! Now get out!”
“Punished, yes. We teach him. Slave is faulty. We have to teach him follow rules.”
BOOM!
Another dead Volon! The other two looked at each other and decided they would come back later.
“We will return, later.”
“NO! If you come back, I will have you executed on the spot!”
Lisa watched as the medics entered and started checking Mark over. The leather belts had left welts but had not done any real damage. They had just caused lots of pain. The problem lay in the fact that slaves have wetware, and that wetware would tune out most of the pain, making it manageable. But Mark was unaltered! he didn't have the luxury of turning down the pain.
Moments later, she heard Mark's breathing even out. He was now sleeping. The medics moved him to the bed.
Turning to Heather, Lisa said, “Get his pets and bedding, and get the temp back up, in here. He is done with his punishment.”
“Of course, Madam. I will get everything taken care of, right away,” Heather said.
Then Lisa turned to her Marines.
“I want guards outside of his door until I say otherwise, if those slavers come back, shoot them on sight.”
As Lisa turned to leave the room, Tina was the first to appear in the doorway. Vicky was close behind her, carrying blankets and bedding.
No one had to tell them anything. Mark's bed was made, and he was tucked in, with Tina under the covers warming him up. All was done silently and quickly. Then Vicky turned to Lisa, “May I get him some warm food, Mistress?”
“He will be asleep for several hours. When he awakens, you can get him anything he desires,” Lisa answered
Then she looked over at Mark once more and made up her mind, “Vicky, make sure he has something to wear for a day at the beach. Better get some lotion, too. He'll probably get a sunburn, otherwise.”
* * * *
The beach was packed, but if you looked closely, you wouldn't find your average beach goers. No, the beach was filled with two hundred and three Marines, enjoying some 'armed R and R.' If you looked closer still, you'd find one male and two bunnygirl pets in the center of the group.
Mark had never been to a beach. He didn't even know how to swim. But, being outside felt so good! Even if he was surrounded by Fleet Marines he couldn't have been happier. The welts had mostly faded away. With the meds he was taking, Mark wasn't feeling any pain; not even when Lisa grabbed his nipple and twisted it, to wake him up, because he was snoring so loudly!
“Your going to sleep your day away,” Lisa said.
Mark sat up and smiled. He couldn't help but smile. Lisa loved the look of a smile on his face.
“Go play in the water,” Lisa said.
Mark looked at the inviting water of the fresh water lake, and at the hundreds of Marines, every one of them females.
Today, he was embarrassed by one other fact. There wasn't a swimsuit, anywhere, that would fit him. So, he was at the beach, naked. Worse yet, was that Lisa had given the soldiers permission to play with Mark in any way that wasn't harmful.
So, Mark just looked at the water. The last time he went to play in it, he hadn't made it thirty feet before someone decided to play with him.
It was fun, but after the ladies where done with him, they decided he needed to cool off. So, they had tossed him into the water where it was really deep. It was at that moment that everyone discovered Mark couldn't swim.