Ask not for whom the bell tolls.  It's automated and doesn't toll for anybody in particular.  But it is pretty effective in counting the hours I spend wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Like shit," I said.  "I never could sleep in low G.  I think I'm gonna go for a walk."

"mmmhm."  She was already asleep.  I swear she could sleep on a pile of broken glass.

I pushed myself upright and put my clothes on.  I was already getting dizzy as I headed out of the door.  I kept my head down and followed the walkway.  The trams and move-ways hummed above me, barely louder the buzzing in my ears.  I concentrated on that hum rather than the gurgling in my gut.  I could already tell I was lost.  At least I was as lost as one could get in Kennedy.  There's no place in the city more than a few meters from some form of transit that would whisk you back to wherever home is.  It wasn't too long before my stomach got its bearings and I could look up.  The entire city seemed to glow with single spectrum luminescence.  It was almost like every surface was made out of sickly, yellow light.  It was actually very well executed.  You were never in the dark, but you could still see the stars.

*****

Cassie and I met on Liebnez.  It was my first time in orbit.  I liked it even less then than now.  But the station systems were being upgraded and there was good money in it for a silicon jockey like me.  Andy, me and half the department had just been laid off, with no real promise of being recalled.  Andy heard about the gig on Liebniz from his dad.  Three months in orbit, 12 hours of work a day, a crappy room, your run of the station and at the end you would have enough creds to live on for the better part of a year.

Like I said, I had never been in orbit before, so I didn't know how much I hated it.

"A lot of people have trouble adjusting.  Just stay out of the G chamber until you are adjusted."

The station's med staff didn't much care for Andy's advice.  I would have never hit the G chamber that first week if I waited for my stomach to calm down, and the contract required enough time in the G chamber to insure we could readjust to life planetside once the tour was over.  Less rick of liability for management that way.  Neither Andy nor I spent much time in our quarters.  Andy preferred partying to sleep, whereas I couldn't sleep, so I had no reason to hang out in a tiny room with 18 snoring guys strapped to every surface.

At first I avoided intoxicants.  I couldn't hold my liquor when my stomach was settled.  And for some reason it took me a few days to remember than herb helped with nausea.  I was never a fan of herb.  I was more of an amp man.  I never quite saw the appeal of smoking up my lungs just so I could get tired and dizzy.  I had a "Duh" moment when the waitress told me that the special was low G hydroponic.  That's when I remembered that herb was the cure for what ailed me.

Since we were in orbit, she brought me a vaporizer rather than a pipe.  It was much less harsh and way more potent than any spliff I'd burned back home.  It wasn't long before I was floating in more ways than one.  The only problem was that to get high enough to not feel sick, I had to get too high to work.  That meant taking two amps before my shift started and trying not to vomit.

One night I drifted to the arboreum.  I'd heard it had a little more G than the rest of the station, but still less than a full G.  That appealed to my herb scrambled mind for no reason that I can recall now.  Due to the slightly higher G, this was a popular fuckspot.  Since it was a popular fuckspot, it was also a favorite hangout for voyeurs.  Since I was not amongst the fuckers, I guess I was a voyeur that night.  That was the first time I saw Cassie.  She was riding up and down on Andy.  She had short, brown hair that gave her a slight halo as it hovered around her head.  She had a great ass too.  I was too high and a little to far away to notice much more detail than that.  Andy spied me and gave me a thumbs up.  Cassie followed his eyes to me.

She said something to Andy.  Asking about me I guess.  She must have liked the answer because she looked back at me, smiled and started pumping twice as hard as before.

"Did you like the show?"

"What?" I managed to squeeze out while keeping breakfast in.

"She's just got her Ph.D. in history," he went on as if I had answered his question, "and is hanging out here on Daddy's cred until she gets a teaching gig somewhere."

"So it's love, is it?  BELCH."

"Parts of me are madly in love with parts of her."

That was our line.  "Part's of me are in love with parts of her."  It meant that we were too manly to fall in love.  We'd hang out with women.  We'd drink with women.  We worked with women.  We had friends who were women.  And we happily fucked women any chance we could.  But love?  That was for eunuchs.

It took most of the first month, but I eventually adjusted to life at low G.  I still got dizzy on occasion, but my digestive system did not seem as determined to turn itself inside out as it had been.  I still had trouble sleeping and the crowded quarters didn't help.  Fortunately upgrades require testing, especially when a bug in the system could result in 1000 or so people being blown out into space.  If I saved the amp for after work, I could catch a few hours while tests and tests of tests were being run.  Sleeping in mid-air may be good for your back, but it makes for fucked up dreams.

In one dream I was planet-side, waiting for a subway.  I don't know exactly where I was.  The trains were smaller than the average subway and were open-air, no roof or walls.  As each train came and went I slowly moved towards the edge of the platform, planning to eventually get on one of the trains.  When I finally was close enough to actually get on a train, I realized that I didn't have enough cred to pay for my ride.  The last train pulled up and Andy and Cassie were on it.  They got off and walked over to me.  Andy told Cassie to kiss me for him because, he said jokingly, he was fairly sure I was infected with "something".

The downside of sleeping on the job is getting woke up by Andy.  I never knew if he was going to head-butt me or grab my crotch or untether me and push me into the wall.  It was only fair.  If he was stupid enough to sleep on the job I would feel obligated to do the same to him.

"I can see your poor little stomach has finally calmed down."

"Did you want to join Cassie and me tonight?"

"Can I at least meet her first?"

"You've seen her ass, what more do you need?"

"Why don't you two meet me in the bar?"

"Because that is time that could be spent fucking."

"Right.  See you at the bar."

"No you won't."

"I will eventually."

"Ass," he said before kissing me hard on the mouth and then launching himself towards the exit.


I wasn't too surprised when I saw them floating into the bar a few days later.  I was surprised that it wasn't Andy's idea.

"You owe me," Cassie said.

"Owe you?"

"You got a free show at the aboreum.  I think I deserve a show in return."

"Like what?"

"She want to watch us fuck, dumbass," Andy said with a smile.

"But you said that it would be next to impossible for us to fuck in low G."

"It is."

"But my room is right next to the G chamber.  I wanted to get used to one G in case I got a job on Earth."

That was all I needed to hear.


Going from low G to one G is possibly worse than just being in low G, even with frequent trips to the G chamber to renew my aquaintence with 1 G.  Not only does my stomach do backflips but my back kills me for at least an hour.  Not that I ever let back trouble get in the way.

The private rooms were more than a few steps above crew quarters.  It was about the same size, but no one was strapped the walls, the shower tube was clean and a view screen on the wall gave the illusion of having a window.

I was still silently admiring the room when Andy tackled me.  Patience was not his strong suit.  It was not long before he was inside me.  I looked over at Cassie.  She had managed to get mostly naked before she decided that we were too interesting to miss.  It was only one round before she decided she had to join in.

After that, we were together most of the time away from work.  Andy and Cassie had much more of a drive than I could muster.  But I enjoyed being in private quarters, with a private connection and having the best free show on the station.


The rest of our time on the station formed a comfortable pattern of work and play.

Leave it to Andy and me to actually fall in love with her.

Cassie didn't feel the same way.  Andy and I spent hours going over everything she said and did, looking for that clue that she was interesting in joining us.  In the end we decided we were being overly hopeful.  She wasn't about to leave Leibnez to move into our shit apartment.  Even if she did, she would be gone as soon as she was offered a job.

We did spend our last night together in her room.  The only time I got away was to use the connection to make sure things were still clear back home, and to make sure my personal upgrades were in place.

The next day, Andy and I were on our way home.


"Home sweet home," the ever original Andy said as he unlocked the door to our apartment.

"At least there's gravity and no one strapped to the wall."

"Maybe I should strap you to the wall."

"That's so gay."

My amusement turned immediately to irritation as Andy grabbed my ass.  This was not unusual or normally unwelcome behavior, but I swatted his hand away.

"Okay," Andy said after a few minutes.

"I'm just tired.  Let's just get unpacked and, I dunno, I'll lay down or take an amp or something."

I didn't feel tired until I said it.  Suddenly it felt like gravity was making up for lost time.

We unpacked and I laid down in the bedroom by myself.  After 20 minutes I realized that I was not going to be getting any sleep anytime soon.  I grabbed mycomp and hooked up.  I didn't have anything in particular in mind.  I loaded a book shop and picked out some interesting looking books.  I captured the transaction and changed the price for the books to 0 before bouncing it back.  I put down mycomp and let it handle loading the books while I stared at the ceiling for a while.

It was dead silent in the bedroom.  I heard Andy in the next room.  It sounded like he already had a new job lined up for us.  I fell asleep listening to his voice.

I was woken up by the sound of a pill bottle hitting the bed.

"Take some amp," Andy said as I tried to focus my eyes.  "We have a job."

"Already?"  I sounded more whiny that I cared to, but I was still in a daze.  "It's not like we are short on cred."

"We have been engaging in good, honest labor too long.  Word on the net is we have dropped out.  That's not good for business."

"Fuck business."

"Okay, Cracker McCrank.  You're the one who got me into this business.  I was an honest, white dress virgin before you corrupted me."

"I could tell from Andy's unusually playful tone that he did not get that I was not kidding around.

"We have a ton of cred.  Let's just go somewhere or do something."

"That sounds like a plan.  We just spent three months away."

"We spent three months working"

"And banging a rich chick.  And some of us engaged in Olympic level vomiting."

"Just fuck off."

Andy crawled into bed next to me and put his arm around me.

"Look, we need to take work where we can get it.  So how about you stop acting like an idiot before I brain you?"

The annoying thing was, he probably would knock me upside of my head.  And then I would hit him back and by then Andy would think it was foreplay and I could forget about sleeping.

"What's the job?" I sighed.

"Penetration and retrieval.  We just need to get some data from one of our client's competitors."

"When?"

"ASAP."

"Delightful.  Can I at least get some sleep."

"Sure.  As soon as we are done."

The next thing I knew Andy was cramming two amps into my mouth.  I swallowed before they made my tongue go completely numb.  I felt my pulse speed up as any sense of fatigue drained out of me.  I was on the hunt.  It was time to ride.

"Let's go find a hookup." I said and we headed out of the door.

One does no pick just any link for a pen.  Aside from the obvious desire to use a connection that can in no way be traced back to us, we needed a hookup with piss poor security and that was the challenge.  Sometimes it was a gamble trying to tell the traps from the real poorly managed connections.  We could spend hours on the train, or wandering around, spoofing our way on to and taking quick peeks at connections before moving on, the coming back for another peek.  It was the single most tedious part of any job.

People are so paranoid.  They used to be satisfied with low-grade security, or spoof that made their connections look almost like traps.  I started tagging connections that were locked down but still vulnerable.  I would prefer to not have to break through connection security as well as the target's security.  The less time you spent on a job, the less likely you were to get caught.  After a few hours, though, it was starting to look like we were going to have to used someone's secured connection.  The only open connections were traps and we had to get the job done.

I set up every spoof I could on my comp to cover our tracks.  If there is a comp out there with a footprint that looked like our spoof, that was their problem.  It took 30 seconds to break the security on the connection.  Ideally the job should have been done in under 30.  It was a minute and a half total before I was in and copying files that matched the params giving to us by the client.

The next thing I knew I was coming to in some strange room.  It took me a moment to start getting my bearings.  Andy was on the floor, breathing but unconscious.  We had been snagged.  That meant that we were fucked.  All there was to do was find out who snagged us and how they were going to make us pay.

"Ah.  You are awake," a disembodied voice came from just above the door.  "You process sedatives faster than your boyfriend.  Faster than the average.  That is a useful skill."

"Where are we?  What the fuck is going on?"

"You are also inquisitive.  You can't bear to not be in on a secret.  That can serve you well, but it can also get you locked up in a room."

I looked around for my comp, pretty much figuring I wouldn't find it.

"Our comp is quite safe..."

"Our comp?  If you hurt my comp, I will fucking..."

"Yes, yes.  Our comp is quite fine.  We admire the personal modifications you put in place on Leibnez.  Except for the cams you hid in Cassandra Jackson's quarters.  That is in bad taste."

"Stop fucking around and answer me!"

"I am sensing far too much aggression in your voice.  You are obviously not in the mood to discuss your situation rationally.  You rest and we will speak later."

I yelled at the door for a few minutes before I settled down and started looking around the room.  It was empty except for Andy and me.  The light was diffuse, full-spectrum LED, giving an illusion of natural lighting.  There was one door with no handle, no way to grip it at all.  There was no way of knowing if the lock was physical or computer controlled magnetic.  If it was physical, we were screwed.  Neither of ever bothered to learn how to bypass physical locks.  Although we could hardly hack a magnetic lock without my comp.

"What the fuck?" Andy had finally came to.

"It was a trap," I told him.

"A trap?"  If you were to go by the tone of his voice, you would think this was the first time he had ever heard the term.  "How the fuck was it a trap?"

"They have my comp.  We're fucked."

Andy was in my face before I knew it.

"How the fuck did you not see that it was a trap?  That's your job!  What the fuck have you gotten us into?"

"As I recall," I replied calmly, "you were the one who took the assignment."

"Fuck you."

"Only if you want to do it on camera.  I assume they are watching us."

"Yes we are," said the voice from earlier.  "I am glad you have finally joined us, Andrew."

Andy was far better at checking his temper when the situation called for it.

"And whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to?" he asked as if he were meeting someone on the street, rather than addressing the person who had just drugged and kidnapped him.

"You may think of me as your supervisor.  It is my pleasure to inform you that we now employ you."  The voice seemed quite happy to finally be speaking to someone calm.

"Well," Andy replied.  "I have to say your recruiting methods are a bit unorthodox."  A smile was spreading across his face.  I felt it was best to let Andy do all the talking.

"Our organization is a bit unorthodox."

"And can I assume that our release with be at least part of our payment for our services."

"No."

"No?"  Andy's smile faded a bit.  "How long do you think you can keep us."

"As long as we like," the voice calmly explained.  "As far as all relevant records are concerned, you two have taken a long term, off-planet assignment.  Further, you are quite completely within our control.  You will do as you are told and you will accept what if any reward we offer."

"One question,"  Andy said.  "What if we refuse."

"This."

With that the lights shut off.  I don't know how long it was before we heard the voice again.  We slept off and on.  We were hungry and thirsty, but our bodily functions carried merrily along.  I personally never need to smell the smell of my own rotting shit ever again.  If I had been alone in the room, I would have probably lost it.  But I had Andy.  We talked about our situation and tried to come up with some sort of solution.  The only conclusion we could reasonably come to was that we were fucked, at least for now and that playing along was the only option, aside from rotting in that room.


The lights finally came back on.

"I believe," the voice said, "that we should be in agreement at this point."

"Yeah, sure," Andy replied.

"Good.  Go get cleaned up."

With a clack the door opened slightly.  The hall outside was almost pitch black.  The only light was from the room we were in and a room across the hall.

"You will find personal facilities, beds and clothing in the guest room," the voice explained.

We went into the room across the hall.  I was not surprised when the door shut and magnetic locks clacked into place.

"So what now?" I asked.

"I am going to take a shower.  Feel free to join me."

When we got out of the shower, there were three additions to the room.  Sitting on the table were my comp and some food.  I was so excited about the first two items that I didn't notice the third until Andy said

"Cassie?"

There she was, sitting at the table, looking as hot as ever.

"What the hell?"

"Hi, guys."

As usual, Andy managed to spot the obvious before me.

"You seem to be looking rather happy and spry for a hostage."

"I'm not a hostage and neither are you.  Hostages are held for ransom.  You are being held for your skills"

"What are you being held for?" I asked, ever slow on the uptake.

"Don't be a dumbass," Andy said to me.

"You may think of me as your recruiter," Cassie explained.

"You do this a lot, then?"

"Recruit?" she asked in reply.

"Fuck people then fuck them over."

"Fuck them over, yes.  Fuck them, only when the mood strikes.  Look, I know what you must be thinking right now..."

"Then why aren't you running?" Andy interrupted.

"If it makes you feel better, I didn't exactly lie to you," she continued.  "I do have a degree in history.  I was on the Leibniz on Daddy's cred.  In fact, that is whom you are working for."

"Daddy whore you out a lot?"  Andy must have been pissed off.  He's been more diplomatic with people he was ready to kill.  Me, I was lost.

"Look," she said to me.  "Here is your comp.  Exactly as you left it.  We did a thorough inventory but did not change a setting."

I guess it says something about me that after all the shit we were in, I actually felt relieved grabbing my comp and checking it over.  She was right.  Not a setting was changed.

"So," Andy seemed to regain his composure.  "What is the job?"

"Something you are both expert at.  Penetration."

Andy stared at her for a second.  "Are we slaves or actors in a cheap porn movie?"

"That's a shame," she replied.  "One of the things I liked about you was your sense of humor.  That and your cock.  And your boyfriends cock.  And..."

"We are going to be penetrating one of Daddy's rivals, then?" Andy asked.

"Yes."  She actually seemed hurt that Andy was not joining in with her ribaldry.

"Give me the parameters and point me to a hookup," I said, trying to sound as composed as Andy.

"One of the parameters is that you won't be able to get in via any old connection.

It was my turn to have hurt feelings.  "I can penetrate anything that is hooked up."

"I know, my sweet," she replied soothingly.  "But this place is not typical.  Paranoid.  "They don't have any external hookups."

It took me a moment to process this.  "How am I supposed to get in?"

"By getting in," she replied.

I hated to sound stupid, but "Huh?" was all I could manage at that point.

"Physical penetration," Andy said.

"Now who's making the double entendres?"

"Fuck you," was Andy's reply.  Cassie just smiled.

"Physical penetration?" I asked.

"It would seem," Andy explained, "that we are meant to actually go on site, to our target's location and do the pen there."

"That sounds stupid and dangerous," I said.

"And fun.  Get ready.  Eat, get some sleep," Cassie said while getting up.  "We leave in the morning."

With that she was out of the door.  It clacked behind her.  I then realized that it had not clacked before se opened it.

"She was playing with us," I said to Andy.

"Yeah.  She was.  Eat something."


The next morning we woke up in our apartment.  Cassie was in bed with us.  Andy poked her in the side.  She grunted and rolled over.

"She's not armed," I observed.

"Which means we are probably being watched.  Are you sure they didn't bug your comp."

"Certain.  Besides, a bug would send out information which could be picked up by our target once we're on site.  That's pretty basic."

"Basic for freaks like you."

"This is is hardly the time to be flirting."

"Yeah.  They might figure out that you're gay."

Cassie rolled back over and looked up at us.

"Don't you ever sleep?" she asked.

"How did we get here?" Andy returned.

"You were drugged and brought here," she replied as she had been asked the single most stupid question she had ever heard.

"You have to admit, Andy, that was pretty obvious," I added.

Andy didn't seem to care for that at all.

"Fine, if we aren't going to sleep, I'm going to take a shower.  Be dears and make breakfast."  Cassie up and headed for the bathroom.  You would think that she lived here and that we did this every day.  I couldn't think of anything better to do, so I headed to the kitchen and started to make pancakes.  Andy followed me.  He had his I'm thinking look on his face.

After a few minutes, Cassie came out.  She was naked except for the towel she had wrapped around her head.  She helped herself a plate of pancakes and sat down to eat.

"Are we going to get any more details about this 'job'?" Andy asked.

"Calm down, would you.  We have a couple of days before we get sent the mission profile.  You've been trough a lot and are about to go through a lot more.  Relax while you can."

"I can't help but notice you don't seem to be armed." Andy said.

"Are you sure I'm not hiding any weapons?" she turned to him and spread her legs.  She smiled as Andy made sure.

"See, we are not enemies.  We are friends.  I am not going to hurt either of you."

"What if we kill you and skip town?" Andy asked.

"Well, you will ruin what could be a couple of very fun days and our employer will find you and kill you.  But I would not be sitting here unarmed and you would not have gotten to enjoy making sure I am unarmed if there was any chance that you would hurt me."

She finished her plate of pancakes and got up.

"I am heading to the bedroom.  If either can think of something more interesting we can do than sleeping, let me know."

"You wouldn't actually kill her would you?" I asked.

"No."

"But she would kill us."

"I don't think so."

"Because she let you feel her up?"

"In part, yes.  Also she is unarmed.  She knows that we know we are stuck."

"Are we?"

Andy didn't answer that.

"What do we do now?" I asked.

"We enjoy our days off."

He too headed for the bedroom.  I followed.

The next couple of days passed much like our time on Leibniz.  Except we had gravity all the time.  And instead of breaking for work, we only broke for food or to watch a vid.  We didn't even mention the fact that we were as good as her captives and that she would soon be sending us on a job with a so-far undisclosed target and so-far undisclosed risks.

In fact, I almost had myself convinced that we would never be sent the mission.  That somehow Cassie had made our little duo a trio and that she was going to get a job at a local University and Andy and I would be back to taking whatever jobs came our way.  It was only when I was by myself, which was thankfully rare, that I couldn't fool myself.  My stomach would drop as I realize yet again the situation Andy and I were in was not the situation we were currently pretending to be in with Cassie.  I would panic for a moment wondering what to do.  Then to drive the thoughts out of my head, I would run and tackle Andy and blow him while Cassie watched gleefully, or tickle Cassie until she begged for mercy then begged me to fuck her.

Between the mood swings and the surreal position I was in, I was feeling almost as disoriented as I did on Leibniz.


I enjoy watching 20th Century 2D's.  Some of them are about spies and other adventurers who would use wit, cunning, violence and technology to break into enemy buildings, all with cheesy 20th Century music playing in the background.


Our initial penetration was nowhere near as interesting.  It started the day our orders arrived.  In it was what little public information there was on Incremetech.  There were also three paper applications for employment already filled out in a remarkable forgery of our own handwriting.

"What do we do if we don't get hired?" I asked.

"We keep trying until we find a way in," Cassie replied.

"According to this, I am a borderline illiterate with no comp experience."  I was insulted.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Cassie replied with nothing resembling sincerity.

"The point of that," Andy added, "is that you will be less likely to be watched if they don't think you are a threat to their systems.  And it looks like I am a rather highly qualified salesman."

"Well, let's get this shit delivered," Cassie said. 

We spent the next couple of hours traveling around the city to mail drop offs that were near the addresses listed on our applications.  After that, we waited.


It went on for months.  Every so often we would be sent a new packet with new applications to be sent in.  Cassie paid our rent and other expenses.  She also kept us on a short lease.  Keeping Andy occupied was not that hard.  Me, I had another itch to scratch.  But I was forbidden to do any system cracking, even recreational cracking was denied me.

"We are three unemployed roomies looking for entry level work," Cassie explained.  "No doubt we are under their scrutiny and we can't afford to do anything that will tip them off."

Eventually, all three of us were called in for interviews.  As no one is allowed on Incremetech's ground without being thoroughly vetted, we were told we would be transported from our apartment to an undisclosed, secure location.  We were to wear clothing with no pockets and bring no electronic devices with us.  Three days later, our transport arrived.  It was an computer driven hover with no windows.  Oddly, it was neon green.  I expected it to be black.

We sat for hours, making the sort of small talk three roomies with no ulterior motives make.  We talked about how it was past time we got jobs, how our savings were dried up, how neat it would be to work for Incremetech.

Finally, the hover stopped and the door opened.  Three large, rather frighting and well armed men were there to greet us.

"Come this way," one of them said.

"So, are you in security?" Andy asked as we followed them.

"Small talk is a potential security breach," one of the replied.  That rather put an end to the conversation.

Finally, we came to an open door.  One of the guards pointed into the room.  The three of us went in.  There was a vid screen on one wall.  Three chairs sat facing it.  Taking the hint, we all sat down.  We hardly even noticed when the door slid shut behind us.

The screen lit up.  It was satellite footage of a building on fire.  It took me a moment to realize that it was our apartment complex.

"What the hell?" Cassie said first.

"That footage is several hours old," a disembodied voice came from the screen.  "We only transmit data physically.  It is slow but secure.  I can assure you your building has been quite destroyed, along with everything you own."

"What the fuck is going on here?" Andy yelled at the screen.  The screen responded by going blank.

"Hey?  Hello?  What the fuck?"  Andy continued along those lines until he realized the screen was not going to respond.

"It looks like we screwed up," Cassie calmly offered.

"Screwed up?  What the fuck?  What is going to happen now."

"I don't know," she replied.

It finally dawned on me that my comp was in our now immolated apartment.  I don't remember too much of what happened for a couple of hours after I realized that.


I was vaguely aware of Andy and Cassie talking.  I felt an arm around me every now and then.  Mostly I was just thinking about my comp.  I thought about how I had carefully customized, hacked through legally mandated lockouts and made it into something more precious to me than my left arm.

After a while, I started to look around me.  Andy were sitting next to each other on the floor.  They glanced at me as I glanced at them.  I then turned and looked at the vidscreen.  The next thing I knew, my foot was through the vidscreen and Andy and Cassie started talking in loud, anxious voices.  I was too busy to pay attention.  I widened the hole in the screen so I could get to the electronics and wiring behind.  I then slowly, methodically, started dismantling the components of the vidscreen.

"So, what are you doing there?" Andy asked

"Taking the vidscreen apart," I replied.

"Any reason why?"

"Probably."

"Neat.  Well he's lost it."

"Let him do it," Cassie said.  We probably aren't leaving here alive.  If that makes it easier for him..."

Eventually I had dismantled as much of the vidscreen as I could without tearing into the walls.  So I started tearing into the walls.  The internal walls of the room were separated from the concrete walls behind.  It wasn't easy going.  This really wasn't my thing, physical action.  But over the course of a few hours I had several cuts and blisters.  I also had almost all of the wiring out of the wall - I wasn't so out of it that I was going to mess with hot electrical lines - and neatly organized on the floor.  Most of the inner wall was also stacked neatly around the edges of the room.

"Feel any better?" Andy asked.

I just sat down and stared at the wiring.

"The door seems to have electromagnetic locks," Andy observed.  "Couldn't we open the door by yanking the power line?"

"Yeah," I replied.

"That's weird," Cassie said.  "In a company that is so uptight about security would have such easy access to wiring and such an easily defeated locking system.  It could be trap."

"Well we certainly don't want to fall into a trap," Andy replied.

"There goes your chance for a last blow job before we die."  Cassie seemed uncharacteristically hurt by Andy's comment.

"I still have him," Andy replied, pointing to me.

I grabbed some of the thinner but better insulated lines, bunched them together and walked over to the line feeding the lock on the door.  I was able to work them behind the line.   Making sure I wasn't touching anything but insulation, I pulled on my wires.  I expected the line to be hard to yank out.  In fact, it can out on my first tug.  As the wire came loose, the door swung open.

An armed security detail was waiting for us.

"Come this way," one of them didn't so much say as threaten.

"Is small talk still a security threat?" Andy asked.

Their answer was a quick stun blast.  All three of us were on the floor and I felt like a elephant had taken a beer shit inside of my head.

"Get up and come with us."

So we did.

They led us to a room similar to the one I had just dismantled.  The main difference was a well dressed, well armed woman was waiting for us.

"Please sit," the disembodied voice that has shown our apartment complex burning down came out of her mouth.

Before I could say anything about my comp, we were hit with another stun blast.

"I would recommend learning to follow orders quickly," her voice swam into my head.  We all managed to climb up on the couch.

"First, let me offer my condolences on your deaths.  I know that your passing must have been difficult for you."

It would seem I was the only one who found this a confusing way to start a conversation.

"That's why they torched our apartment.  We, meaning either clones or some other bodies burned with it."

"What about my comp?"

"You will be issued a new one.  One that you will only use according to Incremetech policy.  You are all now Incremetech employees.  congratulations."

All of a sudden, I was very confused as to whether Cassie's plan was working or not.

"You will be taken to quarters where you will be given orientation material and await your first assignment."

We were ushered out and led to the transport that had brought us there.