"Hello, Cochise," Stephanie typed into her computer. As always, her pinky finger hovered over the "tab" key and she kept a part of her attention on Jackson's door. He would never, she promised herself, find out what she did with her idle time. Certainly he was one of the last people she'd want to become aware of this particular limited-access chatroom.

"How's it going, Insider?" "Cochise" replied, the words appearing almost instantly on her screen.

"Could be better."

"Same here. Insider, I have someone I want you to meet."

"OK."

"This guy calls himself 'Conch.' He lives in Key West. I'll vouch for him."

"Cochise, anybody you vouch for is ok in my book. You here, Conch?"

"Yes, Insider." These words were labeled as having come from a new source--"Conch," obviously. "Good to meet you."

"What's your story, Conch? You're the newcomer, so you have to talk first."

"LOL. I guess that's fair." There was a rather long pause. "It isn't easy to type the words, Insider. They just recently killed my oldest daughter. Her name was Carol. She was a Class-A, they murdered her in front of the whole country on TV."

Stephanie stared at the words. Surely, she told herself, he was not talking about the Carol she'd seen killed just a few days before. "What was she convicted of, Conch?"

"Drugs," came the answer. "I knew my little girl, Insider. She wasn't a user. She was completely focused on making it as a model or actress. We talked all the time, she was not guilty. But they killed her anyway."

Stephanie pursed her lips. Yes, she said mentally. And I saw it happen. "I'm sorry, Conch. I don't doubt what you're saying. We hear about this sort of thing a lot. That's why most of us are here."

"Conch knows that," Cochise put in.

"What about you, Insider?" Conch asked. "You lose somebody close to you too?"

"You didn't tell him my story, Cochise?"

"No. That's for you to tell, Insider. If you want to."

"I don't mind. I guess maybe you know that I work for the government in Washington?"

"Cochise did tell me that much, yes."

"I'm small fry, I don't make any decisions. But I do work close to people who do." She paused for effect. "Very close at times."

"And you don't like what they do?"

"Frankly, the biggest thing I don't like is what they're doing to me. I said I work for the government. That isn't quite true. I do get a paycheck, but I'm more like a slave. A political prisoner, if you want."

"How'd that happen?"

"I dunno if Cochise told you or not--I'm female, 25 years old, single, and I'm a Class-A. I'm not saying that to brag. If I wasn't an A or a B I wouldn't be living the hell I'm living now."

"I don't understand."

"I know. I'll explain." She glanced warily at Jackson's door. "First you should know that I'm talking to you from work, a high-level office in DC. The connection is encrypted so it can't be spied upon, but if someone comes in here I have to disappear. If I do you'll know what happened."

"Okay."

"Okay, then. Three years ago, after I graduated from college--journalism--I came here to Washington and got a job with the Washington Post. At first I had small assignments, but the city editor felt I was doing okay with them so he started sending me out to cover government stories. I ended up doing some pieces on modern government fund-raising--the lotteries and casinos, TV shows like 'Slaughterhouse,' the games in the arena, the hunting preserve at Isla de la Muerta, the government brothels, and so on. Nothing big, no front-page things, but I felt like things were going well for me."

"So what happened?"

"It all started when I put in a request to visit Isla de la Muerta. I wanted to interview some of the prisoners there and some of the rangers, do an in-depth story on them. That request was denied, but about a week later I got an e-mail telling me that a certain political appointee--a very high-level person--wanted to see me. I was really excited, I thought I was going to get a big story. So I went to the man's office."

"Let me guess, he did not want to give you a scoop."

"Far from it. In fact, he wanted to offer me a job."

"Huh?"

"That's right. His administrative assistant, he told me, had just been arrested and was going to be executed. He said he needed a new one, and he'd picked me when they'd sent him the file on me after I'd made the request to visit Isla de la Muerta. I smiled, and I thanked him, and I politely declined. I was happy, I told him, at the Post. I wanted to stay there."

"I guess you changed your mind."

"No. I didn't change my mind. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that that choice wasn't mine to make. He'd picked me as his new admin assistant and that's what I was going to be. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I told him this was America, this was a free country, I could do what I pleased. He just laughed at me. He said that if I knew what was good for me I'd go back and give the Post my two weeks notice that day, show up at his office for work at 9 AM the day after I left the Post, and do exactly what I was told, whatever it was, when I was told to do it. He also told me that if I had any steady boyfriends I needed to get rid of them."

"That's incredible..."

"I thought so. I was furious, I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but that's not politic for a Washington reporter, and I kept my head. So I thanked him for his interest again, declined again, and got up and left. He yelled at me that I'd regret this decision, but I ignored him. I went back to work and tried to forget about the whole thing. Then, three days later, federal agents broke down the door to my condo in the middle of the night. They handcuffed me and they tore my place apart. I was about half hysterical but they wouldn't even tell me what it was all about. They took me downtown and threw me in jail; they did give me my phone call and I used it to call my lawyer--I say "my lawyer" but I didn't really have a lawyer then, I just used the one that I used when I bought the condo. Still, he came down. Only then, from him, did I find out what I'd been arrested for."

"And that was?"

"Grand larceny. Half a million dollars in jewelry. According to my lawyer, the wife of a Justice department official had said I was 'behaving suspiciously' at a party at their home a week before; I wasn't even there, I didn't know the woman and didn't even know where their house was. But she said that after I left she found that a lot of her jewelry was missing. The feds used that to get a search warrant. And they found the jewelry in my condo."

"They planted it..."

"I don't think they even bothered to do that. They might not have even brought it with them on the raid. To this day I haven't ever seen the jewelry I was supposed to have stolen. But there I was, in jail, charged, and the lawyer wasn't being at all encouraging. Grand larceny, he said, carries the death penalty now. Even if I were to plead guilty I'd get death, because I was a Class-A and they always need those to sell to the TV shows and so on. He said that about all I could do was try for a mental illness plea. But he warned me that it probably wouldn't fly. He said the best thing I could do was go into the volunteer program, because that way my family could get paid for my performance."

"Horrible... but obviously you did not get executed."

"No. I sat in jail for four days, and then, all of a sudden, they came and got me and took me to that same official who'd offered me the job. They left me alone in his office, in handcuffs, wearing nothing but an orange jail jumpsuit and slippers. He laughed at me and reminded me that he'd told me I'd be sorry for turning him down. He said, though, that it might not be too late. Things could be 'fixed.'"

"It was all a setup."

"Absolutely. He said I could take the job he'd offered and he'd get the charges suspended. But he said 'maybe,' too--if I was 'satisfactory,' he said. Then he came over and started unbuttoning the top of my jumpsuit. I started to resist, and he stopped, grinned, and asked me if I wanted to die on TV. I stopped resisting, I could see what was happening. He unbuttoned my top, pushed it back, and then pulled my pants off. He told me I looked fine. Then he took out his dick and told me to suck it."

"I am getting the picture."

"So was I. What could I do? The offer was clear. Suck dick, and do it well, or die. I sucked dick."

"Anybody would have."

"Maybe. Anyway, afterwards, he told me I'd do just fine; I was to report to work the next morning, do what I was told, and the charges would be suspended. That evening they released me from jail. I was warned that if I tried to run they'd find me and there'd be no second chances for me. I wasn't being given a choice. I did come to work that next day, and before lunch the official I was now working for fucked me on his desk. He reminded me that the charges were suspended, not dropped, and that they could be reinstated at any time. So here I am, still; I edit his letters and take his calls, I'm much more of a secretary than an admin assistant, I don't get to make any decisions. What I am really is a sex slave; I either give him a blowjob or fuck him almost every day, mostly while he watches girls get killed on 'Slaughterhouse.' Sometimes I have to fuck and suck his cronies and friends, too. I am at his beck and call 24/7. I can't have a boyfriend or lover. I have to exercise, watch my weight, make sure I'm carefully made up before work every day, or whenever he calls me in. I am reminded constantly that if I don't do what he says I go back to jail and the charges are put back in, which means I'm dead."

"God damn, that's hideous... you have no hope of it changing?"

She laughed bitterly at the screen. "Yes. I do. I've been promised that when I turn thirty-five I'll be replaced and I'll go free, that charges will be formally expunged. Ten years from now; I have to do ten years just like the prisoners at Isla de la Muerta. But that's just a verbal promise--I have no guarantee--and it depends on the official I work for keeping his job, which might not happen if the current party doesn't stay in power. If he's ousted I become the property of his replacement. The replacement could keep me, set me free, or have me killed. His choice, totally."

"That's a hell of a life."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Insider is very important to us here, though," Cochise put in. "That she's in this situation is horrible, but she's near the center of power, she hears a lot of things. Some of them are very useful."

"Useful in what way, Cochise?" Stephanie shot back. "So far nothing is happening. No one has been saved, nothing has been changed. Girls continue to get framed for crimes so the government can sell them to 'Slaughterhouse,' or sell them to private executioners, or send them to the preserve at Isla de la Muerta."

"It must be changed," a new voice, identified as "Prof," put in. "It cannot go on. Here at the University we have been doing computer models on this. Since the saleable commodity is Class A and Class B women, natural selection is beginning to work strongly against attractive women. In just twenty years this will be visible in the population at large."

"Our vote," Conch said, "is for armed revolt. There is support for that here in Key West."

"Key West is a special case," Cochise said. "The country at large isn't ready for that and it'll be a long time before it is. You can't go up against the army with spearguns."

"We are talking in terms of guerrilla war."

"And that's the way to go, but it has to have grass-roots support in more places than Key West and Boulder. Right now it doesn't. There are no taxes and a hell of a lot of people, especially the Republicans, love that. The government is very prosperous, everything gets paid for, there are few budget shortfalls. City governments and police departments have more money than they ever had. For most people the cost of this is invisible. As far as they're concerned it's being paid for by drug users and thieves. They don't know what we know here."

"And so?" Conch asked.

"We have to get the word out. We have to. Insider's connection with the Post may in the end be invaluable."

"Right now," Stephanie typed, "I have no idea what the Post thinks happened to me. I just disappeared. They were probably told something but I don't know what."

"I hope you still have a connection there," Cochise typed back. "Because if we're blocked from getting the word out to the public--and we have been so far--then nothing will change until this starts to hit home in more and more families. And that's going to take a long time."

"Years, by our models," Prof said.

Stephanie stared at the words blankly for a moment. "Well," she typed back finally, "I sure as hell can't plan to go anywhere!"