Replacement

Mason watched as a young woman near the edge of the avenue lost her footing and stumbled sideways into the shallow service trench that ran along the street. She had barely hit the concrete bottom before three sniper rounds punched through her chest and a charging bull drove one massive horn straight through her midsection, lifting and shaking her like a rag before slamming her back down. She stopped moving in under five seconds.

The sight sparked something cold and bright in his head.

He unclipped Amber’s collar, let it fall to the pavement, and pointed at the trench.

“Jump in.”

Amber’s eyes flicked once toward the running bodies, the bulls, the rooftop shooters. Then she turned and stepped off the curb. She dropped into the trench cleanly. A moment later one of the bulls veered, hit her at full speed, and crushed her against the far wall. Ribs snapped audibly. She tried to push herself up. Two shots cracked from above. The first took her in the shoulder and spun her. The second punched through the side of her neck. A third bull arrived, lowered its head, and drove a horn through her lower back, pinning her to the concrete. More rounds followed—chest, stomach, thigh—until her body jerked only from the impact of the bullets and the horn. Milk and blood mixed in a widening pool beneath her. Her heavy breasts, still marked with his tattoos, were torn open. One final shot took the top of her skull off. She stopped moving.

Mason waited until the last of the runners were down and the bulls were being called back. Then he walked to the edge of the trench, phone out, and took several clear photos of what was left of Amber from different angles. He wanted Sarah to see every detail later.

He turned away and entered a large supermarket a block further on. The layout had adjusted itself to the new world. Entire aisles were devoted to ready-to-use slaves. In a refrigerated end-cap display marked with a bright yellow sign reading “18th Birthday Discount – Today Only” a young brunette knelt on a small platform, wrists bound behind her back, ankles hobbled, a simple price tag hanging from a thin collar. She was very slim, small-framed, barely over one-fifty, with neat dark hair and wide, shocked eyes. The tag listed her name as Amy. According to the small printed card she had been legally enslaved and placed for sale that same morning, on her eighteenth birthday.

Mason paid the trivial amount at the automated terminal, clipped his leash to her collar, and led her out. Amy crawled after him without resistance, silent except for the soft sound of her knees on the pavement.

When he opened the apartment door, Sarah was already standing just inside.

She was upright, still naked, still marked with dried blood and the fresh tattoos across her breasts, the too-tight collar still around her throat. In one hand she held the black notebook. In the other, the pencil.

Mason stopped. Amy halted at his heel.

He looked at the book in Sarah’s hands, then at her face, and gave a single calm order.

“Give me everything.”