Against better judgements

"So… Do I have your support? This is the future Madame, with or without your blessing. But underscoring it with the name Stanfield’s, which you have put so much work into building… will reassure an awful lot of tentative minds. Just think. The fruits of your labour could soon be in every home… Not just the pockets of the unworthy few…"

Jesse could still feel the rake of his mistress's perfect nails across his bare backside. Could almost trace the measure of her thoughts through that slightest, scoring connection. He wondered if that was what it was like to have a final, definitive owner? When all his inner achings to serve and devote one's self could throw themselves in one direction. Watching the sheer joy light up in Beth's eyes at every touch or word Mr Carter sent in her direction awoke a little something akin to jealousy in the ever self-doubting sissy. Just as Suzy’s unwavering faith in 'Daddy' did. He couldn’t tell if it was his own, flowering yearning, or just the gradual impact of a whole year's lessons in submissiveness… but some secret part of him was just reaching out and grasping for someone to own him, once and for all.

"I know you're just as sick as I am… at having to bow and scrape to their outdated ideals and reticent whims. This 'utopia' is no more free and equal than the last… The Algorithm is still working on the solution. It is not the solution itself. That's the great, open secret we all know, but try to hide from ourselves. 100 years, and we still haven't got there… Time to shake the sandbox, don't you think?"

Mr Carter's words infuriated Victoria Stanfield all the more because nothing he said was wrong. She was nothing if not endlessly frustrated by the entire class of men and women she had to call clients and customers. The way they squandered small fortunes on her precious graduates just to show off, but then wasted or mistreated all that potential. Spoiling or despoiling them until all her hard work fell away and they were left lost and forgotten… yesterday’s favourite. The stoic headmistress had more than a few doubts about the purity of their overarching Algorithm herself, but this man…

Her gut simply wrenched at the thought of standing shoulder to shoulder with him… and it was her gut which had got her where she was now. Yet, he had cornered all the avenues of logic beyond just reticent instinct. There was too much at stake for her to selfishly denounce him on personal feeling alone. Too many innocent-eyed darlings who relied upon her. Her lips began to taste the acid flavour of words she was about to say…

When an incoming call lit up on her wrist implant.

"I told you not to… What?! Are you sure? Get three teams to the last known location immediately and begin scouring the area. Report back to me the moment they find anything. Go. Now."

The ferocious woman waved the line closed with a gesture that could have torn through jugulars. The angle of her eyebrows in that moment could have toppled empires. She pierced Derrick Carter with eyes of the coldest fire, stolen from gods who no longer wanted it back.

"One of my student’s collars just went dark. One of those that your people modified. Would you care to explain?"

For a moment… For just a moment. Jesse saw a glint of something other than smug ambition in Mr Carter’s eyes. Genuine surprise… and a fear of threads untangling. However wide and well-practised his schemes and speeches were… This he had not planned for…