BEYOND THE PALE: ( The Outlander ) (12 page)

“Nice waterfall,” she
joked enjoying his discomfort. River was almost squirming; he could find
nothing to say. So Audrina grabbed his crotch playfully for a literal second
and said “Bad boy” before walking out of the room with a jaunty step.

River woke up early the
next day. Audrina was very much on his mind. Today was her day to chaperone him
and he was meant to be accompanying her to work. He had cold feet after yesterday
evening’s experience. He was still embarrassed and he considered pretending
that he was sick and asking to be allowed to stay at home. He thought more on
this and remembered Valerie’s motherly concern over him when he was sick
before. He didn’t want to lie to her and put her through that unnecessarily. He
hardened his attitude and resolved to go with Audrina and to make the best out
of the experience.

Audrina was fine with
him at breakfast. She didn’t poke fun at him or try to embarrass him although
she did ask him to go and change into his more formal attire. Everyone was too
familiar with River’s outfits; he only had three.

Getting to work was
easy. They took a taxi to the citadel’s financial sector that dropped them
directly in front of the investment bank where she worked. The bank was Gold
Shield Securities. This was their only premises in this Citadel, but Audrina
assured him that they held premises in all five hundred Metropolises in the
world. This investment bank was reputedly extremely rich and had provided much
of the large capital investment that was responsible for the building of this
citadel. Gold Shield Securities was the result of a merger between two
gargantuan merchant banks from the old world order. Their prestigious history
very much reflected in its prime location in the citadel’s financial district,
and also in the pomposity and sheer scale of this building. 

The couple entered
through the anteroom to the huge ground floor reception and lobby. Then instead
of heading straight for the security barriers that corralled off the lift area
and escalators, she led River to the large main reception point. “I am going to
have to sign you in,” she said.

“Are you going to sign
me in as a mentor from your Order like Anton did?”

“What do you know about
my Order?” demanded Audrina with annoyance. “Anyway, you can’t be my mentor
because I would be expected to show you hospitality all day, and I am way too
busy … So I am going to sign you in as an intern who will be assisting me
today. I have submitted the paperwork already. You just need to sign in and be
issued a pass.”

Once River had been
issued with his pass, they were able to proceed to the lifts and thence to
Audrina’s work station on the 23
^rd
floor. River stood by the large
plate glass windows looking out over the 40 sq mile expanse of the Metropolis
of New Denver. This had once been a Major airport before international travel
had become a pursuit of the past. Now only the Rangers used aircraft and those
did not require runways.

River intended to head
off and explore the building. He wanted to go up to the highest floor and
lookout the other side of the building, to see if he could spot any familiar
terrain in the distant reaches outside the citadel. Audrina put an end to that
plan.

“River, Sit down here
beside me. Stop looking out the windows and don’t think about going off on one
of exploratory treks. This is a serious place of work. People are watching, you
know. You are meant to be working for me; so sit down and do what I ask you to
do.”

River did as he was
asked, and Audrina gave him a tablet to work on. She pulled up a client
database, and told him to put every client’s name into a search engine to find
out all the relevant up to date contact information, and then to update the
client database with it.

“If I do that, what do
you do?” enquired River.

“I am a financial
adviser. I follow up warm leads to sell them investment units,” she said as if
tutoring a child.

“I don’t know what any
of that means. In fact I don’t understand what anyone does here, or even what
an investment bank is used for.”

She sighed, “Look I
don’t want to have to explain the whole history of banking to you River. You
are meant to be working for me and you should really just carry out what I ask
you to execute.”

River looked a bit
taken aback and more than a little hurt. She considered that they had maybe got
off on the wrong foot.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Get
some coffees from that vending machine over there; it’s free, and then I will
explain what goes on here.” 

River did as she asked,
and Audrina gave him an abridged history lesson.

“Once upon a time
Investment Banks like the predecessors of this one created large amounts of
money by buying the debt of governments and businesses. This debt was offset
against a future date allowing them to own more than they actually had the
capital or money to pay for. This allowed them to work with much larger sums of
money than were in circulation. Are you with me so far?” River nodded although
he had actually got lost at the ‘once upon a time’. Audrina continued, “These
banks used the huge funds available to them to trade in the interim. They
employed traders to trade on many different global markets. The job was
difficult and pressurized but extremely well paid. They had to make a return of
profit on their portfolios which they often did by out trading the millions of
private investors. Back then the public were able to trade privately as well.
However it ended sourly when the whole system collapsed.”

“What happened?” asked
River who was beginning to take an interest.

“Well the global
markets collapsed for two reasons. Firstly they were hugely extended with
leverage and with debt. The Banks tried to fix this by engineering controlled
collapses of different markets to slowly remove the excess money that was
circulating in the world. Then they would initiate false recoveries to those
same collapsed markets and repeat the same process. The effect was that they
destroyed public confidence in the markets. People stopped investing. Private investors
just left the markets. Do you want me to continue?” River let her know that he
did.

“Ultimately, the final
death knell of the world economy came when the large banking institutions
secretly began to use prototype quantum computers. These original super-computers
were leviathans employing huge petaflops of processing power. They were not
even supposed to exist, but the big investment banks acquired them and started
to use them stealthily to out trade their rivals. These quantum computers could
trade so fast and with such complexity. Very small trades didn’t usually
register on market share price. These computers would hide enormous amounts of
small trades by stacking them behind one single small trade. Absolutely huge
volumes of trades were being processed each second but were not registering on
the stock price. They were being stacked behind each other in enormous numbers.
When the markets identified the real volume of trading, they tried to abruptly
correct the share price but they were always two steps behind. The markets
became extremely volatile and in the end even the best and highest paid traders
could not compete with these powerful trading computers. Some banks and their
traders lost fortunes and were put out of business. The collapse of the banks
was not controllable and the whole banking system went down the shoot,” Audrina
seemingly had finished her history lesson.

“But this bank exists
now. So how did it survive?” enquired River.

“Well this bank was
created by a merger between two of the investment banks whom used quantum
computers to trade. They survived as did some others. Now all trading is
executed only by quantum computers. It is a hostile environment for human
traders. Instead we put together mixed investment packages which hedge riskier
future options with a selection of venture investments; some of these are good
and some are bad debt. We sell these as competing investment packages with
different maturity dates and projected returns on your money. It is really a
form of gambling for the wealthier citizens. Then we use the flow of capital to
underwrite large capital investments,” -She paused again and now gave River a
sharp look which said ‘no more questions’. - “So if we can continue now with
doing some work, you will make your new boss very happy.”

River got the message
loud and clear and started updating the data on her cold leads again.  Audrina
placed a communicator set behind her ear and a positioned her video-cam in such
a way to allow her customers to see just a little cleavage. The majority of her
customers were middle aged men looking to make a little extra through canny
investments. She retouched up her lipstick and then she began her first call.
Within half an hour, River was so bored that he attempted to induce himself
into an alpha meditative state purely by listening to the drone of the air
conditioning duct. Audrina would make call after call, looking to close any
prospect that she could. She was driven and worked very hard. However in
contrast to her own work ethic, she noticed that River’s work output was nearly
non existent. She would often notice him losing concentration and drifting off
somewhere in his meandering imagination. When she saw this she would continue
talking to her prospective clients on the phone but make loud taps on his
tablet with her long manicured painted nails to get his attention back to the
job she wanted him to do. After an hour or so of complete boredom on his part,
he gave up the ghost completely and started trying to distract her whilst she
spoke to these usually middle aged men. He would pull faces and gurn at her. He
would build towers of stationary items which balanced precariously. He would
blow kisses at her and pretend to undress and caress her. Nothing would put
Audrina off her stride and she was also consistently relentless in her attempts
to force him to carry on working. However after continuously failing to inspire
him to concentrate on his work, she decided that she had had enough of his high
jinx and she set about putting him under manners. She secretly switched off the
power to her computer screen, but pretended that the power connection needed to
be reset under the desk. She then asked River to crawl into the space under her
desk to do this and of course River obliged. He was more than willing to do
this, because it represented real work in his estimation. However as soon as he
had crawled underneath, she then kicked off her shoes and restrained him there
under her desk with her feet. She moved her chair closer to her desk and then unclipped
the projector attachment from her portable communicator. She attached it to the
underside of her desk with a magnet. It was a virtual screen projector and when
she began tapping out a text on her communicator, her message was projected
clearly on to the dark floor enabling River to read it. Her first message read
–‘You are going to have to stay there until you learn to behave. Now stay there
and be quiet whilst I make some calls.’ Whilst she typed this she cupped his
face with both her stocking feet. –‘If you are a good boy, you will get a
treat’- she typed as she parted her legs briefly allowing him a view up her
skirt. – ‘When you are obedient I will let you out.’ - She started caressing
his face with one of her feet. River didn’t really resist or try to force his
way out. He liked the feeling of the extremely sheer nano-fibre of her tights
on his face. She began her first call, and he listened now with much more
interest. He could hear her confidently handling another cold video call by
acting friendly, confident & engaging to her prospective target. Meanwhile
she was simultaneously typing messages to River demonstrating her incredibly
quick mind and excellent multi tasking ability. – ‘Open your mouth’- she typed
as she pushed her toes slowly into his mouth –‘Now lick them and suck them’ –
River stared at her orders being projected on the floor in front of him. He
obliged her and Audrina then parted her legs to let him view up her skirt
again. Her other foot pressed against his crotch and was rubbing him. River
accepted his reward gladly but then she closed her legs and removed her foot
from his crotch. She texted – ‘Work harder’ as she was placing her other foot
against his mouth. River did what she asked of him. He was still listening to
her talking to that prospective client in the same video call. Her attention
seemed to be totally focussed on this customer and she seemed close to closing
the sale and getting his business. Simultaneously her multi tasking feet were
working River hard. She was pushing one set of her toes into his mouth whilst
the other foot troubled him everywhere. Happy now with his service to her she
typed -‘A little reward’. She then purposely dropped a sweet down the front of
her dress and typed – ‘Oh dear I lost a chocolate down my dress. Be a
sweetheart and reach it for me’- Now she parted her legs and then placed her
feet behind his head. River could see that chocolate sweet nestling below her
underwear resting on the inside of her skirt. She slowly pulled his head
forward until his face was tightly held between her thighs which she clamped
together trapping his head but not allowing him any closer access to her
intimate zone. When she finally ended the sales call, she placed her feet on
his shoulders and pushed him back asking – ‘Are you going to behave now’. She
didn’t require an answer from him though and wheeled her chair back to allow
him to climb out. River emerged looking flummoxed and red faced and consciously
trying to hide the noticeable bulge in his pants.

River had a naturally
assertive and confident nature, but more and more he felt Audrina was
subjugating it with her stronger confidence and nature. He felt like he was a
horse that she was slowly breaking in. She seemed to be aware of his resolve
weakening and was now slowly reining him in. Throughout the day she played him.
An example of her shenanigans was her asking him to fetch coffee. River had
agreed particularly because she was busy, but he felt that she took advantage
of his compliant nature when she sent him to collect it from the restaurant
three floors up instead of the adjacent vending machine. River arrived back
with two coffees intending to take a break along with her, but before he has a
chance to sit down and drink his own, she sweetly asks him to deliver some
paper invoices to some designated officers in the building telling him that was
urgent. When he returned, she asked him to shred some paperwork of hers and
file away some other work telling him that the sooner that he can get it done,
the sooner they could get ready to go home. River resented this role of gofer
and assistant that Audrina had manipulated him into. He was also feeling very
frustrated. This reflected in his attitude when he set off with on another
errand with more of her filing. However he soon got a surprise when she
followed him into the secluded annex where he was working. She came up behind
him and pressed her body tightly into his, spooning him. Her right hand reached
around his front to cup and squeezes his crotch, whilst her left squeezed and
rubbed his buttocks. River stood there doing nothing other than accepting and
relishing his predicament. She then cut him loose and told him to get his
things together and to get ready to go home. River was left feeling very
sexually frustrated.