Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel (37 page)

For
all she knew he cried inside every time he did that to someone. It wasn't very
likely, but it could happen, right?

The
next morning, bright and early, they started in on poor, totally unsuspecting
Peter. She showed him the thirty-six basic moves she wanted him to learn, over
the course of about half an hour. Then, Manly put, not one, but two little
metal buttons on the boy's back. They stuck in place, just like things normally
did.

Then
the man smiled a little. It had his normal slightly disinterested air to it.

"If
you make mistakes, there will be pain and discomfort. Like this." He
tapped a button on a little box in his left hand.

Peter
winced, then straightened.

"Oh,
that... well, it isn't fun, but it's more annoying, than really painful. Like
stubbing my toe or about like that. I do feel sort of ill too. That and a
little sad." It was all built in to the device he had on, one of them.

Manly
looked at her and grimaced, clearly not thinking that their project would work
with that little negative reinforcement.

"This
is the new part, this other thing here." He hoisted the other, nearly
identical, plain metal box, letting his finger hover over the button there.
"If you do what you're asked, you get a reward."

When
he touched the tab, the kid stiffened, but just stood there, not making any
sort of movement at all. Frozen in place.

Right
until Manly let go of the button.

Peter
took a deep breath and smiled. "That's incredible! I've never felt
anything like that before. Not even close. I, can I do that again?"

It
was Gwen's turn then to smile. Even though she wasn't feeling it. That pleasure
device was wicked. She'd tried it the night before and had instantly told Manly
that he had to lock all the units down from then on. She'd had to fight to keep
herself from demanding one, right then and there. As it was, twelve hours
later, she wanted to take the one that Peter had on and just leave the thing
on, forever.

Even
knowing that she'd probably end up starving to death if she did. Or dying of
thirst, not even noticing that it was happening.

"You
can try it again, but you have to earn the reward. It will only be a reward for
accomplishing new tasks, so you'll have to keep in training, if you want to
experience it again."

That
was the hard part, because she was addicting a small boy to something that was
better than any drug. Better than sex, or food. Then she was telling him that
the only way to get it was to please his masters. It wasn't horrible torture
and pain, but it was an even stronger chain. It was still slavery.

Worse,
it was so strong that, after one ten second blast of the thing, she was more
than willing to do that same training herself. Any training that they wanted
her to do. If they'd promised her more of that, she would have cleaned the
toilets of the house with her tongue. That wasn't even a joke, she realized,
which was... horrible. It probably meant she was the worst person in the world.

It
worked though. Incredibly. Peter went from a person that had about half an hour
of combat instruction, to a near master of the martial arts, at least the
unarmed ones, in ten hours. In the end she had to promise him more of that
"reward" if he'd relax for eight hours. The young man didn't go and
find a bed, just dropping in place, out on the back lawn, in a seemingly
boneless heap.

Manly
was pleased. He even smiled and seemed to mean it.

"If
the learning sticks, I think we have a new technique. Next time you should have
him go to a bed first."

That
was going to be the problem at first. They'd gotten through at least a week's
worth of things in a few hours and left the boy hungry for more, so he could
get that reward. They'd been doing it carefully too. They'd only had to use the
negative reinforcement twice during the whole thing.

Gwen
felt dirty inside. It was better than pain, the way that the Westmorlands had
used it, but it was still a dark and nearly evil thing. Worse, once they got
used to it, the trainers would probably be able to use this to push their
people into even more complex and high level achievements than pain itself
would allow for.

She
felt herself grow more and more aware of that, as the next two days passed.
Finally, Manly had the top three Westmorland fighters come in, wearing padded
outfits, and put little Pete in a similar get up, so that they could all use
full force movements.

Then,
with all of them standing out in the back yard, he addressed Darrick Westmorland,
who was the head of her Special Service section, and she realized suddenly,
pretty much in charge of the whole thing. It was hard to remember things like
that, but the Special Service wasn't that big and the man had been part of her
personal training, in regards to the powered armor. He had two others with
them, both men and both looking lean and hard.

Manly
nodded at each of them.

"Peter
here has been learning to fight. We'll need you gentlemen to test him at the
highest level possible. When we begin, you can't hold back at all. It will be
your job, working as a team, to try and take him out as fast as possible.
Peter, if you knock them all out, you'll receive half an hour of reward
time." He looked at the men, who seemed a little baffled, but didn't go
over exactly what they were about to face.

Peter
was just a boy, so that warning might not help at all anyway. Then again, they
were Westmorlands, and knew that even a small or weak seeming person could be a
threat. They didn't treat women any differently than men, when on duty, at
least.

Darrick
looked at Manly however, his face slightly dour. The Special Service head did
that expression pretty well. Gwen tried to memorize it, to practice later, when
she had a mirror.

"Knock
us out?" The man seemed doubtful, which Gwen could see. After all, they
were three adult men, and wearing a lot of padding, including helmets. It would
make it a lot harder to do than if it were a normal fight.

Manly
didn't respond, not directly. He was in charge of this part, so Gwen didn't say
anything either.

"Ready?
Good. Gentlemen... Go!"

They
did. It wasn't a fair fight at all, and the early parts went to the three
larger men, working together. The thing there was that, using perfect form,
little Peter just didn't give up. Even when hit hard enough to make Gwen's
teeth hurt in response, he just kept going. So did the others, but there was a
qualitative difference to the work. The men were more powerful, and Peter was
better
.
He moved more efficiently, and as everyone got tired and more ragged, he did it
less than the others.

Finally,
after about ten minutes of brutal blows, all delivered in silence, except for
heavy breathing, one of the adult men went down. Then things got interesting. Darrick
and the other man tried to regroup, pulling back, as if on some unspoken
signal, which, Gwen realized, they were actually using. They'd been told to
work together, so they were coordinating using telepathy, it seemed. The kid
moved in on them without hesitation, not giving them a chance to rest, even
though his own breathing was ragged and helmet or not, blood poured from his
young face.

It
wasn't enough, really, and Darrick managed to snag his arm, breaking it at the
elbow with a sickening sound that meant real damage had been done. Peter just
used that as an excuse to stabilize the larger man, and hit him until he went
down too. The last man, who was the biggest of them, moved to grappling, which
was smart of him, because it let the others start to recover as Pete desperately
pummeled the man, or tried to, not able to generate enough power with the
bigger man on top of him. He only had one good arm, but used both for it.

Darrick
got up and started to try and kick the boy in the head, brutally, while he was
being held down. It took a lot of work and all three of the adult men to do it,
but they eventually managed to knock the kid out. For about ten seconds. He
came to fighting, and Manly called out to him.

"Done!"
Which got an instant response.

All
the men just stood there, gasping and panting for about five minutes. The
youngest one was the bloodiest, but they all looked like something horrible had
happened to them. Manly looked at the boy and shook his head, sadly.

"Not
good enough for your reward. Next time you'll have to fight five at once too,
so I want you to use all of your ingenuity to come up with ways to win. We'll
get a healer in. You have twenty-four hours to heal, rest and get ready for the
next event. On the good side, if you win, you get a
full
hour reward.
It's worth doing."

Then
he led the young Westmorland into Park Street, with just a hint of tears in the
boy's eyes. Because, Gwen knew, he'd failed to get what he wanted. It wasn't
about the pain at all.

As
soon as they were in the house, Darrick gasped in pain and rubbed his head.
He'd been holding himself in a very tough seeming fashion before that. After a
second the other men did similar things.

Her
boss looked at her and sighed a little then winced in pain. "So,
that
works. I imagine the boy can stand against anyone in the world, right now. I
may not be the top fighter in the world, but I have years of training and
practice as do Bard and Tabis here. If Peter had another fifty pounds of muscle
on him, I imagine that we would have lost. Very good. This is only half way through
the training too?" He sounded intrigued rather than humbled. Then he
wouldn't worry about the kid beating him, or them, at all. It was, as far as he
was concerned, a win for the Kingdom, no matter how it came out.

"Right,
probably a bit past that. It will be interesting to see what he does for the
next one. You'll need more people."

"On
it. I know who to get. You'll need to have some padding as well, of course.
Very good. We'll return in twenty-three hours then." The men limped away,
all of them seeming oddly pleased, considering the beating that they'd taken.

Gwen
nodded, and went running, still craving another hit of that pleasure again. One
exposure and she wanted it, as badly as anything she'd ever desired. More so
really. It was right there inside the building. All she had to do was reach out
and take it. She could do that, she was willing to bet. Sneak in and get it.
That or reach out with her mind and remove the coin sized contact point from
Peter, teleporting that and the box that Manly had away. She'd never done that,
but it was a thing that could work, she knew. It was so tempting to try.

"Of
course, I bet I'd have to fight Peter for it and right now, I don't think I
could beat him." Not unless she got to him before the advanced healer that
came in could. She ran faster, trying to forget about the feeling of the thing.
It was...

Exactly
what she'd requested, really. It wasn't just feeling
good
, but perfect
in every way. It wasn't like sex, though that was part of it. Or tickling,
which was in there too, but
everything
. It was like that, plus being
totally loved, warm
and
cool, full and just hungry enough that she could
eat, but didn't need to. That and a thousand other things, all at once. It was what,
she knew, she was supposed to be like, all the time. If she lived in a best of
all possible worlds.

She'd
been on some really good pain meds before, and knew what that was like, opiates,
the good kind, that were tempting as far as drugs went. They didn't hold a
candle to the device that Peter had on his back right at that moment. She shook
a bit, thinking about it, and knowing that, even from the one use, she was
addicted. Already.

Poor
Peter.

Lucky
kid.

She
was so torn for a bit that she didn't realize that she'd been running full out
for a long time, heading back into the house. The heavy boots were
uncomfortable for things like that. They weren't too bad for a slow trudge, but
she should have gotten her all leather running slippers on, if she wanted to go
faster.

That
or get with Cordell about running shoes. At dinner that night she was quiet,
but not depressed at all. Her brain was too busy working out ways to get her
another hit of pleasure, knowing the whole time that she could just go and do
some training with Manly and he'd let her earn some of it. At the table he was
his normal self, having not used the thing, even as a test, being a wise and
sensible person. Peter was normal seeming too. Healed already and everything.

That
made sense. Healing was the strongest magical talent, after all. Beth had said
so, many times. It made sense that the Westmorlands would have some of their
numbers well trained just for that purpose. She'd gotten some healing like that
before herself and knew that it worked.

It
was just expensive and hard to come by, since the best healers had to devote a
lot of their time and energy early on to the practice. You couldn't train them
the same way that you did an orphan, after all.

"Gwen,
I hear that you're paying for a cargo of spices and goods coming in from the
South?" This got her attention, coming from Robert at the head of the
table. She smiled and nodded.