The Labyrinth
Chapter 3 The Trial and Sentence
When Barbara woke up, she didn’t know where she was, why she was there, or who got the better of her. She was in a glass cube with a vent. The furniture was a dull black, and there wasn’t even a rug she could build up static electricity on. She dimly remembered being arrested. Some bullshit about Oxana, Elena, and Petra. Alexei will get me out of this, she thought.
A young woman in an all-black Victorian-style dress, with black hair tied back in a bun and an angry scowl, punched in a code. The room lit up in a riot of colors that blanked Barbara out for a few moments. When she came back to herself, she was at a table in another glass room, the stranger sitting across from her.
“I just got done going through your extraction,” the woman said with a slight Czech accent. “With your youth, I thought we could get you down to just consorting with class 6. That would be four years in American super max, but that would be the end of it. And Erica the Forgiver is your judge, so I thought we could get sympathy for you and the treatment you got from those lasses you turned around and victimized. Maybe they would send you to the fringe camp on Nakamura Island and scramble you so that you couldn’t make such weapons again. But you’re facing the Labyrinth for three counts of murder by enslavement and reidentification. Do you understand the seriousness of what you’re facing?”
“Some max security slammer so Alexei doesn’t spring me. I don’t give a shit. Yeah, I did the crime. You didn’t need to drug me with my own music to get me to admit that. You do know what those bitches did to me for six years? Fuck yeah I’d do it again. I got a whole list I’m waiting for. This is the happiest I’ve ever been. I’ll do whatever time the judge gives me. I’m nineteen, and these days three consecutive life without parole sentences will get me out by thirty. This is America, Charlie Brown! No bodies, no murders!”
“This is Transylvania, Barbara Greer! You are in the most dreaded castle of all, the Worldwide Office for Repurposing of Mind Controllers! This is the international court for mental criminals. You’ve already testified. I’m not your lawyer, I’m your Explainer. You tell everything when you’re under. You have to. It’s my job to bring up circumstances that explain your actions, your motives, and any remorse you may feel. I thought I had a good case. You were tortured, taunted, even physically assaulted. You got caught up with the Russians. They gave you a weapon, and you fired it at who you saw as your biggest threat, then you were used as a pawn in the Yagudayevs’ trafficking operation.” The Czech shook her head. “But your arrogance in your extraction, your detail in what you did to those girls to get them to that point... it’s going to be hard to explain the premeditation and the way you baited them for months. Would you like to hear your extraction? You have the right to clarify anything that may not be accurate or may be unclear.”
“Ohhh, make sure everyone knows I got those bitches back bad! Did I mention the part where I made a CD of all the things they called me and made them listen to it? Or how the insults echoed as the only truth in their heads until they blanked. Seeing those bitches cry themselves to death was fun! I thought Oxana stroked out for real, and if she wasn’t such a hit in Russia, I’d wish she had. She was the worst—”
“Her name is Justine! My God, even during the extraction you preferred their slave names! You’ll end up in the Eighth Circle with the child molesters if you aren’t careful! If you can’t figure it out, that’s a bad thing!” the Explainer said, sounding frustrated. She got up and paced for a few moments, then sat down and tried another tack. “You know what those girls did to you? How they drove you to almost jump off a bridge? Multiply that by a thousand, and you’ll be halfway to the treatment they’ll give you in the Labyrinth. Leaving you there is a death sentence by torture that you never thought could exist. We have a case for you to get some kind of survival. The fringes are a work camp and a pillory so that you know how it feels to be turned into a sex toy. By the end you can’t even look at someone in a swimsuit. But you have to lose the cockiness. Your life depends on it. I can claim PTSD for the submission by torture. Or would you like me to try to amend the charges to submission by torture, trafficking, and reidentification for the purpose of trafficking? That would probably be a year in the pillory, forced confession for the trafficking charge, and any mundane jail time stemming from that.”
“Whatever. I can do any time you throw at me. You’ll never understand what they did to me, so you’ll never know why I did it, or why I would do it again,” Barbara said defiantly.
“We know too well. But they want to make an example of you so other groups don’t start trawling for people who suffered as you did to turn into weapons. Erika the Forgiver as the judge was our only blessing. Now, is there anything you want explained in the last phase of your trial?” the Explainer asked, her sympathy fading to a stone cold glare.
“Yeah- how are they dead when I can fly in fifty johns who can testify that they’re alive, well, and doing very good business?” Barbara said with a sneer.
The Explainer threw her hands up in dismay as she got up again. “Every subject has the unbreakable right to a strong and zealous explanation for their crimes. I will defend you with all the honor and skill I have, but your arrogance will make what should be an easy case into an unwinnable one,” she said.
The lights returned, and Barbara fell to the floor, lost in them again.
“I had more to give them! They needed to pay for their actions. They would never forget the hell they put me through, except they weren’t going to remember any of those lives ever again. I burned a CD of all the insults they piled on me and every trick they ever played on me. I set it to Tobin, just to further grate at their brains, then layered in the subliminals with all of it directed at them instead of me. ‘You’re useless, you’re ugly, you’ll never get anywhere, you’re better off dead, no one wants you’, all of that. I turned it into a one hour loop and put it on all their fancy MP3 players. They were already way gone. By that point, they already worshiped me, so they were open to me telling them they had to realize what they did. They didn’t stop crying! Their bodies were frozen, but they screamed- you know that scream you make in the back of your throat when you can’t open your mouth? No, you don’t, do you? You’ve never been that terrified, have you? It was perfect. Oxana- yeah, Justine- turned pale and fell face first on the floor. I thought she’d stroked out and she was dead. But she was breathing- that’s all she was doing. The part of her brain that thought was totally shut down. No memories, nothing but my voice. So I put her on the couch, kissed her to let her know she was mine, and that she shouldn’t worry while I made her into Oxana.
“Petra- whatever they called her, Kelly, but isn’t Petra so much cuter? She went next. She just stopped crying, looked frozen. That stupid look on her face was priceless! I knew she broke, so I set her up the same way. Then Elena- whatever, Jolene- went. Her eyes rolled up in her head and she started stammering in gibberish. I got them all set up, then spiked some cheap ass foreign language program for the plane and set them up with it. Oh, but before that I had them write the suicide notes. That was the easiest part- the insults were still in the back of their heads, so they meant every word they said. Then we stopped at the bridge so I could toss their clothes. Oh, man, I almost creamed when I saw it all go over. Fake passports? This is America. I’ve gotten vodka with a playing card that had a fake birthday and a stick figure on it.”
The robotic voice sounded vaguely like Barbara’s, although as mechanical as the extraction was it was hard to tell. But there she was on the screen, slumped over with her eyes shut in the chair, confessing everything- and laughing and smiling about it. She was proud of her videotaped self, and she held her head high in the present as her Explainer rambled on about rationales and excuses. She relaxed and only half-listened.
“Barbara Greer! Kneel before Mistress Erika Snorrisdottir!” the bailiff commanded. Barbara felt her knees weakening, but she managed to give the floor a spit shine before daring to put her knees on it.
“They call me the Forgiver because I do believe controllers have a place in society. Believe me when I say that Explainer Nemcova has given me much to think about. Those years must have been terrible for you, and your rebellion shows that. But as much as I want to do something to restore the sweet troubled young woman you were, all I see is an arrogant monster who only submits if she is forced to. You were, in your extraction, nothing but a mean-spirited, vicious, uncaring slaver. I do not take the punishment of the Labyrinth lightly. It is a cruel device, meant for only the most dangerous. And while you are only a maker of subliminal weaponry, the fact that you brought three women to the brink of death, and that you plan to make a business out of it, suggests that you are more dangerous than you seem from that description. So what is done, Barbara Greer... is done.”
Erika turned her back and bowed her head, and the Explainer sobbed, but Barbara shrugged. No biggie, and hell, the uptight bitch even complimented me!
Disorientation hit her in the next moment as Erika spun around and sized her by the chin. “Look into my eyes, Barbara Greer!” Erika commanded, and her eyes were piercing blue, ice blue, catching and holding Barbara, dragging her into their depths...
“Wrong, Lee. This one got bitten by a vampire, she won’t wake up for another day or two. Like we’ll see any of them after we land, anyway,” someone said. Barbara came awake at the words.
“Ugh, oh man, did I ever blank out. Where am I?” Barbara said, noticing that she was strapped into an airplane cabin.
“A day or two, huh, Gwen?” the redhead across the aisle mocked.
Gwen gave her friend a one-fingered response, then turned her attention to Barbara. “Wakey-wakey. You’re on your way to prison, that’s where you are. But don’t worry about the Labyrinth. The ghost stories are worse than reality. It’s supposed to be some devil’s island for controllers. Like anyone can control us. I’m Gwen, and I’m in for cock-fighting, as is my sister in arms Leona,” Gwen said, tossing her long blonde hair back and giving a warm smile as she gestured at the redhead.
They weren’t restrained- they were able to move and talk freely-but Barbara realized that was because they were alone, in a steel-lined cabin in an iron tube shooting through the air. She took stock of her situation. She was in a white tank top, and she could feel the strain of not having a bra on underneath. Jean shorts barely covered her ass, and her feet ached from the stripper heels.
“Who needs shackles when you add together stripper heels and an airplane?” Leona added from her seat.
“I mostly did field work while I was at Morris, so I know how to move in these,” Gwen said.
“All I did was get revenge on some bullies. Shipped ‘em off to freeze their tits off in Russia. Good riddance. I’ll do the time and do it again every time. Any idea how many of us are there?”
“Twenty total, I think. Ten women. Most are out cold, and will be until someone wakes them. All this is just for those who wake up. I think you’re supposed to sleep through this. I just like how they dress us like whores because of some zen thing that if you feel what it’s like to be a victim, you won’t make any more victims. Well, hello. We’re from Three Sisters. You’re gonna need to sew a dick on us to make us look like victims. That’s why we call it cock fighting, not pussyfooting,” Gwen said, stumbling back to her seat and high-fiving Leona.
“Cockfighting? So you don’t use roosters, right? You use... gladiators?”
“Glad-i-a-tor! Glad-i-a-tor!” Leona mocked in her worst Liz Taylor impersonation. “We hate that movie! Too weak! We’d have the lion eat them both and chew on their dicks for dessert.”
Barbara wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to laugh or not, so she said, “I owned my own strip club. I had some friends in Russia, and... let’s just say I had a good use for an iPod.”
“Always good to see a sister doing it for herself,” Leona approved.
Gwen looked like she was deep in thought. “Strip club subliminalist. You from Portland?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Lee! That’s that girl from the Green Pages! The one who took three bullies and blew their minds so bad that they faked their suicides!”
“Barbara Greer? Impressive. We could use someone of your talents at Three Sisters,” Leona said.
“Let’s do it. Barbara, as soon as we bust out of here, I’ll show you how to dominate men, also known as people who have deserved it since the beginning of time. You’re gonna look great in green, trust me!” Gwen enthused.
Barbara sunk down in her seat and didn’t say anything. Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “Don’t let those witches get you down. They’re nothing but trouble. No damn sense. For female dominant controllers, they’ve got men on their mind an awful lot of the time. Sorry, I’m Colleen. I’m an inventor. I’ll tell you something- the future of control is in Saudi Arabia. Everyone thinks of sex, but doesn’t it make more sense to make sure everyone’s nice, and peaceful, and loyal? My chamber was just about ready to go. They called it arms dealing, I call it ‘go fuck yourself, you jealous assholes, for not thinking of it first.’”
That scared Barbara more than she was willing to admit, and she looked out the window in silence. “First sign of remorse? Oh, don’t tell me you’re a pussy! What’s the fun in that?” Gwen teased.
“Nah, just never liked planes. Took my own dope when I went to Russia the first time. I told everyone it was to make sure I was fluent in Russian when I landed, but honestly, I just don’t like the closeness of these things,” Barbara said, trying to stay tough on the outside, but inside she was afraid of what awaited her when she landed.
The plane dipped sharply, and when it leveled off, a strongly-built woman who looked programmed to destroy strode down the aisle, checking seat belts and pulses. “If you are awake, you will get off the plane first,” she barked out before sitting in an empty seat right next to Gwen, who mockingly showed some leg. The guard did not move.
Barbara looked out the window and saw the landing strip- or something. It looked like they were heading for a plate in the middle of the ocean. There were no trees, no shade, nothing but a circular building in the middle of the island which had to be the prison camp.