Authors note: This story is set in the same universe as "A Slave's Strength". The events depicted occur around the same time as the ones in that story. Please take note; while there ARE refferences to the indenturement legislation that is the foundation of A Slave's Strength the emphasis in this story IS NOT on eroticism. Feedback and constructive criticism are always welcome but please leave the torches and pitchforks at home. Copyright Bob Wagner all characters are my sole property not to be used without permision etc etc.
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Be Reasonable

“You really are very pretty, you know that?”

“Thank you Master.”

Max Krier looked down at the woman kneeling at his feet. They were both in her cell at Chicago’s Bureau of Indenturement Processing Center # 405. The woman, whose name was Charlize knelt naked on the cement floor. Her back was straight and her legs were open. She had curly blond hair, a voluptuous figure and was, according to her file about to turn forty in a few weeks.

Charlize returned the look. The man who was currently examining her didn’t seem terribly imposing. His defining physical trait was that he was noticeably shorter than average; no more than five foot six. He had on a black polo shirt, khaki pants and loafers. There was pallor to his skin that suggested a recent illness and his black hair was cut to just touch his shirt collar. He had a suggestion of strength about him but the same sickness that had him looking so pasty appeared to have eaten some of his muscle. He held himself like a dancer or one of those UFC fighters her husband couldn’t get enough of watching when he was alive.

Max kept his face neutral. As he stood there he wasn’t just looking Charlize over physically. He was also rummaging around in her mind. Max was a telepath among other things. He didn’t know how it had came about that he could access other people’s thoughts with a little concentration or do several other things normally only seen in comic books and he didn’t much care. He just knew that ever since he was eight years old he could do things that other people simply could not. It had made him very rich over the years and enabled him to piss all manner of people-mostly a mix of career criminals and members of the BOI- off to the point where if they had any clue who he was they would cheerfully make lampshades out of his skin. Then kill him.

Charlize Hutton was pretty typical for her circumstances. Uppermost on her mind was worry about what the future had in store for herself and her sixteen year old daughter Maya. Maya was currently occupying a cell on the other side of the same tier as her mother. Like her mother the girl was waiting to be interviewed by Max though neither one knew it just yet.

Charlize and Maya’s story was sad but nothing out of the ordinary. Family financial troubles had caught them up in the indenturement system through no real fault of their own. The late Mr. Hutton had managed to screw the family so deep into the ground monetarily it would take a spelunking team to find them. Then, rather than man up he had put a pistol in his mouth, taking the coward’s way out and leaving his wife and kid holding the bag. If the guy were still alive Max would buy his contract just for the pleasure of kicking his ass once a week.

Mother and daughter had transferred to Chicago from the Boston area in keeping with the Bureau policy of keeping families together if they all went in at the same time. Ostensibly this was to give prospective buyers the option to exercise a little compassion and purchase the contracts of multiple relatives at once, thereby saving them further emotional trauma. In practice it was a marketing ploy that pandered to the tastes of those with an incest kink. Being serviced by parent and child simultaneously or watching them service one another was a serious turn on for what Max personally considered an appallingly large percentage of the population. Charlize’s biggest fear was that Max was part of that segment of humanity. She needn’t have worried.

“You’re welcome.” Max said. He looked at a file in his hand. “Your daughter is even prettier. Sixteen, fit, still coming into her first bloom. She’s already quite the little heartbreaker. Looks like she’ll be downright devastating when she’s finished. After you and I get done talking I’ll be paying her a little visit. There’s a good chance you’ll both be coming home with me.”

Charlize’s fear spiked. Images of being raped in front of her daughter-not for the first time- or being forced to have sex with her child filled her mind. Max let her wander down that road a ways. It was cruel but he needed her to think she was drowning in order to ensure she grabbed the line he was about to throw.

“Tell you what.” He said. “Why don’t you get dressed and take a seat on the bed. That floor looks all kinds of uncomfortable. And let’s drop the ‘Master’ crap. You can call me Mr. Krier for now.”

Max handed Charlize her BOI uniform and turned his back, giving her the illusion of privacy. When she was dressed and sitting on the bed he sat down beside her, close enough to talk but not so close as to suggest he was about to mount her.

“Here’s what I’m thinking.” Max said. “I’ve got a nephew about your daughter’s age. Kid means the world to me. So the idea of having it off with her actually makes me a little sick. I’m thinking I buy the pair of you today. Maya and you each get your own rooms in my house. Maya goes to school in the fall, has an after school job-I own a pretty successful small local business and have ….”

Max thought for a second, choosing his words. “I guess you could call it a modest amount of influence in a few others- and has as close to a normal life as it’s possible for a kid with a chip in her neck to have. And part of that means nobody puts their hands or any other parts on her without her express invitation.”

Charlize’s heart leapt. This had to be a scam. But still, if he was serious he had to want something in return. No doubt the idea was to use her daughter as additional leverage. What kind of tastes did this Mr. Krier have that he needed to keep Maya around as a hostage to ensure her good behavior? What were they getting themselves into ?

“And what about me?” She asked. “You said what you had planned for Maya. What would you want from me in exchange for what you’re offering her?”

“I need somebody with a solid background in computers and accounting.” Max said. “Someone who doesn’t mind keeping house and playing nanny to a sixteen year old kid when I travel on business. I don’t really like housework and I’m not the world’s greatest cook.”

The declaration startled her. “That’s it?”

Max shrugged. “Whatever else you want to offer is your own affair. I meant it when I said you were good looking. But I’m no rapist. You come home with me I’ve no intention of ordering you into my bed or inviting myself into yours. You’re sexy as hell but I need what’s between your ears a lot more than what’s between your legs. So how about it? Should I have the controllers to bring your property bag and we can both go give Maya the good news?”

The offer was better than anything Charlize had expected when she was informed that she and her daughter would be serving seven years indentured servitude thanks to her late husband’s combination of incompetence and cowardice. There had to be a catch somewhere. Whatever it was, she decided, she’d deal with it when it appeared. For now there was at least the hope that she and Maya could have some semblance of a normal life. And if her soon-to-be-owner decided to change his mind about having her, he wasn’t bad looking. As long as he kept his hands off her little girl, she could deal with it .

Charlize told Max she could live with the arrangement he proposed and in short order the three of them were leaving the center behind in his restored 1960 Chevy. The car was a boat and drank gas like an alcoholic let loose in a whiskey distillery but it was a classic piece of American iron and one of Max’s prized possessions. The drive to their new home was rather pleasant. The weather was nice. Chicago was still a good month or two away from the stickiness and oppressive heat of high summer. After weeks cooped up indoors it was refreshing to be outside in the fresh air smelling the wind and nearby Lake Michigan.

They did not go straight home as Charlize had expected they would. Instead Max detoured onto a quiet drive that lead past a large marble stone with the words “Oak Woods Cemetery” on it. Past a dignified white single-story building and down a series of paths surrounded on all sides by stone monuments.

Max finally stopped the car. He had turned off the radio as soon as they pulled onto the drive . Charlize had been curious about the bouquet of roses on the front seat. Now it made sense.

“Stay here.” Max said. His voice was tight and rough. Whoever they had come to see the wound was still fresh.

Max exited the car and walked a short distance. The plot he stopped at was close enough the Hutton women could see him kneel down in front of the simple marble blocks . He stayed like that for several minutes, talking quietly, his shoulders shaking a little. Charlize and Maya did their best to give Max his privacy, turning their attention instead to the various markers around them. Many of them looked extremely old and just from where they sat Charlize was sure she recognized a couple of once-famous names.

When Max finally came back his eyes were red. He wiped at them but made no attempt to hide the fact that he had been crying. Despite the newness of the relationship Charlize felt her heart go out to the small intense man beside her. She put a comforting hand tentatively on his arm and was rewarded with a smile and nod of thanks. Then he put the car in gear and drove home.

The Krier residence was impressive. A two story affair with a big yard overlooking the lake, it managed to look homey and well-to-do at the same time. A small black Harley Davidson motorcycle shared space with a more modern looking silver Chevy in the garage. An assortment of rolling tool chests, power tools and workbenches lined the walls . Max let the ladies in and took them on a quick tour.

Charlize noticed two things about the the décor right off. First, her new owner was obsessed with comic books. Superhero themed artwork dominated the place in every media imaginable. Statues of various spandex-clad heroes did battle on shelves, while high end drawings in expensive glass frames hung on the walls. The video library held an array of genres but if there was a capes and tights film absent that had come out in the last ten years she couldn’t think of it.

The other common thread was family photos. Pictures of Mr. Krier posing with the same four people hung throughout the house. There was an older man, short like Mr. Krier and powerfully built, a woman about Max’s age, tall and blond to his short and dark. A boy bearing a close resemblance to the woman was present in at least half the shots. They ran the age range from newborn up to what appeared to be a fairly recent mid-teen. Sometimes he appeared by himself, other times with the woman Charlize guessed was his mother and sometimes with Max. In one or two pictures the boy stood next to a man he bore a slight resemblance to, tall and red haired with similar eyes.

“Your sister and nephew?” Charlize asked, pausing at a shot of Max, the woman and boy beaming together on a boat. The boy was posing with a fish almost as long as he was tall. The shot looked to be a couple years old and he was already as tall as Mr. Krier.

Max nodded . “We’re fraternal twins. Or we were anyhow.” His voice went tight and she saw his eyes film up. “Guy posing with them in that one there,” he pointed. “is my idiot brother-in-law Tony. Melissa-that’s my sister- and Tony died. Car went into the lake in February courtesy of a drunk driver. Brandon’s still alive. He’s in the system out west for the moment. We’ll talk more about it in a bit.”

“That’s my grampa.” He said in answer to a question about the older man in the pictures. “Twenty years in The Corps and another twenty teaching high school history. Raised me and Mel after our folks plane augured into the ground when we were kids. Heart attack took him from us last year.”

The basement showed still another side to Max. It was divided into uneven thirds, the smallest being used as a laundry room that took up perhaps one quarter of the total available space. Half of the remaining space contained a top of the line entertainment center and an almost solid line of bookshelves that appeared to be built right into the walls.

An exercise area completed the downstairs layout. There were free weights, a treadmill, mats on the floor three different striking bags. Apparently Mr. Krier shared her late husband’s fondness for unarmed combat. A nicked and chipped circle of butchers block was mounted on one wall. A red circle the size of Max’s right palm occupied the center. An assortment of throwing knives and matte black spikes with red tassles on the ends were embedded in the circle. Max took one of the spikes from the block and idly twirled it in his fingers as he showed them around.

Charlize stared at some of the heavy iron discs waiting to be put on the bench press bar. Two or three would significantly outweigh Mr. Krier as things currently stood and he had a stack of them. Just how ripped had he been before whatever sickness that made him look so pasty now jumped him?

“You can use whatever equipment you like.” He told them. “But please treat the weapons with respect. Maya sweety, please don’t touch that. You’ll cut your finger off or worse.”

“That” was a curiously shaped knife mounted in one of the few bare patches of wall . It was broad bladed with a bend about one third of the way along the length. The weapon put Charlize in mind of a slightly malformed machete. It was one of a matched pair and looked more than sharp enough to do what Max said.

Maya pulled back from the blade as if it would burn her. Max gave her a smile, started to take it down and realized he was still holding the spike. A casual flick sent it blurring across the room to thock into the board between a knife and another spike, just to the right of center.

“I got these in Nepal.” Max explained, showing her the knife. “Little bitty guys no bigger’n me would use them to clear trenches of Japanese soldiers in world war two. They still carry ‘em too. Some of the best troops in the world.”

“ Here,” Max re-hung the knife and took down a nearby pair of dark blond hardwood sticks about two feet long. “These come from the Philippines. Well, actually these come from a shop downtown. But the combat system they go with is Filipino . Once you get settled in I can teach you if you like. I taught Brandon. Here, step back a bit.”

Max shooed the ladies back several steps and took down the sticks mate. He loosened up, squared his footing and began a series of crosscuts in the air with them. Slowly at first then faster, the wood moved through the air until they were a blur. The sticks whirred in Max’s hands and the Charlize and Maya could actually feel a breeze. He stopped after about a minute, clearly winded and hung them back up.

“I really gotta get back into training.” He said.

After the tour Max sent Maya downstairs to watch TV and play video games while he talked with her mother. At his request Charlize got them some drinks from the refrigerator while he changed and got a couple things from his office. It struck her odd that there was no alcohol anywhere in the house. Midwesterners were known to like their drink, especially those in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas. Maybe it wasn’t so strange though. If she had lost someone close to her thanks to a drunk she would probably want a dry house for awhile as well.

When they rendezvoused in the livingroom Max was carrying a framed photograph, a thick white business envelope and a manila business folder. He had changed into cutoffs and a black t-shirt with a picture of a red haired girl in green spandex and yellow mask. Whoever the woman was, she must be a favorite. Her face and form were represented numerous times around the house.

“Thanks.” Max said as he sat down beside her. He set his burdens down on the table and took the glass of lemonade that waited for him. Some vibrational trick from the items being plopped onto the table caused the glass to slide closer to his hand as he reached for it.

After taking a drink Max showed Charlize the picture. It showed himself, Melissa and a much younger Brandon all smiling at the camera. It looked to have been taken around Christmas time.

“Like I said earlier, this is my family. Or was anyhow. My sister and I have always been close. It’s a twin thing. She got the height, the looks and I always suspected most of the brains. I got a knack for cards and dice that’s made me richer than shit.

Brandon’s about your girl’s age. He’s a good kid. Smart, friendly, good looking. Got a good heart in him.” Max went quiet for a minute as if the next part was especially painful. He rubbed his eyes with his hands and took several deep, shuddering breaths.

“About four months ago,” he said when he continued “a couple things happened all around the same time. I got sick. Sicker’n I’ve ever been in my life. They actually had to induce a coma for awhile. I’m on the mend but not up to where I was. Melissa, she hardly left my side. One night as her and Tony are driving home this son of a bitch! with half a liquor store in his bloodstream runs them into the lake. Between their injuries and the cold of the water they were both dead before they got anywhere near a hospital. Thank God Brandon wasn’t in the car. I dunno what I’d have done if the bastard had got him too.

“I was pretty well incapacitated at the time. Mel was handling all my affairs while I was under.” He sniffed and laughed without any real humor.

“It’d be funny if it weren’t so fucked up. The only person authorized to handle any large financial transactions on my behalf was dead. And the reason I needed to do a major financial transaction was specifically because she was dead. So when the dust settled and it turned out that the family was still seventy-five thousand in the hole my nephew went into the system.”

“What really sucks about this whole mess is that either Brandon’s father or I could have prevented the entire fucking fiasco with ease. If Tony hadn’t been such a tightass about where he thought the majority of my money came from and I’d had enough brains to have somebody in place in case Mel and I were both knocked out you and I would never have met.” Max ran his hands through his hair. “Shit, maybe if I’d just stood up to my sister and fixed their debts for them over her objections…”

He shook his head “I dunno. Fuck!”

“Instead Brandon has been under the yoke since early March. By the time I was in any shape to do anything about his situation he was already long gone. They sent him to California where he got bought first by a place called FanTan Naturists resort. It’s a nudist resort that keeps a stable of indents on hand for the enjoyment of the members.

Whenever they get a new shipment there’s an auction. People get to bid on exclusive rights to one of the newbies for three days."

“This fucking guy,” Max opened the folder and showed her a picture of a heavyset, middle aged man. “bought Bran at auction. Liked him so much he bought him outright. Last three months or so he’s been serving as the prick’s houseboy. That’s gonna end.”

Charlize took the file and looked at it. The information collected on the man was extensive. Workplace, home address, daily routine, not to mention all manner of financial information. She did not bother to mention that Max shouldn’t have any of it. There were confidentiality protections in place specifically to safeguard contract buyers against the attentions of friends and family of those they had purchased. Just to get the name of a buyer you had to commit at least one or two Class A misdemeanors. And here her employer had everything on the man who owned his nephew but how many times a day he went to the bathroom.

“And you’re showing me this because…?” She asked.

“Because one way or another Brandon is going to be under this roof by this time next week. If this Mr….” Max glanced at the file “…Chastain is willing to be reasonable then I’m going to need your skills as a caregiver to help me undo what he did to my nephew. Ideally I’d like to get both kids in therapy ASAP, give them the summer to try and mend some from their time in-system and get them enrolled in the fall term at De La Salle.

If he isn’t willing to be reasonable I’m going to need your computer and finance skills to reduce his life to fucking rubble. I’ll be blunt; I am going to ask you to break the law. This man has spent the last several months raping my nephew day in and day out and he is going to get exactly one chance to do the right thing. After that I start pulling his little world apart until he smartens up."

"You help me out in this and you and your daughter are going to have the gratitude of a very wealthy man with the legal right to make your lives as pleasant or hellish as he likes. You steal from me, betray me or fuck me over in any tiniest particular and I will have the pair of you doing barnyard shows five times a day, seven days a week for the duration of your contracts. Are we clear?”

Charlize didn’t have to think about it. As a mother her primary concern was the well being of her daughter. If hurting this Owen Chastain would make Max Krier that much more inclined to put his resources behind Maya’s best interest then she had only one question.

“Where do you want me to start?”


To Be Continued....