Ever found yourself in the midst of a crowd of incredibly hostile beings, many of whom think you are mostly made of food? No? Well, it’s really not a very good feeling. I am sweating from fear, and very aware that I’ve fucked up seriously.
“Bring the human up here!” the auctioneer says. “Looks like we’re going to haveninelots today! Very exciting.”
I am passed through the crowd like a meat bundle, the aliens grabbing whatever part of me comes most easily to hand. I have never, ever, been treated this way before. I don’t feel like a human. I feel like a thing. They’re being just careful enough not to break me.
I am finally put onto the stage and pulled up by the auctioneer. He grips me by the arm and shakes me. “This is not one of our lots, and it is certainly not one of our pets,” he says. “This is a rogue human. Someone is going to need to tame this one.”
Where are my aliens? Where are the ones who protect me and look after me? Have they lost me? That’s so irresponsible. Don’t they know I’m a liability? Don’t they know I need to be watched constantly?
I start to protest loudly into the auctioneer’s mic.
“You can’t do this! It’s immoral! Women are sentient beings! They deserve the right to choose their fate! And we’re not good food! We’re kind of gristly. I’d get stuck in your teeth, I promise… ow!”
I feel a sudden sharp crack of electricity applied to my left buttock. The auctioneer has used a tool I’ve never seen before to smack the hell out of me.
He deploys it again, and again. I am twisting and screaming, and my voice is carrying across the entire market.
“Humans need to be handled roughly,” he says. “They don’t understand their place in the universe, or the food chain for that matter. Shall I take a limb off her now? Prove her tenderness?”
“Let me go!”
“I’ll sell you,” the auctioneer hisses. “Either as a total unit, or in parts. Is anybody interested in a pair of sweet human eyes? I’ll sell the pair for two thousand credits. This one seems like she’d be easier to handle blind.”
“Help!” I scream and I kick and it does nothing because when a truly evil powerful alien wants to pull your eyes out and sell them at a discount, there’s not fucking much you can do.
The crowd is laughing now, in much better spirits. What started as a simple transaction with what seemed to be a pretty hokey auctioneer has turned into a spectacle.
Boom!
There’s a loud flash of light, and a big cloud of smoke, and when it clears I am no longer on the stage, and the auctioneer no longer has his head. As I am carried through the crowd in Boss’ arms, I see the auctioneer’s spindly big-eyed dome tumblefrom his shoulders. Now there’s just a suit at the mic, and it has terrible diction.
I am so fucking relieved. I cling to Boss like I cling to life.
“What took you so long?” I snap the question once he has me out of range of the crowd. There’s a general chaos going on back there as the spectacle of awful violence excites them. I don’t know what they’re doing to each other, but I don’t think I helped the human women at all, and I hate that for them. Someone should have done something.
Boss puts me down. “What took me so long? You snuck away and the next thing we knew you were having your eyes plucked out,” he says, his tone deep and incredulous. “We didn’t know where you were. We had to split up. That was…”
I don’t find out what he thinks it was, because Sharp just caught up with us.
“Come. Here.” Sharp grabs me by the scruff of the neck, smacking my ass hard. I yowl, because it already hurts due to the auctioneer’s human prod. The tool was awful, and it hurt, but I think Sharp is about to make me hurt even more judging by his expression.
“We told you not to do that, didn’t we? And you ran off and did it anyway? Are you not familiar with the concept of consequences? Did you think nothing would happen?”
“I didn’t care what would happen. It was the right thing to do!”
That’s definitely not the response he wanted.
“You’re going to care. I am going to ensure you’re very much concerned with consequences in the future.”
“What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to make your ass incredibly sore,” he promises me. “I’m going to make sure you never, ever do anything as stupid as this ever again.”
“I don’t know how you’re going to do that,” I say. “I do things you’d consider to be stupid a lot.”
“You’re not taking this seriously,” he says. “You will, though.”
I am not sure what to do with myself. I feel like I can hear the auction starting up again, and that pisses me off. I didn’t achieve anything. I couldn’t stop it. It’s not fair.
