The Slave Processing Industry (1)

Almost two days had passed since the riverboat had left the slave-hunting company’s outpost. The boatwoman had steered the heavy craft through the tangled waterways of the Southeast Asian jungle without rest, the electronic collar around her neck counting down every second. Four days and two hours had been allotted for the entire run. She still had margin, but not much.

Now the jungle was gone. The water had turned oily and dark, reflecting neon and concrete instead of green canopy. More than four hours earlier she had entered the outer arteries of Big City — the largest concentration of human life south of the equator. Nearly five hundred million souls lived in this sprawling biotope. Here you could buy anything if you had the credits: rare drugs, forbidden tech, custom-grown organs, or a freshly broken girl still warm from the processing line. Legal and illegal were mostly matters of paperwork and price. The corporations that ran the slave industry sat at the center of it all. Female Leisure Products and its rivals held near-monopolies on certain product lines — industrial labor units, field animals, specialized pleasure models. Money moved, bodies moved, and the machine never stopped.

The boatwoman kept the throttle steady as the old wooden hull slid into a narrow side canal. It cut straight through the heart of the city rather than skirting the edges. Early-morning light filtered through the haze. Office workers and night-shift drones walked the wet embankments, heads down, collars turned up against the damp. A few glanced toward the boat, saw the three tightly folded naked forms locked in their silver frames on the open deck, and looked away just as quickly. It was the same reaction people had always given the trucks that once carried slaughter cattle. Everyone knew what the cargo was. No one wanted to watch it arrive.

She remained at the tiller, one gloved hand resting on the worn wood, the other resting near the throttle. Her eyes moved over the three units. Completely bald. Knees forced high against their chests. Wrists and ankles locked. Asses and cunts presented upward by the frames like goods on display. The jungle journey had left them marked with rope burns and the dull sheen of dried sweat, but the basic merchandise was intact.

A cool, private heat stirred low in her belly as she studied them. Her own body had long since been refined — biobattery ports, permanent depilation, the constant weight of the collar, the latex second skin that never came off. These three still carried the last traces of what they had been. Soft. Unmarked in the deeper ways. Temporary. She let the thought linger. In a few hours the factory lines would begin erasing even those traces. Permanent depilation. Neural conditioning. Hormone resets. Branding. Whatever openings and modifications the buyers had already ordered. By the time the units left the intake halls they would no longer remember the names they once answered to. The boatwoman found the idea quietly satisfying. Ahead, on the stained concrete quay, a single figure waited beside a silver hand truck. Logistics Unit L-17 stood motionless in her own glossy black latex, hooded face turned toward the approaching boat. Other logistics units would arrive once the boat actually tied up. For now only L-17 had been sent ahead.

The boatwoman adjusted course by a few degrees, keeping the hull centered in the narrow canal. The three folded bodies rocked gently with the motion of the water. She did not leave the helm. There was still a short stretch of canal to navigate before the designated intake dock, and the collar on her neck did not forgive delay.

She watched the exposed, helpless shapes on her deck and felt the dark heat again — the private knowledge that, for these last minutes, the cargo still belonged to her run. After that they would only be numbers.The side canal narrowed further. Neon signs reflected in the black water. Passers-by kept walking. The boatwoman held her course.