Fletcher's Odyssey free porn video

Martin Bernstein was having a bad day. And if that could be said for the court-appointed defense attorney, it was doubly true for his client, Steven Fletcher. Fletcher stood accused of the rapes of 51 women. He'd entered a plea of 'Not Guilty', and Bernstein had believed him, but to this point, the Prosecution had presented convincing evidence of the opposite. According to Police reports, the MO for each rape was disturbingly similar. DNA evidence from 27 of the crime scenes pointed definitively to Fletcher. Under oath, four other victims had identified Fletcher as the assailant. An expert witness had testified that video surveillance footage from Fletcher's office which gave him an alibi had been tampered with. Today, the defense's last witness, Jenna Solanki, the executive assistant for Fletcher's supervisor, Elliot Vernon, was telling a different story than she had in prep. Bernstein had wanted to get Vernon himself to testify, but he had gone missing a month before the trial began. Solanki had been expected to say that Fletcher was a model employee who kept his nose to the grindstone and never missed a day of work. Instead, she painted a picture of unexplained absences, long lunch hours, and friction between Fletcher and Vernon. Under cross- examination, she even went so far as to imply that Fletcher might be responsible for his boss's disappearance. When she was excused from the stand, a flustered and frustrated Bernstein, out of options, was forced to rest his case. A hundred years ago, Bernstein reminded himself, this trial wouldn't have even been necessary. The A.I. controlled Global Vigilance Network prevented most crimes; truth pills and memory readers quickly solved the rest. Of course in those days, the guilty were summarily vaporized. Then, in an event known as the Liberation, troops from the outer colonies had returned to overthrow the Network. The law enforcement tools of the fascist dictatorship, including Capital punishment, had been outlawed. Justice was once again dispensed in courtrooms with human judges and a jury of one's peers. "I'm sorry, Steve," Bernstein said as the two walked back to his office to await the deliberations. "I don't think we were ever really meant to have a chance, Martin," Fletcher replied bitterly, "But I couldn't go down without a fight." "You still think there's a conspiracy against you?" "After what we just heard from Jenna? More than ever." The bailiff caught up to them before they'd made it even halfway down the hall. "The jury's back," he told them. The verdict, predictably, was 'Guilty on all charges'. The formal reading took longer than the jury had spent discussing it. Steven Fletcher stood through it all; his face was impassive, but he had a white knuckle grip on the table in front of him. "Due to the heinous nature of these crimes," The Judge said, when the forewoman of the jury had finished reading, "There must be more recompense than simply time served. Mr. Fletcher, it is the opinion of this Court that you should suffer a measure of the anguish which you inflicted upon your victims. Therefore you are sentenced to a term of not less than 102 years on the penal world of Minos, time to be served after a process of Genetic Gender Realignment." Bernstein leaned over and whispered in Fletcher's ear, "This doesn't have to be the end. I'll appeal and ask for a stay of sentence." It was a harsh punishment, but no worse than the charges deserved. The current state of medical science meant that, barring an accident, Fletcher would live to serve his entire sentence. In fact, given the Judge's intentions, he would probably be implanted with a cellular rejuvenator, and kept young the entire time. The bailiff was approaching to take Fletcher to his cell. He turned to his lawyer and shook his head. "Don't bother with an appeal, Martin; it will only get shot down. If you want to help me, find Elliott Vernon. Figure out who wants me out of the way, and why." Genetic Gender Realignment, or GGR, had first been performed three decades ago. With a Chrysalis tank, a genetically engineered virus, a chromosome donor, and two weeks, a man could become a whole new woman, or vice versa. Recent refinements had led to a process which was much safer, faster, and produced better results. If one was not satisfied, the procedure was fully reversible, provided one's original chromosome pattern wasn't lost. Even then, a return to one's previous gender was possible, although there had rare cases where an individual developed an immunity to the virus. Steven Fletcher knew it was likely he'd have a penis again, eventually, even if it wasn't the one he'd grown up with. This morning, the day after the trial had ended, he'd been handcuffed and escorted from his holding cell to a van where he was driven to a medical facility on the outskirts of the city. One of his guards, a heavy-set blonde woman with a stern face, whose name tag identified her as 'P. LaFleur', had made off-color jokes at his expense the whole way. Now she sat next to him in the waiting room while the other guard spoke to the receptionist at the front desk. Fletcher's orange jumpsuit stood out against the subdued grey walls and he felt that the buzz-cut he'd received the night before added to his conspicuousness. He heard whispering from the seats behind him, making out nothing except his own name. He slouched down in his chair. A video screen on the far wall was tuned into the news the volume was off, but the picture was a live aerial shot of the clinic. As the view switched to Fletcher's mug shot, LaFleur jerked him to his feet. "C'mon, Sport," she said, pointing to the crotch of his jumpsuit "It's time to take away your toy." The other guard met them as they passed the desk and together they walked down a series of hallways and into a small room dominated by a gleaming white cylinder - the Chrysalis tank. It was eight feet long and four in diameter, the top half hinged along one side, and opened like a clamshell. A technician in a lab coat was checking a series of needle-tipped cables which snaked out from within. LaFleur unlocked the handcuffs and put them away on her belt. "Take it all off," she told Fletcher with a sneer. His shoelaces, socks and underwear had been confiscated the night before as a suicide watch precaution. She watched as he stepped out of his shoes and unzipped his prison uniform. He slipped his arms out of the sleeves and let it pool on the floor. The lab tech had finished his checks and beckoned Fletcher over to the tank; there was a padded cushion inside. "Lie down, and we'll get you hooked in," he said, beginning to attach the leads to Fletcher's arms, legs, and torso. A second tech arrived to help; a respirator was placed over Fletcher's mouth and nose. A pair of opaque goggles were strapped onto his face, with two final cables plugged into ports on their sides. He heard the lid being shut, then felt a warm, viscous liquid begin to fill the tank; it felt like peeing in the pool. There was a moment of panic as the level of the fluid fully submerged him, but the respirator kept him breathing normally and he calmed down. He began to float. Fletcher quickly lost track of time. He occasionally felt itching in his feet and hands, but nothing else. He couldn't say quite when he realized there were images resolving before his eyes. It was as if he were looking into a funhouse mirror; the reflection he saw was at once both familiar and odd. The thick hair on his chest and arms was gone. His entire body looked emaciated, all skin and bones. Finally, the image faded, or he simply fell asleep; perhaps both. The next time the mirror image appeared, it had altered even more. There was no sense of scale, but Fletcher had the impression that his body was smaller, his shoulders narrower. There was a child-like smoothness to his face. His body was thin, but now it was a healthy slenderness. His dick was still between his legs, still looked normal. He slid back into semi-consciousness. Faintly, he became aware of an itching in his chest. The image was back, and his nipples were darker and larger. As he watched, his body began to fill out. His breasts went from mosquito bumps to cones to mounds, the areolae stretching as they grew; his nipples expanded into womanly nubs. His hips were definitely wider; his thighs were padding out, brushing up against his cock and balls. Suddenly, those manly parts popped off and floated away, as if on a breeze, dissolving into nothingness. Where they had been, Fletcher could faintly see the cleft of a vagina through his pubic hair. Then the image was gone again. The next thing of which Fletcher was aware were the goggles being taken from his eyes. The lights in the room had been dimmed, but still seemed too bright. The cables had been detached, the respirator removed. He opened up his mouth to speak and a woman's voice came out. "How long was I in there?" "76 hours, 12 minutes; a little behind schedule," a lab tech answered. Her voice was cold; Fletcher suspected he knew why. She stood by the door, arms crossed below her breasts. "The procedure was a success; your body is female, and fully functional. Your eyes need a moment to adjust, and then you can be on your way. You should probably get dressed." The lights in the room were slowly but gradually brightening. Fletcher sat up, and was momentarily distracted by the motion of his chest. He stared down the valley of cleavage to the open space between his legs. Even with all the evidence, he wasn't able to think of himself as a woman. Turning away from the jarring view, he looked for and found the jumpsuit still laying on the ground where he'd left it three days ago. He ran his hand over the stubble on his head; given all other the changes, he was a little surprised his hair hadn't grown long. Hesitantly, he lifted one leg and then the other over the rim of the tank and stood up. The tech made no move to help him. His muscles were stiff and his joints weak as he hobbled over to his pile of clothing. He stepped into the legs and slid his arms into the sleeves of the jumpsuit. Shrugging it on over his shoulders and zipping up, he could see the outfit was comically over-large. He felt a little like a child playing dress-up. It was more than just a difference in height; he'd lost a lot of size. He sighed and rolled up his cuffs. Fletcher was comparing his now tiny feet to his old shoes when the door swung open, and a guard, thankfully not LaFleur, strode into the room. "Why the hell are you wearing that?" she asked, "Didn't you see the clean clothes laid out for you?" She pointed to a chair behind the Chrysalis tank; on it were a neatly folded shirt and trousers, underpants, socks and a bra. On the floor beneath it, sat a pair of laced up shoes. Fletcher looked angrily over at the lab tech. She gave him a smirk and walked past the guard out of the room. The guard, 'J. Nichols', addressed him once more, "We don't have time for you to waste here switching outfits. We have to get you to the spaceport. Your shuttle leaves in an hour. Pick those up and you can change in the van." Barefoot and still getting used to the new ways his body moved, Fletcher awkwardly jogged behind Nichols through the corridors of the clinic, trying not to trip over his too-long pants legs or drop his clean clothes. When they emerged into the parking lot, LaFleur was waiting behind the van. There was a wide smile on her face as she opened the back door for Fletcher. She climbed in after him and closed the door behind her, sitting on the bench opposite him. Nichols went around to the driver's seat and the van took off. Feeling very self-conscious, Fletcher stripped off his jumpsuit and quickly slid the white cotton panties up his legs and over his hips. He stared at his flat crotch for a moment. He looked up and his eyes locked with LaFleur's. "Missing your little friend? Poor baby." she said with mock concern. Fletcher did his best to ignore her as he finished getting dressed. She let out a little snicker as he struggled with his bra, but she didn't speak again. Shortly after he finished tying his shoes, they arrived at the spaceport. After passing through the gate, Nichols drove across the tarmac and parked next to a civilian surface-to-orbit cargo hauler that was in the process of being loaded. While she went to talk to the crew chief, LaFleur led Fletcher to a waiting Stasis Pod. "Take one last look at Earth," she told him as she strapped him in, "You won't see it again for a very long time. When you wake up, you'll be at the Minos Induction station." With that, she closed the lid and turned on the power. Fletcher opened his eyes and tried to sit up; the Stasis Pod restraints held him down. He pulled on the release handles and undid them. The swift beating of his heart made him realize how much he had been dreading this moment. Fletcher gave a start when he saw a man standing by the controls of the pod, watching him. "Relax, we're not quite there yet. We're still a few hours from docking; just entered Minos orbit," the man said, giving Fletcher a hand out of the Pod, "I'm Caleb Renton, Captain of the freighter Odyssey. Welcome aboard my ship. If you feel a little odd, it's at least partly because you've been asleep for a month. I thought you might enjoy a last taste of relative freedom. Just don't go trying to jump out an airlock or anything." "I'll restrain myself," Fletcher said dryly. His voice was still unfamiliar; he realized it was only the second time he'd spoken since he'd emerged from the Chrysalis tank. Of course, by his reckoning, that had only been about an hour ago. He looked around him; they were in the midst of a vast, dimly lit chamber half-filled with tied down shipping containers stacked up to the high ceiling. "Truth to tell, I kinda just wanted to get a look at you," The Captain said as they wandered through the cargo hold, "I've transported 'passengers' for the Department of Corrections before, but everything about the commission for you was different. They asked me to leave before I'd finished loading, and offered me enough extra to make it worth my while. They're usually not in such a hurry to get prisoners out here; DOC typically sends them in groups. I was paid before I left Earth orbit, too, and that is totally out of character for the government." As they walked, Fletcher sized up Captain Renton. He was tall, although that descriptor seemed to apply to a lot more people than it used to. Renton had a full head of dark hair, cut short and greying at the temples. He had a square jaw and eyes which held a mixture of curiosity and sympathy. "Perhaps you could get a message to my lawyer," Fletcher said, "He could find out where the money came from." "I'll see what I can do, but I can't make any promises," Renton said, "The Odyssey's making a circuit through the outer colonies. It'll be more than a year before I get 'round to Earth again." The Captain invited Fletcher to join him on the flight deck as they approached the Induction Station. There was a panoramic view screen through which the station ahead and the planet below could be seen. Minos looked much like Earth, although the colors of the landmasses and the water were slightly unusual to Fletcher's eye. "The planet orbits an orange dwarf. Light's a little different than you're used to; it affects the vegetation," Renton said, when asked about it. "This is actually a trinary system. Minos' sun, Asterion, orbits two larger stars, although too far out for them to provide much illumination on the surface." As he spoke, the Captain centered his massive cargo ship's path on an open anchorage, matched the station's rotation, and oriented Odyssey to align docking ports. Renton's piloting made the complicated docking maneuver look mundane. When the ship was secure in its berth, he led Fletcher through the airlock. A delegation of three guards, two men and a woman, was waiting on the other side. The Captain took a data chip from his pocket and handed it to one of them; Fletcher's records. "Be gentle with her," he told them. The guard who'd taken the chip had plugged it into his clipboard and was skimming the contents. "Don't worry, Captain," he said, looking up, "I'm sure we will." He nodded at his associates, who flanked Fletcher and led him further into the station. In-processing began with a physical exam. The male guards peeled off, leaving Fletcher alone in the exam room with the woman. She glared at him, and he looked impassively back at her. A nurse arrived a few minutes later. She poked and prodded Fletcher, listened to his heart with a stethoscope, took some blood, administered some vaccinations and implanted him with a tracking device. Then she produced a cup. "I'm going to need a urine sample for drug testing. Guard Conner will show you to the restroom," she told him, handing the cup to Conner, who had just donned a pair of rubber gloves. "What if I don't need to go?" Fletcher asked weakly. Conner led him to a water fountain and told him to drink. Every few mouthfuls, she'd ask if he was ready yet. Finally, his stomach full and feeling queasy, he decided he could try. Fletcher entered the restroom and Conner followed him. "Do you have to watch?" "I absolutely do," she replied disgustedly, and handed him the cup. "Try not to get any on the outside." He pulled down his pants and sat down on the toilet, lowering the cup between his legs; he wasn't exactly sure where the pee came out of his new anatomy. Fletcher closed his eyes and willed himself to relax. He thought he could feel Conner's stare through his closed lids, and he must have sat there for five minutes before anything happened. When it did, it seemed that he got more on himself than in the cup. "Don't forget to wipe," Conner said. A few hours later, Fletcher was in a holding cell, waiting for transport to the surface. He'd been assigned to a farm on the coast near the equator. It was night there now, and inmates were always integrated into their work details during daylight. Dinner had consisted of tough beef, overcooked corn and stale bread; technically his first meal in over a month. His reworked body wasn't particularly appreciative. Fletcher lay on his mattress, holding his tummy and listening to it gurgle. He heard footsteps approaching and sat up. It was Conner along with Drochek, the guard who had taken his files from Captain Renton. They stopped in front of the cell. "Not feeling well?" Drochek asked cheerfully, as he unlocked the door, "Well, I've got something for you." He opened it, took a few steps toward Fletcher and dropped his pants. "Suck it," he said, thrusting his semi-hard dick in Fletcher's face. Fletcher looked pleadingly toward Conner. "Inmate!" she barked, "the guard gave you an order." "Don't make me tell you again," Drochek said. Looking at Drochek's penis gave Fletcher an intense feeling of loss. Timidly he reached out and wrapped his hand around the shaft, then leaned forward and wrapped his lips around the tip. The guard placed a palm on the back of Fletcher's head, forcing him to take more of the dick into his mouth. "There you go," Drochek said with a pleasured sigh. "If I feel any teeth, I'll knock 'em out." Fletcher's tongue moved involuntarily over Drochek's cock; it tasted salty, and a little sour. He caught a whiff of urine smell from the guard's pubes. He pulled his head back, but Drochek forced it down again; he was getting harder. Fletcher could feel the veins throbbing beneath his palm. The head of the guard's dick hit the back of Fletcher's throat. He thought he was going to gag. Suddenly, Drochek tensed up and his cock erupted; then Fletcher thought he was going to drown. The pressure on the back of his head eased, and Fletcher let the softening organ slip from his mouth, accompanied by a dribble of cum. He bent over the toilet and threw up. "That is, without a doubt, the worst blow-job I have ever received," Drochek said, laughing, as he pulled up his pants. "You need more practice. The boys down there aren't as tolerant as I am." He paused to collect his thoughts, "You see, Minos is a men's prison. No natural born women in the population. The other inmates see you, with that body, they know what you're in for. What you did to the ladies back home? They'll do it to you, here. It's all part of your punishment. Us guards, we know that, so don't look to us for help." He stepped out of the cell, closed to door and turned to leave. "Sweet dreams. Maybe I'll be back in the morning to give you some cream with your coffee." "You're a pig, Drochek," Conner said, shaking her head with a grin as she walked away with him. Despite his threats, Drochek kept his dick in his pants when he brought Fletcher's breakfast. Fletcher found himself wondering if his performance had been so bad that Drochek didn't want a repeat. The feeling of inadequacy he got from this line of thinking was deeply disturbing. After he ate, Fletcher was shuttled Planet-side. By local mid-morning, he was hard at work. When he'd arrived at the dormitory, he was greeted with cat-calls and come-ons, but once they'd gotten out the fields, the other inmates restricted themselves mostly to leering. Since Fletcher was new, a man who called himself Cobbler offered to show him the ropes. Cobbler looked middle aged; darkly tanned, muscular, but with a big gut, and balding beneath a broad-brimmed hat. His words were pleasant enough, but he stood too close, and his big, roughly calloused hands found too many excuses to brush against Fletcher's body. Around noon, Cobbler pulled a loaf of bread and a flask of water out of the satchel he carried. Breaking the loaf in two, he handed half of it to Fletcher and they sat down to eat. Afterwards, they continued their work until late in the afternoon. Finally, a whistle sounded and the inmates made their way back to the dormitory. Fletcher's new body didn't have the strength of his old one, and he was accustomed to an office job, with air conditioning. All day, the weather had been hot and humid, and with gravity on Minos noticeably higher than Earth's, by the end of the day he was exhausted. He forced himself to eat and drink, then went straight to his bed. It was still light out. The sleeping quarters were open air; a listless breeze blew fitfully through the doorways, but the room still managed to be stuffy. Fletcher's bunk was near the middle of the room, which made him uneasy. Mindful of Drochek's words, he intended to sleep with one eye open. Leaving socks and shoes on, he curled up on top of the sheets, listening to the drone of voices rising from the Rec room. Sometime later, he was jolted awake; the sun had gone down, but there was still enough light to see Cobbler's face only inches from his own. The man rolled Fletcher on his back and climbed on top of him, his finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. Fletcher felt the man's erection pressed against him, and the beginnings of panic flared in the pit of his stomach. "You did well today, Lass," Cobbler said, "but I shared my bread with you, and you've shared aught with me. You know what I want. If you're quiet, it'll just be you and me. Otherwise..." He shifted his hips, and pawed at the waistline of Fletcher's pants. Fletcher rammed his knee into Cobbler's crotch. "Fucking bitch!" Cobbler yelled, backhanding him across the face. His head ringing, Fletcher lay there, stunned, as Cobbler undid his pants and yanked them down. Other inmates had heard the commotion and come to see what was going on. "Please, no," Fletcher begged; he began to struggle again. Cobbler grabbed both his wrists with a single hand and sat atop him, to hold him down. "She's feisty, boys. I be needing some help," Cobbler called out. To Fletcher, he added "I did warn you" Half a dozen pairs of hands reached out and grabbed at him, holding his arms, pulling off his shoes, ripping open his shirt. Fletcher's pants were torn off his legs, which had been spread wide. Cobbler was on top of him again, his left hand roughly kneading Fletcher's breast, his right positioning his cock at the entrance of Fletcher's vagina. He pressed forward with a grunt, forcing his way inside. Fletcher felt a searing pain in his nether regions and he gave an anguished cry. He felt like he was being split apart at the seams. Cobbler grabbed on to his shoulders and thrust like a jackhammer for several seconds before he let out another grunt and slid his cock out from between Fletcher's legs; it was slick with cum and blood. He slid off the bed and stepped away. An argument began among the other inmates over who would get sloppy seconds. Fletcher's wrists were still being held, but for the moment, his legs were free. He wriggled around, lashing out with his feet and trying to break away. All that earned him was a beating. He was forced to his hands and knees, and used cruelly. Hands groped his hips, and he felt the tip of a cock probing his anus, then a jolt of pain as he was violated from behind. Another dick entered his pussy; it didn't hurt as bad as Cobbler's had, but it was by no means pleasant. His jaw was wrenched open, and another inmate slid his meat into Fletcher's mouth. The nightmare assault seemed to go on for hours. When they were finished, the other prisoners carried Fletcher to the showers and dumped her there, turning on the water. She didn't feel like a man anymore; they'd finally taken that away from her. She lay there, bloody, and covered in semen, sobbing quietly as the spray coursed over her, until a medic arrived. Fletcher awoke in a hospital bed; she hurt all over. An orderly with a starched white uniform and a crew cut entered the room and glanced at her chart. "Wow," he said, "Somebody really did a number on you - a concussion, broken nose, a cracked jaw, two shattered ribs, some internal bleeding..." The young man sounded sympathetic. "You fought back didn't you?" Fletcher nodded. With her jaw wired shut, she couldn't talk. "That explains it," he said, "If you'd just laid back and let it happen, they wouldn't have hurt you so badly." Martin Bernstein still couldn't believe his luck; six weeks ago, he'd been invited to become an Associate at the law firm of Sullivan, Fielding, and Stone. It was a big step up from his old job as a public defender. He was making five times the salary for about half the work. Hell, he had a secretary now who made more than he used to. His new desk had more square footage than his old office. Not that he'd used that desk much, since he'd been hired. Bernstein had been all over the planet, meeting with clients in Europe, attending a seminar in Buenos Aires, serving as co-counsel with his boss Christine at a trial in Los Angeles. Today was his first day in the past month actually being in the office. He looked out the window at the streets of the city below him as he waited for his computer finish transferring some files from the Central Repository. This morning, Bernstein learned that he was being asked to represent the family of Elliot Vernon, who had now been missing for almost two years. His wife wanted him declared legally dead, presumably so that she could access his assets. Elliot's stock in Dardion Technologies, the company where he'd been the head of R&D, was worth a great deal. Bernstein remembered his last conversation with Steven Fletcher. Now he was getting paid to investigate Elliot's disappearance; he'd never really had the time nor resources to do it before. He idly wondered how Fletcher was faring. He'd seemed like a nice guy. Martin had wanted to believe the man was innocent, but toward the end, the prosecution's case and Fletcher's wild stories of a conspiracy theory had started to convince him otherwise. He heard the door to his office open; his secretary leaned in. "Are you busy, Mr. Bernstein? There's a call for you, from a Captain Caleb Renton. He says it's about a former client of yours." "I'll take it," he told her. Fletcher sat under the shade of a tree and contemplated the tube of 'food' in her hand. Just the smell of it, when she'd opened it, made her sick at her stomach. She'd felt a little ill since she arrived here, but today was the worst of it. She screwed the cap back on and set the tube on the ground beside her. Looking out across the water toward the horizon, she imagined she could just make out another piece of land. Until a few weeks ago, she'd never considered what solitary confinement would be like in a prison which encompassed an entire planet. The guards had dropped her off here on her own private island, a man-made spit of land far out in the ocean. In the center of the island was an electronic box, called a Sentinel, which dispensed protein paste to eat and water to drink. There was a slot for recycling empty containers, and the Sentinel required her to deposit empty food tubes and water bottles before it would give her full ones. There was an integrated toilet on one side of the box; Fletcher suspected that what went in there was recycled, too. The Sentinel also generated an invisible field which interacted with her tracking implant and made it very uncomfortable to travel more than twenty feet in any direction. She'd been told that if you managed to keep going, the pain increased to lethal levels. Her first few days here, she'd contemplated letting the waves carry her out to sea, but she couldn't even stand to make it all the way to the shore. Since her return to the farm after her initial six week stay in the infirmary, Fletcher had been assaulted several times in incidents which somehow inevitably resulted in her being written up for fighting. Once she'd been found outside the dormitory after curfew, passed out, naked, and under the influence of contraband drugs; administered, of course, by the other inmates. Then came the time when Cobbler held a knife to her throat and had his way with her in the showers; she panicked and he'd accidentally cut her badly. As she lay bleeding on the shower floor, he'd wrapped her fingers around the knife, then yelled for the guards, claiming she'd tried to kill herself. She was labelled a 'disruptive influence' and after yet another trip to the infirmary, they shipped her out to the island. She ran her fingers across the scar on her neck. In a way, she was almost grateful to Cobbler; for three weeks, she'd spent her days in peace. On the other hand, thanks to him and his friends, she woke most nights in a cold sweat, pulse racing, with the nightmares still playing themselves out in her head. Fletcher looked up into the sky; the clouds were rolling in. It rained every day here, sometimes only for a few minutes, but often for an hour or more. It was her only opportunity for a wash. Luckily the water tended to be warm. As she stripped off her clothes and put them in the laundry slot of the Sentinel, she noticed that her breasts were sore. She hated her female body, and it was constantly reminding her of its existence. She thought back to that day, a year and a half ago, when she'd started her first period. She was in the infirmary; her initial stay. It had been the morning before they'd unwired her jaw. She'd woken to find blood in the crotch of her underpants. At first, she thought she must have somehow reinjured herself, but she quickly realized what it must actually be. An orderly confirmed her suspicions. He told her that she'd likely be irregular for a year or two, while her new reproductive system sorted itself out. Thankfully, she'd only had a few periods since then, the last one a couple of weeks before the knife incident. Maybe the next would come while she was exiled here. That would be a mess; the Sentinel dispensed toilet paper very sparingly. She doubted it gave out feminine hygiene products at all. Not that she'd ever used them. There wasn't anywhere on the surface of this planet they could be found. A few large, fat, drops fell on Fletcher's shoulders and head, and then the deluge. Looking back in the direction of the mainland, all she could see was the rain coming down in silver sheets. She slicked her fingers through her dripping hair; it was down past her shoulders now. She'd been letting it grow out. The idea of sitting still for a haircut was almost enough to make her freak out. A gust of wind blew over the island, and Fletcher felt her nipples getting hard. Glancing down at them, she wondered if they'd always been so dark. With the coming of the wind, the rain tapered off and the clouds moved away. In the sunlight, everything looked normal. A loud noise woke Fletcher out of a troubled sleep, a sound she hadn't heard since she'd been deposited on the island, three months earlier: a transport vehicle, heading her way. She felt fear and excitement in equal measures. During the last few weeks, she'd been so desperate for another human voice that she would press the button on the Sentinel when she already had food, just to hear its gentle remonstrance. The idea of a reunion with Cobbler and the other inmates, though, was difficult to contemplate. There was another issue, as well. Fletcher was convinced she was pregnant. Luckily, the nausea had gone away sometime in the past month, but now her pants were really tight, her boobs were too big for her bra, and her belly was sticking out. The last few days, she thought she could feel the baby moving around in there. The mixture of feelings she had about her impending motherhood were too complex for her to have sorted them all out, yet, but she had come to one conclusion: she wouldn't willingly have an abortion. However, she was afraid that choice, like so many other things in prison, would be taken out of her hands. The transport passed overhead, made a banking turn and settled down in the surf just off-shore. The pilot gunned the engines and the craft backed onto the beach. The loading ramp lowered and two guards emerged in full tactical armor with helmets. They were backlit by the morning sun as it began to climb into the sky. The pair advanced toward Fletcher. "Inmate! On your knees; hands behind your head," one of them said. He clapped a set of cuffs around her wrists and pulled her to her feet. The other guard proceeded to the Sentinel. He withdrew a key from his pocket and inserted it into a socket on the top of machine, deactivating the security field. Returning the key to his pocket, he gave his partner a nod, and they frog-marched Fletcher aboard the waiting vehicle. She dragged her feet when they reached the 20 foot limit, but a gentle push from one of the guards got her moving again. After they buckled her into her seat, one of the guards went forward to the cockpit, while the other took the seat across from her in the back of the transport. After the ramp closed and they were airborne, he took off his helmet and gloves, resting them on the seat beside him. He had chocolate skin and cropped back hair; his dark eyes glanced over Fletcher warily. Fletcher hadn't used her voice in so long that she was half expecting to have forgotten how to speak, but the words tumbled out of her, "Are we headed back to the farm, now?" The guard grunted and his lips quirked into a quick smile. "No, you won't be going back there. Disruptive influences get themselves reassigned. Before you go to your new duty station, though, you get a checkup from the doctor," He glanced at her belly, then added, "Standard procedure, after an extended stay in Solitary. Same with the handcuffs. Some inmates are a little...hostile after a few months alone." The afternoon sun was a little past its zenith as the transport took off from the infirmary. The day had been full of simple pleasures Fletcher had been denied on the island. She had a hot shower, with soap and shampoo, warm meals made of solid foods, and the sound of human voices. For a while, she felt almost like a real person again. She'd been subjected to an extensive work-up which confirmed her pregnancy, determined that it was progressing well, and revealed the sex of the baby. And one of her fears was allayed, only to be replaced by new anxiety. "It's against Federal Guidelines to compel an inmate to have an abortion," the Doctor told her, "However, prison is no place to raise a child. After birth, your baby will be taken into custody and delivered to a relative or guardian." After her examination, Fletcher was presented with a new outfit - a pair of stretch-waist pants, a maternity bra, and a loose, flowing top with plenty of room for her belly to grow into. It wasn't until after she'd put the new ones on that she realized quite how uncomfortable her old clothes had become. She kept her back to the mirror as she dressed; the short, thin, freckle-faced, young woman with haunted-looking eyes, bushy hair and a pot belly who appeared there was harshing her buzz. Apprehension settled in on Fletcher as the transport flew north. After several hours, the pilot dropped the craft onto a landing pad in a valley between snow-capped mountains. There was a squat dormitory a few hundred yards away. The setting sun was providing a halo for the tallest of the peaks as Fletcher and her guards made their way to the building. After months on a tropical island, it felt cold; she could see her breath. A line of tired looking, dirty-faced men were heading through the front door as the three newcomers approached. The guards halted Fletcher, and they waited. At the end of the queue was the largest man she'd ever seen; towering as far over her guards as they did over her. His shirt was tied around his waist, his chest bare, showing off impressive muscles. His skin was dark as coal, and he had a mane of frizzy curls on his head. Fletcher squirmed uncomfortably when she saw the bulge in the front his trousers. The man saw the three of them standing there and stopped to speak, "Welcome to Mining Camp 23. I'm Apollo, one of the day shift leads." His voice was deep and resonant, his tone pleasant and respectful. He glanced skeptically at Fletcher and addressed himself to the guards, "This is the replacement? I'll get her settled in, gentlemen." As the guards walked back to the landing pad, Apollo leaned over and spoke quietly to Fletcher, who was by now trembling. "I know what you're expecting. Don't worry. It's not going to happen here. While you're in this camp, you're under my protection. Most of the men respect me; those who don't, fear me. I promise you, none of them will lay a hand on you." He gave her his most dazzling smile. "I won't, either, unless you ask nicely." "Thank you," Fletcher said softly. The rational part of her mind wanted to be reassured by his words, but she struggled to calm her wildly beating heart. "What's your name?" Apollo asked, "If you're going to be working with me, I'll need to know what to call you." "Steven Fletcher," she replied; it came awkwardly to her lips. "No one here goes by their real name," He replied, "And no offense, but you don't look much like a Steven right now, anyway." Apollo was right. She'd been holding on to that piece of her old self, and she decided it was time to let it go. "I suppose you can call me Ariadne," Fletcher said. "It's nice to meet you, Ariadne," Apollo said, leading her inside the dormitory. Apollo was true to his word; most of the inmates were courteous to him, and by extension to Ariadne. Apollo had a room to himself; he let her spend the nights there. She slept on the bed and he slept on a mattress on the floor. During the days, Apollo worked closely beside her, first teaching her how to use the laser pick, and then how to distinguish ore from the surrounding rock. Loading and moving the carts, he saved for himself. It was dirty, grueling work, not suited for a woman in Fletcher's condition. Without Apollo's help, she would have been unable to meet the daily quota set for each inmate; he easily did the work of two or three men. As the weeks wore on, Ariadne's belly grew and her usefulness as a miner declined. Two months after she arrived at Camp 23, she was reassigned to kitchen detail. At first, she was nervous to be away from Apollo, but his influence held, giving her time to fret about the continuing changes in her body. She was getting some serious stretch marks, and her bra was getting tight again. By this time, the baby was moving around a lot; mostly, it seemed, when Fletcher was trying to sleep. When she entered her last few weeks of pregnancy, a transport came to pick Ariadne up and take her to the infirmary. Camp 23 was remote, and the Doctor wanted her under closer supervision. The maternity top which had been loose a few months ago was now swelled out by a full belly. Fletcher waddled now, more than walking, and every time she sneezed, she was afraid she'd pee her pants. Finding a comfortable position to sleep in was becoming an impossibility. One night, Ariadne woke to a wet patch in the bed and an intense pain in her belly; her labor had begun. As the contractions progressed, she was taken to surgical theater set up as a makeshift delivery room. 12 hours later, a sore and tired Fletcher heard her baby cry for the first time. She seemed to feel a response to that sound in her chest. "She's got a healthy set of lungs," the Doctor told her as he cleaned the baby up and cut the cord. He wrapped the little girl in a blanket and handed her to Ariadne. "Have you thought of a name for her yet?" "Her name is Phaedra," Fletcher said. Instinct and curiosity encouraged her to lift her shirt and place the baby's head against her exposed breast. After a few minutes Phaedra had latched onto her nipple, and was sucking. It was the most extraordinary sensation Fletcher had ever experienced. Mother and child were peacefully sleeping when the guards arrived a few hours later with a tiny stasis pod. The guards took Phaedra from Ariadne's arms and placed her in the pod. Fletcher heard her baby cry one last time as they closed the lid. Martin Bernstein had hit a dead end. His current project involved a tale of two sums: a generous amount of money which had been paid to Caleb Renton for the swift transport of Steven Fletcher to Minos, and a much larger quantity which was missing from the estate of Elliot Vernon. Renton's payment had come from a shell corporation, and Vernon's funds had disappeared into one. Not the same one, of course; that would have been too easy. Bernstein felt that there was a connection, but he could find no proof. He shut off his computer screen, set his glasses on the desk and rubbed his eyes. It was time for a break. He was out of his office and halfway across the lobby when his secretary called after him. The baby had olive skin, dark hair and blue-green eyes. Bernstein had never seen the female version of Fletcher, and he couldn't really remember what the man had looked like, but he had a vague recollection of fair skin and strawberry blonde hair. Nevertheless, he had been assured that this was Fletcher's daughter, Phaedra. The girl was conceived as the result of a sexual assault; her father had been released from Minos shortly after. He had promptly turned up dead of a drug overdose within a few short weeks of his return to Earth. It was quite likely he never knew he'd impregnated Fletcher. In fact, he shouldn't have been able to; she was supposed to have been given birth control medication. Somehow, that detail had been neglected by the prison staff during her in-processing. Steven Fletcher had no surviving relatives and given the circumstances of the girl's conception, the Government felt it was inappropriate to turn her over to her father's family. Since he had once served as Fletcher's attorney, Bernstein had been appointed as Phaedra's Legal Guardian. Although he had misgivings, Bernstein's conscience wouldn't let him decline. A part of him felt like he owed Fletcher for not defending him better. As far as experience, he told himself, he had as much as most new parents. He also had plenty of material resources. Under his care, Phaedra would be well provided for. And he had, at least briefly, known the man who became her mother; no potential foster parents could say that. When they heard the news, Bernstein's colleagues had provided him with a wide array of furniture, diapers, formula, and other supplies for the infant. When he'd asked his mother for advice, she'd shown up to deliver it in person. Now he held the little girl in his arms as they brought her home for the first time. For the moment, at least, she was quiet, watching him wide- eyed with her mouth half-open. He tickled her chin with a fingertip, and the tiny fingers of one of her hands reached out and wrapped around it. It had been over two months now, and Ariadne still found herself crying at odd intervals, but she was feeling better. The first week after, she'd been disconsolate; she spent the entire flight back to Camp 23 sobbing. It had not been helpful to hear the doctor say that natural hormonal changes would have caused her to be moody anyway. Since her return, Apollo had been there for her, a quiet and comforting presence. He brought food to their room for her from the cafeteria, so she could eat alone. At nights, before bed, he'd tell her funny stories. She was back at work in the mines, now, and as she slowly eased back into normality, he was still filling a large share of her quota. Fletcher appreciated his efforts; Apollo was the only person she'd met on Minos whom she considered a friend. And right or wrong, her experiences over the past two and a half years had taught her that she really only had one way to express her gratitude. He was in bed with her; she'd woken up in the night with tears in her eyes and asked him to come hold her. His strong arms wrapped around her felt better than she'd expected they would. Apollo only wore a pair of shorts to bed; it occurred suddenly to Ariadne that he'd never been completely naked in her presence. Through the fabric, she could feel his equipment pressed against her leg. He was bigger than Steven Fletcher had ever been, and hard. Slowly, she realized that the situation was turning her on. Curiosity and arousal ruled her; she had to see it. Carefully disentangling herself from his arms, she slid down his body. Kneeling on the bed astride one of Apollo's leg's she eased the waistband of his boxers down and revealed his massive organ. She felt a rush of adrenaline course through her body. Hesitantly, she reached out and took hold of his shaft; it was as big around as her forearm. Closing her eyes, she lowered her head and placed a wet kiss on the tip of Apollo's dick. He raised his head off the pillow and she opened her eyes to see him looking at her. There was the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. "What are you doing, Ari?" he asked quietly. "Thanking you for all you've done for me," she replied, he fingertips gently massaging his member. "Are you sure?" She nodded solemnly. "I want to." She encircled his thick cock with her lips; they had to stretch to accommodate it. "It's been a while," he warned her, "I won't last long." She bobbed her head up and down, running her tongue over his glans. Her long hair brushed his legs. One hand still wrapped around his girth, Ariadne cupped his balls with the other. Apollo was, as usual, true to his word; her attention soon had him tensing up and spewing his load in her mouth; she did her best to swallow. She sat up, licking her lips; Apollo was giving her his best gleaming smile. "May I return the favor?" he asked. She nodded, stiffening involuntarily as he grasped the hem of her shirt in his hands and pulled it over her head. She reached behind her and unclasped her bra, shrugging her shoulders out of the straps and letting it fall onto the bed. Lifting her hips, she let him pull her panties off. With a gentle touch, he urged her to lean back on the bed and spread her legs. He placed soft kisses on her inner thighs while his fingertips drew patterns along the sides of her torso. Without warning he plunged his head between her legs; Ariadne gave out a gasp as he found her clit. He sucked on it, flicking it with his tongue and she experienced sensations she hadn't know her body was capable of. His continued ministrations caused a wave a pleasure to course through her loins; her thighs clamped around Apollo's head. She let out a low moan and her body tensed up as another wave washed over her, before she melted into the mattress. She sat up slowly, a broad grin spreading across her face as she saw the look on Apollo's. She stroked his cheek and bent forward to place a kiss on his lips. Apollo was hard again, by this time. "I want to feel you inside me," she whispered to him, pushing him onto his back. Straddling his hips, Ariadne lowered herself onto his erection. It was a tight fit, but her pussy was slick with her juices, and he slid in deeply. She leaned forward to kiss him again, shivering with delight as her nipples brushed against his chest. She sat up again and gripped his cock with her vaginal muscles. Cupping her round ass with a hand almost big enough to cover both cheeks, Apollo caressed her breasts with the other as she rode that immense dick. He lasted longer this time, but all too soon, she felt him tense up again and cum inside her. She got a thrill from the idea of becoming pregnant with his child, although she knew she was now on medication to prevent that. She sighed and rested her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her again, and they both fell asleep contentedly. The next evening, as the inmates exited the mines on their way back to the dormitory, Ariadne noticed a transport resting on the landing pad, with its loading ramp down. A pair of guards exited, followed by a string of inmates; among them was a familiar bald head. Ariadne squeezed Apollo's hand and pointed, "It's Cobbler," she said breathlessly. "I'll keep my eye on him," Apollo told her, casting a scowl in Cobbler's direction. For the next several weeks, Fletcher tensed up whenever she saw Cobbler. He was there in cafeteria for every meal, and working in the mines during the day, but he never even made eye contact with her. She could only hope he kept it up indefinitely. One night after she'd eaten dinner, she found that his table was between hers and the tray return. He was engaged in an animated conversation with the other inmates at his table which continued unabated as she approached. He reached the punchline of some joke as she passed by, and his companions roared in laughter. Cobbler seemed to be making friends; Fletcher couldn't help but feel uneasy about that. Ariadne usually showered late, just before Lights Out. Apollo would do a sweep of the latrine to make sure it was clear and then he stood watch while she was inside. She tried to be quick. If any of the other prisoners had minded, they'd been careful not to say so in Apollo's hearing, or hers. Not so, with Cobbler; after a month of observing the big black man standing at attention beside the bathroom door, he issued a formal complaint to the guards. Apollo was given a disciplinary write- up and was told he couldn't restrict access to any areas of the dormitory. "They reminded me that in the eyes of the administration, you are no different than any other inmate, and are thus are ineligible to be afforded the privilege of segregated facilities," Apollo recounted to Ariadne as they lay together in his bed. "They don't think I've been adequately punished, lately" She said bitterly, her worried mind constructing various nightmare scenarios. "Don't worry; I'll just have to be a little more subtle for a while. And if Cobbler tries to walk in on you, he and I will have a man-to-man chat and come to an understanding." Over the next few days, Apollo 'just happened' to be sitting across from the bathroom door, reading, working on a sketch, or perhaps having a conversation. If the guards noticed, they didn't seem to care, and Cobbler made no further comment. Toward the end of the week, as Ariadne was soaping herself up, she heard raised voices in the hall outside the showers. She shut off the water to listen; one of them as Apollo's deep bass, but she didn't recognize the other. A rough hand clamped itself over her mouth and another arm snaked around her belly and pulled her into the body of the naked man behind her. His erect cock lined her butt-crack. Fletcher struggled to no avail. "Your man should open the stall doors a little wider when he checks to make sure the room is empty," Cobbler whispered in her ear. "You've still got me mark, I see," he continued, running a finger of the hand over her mouth across the scar on her throat. He ran his other hand tenderly over her still pooched out belly and then pinched one of her nipples, hard. "You've filled out nicely since last I saw ye." He reared back his arm, his hand bunched into a fist, and slammed it into Fletcher's stomach. "That's for making me wait." She let out a muffled cry and doubled over in pain. Cobbler grabbed her by the hips and forced his dick into her unwilling pussy. He was in the middle of his second thrust when the door flew open and Apollo stormed in. Ariadne's assailant shoved her away from him; she hit her head on the shower tap and fell to the floor. Blood dripped from her scalp. Wiping it away from her eyes, she slumped against the wall. Cobbler dropped into a fighting stance and circled warily around Apollo, who stood his ground before the exit. The door began to open, and Apollo flicked his eyes toward it, his left arm shooting out like a piston to slam it shut. Cobbler made his move, stepping forward and throwing a jab at the big man's mid-section. In a swift and flowing move, Apollo dodged the blow, grabbed Cobbler's outstretched arm by the wrist and twisted it behind the bald man's back. Ariadne heard the sickening crack of breaking bones and Cobbler bellowed in pain, his knees buckling under him. Apollo roared; taking his opponent's head in both hands, he snapped the man's neck. Releasing his grip, he let the body fall. The bathroom door burst open again, and guards, more than Fletcher had ever seen in one place before, swarmed into the room. They were in riot gear, heavy batons raised. Forming a circle around Apollo, they beat him again and again, even after he lay senseless and bloody on the ground. Martin Bernstein should have been used to frustration by now, but he wasn't. Phaedra's 5th birthday was approaching, and she'd only talked about one thing she wanted: a meeting with her mother. Bernstein wasn't sure it was a good idea, and he'd made her no promises, but he looked into it anyway. After weeks of bureaucratic runaround, he received a terse official communication from the Department of Corrections. Steven Fletcher, AKA Ariadne, was ineligible for visitation privileges, per a supplementary written ruling by presiding Judge Alfred Q. Hastings. As Fletcher's attorney in the case, Bernstein should have received a copy of the ruling, but this was the first he'd heard of it. He was not alone in that; his contacts at the Clerk of the Court's office had no record of any supplementary rulings, sealed or otherwise. That led Bernstein to the conclusion that either the courthouse records had been altered, or the order had been sent by the Judge's office through unofficial channels; otherwise, it was an outright forgery. A quick investigation showed that Judge Hastings was no longer on the bench. He had resigned a few days after the Fletcher trial for an executive position at Dardion Technologies. Taken in isolation, that move wouldn't have seemed terribly unusual to Bernstein, but along with the other curiosities surrounding Fletcher, it was one coincidence too many. Looking away from his computer screen, Bernstein took off his glasses and polished the lenses while his mind worked through the facts he knew so far. There was no new direct evidence one way or another concerning Fletcher's guilt, but paranoid or not, it seemed that someone really had been out to get him. A chime brought Bernstein's attention back to his computer. An encrypted transmission from an orbiting courier had been received and translated. The only routing information was from ship to shore, so the message had likely been hand-carried from its origin. By its content, it could only have come from Minos. It read, 'Mr. Bernstein, news of your inquiries regarding Inmate Fletcher have reached my ears. She needs your help as an attorney; if not to free her, then at least to have her moved to a more appropriate facility. I have done what I can to aid her, but due to local politics, I cannot take open action without jeopardizing my own position. Attached is a memento which rightly belongs to her daughter. Please deliver it to her if you can.' The attachment was a digital photograph of a tired-looking, pretty young woman sitting up in a hospital bed, her red-gold hair slicked back and sweaty, who must be Fletcher. She was nursing an olive skinned, dark haired baby Bernstein recognized as newborn Phaedra. He printed out a hard copy. It wasn't what she'd asked for, but at least now he had something of the girl's mother to give to her on her birthday. Over the next year, Bernstein spent the evenings after work looking through his case files from the Fletcher trial, hoping to find something he'd missed which would lead to a break in the case. Many nights as he sat in his study, paging through documents, Phaedra would be on the floor beside his desk, playing with her toys, whose imaginary adventures had often, of late, involved courtroom proceedings. At various intervals, she would interrupt his concentration with a string of questions, some of them surprisingly insightful. "Uncle Marty," she began, setting her stuffed cat on the floor; that feline judge had just sentenced the dinosaur defendant to extinction, "What did mommy do before she had to go away? Was she a lawyer, like you?" "No," Bernstein answered, "She was a computer programmer." "Did she do something bad at work?" "I don't think so, although some people said so," he told her, remembering the testimony of Elliot Vernon's Executive Assistant, "Why?" "I thought maybe that's why she had to leave." The little girl seemed satisfied for the moment and went back to her story; a pony bailiff led the dinosaur away. Bernstein still had his mind on Phaedra's questions. Maybe something that happened at his office did have some bearing on Fletcher's situation. Amongst the files, Bernstein had two copies of Fletcher's e- mail logs. One he'd extracted himself, early on, from Fletcher's portable device; the other had been provided later by the Prosecution via Dardion's IT department. The logs hadn't seemed relevant while he was preparing for the trial, so he hadn't wasted his limited resources on them. There were thousands of messages in each, so to start with tonight, Bernstein filtered them to show the differences between the two logs. The Prosecution's contained several hundred unique entries, most of them company-wide announcements which Fletcher had likely deleted from his own machine. Bernstein's version had three unique messages, all involving something called 'Project Normandy'. If the Prosecution didn't have them, who had removed them from the logs, and why? The first was from a colleague of Fletcher's, asking for some help in debugging a segment of code. The second was a message sent by Fletcher to Vernon, voicing concern over the purpose of the project, and the third was a reply from Vernon arranging a meeting to discuss it. The date of the meeting was a week prior to Fletcher's arrest. Programming was outside his area of expertise, so Bernstein couldn't tell what was special about the subroutine; he sent a copy of it to a hacker friend of his for analysis. A network search for 'Project Normandy' did not turn up anything which immediately seemed relevant. Cross-referencing the term with 'Dardion Technologies' produced a rambling conspiracy theory about a military plot to take over the world using robot soldiers. "Project Normandy," the site said, "Hails back to 'Operation Overlord', a campaign of the Great War of the 1940s. Only in this case, it refers our new Android Overlord." It went on to offer evidence of Dardion's complicity in the scheme: "The name of the so-called 'founder' of the company, Clare d'Este Dardion, is really nothing more than an anagram for 'Secret android deal'." Lower down on the page, Vernon Elliot and Steven Fletcher were mentioned as casualties in a secret war against the machines. The rest of the site contained the same mixture of no fewer than three parts absurdity for every one fact. And at the moment, it was the best lead Bernstein had. Phaedra answered the door to find a man in an Army uniform waiting, hat in hand, in the hallway outside. The ten year old girl stepped aside to let him in. "You're here to see Uncle Marty?" she asked. "That's right," the man said. "You must be Fletcher's daughter." "Yes, sir," she replied, looking down at her shoes. "Did you know her?" "Er, no. I never had the pleasure," he said as Bernstein entered the room. "Martin Bernstein?" he asked, offering a hand, "I'm Colonel Dysart. Nice to meet you. The Defense Department has authorized me to answer all your questions about Project Normandy." "We can talk in my study," Bernstein said, pointing the way. Phaedra watched as they walked down the hall into the bookcase-filled room and closed the door behind them. Then she tip-toed up to it and knelt to listen. "Since the Liberation," Dysart was saying, "A.I. has been a dirty word. Severe restrictions have been placed on the capabilities of automated systems. Normandy was a mechanized combat-proficient infiltration and intelligence-gathering system designed to operate independently, to the extent allowed." "A robot ninja?" Bernstein asked. "That's...one way of putting it," Dysart agreed reluctantly. "Safeguards were put in place to keep it from getting too 'smart'. Behavioral rules were hard-coded into it, to prevent it from directly harming non- combatants. Just as important, the system had to have a sense of self- preservation, within reason." "I suppose suicidal combat robots have too limited a service life," Bernstein suggested. "We had rather the opposite problem," the Colonel admitted. "One of Dardion's engineers, a Thomas Anderson, was working on the behavioral systems. In operational tests, he recognized there were some issues, so he sent the software to a colleague, to see if he could iron things out." "And from there Fletcher went to Vernon?" "Exactly. The prototype was in Vernon's office. Due to the system issues, something in the conversation between Fletcher and Vernon made the prototype perceive Fletcher as a threat to its existence. Unable to terminate him, it sought to neutralize Fletcher through other means. With extreme efficiency, it altered police records in multiple unsolved crimes, and in some cases substituted evidence. By the time its actions had been discovered, Fletcher had already been arrested and charged. "The Normandy prototype was taken offline. To avoid embarrassment to the military and the creation of a public panic by revealing what the prototype had done to Fletcher, an order was given to clean up loose ends and assist the Prosecution in obtaining a conviction. Since that time, there's been a change in policy at the highest levels. My office can provide documentation." "I see," Bernstein said, thoughtfully. "And what happened to Elliot Vernon?" "I'm afraid that's classified," Dysart answered as he got up to leave. After the incident at Mining Camp 23, Fletcher was shuffled around through different work stations across the planet. Eventually the guards dropped the pretense of trying to find the right job for her and had settled into the role of her pimps. She was taken to a new camp every week or two to be u