Six Masters Island - De Lucia's Slaves Read online

  SIX MASTERS ISLAND -

  DE LUCIA’S SLAVES

  by Candace Smith

  Copyright 2010 Candace Smith

  Published by Strict Publishing International

  PRELUDE

  Fallon tied a band around the end of her long black braid, while she stared at her laptop screen and waited for her e-mail to open. It had been a long day at work, typing monotonous invoices from the never-ending pile the supervisor kept tossing in her basket. After a year at Harkson Industries proficiently typing the notices, her depressing future with the company seemed assured.

  The screen finally loaded its few offerings, and Fallon scanned the promise of incredible insurance rates for the car the sender presumed she owned, and the other message for a bogus exciting employment opportunity. She checked the boxes to delete them, and stopped with her finger hovering over the mouse just before she clicked them into non-existence. The second one actually looked a little interesting, and she decided to follow the link for more information.

  ‘Looking for extraordinary employees between the ages of eighteen and twenty five to begin an exciting career as a personal assistant to professionals. Must have versatile skills and the ability to travel, with generous salary dependent on qualifications. Please click link below to fill out short survey.’

  Fallon looked around her apartment, as if she expected Shelly to waltz in and catch her. Her landlord had a habit of unlocking the door that led from the efficiency she had squeezed into her single car garage and the main house. Even when Fallon had casually suggested a dead bolt on the door, Shelly vehemently shook her head and announced that a blocked off exit from the house would be a fire hazard. Fallon could lock the door from inside the garage, but Shelly hung the key beside the knob on her side and used it as if she were merely turning the handle in welcome.

  After she had graduated high school last year, Fallon’s intentions had been to leave the small town. She figured she could save her money by living at home, and then move closer to the city. With six younger siblings, her parents had other ideas and they had celebrated Fallon’s first day of work by presenting her with a key to the apartment.

  “I got Shelly to wave the deposit, and I paid her the first two weeks’ rent,” her father announced proudly. “All the utilities are included, and there’s a separate entrance so you have privacy.”

  Fallon was stunned. “Dad, I thought I could just stay here until I saved up enough for a car, and then I wanted to move closer to Ellenton. The opportunities are much better there, and they have a junior college.”

  “Nonsense, you got hired on by Harkson, sweetie, and you won’t do much better than that in the city,” her mother smiled.

  Harkson was the biggest… heck, other than a few small businesses, Harkson was the only… opportunity available. It seemed half her high school class was working there and the cafeteria was filled with the same faces she had seen growing up in Lewisville.

  After a year in the anonymous secretarial pool at Harkson Industries, Fallon could see there was no chance for advancement. She would end up like June Mosley, stuck in the same administration room for the entire thirty years she had been loyally working for the company. The rent on the garage apartment was just high enough to keep her from being able to save any meaningful amount, and her passbook showed a balance of fewer than seven hundred dollars.

  Fallon looked at the computer again. “What the hell,” she muttered, and clicked the key to fill out the survey. She decided the worst that could happen amounted to being turned down for lack of experience. The questions were, for the most part, skill related and generic, with a few strange items thrown in such as if she was physically fit or in a relationship. Around the seventh question, Fallon had the eerie sensation the eye on the webcam on her laptop had snapped a picture of her. It was a feature on the computer she had no idea how to use, so she figured the feeling must have been her nerves getting to her.

  A part of her wanted to believe the offer was real, and another part knew the spam offer had to have gone out to millions of viewers, and somewhere through the links they would ask for money. She looked at her answers on the screen and she thought her replies were accurate, although she had stretched her typing speed by a few words per minute, and perhaps her experience with spreadsheets. Fallon was a quick learner, and she figured she could catch up with whatever they really needed.

  She hit submit, and waited while a little circle swirled with numbers announcing it was processing her answers. Once more, her cat-like green eyes glanced back at the door while she stroked the tail of the black braid resting on her lap. “Geeze, I hope that wasn’t the camera,” she muttered nervously, and looked down at her worn sleeping shirt. Even the stamped picture of the grouchy woman with the coffee cup announcing her displeasure of waking up, had faded to a light pattern making it barely discernable from the equally faded blue background.

  A continent away, a man received a beep from his terminal, indicating that a survey was being filled out. It was the small town in the Midwest he had targeted… a nondescript, depressed area, lacking the sophisticated abilities necessary to track the program. Whoever the young woman was, she had made it to question six, and his bank of computers rapidly scanned her equipment for the real next question… did her computer have a camera? The man did not give a damn about spreadsheets, but he did want the picture.

  Sure enough, a photo of a young girl concentrating and focused on the screen filled his monitor. Pretty, slightly slanted green eyes, and black hair so long that it disappeared at the edge of the picture, high cheek bones and a natural tan, were complemented by a rag of a t-shirt instead of lacy lingerie. The initial assessment was that the young woman certainly had the desired looks, and the shirt suggested the small town naivety he wanted. There were three other passables from the town, and he entered the command and sat back in his chair, extremely pleased with the results of his search.

  When the circle finally digested one hundred percent of her survey, the screen flashed for a second and surprised Fallon with a new scene. In the background were young women laughing in locations like Paris, the snowy mountains, beaches in some tropics… there were about ten of them.

  ‘Congratulations on successfully completing our on-line survey. You have qualified for a personal interview to further assess your compatibility for this unique opportunity. Please copy the address below with your confirmation number, and the time and date of your scheduled appointment.’

  “Holy crap,” Fallon whispered. They still had not asked for any money, and she was beginning to think the offer was genuine. She copied the information, and saw that the interview was for Saturday morning at the Ellenton Airport in a private hangar, promising the travel the pictures suggested. She would have to take the early bus to the main city terminal and transfer to the Airport shuttle. The only money the offer would require was the twenty or so dollars for bus fare, and it was certainly worth the investment.

  Fallon never noticed that the original offer in her e-mail had disappeared without being deleted. Over the course of the week, she discovered three more of her high school friends had taken the survey and had passed. One of them had a car, and the excited girls decided to share in the gas and save the bus fare.

  Ironically, none of the girls mentioned their interviews to family or to anyone outside their little circle. Their hopes were high, but they still had the uneasy feeling it was a scam, and they did not want to be laughed at or reminded how easily they were taken in, thus justifying their parents’ desire to keep them away from life in the city.

  They complimented each other on their best interview outfits, and their attempts at what they cons
idered to be professional and sophisticated hair and makeup. Andrea pulled the car beside the remote hangar, with fifteen minutes to spare. “Guess we’re the only girls smart enough to fill the survey out,” she noted nervously, as all the other parking spaces were empty.

  “I think most people thought it was a scam,” Fallon answered. “I kept waiting for it to ask me for money.”

  “Me too,” Andrea replied. “Don’t forget to grab your purses. My car doesn’t lock.”

  The nervous young women were grateful they had found friends to continue this adventure with. Fallon glanced back at the high rises of Ellenton in the distance, and she decided that if this did not pan out she was determined to find a way out of Lewisville. She followed her friends into the side door of the metal building, where Andrea was instructed by a polished woman to leave the keys to her car in a basket on the desk and follow her into the interview room. Depositing the keys seemed like an odd request, but the girls did not want to show their hand early at just how unsophisticated they were in the way such things worked.

  The woman had a rolling European accent that made her sound both sensuous and professional at the same time, and she handed them each clipboards, and pointed to chairs on the opposite wall. Fallon looked at the receptionist’s tailored navy blue suit… slacks, she noted, instead of the skirt she was wearing… and the dark hair pulled back into a twist… instead of a bun. Her naturally cultured manner, along with the enviable accent, made Fallon feel foolish for even trying for the position, and she felt as though she had already failed the first part of the interview.

  In the lovely, seductive accent, the woman began making comments that were designed to keep the girls filling out the forms without thinking through the questions to closely. “If you pass the interview, you are sent to a training facility where we teach you the proper makeup and hairstyles for the position. We even start you out with a beginning wardrobe.”

  The girls looked at each other, and immediately began to scribble their answers. All of them had felt like country bumpkins next to the woman’s appearance, and now that worry was taken care of.

  The woman waited for the pens to begin to stall at the question about sexual contacts, and she spoke encouraging words once again. “We help sharpen any skills that a particular client might want, so you are well prepared for the position. We want the employees we send out to be capable and willing to perform any aspect the job might require.”

  “Um, Miss?” Andrea asked. “Why do they want to know what kind of birth control we use?”

  Sienna held her tongue from saying, ‘Because we want to know how much you screw around, you little twit.’ Instead, she smiled warmly and said, “That’s just a rudimentary question, of course. You’ll be given a physical, but we don’t want to invest the time and travel for an applicant who is pregnant,” she winked. “You’d be surprised how many young women walk into our interviews thinking they can escape their ‘little’ problem. Obviously, it’s technically illegal to ask the question outright and discriminate, so our legal department designed that little bombshell.” The woman laughed and said, “Men can be so obvious without realizing it.”

  The girls began to relax with the proficient woman’s unexpected easy nature and assurances. “I started with them over ten years ago, and eventually landed the permanent position of helping to screen potential applicants. The opportunity is everything it was described to be… and more. The first real test is young women who have the confidence to fill out the on-line survey, proving they are open to new and exciting possibilities.”

  Fallon looked up from her clipboard. “Why are we the only women who showed up?”

  “Naturally we pre-schedule interview settings months in advance, and we’re never sure until the final week how many will actually show up. You’re from?”

  “Lewisville, about thirty miles to the west,” Andrea supplied.

  “Yes, well, nine from Ellenton were offered the opportunity.” She shook her head and added, “We had anticipated a few more applicants, but, as you can see, none of those offered the confirmation showed up. We have found there are more distractions in larger cities, and with the Friday late night clubs,” she shrugged. “This in itself screens many potential employees and shows their lack of commitment, and that’s why we began surveying the smaller outlying communities within a reasonable distance.”

  “Damn, she’s good,” Dawson chuckled as he watched Sienna play the girls.

  “Well, she does get first choice. Who do you think she’s going to pick?” Richard asked.

  “She glances at Fallon, the one with the green eyes, but I think she’s leaning towards the redhead, Andrea,” Dawson answered. “What do you think, Brian?”

  “Sienna always thinks the red-heads have it built into them to be more of a challenge. I think you’re right, and she’ll pick Andrea.”

  “I guess we’ll find out at the end of the interview. Have you decided, Dawson?”

  “I’m taking Fallon, if sis passes on her.” Dawson looked at his brothers and said, “Come on, Richard, we better get rid of the car. Brian, you’ll be okay by yourself?”

  “No problem. The jet’s fueled and ready for takeoff, and Sienna will keep them tied up for another hour.”

  Richard chuckled, “Nice choice of words, Brian.”

  Dawson and Richard climbed into the rental that had been parked inside the hangar, and drove around to Andrea’s car. “What a heap,” Richard exclaimed. “I bet no one steals it.” He opened the side door to the hangar, scooped the keys out of the basket, and started the engine.

  They left Andrea’s car with the keys in the ignition, behind some warehouses that were closed on Saturday and near the Airport. When they arrived back at the hangar they checked the rental and locked the keys inside for the agency to collect it in the morning.

  “How are they doing?” Dawson asked.

  “Getting more excited by the minute. Sienna’s getting ready to ask them if they want drinks, so we should be taking off around noon,” Brian replied.

  Sienna had heard the distant rumble of Andrea’s car, and she knew it was almost time for phase two. “I’m getting a cup of coffee. Would anyone like one, or a soda or some water?” The girls’ excitement had stalled again, as they wondered what the appropriate answer would be.

  “God, these hicks aren’t even sure if it’s all right to accept a drink,” Brian muttered.

  “Sienna will handle it, Brian. Richard thinks the bigger problem will be if no one steals the damn car,” Dawson laughed.

  “That bad?”

  “It should not have been on the road,” Richard chuckled. “First gear was practically stripped.”

  “Assuming that was the best choice of vehicles they had, we certainly are offering them a better opportunity,” Brian laughed.

  “Here you go, ladies.” Sienna had convinced them to take her up on the offer. To ensure at least one sip, she held up her glass. “To an exciting change for you all.”

  The men noticed all of the nervously excited young women took three big gulps of their beverages, and they let out collective sighs. The drug would take about twenty minutes to affect them, and all of them had enough to knock them out. They were sure to take a few more sips as they finished the last questions.

  “What happens after this?” Courtney asked shyly. She had been so nervous when she filled out the survey at home that she had almost backed out, until she found out that three of her friends at work were going.

  “You will be meeting for interviews at noon, and then things really get into motion,” Sienna replied smoothly.

  Megan tried to stifle a yawn that seemed to pass down to her friends. Andrea looked up with a bit of a sheepish look. “Sorry, we had to get up kind of early to get here on time.”

  “That’s fine,” Sienna smiled. “We realize it’s a bit of a drive for you, but to keep on schedule we have to begin the interviews early.”

  Fallon was becoming confused, and when the last quest
ions seemed to become blurry smears on the paper, she shook her head and took a big swig of her caffeinated soda to try to wake up. She swooped her head down her line of friends and she saw that Courtney and Megan had leaned back, resting their heads against the wall. With the pens still in their hands, they had fallen asleep in the middle of an answer. Fallon felt her own head fall back in heavy exhaustion, and she closed her eyes for a second before asking Andrea what was going on. They never opened again.

  Andrea was fighting the effects of the drug, and she looked up at the receptionist. The woman’s eyes had changed and they had a strange shine of anticipation in them. “What’s going on?” Andrea slurred.

  “Just like the promotion advertised, you are about to begin an exciting career as personal assistants to professionals. And you most certainly will be traveling,” she laughed. Sienna looked up at the camera and said, “They’re out like a light, brothers.”

  The men walked into the room and stared down at the sleeping young women. Dawson looked over at his sister. “You’ve decided?”

  Sienna smiled with satisfaction, and sifted her fingers through Andrea’s long red wavy curls. “I was going to steal your green eyed cat, but I’ll take Andrea.”

  “You’re taking Fallon, right?”

  “Yes, Richard. That leaves Brian first choice between Megan and Courtney.”

  “I’ll take Megan,” Brian announced. “Courtney’s a bit shy, and Richard enjoys playing with that quality more than I do. I think Megan might go out on me a couple of times, and I may end up cutting her as a loss.” Brian always had an uncanny ability to read the new girls, and his two brothers and sister stared at Megan, wondering how Brian could tell she would not be worth their investment.

  “Let’s get them bagged and loaded, and get this place cleaned up,” Dawson replied.

  The women flinched slightly at the stronger injections that would keep them knocked out through most of the flight. Richard and Brian carried them onto the jet and left them in seats while they walked back to help Dawson and Sienna wipe their traces from the hangar. The desktop where Andrea had dropped her keys was wiped down, the cans of soda and cups were tossed into a plastic bag, the clip boards were gathered and the chairs folded and all carried onto the jet. Dawson unclipped the remote camera from the top of the interview room door, slipped it into his pocket, and after a final scan of the room, he bounded up the steps of the plane.