I walk into the room without knocking. “Tom, I need a new drone!” But Tom isn’t here. Someone else, presumably one of his assistants, sits in his chair. “Get Tom,” I order.

 

The woman flinches. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know where he is.”

 

I roll my eyes. “Oh, so we’re doing it the hard way then.” I pull an implant out of a pocket and walk towards the woman.

 

“No, please! I swear! I really don’t know where he is! He didn’t show up this morning.”

 

I pause. Shoving an implant into one of Tom’s assistants would upset him, and I do want a favor. He’d also scold me for the shoddy work. One doesn’t need to spend weeks conditioning a person before jamming in the implants, but it makes a better drone. And I’m only one drone under my cap. Probably best to leave things as they are. After terrifying this woman out of her wits.

 

I put put a hand on her neck while my other hand holds the implant. “Ready to stop being a person?” I whisper into the woman’s ear. “Ready to be a thing for me to use? So much easier than dealing with some little liar who doesn’t know her place.” After a moment of savoring the terror, I step back. “On second thought, I don’t want to waste an implant on you.”

 

The woman kneels and kisses the ground in front of me. “Thank you, thank you so much!”

 

“Glad to see you know the meaning of respect.” I nudge the woman’s head with my foot and she looks up. “Does Blake know he’s missing?”

 

“Blake? Oh, the Overlord. No ma’am, we didn’t want to disturb him. We thought he’d probably told the Overlord himself anyways.”

 

“Or he could be hurt and need help. You don’t just get to assume what Tom’s doing. Blake’s rules aren’t hard to follow. I could make them a bit easier for you to follow though.” I hold up the implant.

 

“No, please. We don’t want to annoy the Overlord. The Consort goes AWOL all the time--”

 

I kick her. “And now instead you’ve annoyed me. Let’s get something clear. When Tom decides not to go into work, he’s not absent without leave, it’s not a no-call, no-show. He owes you nothing. I don’t tell my staff when I don’t go into work either.” That’s kind of the point. If any of my assistants miss a shift without calling in they’ll be lucky if they only get fired. I’ll never be fired, neither will Tom. Blake, Tom, and I don’t face consequences for our actions. That’s for other people.

 

“Now, the rules are clear. If your boss doesn’t show up to work, you tell Blake. And yeah, maybe that annoys him. But did you ever think what he’d do if Tom didn’t show up because he was hurt and you didn’t tell Blake?”

 

She flinches.

 

“You realize that if that happened, the only question would be which of us got to you first? And that the better fate for you would be if it was Blake?” Should I drone her after all? No, probably not. Tom wouldn't appreciate losing an assistant, or at least wouldn’t appreciate my deciding he was going to lose one unilaterally. I’ll have to take my fury out on someone else, or on one of my drones.

 

Drones. Fuck. Tom doesn’t have drones. He should, but Blake humors him on that point. But if Tom is hurt somewhere that Blake doesn’t have any drones in, there’s no way for him to tell Blake. Or me.

 

 

I’m lost, but that’s a good thing. It means I’m somewhere out of the way, somewhere where they won’t find me. Assuming they’re looking. I was brought into the cells along with four hundred or so other people, I’d be easy to overlook. I can’t evade capture forever if I don’t find a way out of the Citadel, but this place is fucking enormous. Oh, and I’m pretty sure the architect was insane.

 

I try to be silent, but every step sends up a plume of dust. I usually manage to keep from coughing, but it’s not good. Wherever I am hasn’t been cleaned in ages. Which is good in theory, but I can die from an asthma attack as easily as a gun. Though I doubt they’d shoot me; no sense destroying property.

 

A light flickers; the alcove I thought I was passing by looks like it’s actually a hallway. A clean one. No dust, all the lights are on, and even the paint looks reasonably fresh. Definitely suspicious, definitely somewhere I don’t want to go. But when I turn back to my previous route, it’s gone. A wall has slid in place. Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I hear it? I turn around. A wall on that side as well.

 

Okay, it’s clear I’m being herded. The dusty hallway might actually have been a deliberate ruse, an easy temptation for an escapee to fall into. “Oh hi, I’m a totally unused part of the Citadel where surely no one will even think to look for you.” But if they know where I am, why not just get me? Why this game?

 

I can’t stay here, and at least I won’t get an asthma attack from a dust-free hallway.

 

There don’t appear to be any doors in this corridor, although this place has plenty of secret doors, sliding panels, and other oddities. The corridor twists and turns, but it never forks. When I look back, it seems innocent, no walls sliding in behind me to trap me. Experimentally, I do turn back. Nothing stops me. After backtracking for five minutes I conclude that I’m free to go either way in this corridor. But I also conclude there’s no point in going back.

 

I’m sweating despite the cold and once the tiles give way to carpet—thankfully not dusty carpet—I catch myself looking back to see if I’m being followed. The carpet makes my steps silent, but it will also make a pursuer’s steps silent. The corridor ends in a door. I don’t have to open it now, but eventually I will. I don’t have any food or water. If I don’t keep going until I find something, I’ll die. This is almost certainly a trap, but I already knew that.

 

Slowly, carefully, I put my hand to the knob and turn. Silent, stay silent. The knob, and hinges, stay silent, and I ease the door open.

 

The room is large, but empty. On the far side is an elevator, but halfway between the elevator and me someone is sitting on a cushion, their back to me. I take off my shoes and step as quietly as possible onto the hardwood floor. Then I stop. That isn’t going to work. There’s nowhere here to hide, and the person is facing the elevator directly; they’ll see me if I get anywhere near it, and there are no doors other than the one I came in by.

 

“Hello, I was wondering when you’d show up.” The voice is masculine, but when the person turns around they look feminine. And gorgeous. But who are they? The makeup makes it hard to tell but I think it might be… Oh fuck! Oh fuck! Oh fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!

 

The Overlord’s husband—he probably has a name, but I bet anyone who says it gets flayed alive—grins at me. “I’m impressed. Usually by now there’d be at least one search party looking for you. But I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who noticed you escape. Heads will roll for that, of course, but it was fun to play cat-and-mouse one-on-one for a change.”

 

I’m probably not going to die; dying’s probably a way better fate than whatever’s coming. The Overlord’s husband is in charge of training his drones, was going to be in charge of training me, and he’s supposed be incredibly vicious and sadistic. If I’m lucky I’ll just get droned, which was what would have happened anyway, but he might decide to make an example out of me. I would, in his place.

 

I don’t think he’s armed, and I’m bigger than him. I could probably overpower him. But then what? Draw the personal attention of the Overlord himself? No thank you. Chances are he has drones hiding somewhere anyway.

 

“So, what are you going to do now? Fight me? Run? Drop to your knees and beg for a swift and reasonably painless death? Maybe try to argue with me? I’ve had escapees try all of those; it’s an interesting study in psychology. Or you might actually manage to do something innovative.”

 

I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do now.

 

“Ah, you’re going to stand there with a stunned look on your face. A classic, but I have to admit not my favorite.”

 

He’s finding this… amusing. This is some sick twisted game for him. What the actual fuck have I gotten myself into?

 

“I guess the real question is, what would you do if our positions were reversed? No, don’t answer just yet. Truth serum first, answers later.”

 

I take a step back. “You think I’ll just let you inject truth serum?”

 

He takes two steps forward. “Oh yes. Power isn’t about who has the biggest body or the most drones. Power’s about the worst possible thing that could happen from failure. Worst possible thing for me is you kill me. What makes it interesting is that the worst thing possible for you is also that you kill me. Blake would be very upset.”

 

Who the Hell is Blake?

 

“So, yes,” he takes a syringe out of his pocket. “You’re going to let me inject you with truth serum because you know that no matter how awful the worst possible thing I could do to you is, it’s nothing compared to what Blake—that’s my husband—could do to you and everyone you know.”

 

I’m not going to beg for death. He wouldn’t kill me anyways; bet he’d get his rocks off on it though. I hold out my arm. “Go ahead.”

 

Unsurprisingly, he’s not gentle with the injection. He jabs the needle into my vein, presses down on the syringe, and pulls out. I’ve never been injected with truth serum before, but mostly what I’d heard about it is true. I feel disconnected from my body, my thoughts slow down, and everything kind of… fades away.

 

“So, what would you do if our positions were reversed?”

 

I stop for a moment and think. “Do any of the prisoners in the cells know I escaped?”

 

He raises an eyebrow. “Let’s start with what you’d do if the answer is ‘No.’ ”

 

“Then I’d kill me and dispose of the body. I wouldn’t want anyone to know escape was possible.”

 

He nods. “And if the answer is ‘Yes’?”

 

“In that case it’s too late to keep people from knowing escape is possible and there probably isn’t enough time to wipe everyone’s memory of my escape before someone else tries. So I’d kill me in the slowest and most horrible way I could imagine, and make sure that anyone who didn’t see me get killed heard me scream. Make it so they’re more afraid of trying to escape than they are of getting droned.”

 

I clap my hands over my mouth. Fuck me sideways till I cry. It’s true, obviously, but definitely not something I want to say to the man who’s probably going to take my advice.

 

“Oh, you’re actually interesting. I like how you jumped directly to torture. Very good,” he rubs his hands together, a gleeful smile on his face. “You don’t have a problem with torture? In the abstract, I mean, not when applied to yourself.”

 

I close my eyes as the serum pushes the words out of me. “Depends what it’s used for. It’s terrible for interrogation, but if you want to terrify someone, or punish them… it’s the way to go. Simple, efficient, kind of hot.” Fuck, what did I just say?

 

“All right, it’s official, I like you. You’re too interesting to kill or drone, why don’t you come with me?”

 

“It’s not like I have a choice.”

 

“No, you don’t.”

 

“I made a friend today,” Tom says. He, Blake, and I are having dinner together. Blake’s drones are serving; each of us has a drone kneeling in front of us, holding up a tray for our plates and cups. Other drones stand by holding second helpings if any of us feels peckish.

 

“A friend.” Tom doesn’t have friends. He has a sister and a husband, but friends are hard to come by when everyone knows you could have them killed for the slightest offense. Toadies, lackies, brownnosers… my brother and I have plenty of those, but my only friend is Blake.

 

“She managed to escape from the cells without anyone else noticing and had some… interesting things to say with a little truth serum in her veins.” I see Tom, an inveterate sadist, kick the drone kneeling before him. It winces in pain but doesn’t spill the food.

 

“Oh?”

 

But Tom just raises an eyebrow at me in response.

 

“Blake, is he being this cryptic to you too?”

 

Blake’s finished his meal and is absentmindedly stroking a drone’s cock. “Not quite, since he uses my drones. But, yes. All I know is that he spent several hours with her and then had her locked in one of the nicer guest rooms,” said Blake.

 

“What, are the dungeons full again?”

 

“I mean, yes, but I don’t think that’s why.”

 

Tom grins. “It wasn’t. I haven’t had that much fun talking to someone who wasn’t you or Katie in ages. Most people are boring. Violet though, she has potential.”

 

“Potential for what?”

 

Tom winks. “Quite a few things actually. I’m still feeling her out, but she has a vicious, vindictive streak in her that I’d love to bring out fully.”

 

Blake chuckles. “My husband, corrupter of the innocent.”

 

“Anyway, Tom,” I say, “I need a new drone.”

 

“Another one? What happened to the last one I gave you?”

 

“It got all squeamish during a vivisection.”

 

Tom turns to a drone. “Which drone was that?”

 

“I think it was 62-Epsilon, Superior.”

 

“You think?”

 

“Apologies for breaking protocol, Superior. I do not think. My memories indicate 62-Epsilon, but my memory protocols are imperfect.”

 

“Who trained 62-Epsilon?”

 

“Michael, Superior.”

 

Tom swears, stands up, and storms out, the drone trailing behind him.

 

“What was that about?”

 

“No idea,” said Blake. “I’ll make sure you get a replacement drone by the morning, though.”

 

“Good.”

 

“Changing the subject, I had a city burned to the ground today.”

 

“Nice!” We fist-bump. “What for? Or is this just a new conquest?”

 

“No, I’m holding off on expansion for a bit. This was a response to a work stoppage. The work’s still stopped but…” he shrugs, “Only because it can’t be done anymore. Might get a few drones out of it too; the refugees will need funds to start new lives.”

 

“Could you divert a few to me? I need some non-drone test subjects.”