StripSearch

There's a lot to unpack in this installment. First, Jerry. Jerry might be the most technically qualified man on the planet for the mission, but he is not a great commander. He is a good commander, but he, like a lot of astronauts who got that way through military aviation, is too overconfident for t...

I've been up for re-election so I haven't been keeping up with this story. Now that's behind me (won by less than 150 votes!), I'm back in space professional mode. The only part of this that I can critique using my experience is Star's training with the maintenance vehicle. Waypoints in this sense a...

This is innovative and well-written, I wish I'd thought of the concept.

As a space professional, I have one nit to pick. Transfer time is around 8-9 months each way, but surface dwell time is much longer, as much as 18 months. That's right, 34 months total.

So, we've got a mystery here. We know that Audrey is not some local girl who read one too many Hillary Rodham novels and booked on down to HCI or Longhorn to self-enslave. How do we know that? Audrey had to produce an ID to rent the apartment. It's a simple matter to connect her ID and her SIN. If a...

Just curious, is this the beginning? And if so, why is it labled Part 2?

We've seen how this sort of system plays out; it seems as if this world is headed toward the convict labor system that was prevalent in the American south after the Civil War. If lawbreakers can be put to work, any sort of prison system where they just sit around will be reserved for those few who a...

Ok, so let's back off a bit. This whole universe started as a take-off of a Japanese porn movie. In it, women are raised as farm animals. The thing is set as a "documentary" of this farm, interviewing employees as they process in a coffle of naked women, starting with them being unloaded f...

Well, to start, I don't have a problem with any of that. It's not the perfect story, it's just as good as a story as I could write at that time of my life. I had started to write a very different story and made some fairly radical plot changes halfway through. I'm satisfied with the way it worked ou...

An exploration into the world of the rationalization behind the slave trade. Very well done. About halfway in, I realized that just a very few enslavements of people like this would lead to something new. "Slave Trusts". They'd work like insurance. Slaves aren't people anymore, but trusts ...

Great post! I'd figured out the twist as soon as he gave the instructions on the phone, but instead of spoiling it, that made it like the sort of train wreck that you just can't tear yourself away from watching. Karma, like Stephanie, is a bitch.

Ditto on the world building. The old South was full of silly restrictions on slaves, all aimed on ending any sort of slave revolt before it started. From the date (1920s), it seems that this is a world where slavery was resumed in the US no more than 50 years after the Civil War; that or it never we...

Well, this is Texas, not Boston. Half the staff has a sister or a cousin that's a slave, and some of them are even descended from former slaves. It's just a given than when someone is in a collar, they're a little less than an ordinary person, and when they take that collar off, they go back to bein...

Fortune...nookie.

Sometimes you outdo yourself. Well played.

It was a little bit of a shock to see my creation used in another story, but it's part of the shared world now, and the details (including the lab testing) were perfect.

And now inquiring minds will want to know...just where does unclaimed luggage go in Tuscaloosa?

Ah, Forester. Only he could describe a drunken sailor as "three sheets to the wind" as he staggers around, then "taken hard aback" as he reels back and forth, and finally "hard aground" when he loses his feet.

She does seem well acquainted with the difference between people and property. Firsthand experience? Might have to search the registry to find out...

Alas, poor Lindsey. We know her well.

Just saying, signing stuff you don't understand usually doesn't end well...

Southwest Shipping is a good 15 minutes from the airport.

Of course, there could be a free shuttle bus...

Belinda, thank you and everyone else for reading through to the end, and I'm just happy that you enjoyed it.

Alas, all good things... Southwest Shipping Back in her cell, Natalie pondered how her perception of things had changed so quickly. She'd gone from thinking that Will had betrayed her to knowing that he hadn't, and learning that her supposed rescuer had devoted her vast wealth to making Natalie's li...

I'm a real fan of the big reveal in the movie, Tootsie. Southwest Shipping Natalie woke the next morning, knowing she might have spent her last night on the thin jail mattress. She might either be going to an even thinner crate pad, or worse, a hard floor, or she might be going to a nice, soft bed i...

The long arm of the law... Southwest Shipping The next morning brought Natalie her introduction to jail life: up too early, breakfast in a bowl, line up for enema (no talking!), shower (most slaves were returned to their cells, either showers were reserved for new inmates or there was some sort of r...

Honestly, Officer, I wasn't doing anything wrong. Southwest Shipping She knelt before Master Mike. "Master Will has sent this slave to you for more instructions." Natalie felt it appropriate to touch her head to the floor like she had seen other slaves do, notably Andrea. "26 14, get ...

A slave's work is never done. Southwest Shipping At first, seeing Mike in familiar surroundings gave her hope that she was being rescued. Then she remembered that if she was here, Will had probably orchestrated it, and Will was the man who had betrayed her. She wondered if Will just wanted to use he...