Chapter 14:

On Delray's Island

***

    After a long and nervous night, Ben Toeber and Mr. Chow finally informed Tsu to pack up for a trip.

    "My men are here," Chow said, "We get underway now. You think your boy can survive one more day on Delray's island?"

    "I hope so," Tsu replied, as he, Toeber, Chow, Li, and most of the security of the island headed for the harbor. It was seldom used, as Ben tended to prefer his own charter flights. But the harbor was, like everything else, top of the line and state of the art. They saw an armada of large yachts docked there when they arrived.

    "Pleasure cruise?" Tsu sneered. "We're going in THOSE?!"

    "Don't you ever watch classic 007-movies?" Chow laughed, opening his phone. "Show our guest the boat," he said.

    Right before his eyes, Tsu watched in wonder as the pleasure yacht's cabin dropped below decks and was replaced with a massive gun turret. "Quarters are cramped, it's all ammo and engines," Chow informed him. "Seeing as how we're all family now, I figure you can know, and me not have to kill you?"

    "Thanks," Tsu mumbled, as they boarded.

    "Lay in a course for the Chilean coast, maximum speed," Chow snapped at the tall and slender young man at the helm. Tsu recognized him at once as a grown eunuch, and wasn't surprised.

    "We should be there by daybreak," Chow assured him, as the boats sped away.

    "Don't get me wrong," Tsu asked, "But why all this for two boys?"

    "Because I hate Lester Delray," Ben Toeber replied coldly, "And I plan to make an example of him. In this business you don't let things like this pass." Chow nodded in agreement.

    Back on San Carlos Island, it was business as usual.

    The only difference was that MRS. Tsu had taken things in hand, and the remaining security was at a loss as to what to do with her!

***

    In Delray's office, Sander was on his knees facing away from the man who was fucking him - the only man on the island who COULD fuck him. Lester Delray was riding the boy hard, his large cock sliding in and out of Sander in thrusts that were meant not to pleasure the boy, but to hurt and humiliate him. Sander understood full well why Matti had never been able to orgasm by being fucked - Delray didn't want him to. And he didn't want Sander to, either. He moved just right, keeping the pressure off of Sander's prostate as best he could. Still, Delray was enjoying it so much.

    He'd waited so long for Sander - wanted him for so long. Damn that Toeber, he thought, as he rode the boy. But the boy wasn't responding. He wasn't crying, he wasn't begging him to stop. Nor was he begging him to fuck him harder, begging to make him climax. In fact, he wasn't doing anything. If he weren't warm, Delray would have thought he'd stuck his dick into a corpse!

    But still, Delray came. Sander felt it when the man delivered his load into the boy's bowels. Then he pulled out, slowly, and gave Sander a sharp slap across the buttocks with his hand. It stung like hell, and Sander finally whined.

    "Damn, you're alive," Delray snorted. "If I'd admit you were here, Ben would HEAR about this, you dead little fucker! I can't believe Matti trained YOU!"

    At the mention of Matti's name, Sander began to cry. He hadn't thought about Matti in a while, but the thought of Matti trapped here, too, like he was now, was too much. He'd been so bad to Matti - and the fact was - Sander still loved him. He was sick in love with him. It was no wonder that Matti was all business though, Sander realized. Enough time with Lester Delray could drive the last scrap of emotion, especially love and trust, right out of a boy. Sander sobbed as Delray continued to spank him. "You're a bad boy, Sander," the man told him over and over again.

    "I can't believe how bad at sex you are! And don't think that bald little friend of yours is going to save you," Delray told him. "He's all blow and no show! What could HE possibly do to ME?"

    When he was done spanking Sander, Delray took the boy on his lap and tenderly cuddled him. "I'm sorry, boy," he whispered in his ear, "But bad boys have to be punished, you know. Now, clean off Lester's cock, and he might reward you for it!"

    Given no choice, Sander did that.

    ***

    "Cafeteria," Hop Sing said.  Green arrows on the corridor wall flashed, one after another in sequence, running down the hallway to his right, not surprising Hop Sing in the least.  The same system was in place on San Carlos Island and even in public buildings around the world.  All one had to do was follow arrows of the color assigned him, when he spoke.  They would lead him to where he wanted to go. 

    He hadn't gone far before he arrived at the cafeteria, which fortunately, drove the worries of Sander being fucked and probably beaten, right out of his mind.

    The cafeteria was full.  Guards, at tables, seated in chairs, sat near the front of the room.  Naked except for harnesses from which hung clubs and electric prods, those that Hop Sing could see well enough to tell were nullos, but, obviously on hormones; all were well muscled. It was cruel, Hop Sing thought, to have them on replacement hormones with no way to relieve the sexual desires he knew they had to be feeling.  They were being served by both naked boys - all nullos as far as Hop Sing could tell - and naked, collared, eunuchs, most also nullos, but as Hop Sing had seen the night before, some had tiny prepubescent dicks hanging from an otherwise smooth crotch.

    Now that Delray had cut off Wong's balls, Hop Sing supposed that Delray was the only person on the island with balls.  Possibly the doctor still had his, but he wore clothes, so Hop Sing didn't know for sure.

    Boys, all nullos as far as Hop Sing could tell, sat at the tables situated between the guards and the servants.  Like the servants, they sat on benches, not chairs, their tables, like picnic tables, table and benches all one piece.

    What struck Hop Sing, though, was the quiet.  Other than a low murmur coming from the guards' tables, no one spoke, not even in a whisper.  What a contrast to the cafeteria on San Carlos Island at lunch.  There, boys laughed and even shouted to one another across the room; and there was always the danger of a food fight.  Here the boys ate in silence, staring at their plates, or at some point just beyond them, but not into the faces of the boys across from them.

    No one laughed.  No one even smiled, not the boys or servants, anyway.

    Occasionally a guffaw or a snicker came from the guards' tables, but even that laughter didn't seem genuine, not the same laughter he had heard on San Carlos Island.  Maybe life on San Carlos Island wasn't as bad as it had seemed.  I'd rather be there than here, Hop Sing thought, suddenly realizing that he missed San Carlos Island. It surprised him - he never thought he'd miss that place.

    Hop Sing joined some other boys in the serving line.  No one even glanced back at him.  On his first day in the cafeteria on San Carlos Island, raucous cries had greeted his arrival in the lunch room, along with handshakes and even hugs.

    The food was all synthetic, no real fruit or vegetables as could be found on San Carlos Island, and the boy couldn't even tell what it was supposed to be. It looked like dog food.

    He squeezed in between two boys, one Asian, probably Japanese, and one white, that could have been from any number of countries.  Hop Sing saw some eyes dart sideways toward him, but no one turned his face in his direction.

    Placing his tray on the table, Hop Sing turned to the Asian boy.  "I'm Hop Sing - from Hong Kong."

    The Asian boy cringed, slinking down in his seat, as if trying to hide.  All talk ceased at the guard's table.  Sliding back his chair, a guard stood up, then walked back toward the tables where the boys sat.  "Who spoke?" the guard asked, his deep voice belying his nullo status. 

    When no one immediately answered, he poked the nearest boy with his wand.  With a scream, hit with a level 1 pulse, the boy collapsed to the floor.  The boy next to him pointed at Hop Sing.  "No talking," the guard said, ratcheting his wand up one level, the highest setting he had on it, and stepping toward Hop Sing.

    From across the table, the guard swung the wand down in an arc, intending to strike Hop Sing on the shoulder.  The two boys sitting next to him leaned away from Hop Sing, neither wanting to be struck.  It took two or three days to fully recover from a level 2 pulse.

    The wand never connected with Hop Sing's shoulder, touching instead the boy across from him, as Hop Sing slid backward off the bench onto the floor, rolling over, coming to his feet, in one fluid motion.

    "You little bastard," the surprised guard said, coming around the table after him. He'd never had a boy do that before.

    He swung his wand at Hop Sing again, slashing at him this time, from right to left, but again, Hop Sing was faster than the wand.  It swung through where he'd been but a moment before, striking yet another seated boy, who screamed, even louder than the first, then collapsed to the floor.

    More swings, more struck boys, but none of them Hop Sing.  He was too quick.

    The other guards, watching at first, got up from their seats, coming back to where the first guard chased after Hop Sing.  "Out of the way," one shouted.  Happy to have permission to leave their seats - they hadn't dared move before - the boys scrambled out of the way, gathering in a bunch across the room, all their eyes on Hop Sing as he continued to evade the guard's wand.  At least, none of them was any longer being struck.

    In a circle with an ever decreasing diameter, the guards encircled Hop Sing.  "Use your clubs," their leader said.  It wouldn't do to use their wands in such close quarters.  No guard, as tough as he was, wanted to be struck with a wand.  A pulse wasn't a respecter of strength.  It acted on every pain receptor, dependent only on the level of the pulse.

    Eventually - as the circle closed around him - Hop Sing had no place to go. He also still had a broken arm. So he launched a kick at the nearest guard, catching him in the throat, crushing his larynx.   Unable to breathe, the man fell to the floor.  It was apparent he had only minutes to live.

    For a moment, that stopped their advance on Hop Sing, but then - more determined than ever, this time with murder written across their faces - they closed in on Hop Sing.  They didn't care what Delray's plans were for the boy.  As far as they knew, he was just another neutered slave boy, not the first one that a guard had killed to set an example.  How could they control the rest - the servants included - if they let a boy get away with killing one of them?

    One grabbed Hop Sing from behind, his fingers biting into the boy's arms.  "Hold him," another said, raising his club, intending to split the boy's head open with it.  Others, too, had their clubs raised.  If the first blow didn't kill the boy, the others would.

    The first never came, though.  That guard screamed, collapsing to the floor, one eye dislodged from its socket, a certain sign of a level 5 pulse.  He was dead before he hit the floor.  The other guards stepped back.

    Only Lester Delray could deliver a level 5 pulse.

    But the voice they heard, coming from the dead man's collar, wasn't Delray's.  "Touch the boy again," the voice said, "and you'll die, too."

    Back on the boat leaving San Carlos Island, Tsu scrambled, trying to choose the guard most likely to attack Hop Sing.  Thus far, he could only access one of the guard's collars at a time, due to the moving satellite connection he was being forced to use.  His threat to kill them all was a bluff.  He couldn't stop them from killing Hop Sing, if they all attacked him at once.  He might kill one or two, but not all - not in time to save his son.

    Fortunately - they didn't know that.  Like the others on Delray's island, they had been trained to obey; and it could have been Delray's voice coming from the dead man's collar. Tsu doubted that many of them had heard him speak in person.  They knew of no one else able to deliver a level 5 pulse, and according to what he knew of the system, no one else could.  The man holding Hop Sing released him, looking at his hands as if they'd been burned from touching the boy.

    As if off on a lark, seemingly no more concerned than that, Hop Sing strolled through the wary guards, big men, way taller than he was.  They parted, stepping out of his way.  Hop Sing smiled.  He alone had recognized the voice coming from the collar.  He looked back at the boys that had been struck by the guard's wand. 

    With it set on level 2, none of them were yet able to sit or stand.   "Take care of them," he said to the servants, still gathered around their tables. One of them was the servant he'd already worked over, his arm set in a sling.  The way Hop Sing said it, left no doubt as to who was in charge.  It certainly wasn't any longer the guards.

    "Come with me," he said to the boys still able to stand, those that hadn't been struck.

    They hesitated, looking back at the guards; but when none of them said anything, they followed Hop Sing out of the cafeteria.

    Hop Sing didn't regret the death of either of the guards, the one he'd killed or the one his father had.  They were no better than either Wong or Delray.  Given the chance, Hop Sing would kill any of them.

    How he'd changed, this eleven year-old boy.  Perhaps Ben Toeber was right when he'd said he was afraid that Hop Sing might someday attack a client. Hop Sing was amazed at the change in himself as well, but he had no time to think about it. He had other things to do.

* * *

    "What?" said Delray, shoving Sander away from him.  The boy had been giving Delray a blowjob, a finishing touch to the fucking he'd just given the boy.  Hitting the wall, Sander slid down it, coming to a stop seated on the floor.  Puzzled and frightened, he looked at Delray.  Only Delray, though an earpiece implanted behind his ear, had heard the report from the cafeteria.

    "He killed a guard? An eleven year-old nullo killed a guard?"  Delray couldn't believe what he heard. "No, I didn't use a pulse on anyone, not a level 5 pulse, anyway," he said speaking into the air, but heard by the person on the other end of the connection.  "No.  Let him go for now.  I have to think this over.  Apparently, the security system has been compromised...right...only I can issue a level 5, and I didn't. No, you did the right thing.  First, we have to find out just what this hacker can do to us." 

    As deadly as this eleven year-old eunuch seemed to be, he wasn't the problem.  He could be killed, Delray knew.  The man controlling the security system was the problem.  Delray opened his desk drawer, pulling a remote from it.  When he pressed a button, each guard's collar unsnapped.  It cost Delray some of his control over them - he hated giving up any of it - but he couldn't have his guards susceptible to outside forces. He'd already lost one as it was.

    "Come Sander," he then said sweetly, totally changing tracks. "We have to go see Mr. Wong in the hospital. I think someone's broken into Lester's security computers, and we can't have that!" Sander, his butt still aching from the hard fuck that Delray had given him, took his hand and went with him. There wasn't much else he could do.

    ***

    "Problem," Tsu gasped, as the gunboats sped towards Chile, "Hop's in a fight in the cafeteria!" No one said a word as Tsu fought with the portable, hampered by the wireless connection and their fast movement. Still, he managed to take down one guard with a lethal shock from his collar. The graphics showed Hop Sing fighting for all he was worth, bad arm and all, and Tsu was deeply impressed. He then shouted into the computer as the boy felled a guard.

    His son had just killed a man.

    But Tsu had no time for that.

    "Touch the boy, and you die too!" He shouted.

    "They're leaving the room!" Chow observed, looking over Tsu's shoulder. "Li, can we go any faster?"

    "I'm giving her all she's got, sir!" Li called back.

***

    "Wake up, Wong,"  Delray snapped at the sleeping man, yanking his blanket back. Simply asleep, Wong sat up with a startled cry. He'd pretty much healed over, his crotch smooth and pink and only lightly scarred. In a few days, even the scars would be gone.

    "Just kill me," Wong cried, touching the place where his manhood had once been.

    "Later," Delray said, handing Sander off to the doctor. "Give him a treat, he's a good boy," Delray added. "Now, Wong, explain to me how someone could hack into YOUR security system there, that I paid SO damn much money for?"

    "No one can," Wong muttered in a daze. The idea of waking up as a nullo didn't sit well with him, obviously.

    "We agreed that Tsu could," Delray reminded him, "Right before I cut your dick off, remember? Well, get this," Delray went on, telling Wong the whole story of how he had two dead guards, a pack of missing slaves, and several wounded innocent boys scattered all over the hospital.

    "I told you he was dangerous," Wong said.

    "I should have listened to Matti," Delray smiled, "He said the boy beat him up all during his training."

    "What?" Wong gasped.

    "My mole," Delray smiled, "And he doesn't even know it. Certain things put him a trance, and he calls and talks to me. Just talks. Gives me all Ben's trade secrets, business stats, boy count, estimated CR take by day, the usual corporate spy. That's all he is, really. I thought it was brilliant, since I was done with him anyway. That, and I was afraid I'd end up like you and kill him. I'd grown too fond of him, Wong, I'm sure you can relate. I had to get rid of him, but you know, waste not-want not?"

    Wong managed a weak laugh.

    "Corporate spy? For you?

    "Back to the issue," Delray reminded him, "I know it wasn't you. You're too stupid to hack my system, so therefore, given what you told me - IF you weren't lying to save your hide - then it must be Tsu. He's in my system, Wong, and he's wreaking havoc! I've lost control of Hop Sing's collar, and he's killing guards!"

    "The bandwidth needed to control your system from San Carlos Island would be ungodly, not to mention impossible," Wong surmised, "No one could afford that for long! Besides, Tsu would have to be here," he went on, "And he's not. That's why we wanted him on the island, but he got all pissed off and left before he could do any damage. If Ben hadn't swallowed my sob story about the boy, well, it never would have worked there. And why would he do it? Revenge? They have no proof the boys are here, and how would they know, even if they got in?" Delray didn't look convinced. "Tsu has to be here to touch the computers. Not even HE can just tap in at will! You didn't identify them by name, did you?"

    "No, I'm not stupid like SOME people," Delray snapped, giving Wong's catheter a gentle tug. Wong yelled in pain.

    "Two new boys arrive," Delray thought aloud, "YOU arrive with them. Hop Sing arrived on San Carlos Island, as per our plan, and suddenly Tsu is there again. Then the Tsu boy comes here, and my computers go to hell? The collar has no effect on him? And he knows things? He's brave enough to threaten ME? Coincidence? I think not!"

    "The only common element is the green collar, which could be a key," Wong assured him, "And I threw both of them into the ocean near Ben's island. Now, unless the boy is psychic, or a witch or something, then how does a boy cause your system to malfunction just be being near it?"

    "That's the only thing," Delray admitted, "I don't get it. But I will, as soon as I catch him. I want him alive, Wong, and you're going to help catch him. Because for now, you're the one under suspicion."

    Delray and Wong paid no attention to Sander, who had lain down on  a vacant bed and pretended to be asleep. But he heard every word of it. "Hop, I'm OK," he whispered softly into his pillow, praying to every god he'd ever heard of to listen to him.

    "Isn't he darling?" Delray asked, "We  need to discuss the fact that you smuggled me out a pretty much ruined boy, too, Wong."

    "Hop," Sander murmured again, playing it up.

    But it was Tsu who heard him.

    "Q, it's OK to be a dead fuck," Hop Sing's collar spoke up, and the boy understood the code at once. Sander had been called that before, and he was OK.

    Having no idea where he was or where he was going, Hop Sing turned to face the crowd of about forty or fifty boys following him. "Understood, Q needs a way out," he replied. None of the boys offered any help at all. "How do you get OUT of here, outside?" Hop Sing demanded, not caring if anyone heard him. He could only hope that his father was tampering with the audio already.

    Instantly, green arrows lit up along the walls. Tsu was doing it. "Come with me," Hop Sing repeated, "And for the love of the gods, talk to me! Geeez! Do I have to kill one of you, or what?" He demanded, as they finally reached a door and Hop Sing palmed it open.

    "W-we...we can't go out there!" An Asian boy squeaked, terrified of the sunlight. "They'll kill us! Master will kill us if we go out!"

    "I'll kill you if you don't," Hop Sing replied, although it made his heart ache to say it. As he looked at the boys, all terrified, starved looking, and totally lost, he wanted to cry. But he had no time for that. Obedience had been drilled into them, and he knew he had to use it.

    "Our collars," a black boy mumbled, "They'll know."

    "No, they won't," Hop Sing's collar replied, "The computer system is malfunctioning. Trust the bald boy. He is there to save you!"

    "He is?" Toeber butted in. "How many to save?"

    "Fifty, maybe?" Hop Sing guessed.

    Toeber sat down hard in the captain's chair of the gunboat.

    "Recording systems are down, doors to IT sealed," Tsu told Hop Sing, "I'm taking video offline now. The guards have been released from their collars, but from what I hear from Delray in hospital ward, they're planning on coming after you the old fashioned way! Q, you have to get out of the complex and make for the beach! Hide somewhere near the deepest water! I don't know what it'll do, son, but I'm going to crash the entire system with an overload very soon, soon as I know you're out. The whole complex is run by computer, and when the core goes, it may not be pretty!"

    "Overload his power system, too, and blow it," Chow suggested.

    "But Sander's inside!" Hop Sing yelled, as he began shoving boys out into the bright sunlight. They all just sat down and waited, staring at him like drones.

    "Shit!" Chow groaned, "You blow that core, the roof is liable to fall in!"

    "Boys, you hide in the bushes. Wait for me and the blond new boy. That's an order!"

    "A boy can't order us boys," a smaller boy said, clearly using all the bravery he had left in him. Hop Sing moved and hugged him. The little boy screamed, but then went limp and began to sob. "Pop this collar," Hop Sing said, and the little boy's collar fell off. He stared it, unable to believe it. The rest of the boys began to murmur, a good sign.

    "Sander?" Sander's collar whispered, as Tsu watched the animations that showed Sander being left alone in his bed. Fortunately, no one had restrained him. "Sander," Ben Toeber's voice whispered, "Listen to me. You have to get outside. Hop Sing's father has taken control of Delray's systems. He's going to blow the core, which is probably tied into the power plant of the island, too, run by computer! Sander, you have to get out," Ben repeated. "Can you do that?"

    "Hop's OK?"

    "Hop's OK, and so are the other boys, most of them," Ben assured him.

    "Boys here are hurt, bad," Sander whimpered, "What 'bout them?"

    Silence.

    "We can't save them all, Sander. They're as good as dead. Delray murdered them. Think of it that way. If they can't walk, leave them. I'm sorry Sander," Ben said sadly, "But you have to get out. I...I don't want to lose you, buddy. I don't think I could bear it."

    "I thought you were gonna SELL me?" Sander gasped, confused at Ben's tone, as he watched the doctor busily giving the stunned boys drugs and trying to revive them.

    "That was all blow," Ben admitted. "Sander, from the day I first saw you when you were just a tiny little baby, I loved you. I wanted you. Maybe in a perverse way, but I wanted you. And now that I have you, and lost you, I realize that I can't stand to be without you near me. I was bad to you, Sander. You should never have been business. You should have been purely pleasure. Things will be different, I promise."

    "What do I do?" Sander asked, as Ben breathed a sigh of relief that the boy hadn't sunk back into despair and just given up. "Oh, and Matti's a spy," he added, which struck Ben dumb. "Corporate spy, that's all. He's giving Lester your business secrets."

    "Just kill the doctor and get out, Sander," Chow cut in.

    Outside, Hop Sing was having much better luck communicating. For drama, he had his father pop the black collars from the boys' necks when he touched them. "Yours?" Tsu asked, but Hop Sing refused. "Just make sure it's dead, father, we need it to communicate," he said, as a sign to the boys. "Your friends are in there, wounded, unable to get out. They'll die if you don't help me," Hop Sing told them. He'd been listening to Ben's chat with Sander, too, and it made him almost ill. All those boys were helpless, doomed to die when the computers crashed, and it was all his fault.

    No one moved, though.

   Hop Sing snorted. "I'll be back," he told them.

    Then the Asian boy stood up. "NO!" Another cried out, "They'll kill us!"

    "We'll die here anyway!" The Asian boy retorted, "We die every day! I wanna die tryin' to get free! Hop Sing's free on his island! He says there's a better place for us somewhere, and I wanna go there!"

    Then the black boy joined them. "You all stay then. See which one of you gets fried next with a level 4 and left half brain dead! Or see who gets his teeth pulled out next! Or whatever else that freak does to you! I'm goin' in!"

    The change was stunning. Hop Sing allowed only the biggest, healthiest looking ones to go with him, though.

    "Make it fast, Q, they're headed for a large room below you on the other end of the place."

    "Gun room," the black boy said, "I heard him talk about it once!"

    Then they turned a corner and ran right into a guard. Hop Sing didn't hesitate. He kicked the man's larynx in. Then he saw the lack of a black collar.

    "Shit," Hop Sing grumbled, "Father, are there air shafts? We're not armed, and the guards are without collars!"

    "There are weapons stashed here and there," Tsu's voice replied, yawning, "Back the way you came, right turn, two doors down, there's a cache of stun sticks and a couple guns!"

    The boys made for it.

    Back in the hospital, Sander slipped out of his bed and into a side room that he hoped was the office. He was right. He found a stun stick in a desk drawer, crept up behind the doctor, and used it on him. The man collapsed in a screaming heap. Then Sander looked at the good dozen insensate boys. "I need help," he told his collar.

    "Help is coming," Chow's voice said, "Sander, Hop, Mr. Tsu is exhausted. Ben and I are taking over for now. Boys, you have to get out and get to the beach, remember! Hide somewhere. You'll know us when you see us!"

    One floor down, in the armory, Lester Delray was in a rage. "I want that boy, and I want him alive!" He shouted. "And don't think for a minute that without the collars, that any funny business is gonna be tolerated! We're in enough of a mess as it is."

    Wong, who still had his collar on, recognized the looks on the guards faces, though. When one ruled by fear and punishment, and the means to deliver it was taken away, then that person usually became the target. But the guards, he saw, were slick. Delray was too angry to notice it, but Wong wasn't. Standing there naked, nullified, and collared, he cringed at the thought of them turning on him. After all, they were all in the same shape - nullo'd, and frustrated, full of raging hormones and desires that they couldn't satisfy. Wong wondered how many of them were "lucky" boys who'd lived long enough to grow up on the island.

    "We can't trust the computer systems," Delray went on, "I have reason to believe that Tsu, the man who wrote the code, has hacked them. Probably because I have his son. That's why your collars are off. The boy's father killed that other guard with a level 5 pulse,  not me. Keep in mind, too, that there will be great rewards for whoever brings me the boy, alive! Also keep in mind, if this goes down badly," Delray grinned, "That you have Wong there to thank for it!"

    Wong flinched.

    "HE was the one who initially put the Tsu boy on Ben Toeber's island, with the intent of ruining HIM, to benefit US," Delray lied, "But instead, Tsu left without doing his job. It was only a stroke of luck on Wong's part - and his luck has run out, you can see - that we were able to compromise Ben's system to ruin him, just as Tsu is ruining us now! He's a threat to our very way of life here."

    Wong could see that some of the guards were buying it, but not all. It would be easy to spot who to trust.

    "So we need the boy alive to bargain with Tsu," Delray said, "If he's dead, so are we. We cannot trust Tsu at all; I should have expected this when Wong cooked this whole hair-brained scheme up! The blond that came here with him is also to be taken alive! Shoot to kill only if you MUST. I have too much money wrapped up in these boys, and slave boys don't come cheap! Do I make myself clear?"

    Perfectly, Wong thought, Perfectly. You just shot your own foot off!

    The morning passed into afternoon as a large game of cat and mouse. Even with the computers working somewhat for Delray, the system showed him the bulk of his slave boys were not only outside, but lying on the bottom of the ocean, since they'd tossed their collars in. They continued to comb the complex. Delray wasn't worried about the boys outside. They had nowhere to go, after all.

    Overhead in the air shafts, Hop Sing and perhaps a dozen boys crept around fans, disabling them as they went. Hop Sing coordinated with Ben and Chow, as his father needed rest. It was going to be a long time until nightfall.