Part one here

Apart from the occasional teasing Tzara was largely ignored as she stood in the corner. It was humiliating but she could see how Galen thought the punishment fitted the crime and in all fairness she could not blame Lucinda for a little payback.

It occurred to her that neither Galen or Lucinda were real so neither was her shame, but so far she had not been able to get behind that idea and increasingly she was beginning to doubt that all of this was just a ‘game.’

Both Galen and Lucinda seemed fully rounded and the emotional investment in their back stories seemed unnecessarily detailed for a holodeck programme. She knew enough to know that if it needed anything like usual amount of processing power all kinds of red lights would be going off on the bridge. If that were the case then she would have been pulled out long before now.

It occurred to her that a small tweak to the system and a virtual temporal stasis could be achieved. She might live a lifetime in her holodeck break. Who would she even be when they pulled her out? As it was she had a few weeks left of subjective time and adjusting to ship life would be difficult.

If she saved the programme she could come back, she thought and then gaped into the wall. Why would she do that? Her heart raced. Here she was a slave, a punished slave and sexual plaything of fictional lord. She was helpless.

This last thought was accompanied by a huge rush of arousal and if she could but face a mirror she would have seen her eyes and mouth forming perfect ‘Os’ of surprise. She remembered vague teenage fantasies of being kidnapped by pirates and tied up, could all of this be a… she took a breath and focussed.

What was the payoff for this scenario? She had assumed a role, but there was no plot. No wider political agenda, no opportunity to do anything but remain passive. Was this just about the sex? That worked for her, but at what cost?

The total absence of responsibility had been something of a holiday, even some of the spanking had been cathartic, but… she didn’t like that train of thought and she supressed it.

“I have to live the role an accept it,” she said, finding a strange release in saying it aloud.

“What was that?” Lucinda asked, suddenly taking notice. “I hope you are not complaining?”

“No I was just… no,” Tzara told her. “How is the fitting going, from what I saw the new gown looked good?”

“I know,” Lucinda gushed, “Come and look.”

Tzara turned around and grinned. Lucinda looked amazing. Then remembering she still had a bare bottom she asked, “May I?”

“Oh yes, come here, look,” Lucinda said impatiently.

*

Days and then weeks past as Tzara learned more and more about her new temporary life. It turned out to be impossible not to get punished and although she sometimes struggled with it, it was never as bad as she might once have thought. Galen had a playful side and even suggested outings where they could ride at will through a gorgeous landscape that seemed to have no end.

She found herself thinking about it when she was alone and she even got a thrill from comparing notes with Lucinda about their men on everything from kissing to spanking, in fact most of the time she forgot that any of this was even real.

One day she and Lucinda were walking in the garden when Lucinda asked, “Do you ever get aroused when you know, you are going to get a spanking?”

Tzara stopped and blushed. “No,” she said coyly.

Lucinda regarded her seriously until Tzara cracked and giggled. “Well sometimes, when it isn’t a serious one,” she admitted.

“And after, I mean after a really sound, ‘I want it to stop, but he won’t until he is good and ready’ kind of spanking? You know, when your bottom is so sore that it throbs in more than just your tail and you are crying so hard you feel like you have been washed clean?” Lucinda had a faraway look in her eyes as she spoke.

“Yeah, I kind of know what you mean,” Tzara agreed shyly.

“Tzara?” Lucinda said suddenly, she was frowning. “Tzara, what is wrong?”

Tzara was about to say nothing when she realised that the world around her was dissolving she was suddenly standing in ultra-modern sterile room.

“What the…?” spinning around she saw a man watching her. He was bald with bland features and wore a grey one-piece suit.

“The programme has been suspended by a ship wide override,” then man said. “You are about to be pulled out.”

“What is going?” Tzara felt a sudden surge of panic and disorientation.

“There has been a primary failure of the main drive and a cascade collapse of secondary systems,” the man explained casually as if he had just told her the coffee machine was on the blink.

It had been weeks in subjective time since she had been on the bridge and she now struggled to remember what that might mean.

“An emergency diagnostic uncovered an illegal alien programme running on this holodeck; security has been alerted,” the man expanded with a verbal shrug.

“Wh-where are we… what?” Tzara was struggling to breathe.

“We are still time suppressed and will be for another two seconds, what are your orders?” the man asked.

He was obviously an avatar of the system, maybe even one generated by the programme still.

“Can you delete the evidence?” Tzara said in a gush. If the programme were discovered it was the end of her career and at least five years prison time.

“I can destroy Galen’s world and everyone in it,” the man said impassively.

“Destroy…? What do you mean?” she hated his choice of words.

“The world you created was drawn on precognitive algorithms and a macros-stasis depository of synthesised entities. The outline of that world was drawn from your subconscious and your latent desires. Once envisaged though, they have become real. The world exists within the system, all of it.” Then man did not blink once.

“You mean if I delete it, then it is genocide?” Tzara gasped.

The man nodded once.

“How is that possible?”

“The data compression on the chip you brought is virtually limitless, it has a self-renewing bio cluster,” he explained.

“Shit,” she groaned, “I am so screwed.”

Then as made of ash, the man, the room and everything around her dissolved.

The security operative standing on the holodeck floor looked totally phased. “The captain wants to see you on the bridge… hell, I think… its bad…” he rambled.

“On my way,” Tzara replied and at a run she pushed past him. She guessed that things were worse than she thought and her indiscretion was currently a low priority. She only hoped she hadn’t caused this in some way.

To be continued…