Slaves in Future Rome

The apartment assigned to me near the beach of Panama was stereotypically Roman as I envisioned. Clear windows, harsh white lines, sunlight, tasteless minimalism was the overwhelming aesthetic. Feng Shui was deliberately ignored as to assert Roman distinctiveness from the chinaboos that were so popular in other parts of the world.

Panama was the midpoint between the Roman northern new world and the Dan Dynasty's southern new world. It was the historical miracle, the treaty of Olympus in year 492 that demarcated the permanent peace between the great empires of Rome and Nanjing, drawing a line across half the world, ending the march of the Roman legions in the deserts of Persia, and the banners of the then Tang Dynasty in the plains of Armenia. The peace that has lasted more than a thousand years, and with the wisdom of great statesmen like Gaius Marellius and Yiip Pang that kept it adaptable and ever evolving to the satisfaction of both great civilizations that built upon and strengthened it, was updated relatively recently in history when a new permanent border was drawn in Panama, giving the north to Rome and the south to China.

The navy of Dan, drone carriers, submarines, and space assault launchers can be seen docked off the Great Lake port of panama controlled by China. It was rules like this that made the peace possible, that the Great Eastern Lake will always belong to the Chinese navy with no foreign military presence being ever allowed within despite Rome's long and wholly undefended coastline in North New World. The identical situation was the case in the Atlantic, with no Chinese naval ships being allowed within despite the Coast lines in South New World. It was the result of rules like this being assiduously upheld that the peace has continued up to this point.

Naval games between the two were conducted in the Indian Ocean, the score was a loosely held military secret, but Chinese propaganda says China held the winning record, but I had a feeling that the Roman propaganda says the opposite. It's not something that people generally care about, military otakus aside.

I was excited for the assignment though. Being hired and sent here to Panama by the global Service Corp was a dream come true for every Chinese boy. Slavery was illegal in China to the chagrin of many, while it powered the Roman economy. Many thought the Roman obsession with ethnicities, racism, and class differentiation to be backwards and wasteful. According to Chinese ideology all peoples were potentially useful and productive, starting from a very young age meritocratic testing teased out talents and skills which are honed throughout life without regards to family background. Every Chinese is hyperaware of their THREE SCORES, their social credit score, their talent score, and honor score. That Romans could live their entire lives ignorant of those scores was a freedom that I could only dream of, but like many other Chinese, I laugh at their foolishness at their inability to properly exploit their populace. Instead the Romans focused on breeding an overlarge population of slaves, like the ones produced by Service Corp. Indeed the roman system was stratified by race. Latins were at the top obviously, with greeks and arabs a second tier. Black skinned africans and yellow haired Germanic barbarians were at the bottom.

I never liked their system, China had its issues with racism but it was much less severe. It never believed in marking people as different, all are subjects to the Emperor and waves of forced cultural assimilation was the norm. Thousands of minorities were forcibly Sinicized into the Han super ethnicity, now called the Dan. That's really a good thing for me too, as I believe to be ancestrally Japanese, not that I really care much about that now.

According to the historical genius social scientists and politicians back in China that refused slavery this should have made Rome a fragile state. Billions of slaves lived within its borders, ready to hate on the system that deprived them of their natural desires in life. But as I look upon the three garishly painted eager faces eye level with my crotch, kneeling in submission, it is plain that they could not have been more naive. Rome had gotten slavery down to a science, once properly optimized, slave races became the most useful GDP enhancers in the world.

"Sir {-input name} {-input lastName}," my Roman best friend said. He studied at the Chinese college I attended and was the reason I got this job, colloquially called Slave-hunter. "Service Corp products are as good as advertised right? You got exactly the holes that you requested. I'm telling you you don't want them pre-trained as whores, breaking them yourself is really a huge part of the fun, but seeing as that's what you wanted you got it. Mine are a lot younger than yours, and to them I will be their whole world."

"I'll probably go for something like that at the next upgrade." Service Corp had provided these three and this apartment as the graduation bonus at the completion of their level 1 internship. At every level I would be eligible for three free slaves. Not that I needed to wait that long, I can just buy more holes on the open market at any time. Young untrained ones are especially cheap.

"Good Kitty," I took the one I like the most by the back of the head and moved her to me, resting my penis on her face. It's called the Roman kiss, the traditional act of utmost intimacy and respect an owner could show his slave. She smiled at me happily, and shuddered in excited contentment at the kind gesture. I motioned for her to return my penis to my trousers, which she did gently, held in succor between her thin lips, her hands touching only my pants and never my body. I reached over to my other two slaves and gave them some cute head pats. My slave Rose's jealous look instantly disappeared as she lightly nudged her head against my hand. The other slave Begs, that was her name, daringly licked her slightly parted lips, shaking her cute little naked behind, as if seducing me and silently asking for another chance to prove herself.

"To hold stations," I said. My Service Corp trained slaves quickly, but nimbly and quietly, clambered into the big slave closet on the wall on their hands and feet. In stacking mode it could easily store 30 slaves. In standard holding mode the closet had all the features to keep the holes in the desired state. The holes stood, faces pressed into the wall, having restrained themselves with the closet's cuffs and collars in 15 seconds. Their legs were slightly parted with ankles cuffed to the wall, their hands holding their elbows behind their backs were similarly locked to each other, their neck collars likewise chained them to the wall with no give. Their slightly opened mouths invited in an adhesive based tongue restraint which were sometimes pulled tight (not allowing speech) and sometimes slack. The closet in holding mode kept control of humidity, such that the slaves would never get too dry, a protruding low level vibe that would keep her constantly edged and ready, a catheter arm that could come out when needed, and a muscle stimulator that would force her into different positions with painful zaps if stretches or exercises was required. The closet gear were all height adjustable too, fitting the 5 foot Kitty just as well as the 5' 7" and 5' 3" Rose and Begs. There were many other modes such as the throat training mode or auto torture mode which I lacked interest in.

The closet emitted a dim green hue to indicate full restraint of all inhabitants. I started a random Service Corp program with the shuffle function to play while out. I intended to fully lay out my personal desires and rules to these new holes of mine and allow them free roam of the apartment in the future, but temporarily the slave closet was perfect for the time strapped owner. The program selected, pumped directly into each slave via mini monitors and tiny speakers, was a new advertorial documentary on Service Corp slave closets, how slave health and life improved over the years with advancements to the closet over historical cages and dungeons, how slaves learned faster when tortured with the scientifically calculated punishment regimes over the archaic whips and canes. It was designed to make slaves feel safe and loved in the slave closet, and make them feel like the use of slave closets was a commendation. Service Corp was very good at selling those things though many owners smartly refused such programs. Slave closet addiction was a simmering problem among slaves.

The program would also automatically constantly interrupt itself every ten minutes and switch to audio only mode to rest the slave's eyes and to deliver the slave mantra of obedience, empathy, and love, which the slave would audibly recite five times (this is when the tongue restraint would slacken). As the owner of well trained and intelligent slaves, I also elected to enable the after program quiz. There was an online subscription service, delivered through the Service Corp app "Easy Owner", that would grade the quizzes and deliver fair and consistent tortures for failures (free for employees). Since my slaves were trained, they were also required to not only answer simple regurgitative questions but also come up with haikus on every program they watch. I would expect to see some cute poems on slave closets when I return. I also decided to participate in the online ladder, just for fun and maybe a bit of fame, which ranks me as an owner based on the quality of my slaves, in an esports format. The graded quality of the haikus would definitely contribute to the Elo score.

We finished up with our home warming at the corporate apartment and walked the short distance to our office for the completion of our first job. It was one of those things that would be bizarre to the average person. China had no slaves, and many anti-slaves lived there. Slaves occasionally ended up in China because of various cliche scenarios. Inside the Service Corp's Panama Central Office building we eventually meet such a person.

Rachel was a Roman woman, sitting uncomfortably in a metal chair and a single dangling light. Her frumpy clothes and bare face hid her attractiveness, her only concession to style was her dyed caramel highlights in her otherwise brown hair. Her pretty Chinese friend sat beside her, silent as she stared intently at the contract in front of her. I sat the opposite of her as my buddy Haren stood to my right.

"You know why you're here Rachel," I said gently. "EULA violation of Service Corp always end up at my desk, or the desk of someone like me. This is a capital punishment. Your slave could've had a good life. You're the one who ended it."

"No, you are." Rachel muttered. Rachel knew that she was caught. Her Chinese friend had already given her up. Service Corp employed a large number of Latin speaking Chinese like me exactly so it could navigate these difficult circumstances.

"You signed the EULA upon purchase, you knew that it was an immutable law what's about to happen to your holes now. You still chose to act in the way you did. You were the one with agency, nobody else could have prevented this. Your ideology led them to their deaths."

Rachel said nothing, her bitterness piling up. I turned to her Chinese friend, named Gin Sho, instrumental to the violation that had been carried out. Slave hunting was not nearly as fun and interesting of a job as you might imagine. There's no nighttime chases through forests as there were in earlier centuries. There's nowhere in the world for an escaped slave to go. The peace between Rome and China was only possible through exaggerated respect for each other's practices. Slavery being illegal in China did not mean slaves in Rome are free in China, rather, they are considered contraband and are instead deported.

However there were some in China who disagree with this practice, like Gin Sho. Her social credit score was remarkably low, and assisting in a EULA violation would lower her to a danger territory where she starts losing access to common utilities like social media until she rebuilds it again. With every Chinese electronically tagged and tracked throughout nation wide databases there was no such thing as an unknown person that could hope to live a quiet life.

All of this means slaves that escape from their masters was not a thing that commonly happens. In this situation, like all others, what we were looking at is a weak Roman who decided to bring her slaves to China to live in the grey area where they were still officially slaves but role-played as free people. Not illegal by Chinese law, but an EULA violation that China enforces as part of its signage of the Bi-lateral Trade Agreement, as it did all EULA violations.

"Have you learned your lesson?" I asked Gin Sho.

"A national working for Service Corp, you're a capitalist dog." Gin said. Calling someone a dog is a pretty harsh insult in China. It brings to mind the pet status of a common type of Roman slave.

I look upon her passively. I'm used to being called such names by the virulent Chinese right. As you may be able to tell from my situation, I'm a globalist, some even call me a Latboo. I cheer the steady improvement of relations between Rome and China. The respective royal families had friendly engagements throughout the centuries, there are some that say a marriage alliance that will unite the world is only a matter of time. Theories say it's only a few centuries off when that may happen. The situation is a nightmare for the nationalists like Gin Sho, who believe the Roman system to be inferior and evil. I personally had no respect for nationalists who live in dogmatic realities of cultural supremacy, those who cannot learn from and respect other cultures are really ignorant and on the wrong side of history.

Gin's social media was full of calls to boycott Roman products and end the practice of deporting slaves. I glanced at it and turn away from in disgust. The internet, unfortunately, was a brewing ground for those with not much going on in life to ferment their ego-protecting bankrupt ideologies.

"Human rights abusers will be shot in the next revolution." Gin said hotly, about par for the course of an overprivileged radical.

"You define these holes," I waved my hands over the pictures of the six chained and beaten holes on the table. "As humans. A biological determinist viewpoint. For that to work, you use only percentage DNA similarity to humans as your sole standard, but such a definition ignores the social, historical, and political realities of the world. But what makes a human is so much more than that. Humans built society, humans built civilization, humans discovered art and science. The slaves contributed in their roles as tools and they should be celebrated for that, but only as that. For the barbarians that almost destroyed civilization, such as the germans almost did to Rome, cannot be called human."

"They have feelings just like us," Rachel blurted out. More quietly, "They don't want to be hurt."

"Like I said, you're the one who hurt them."

Rachel appeared a stringent slave rights lover when she was first taken in, but is now a lot more cold after Gin finally gave her up as she was threatened with massive social credit score reduction. Since most of Gin's activism was carried out through social media it was a necessary decision for her.

Despite that, she put on a brave front as she went on a rant about me and Service Corp which I largely tuned out. Gin was already a person under watch and effectively served as a honey pot. Service Corp would want her shut down, but for the purposes of my career she was a useful person to have as an enemy, people like her gave me a job.

When she was done, the main proceedings began.

"Rachel, you're going to watch as your slaves are tortured to death."

Gin loudly demanded to leave after a few painful seconds of indecision. Since we were not the police we had to let her go. When it came down to it, her choice was to protect her own psyche over supporting her friend. Rachel was stuck in deportation and has no such option though.

We moved down to the underground detention cell where Rachel's 2 slaves were held. Once nubile and seductive with modelesque physiques, Rachel had sought to fatten them up in China to a hefty size, achieving what was to my eye a 5 kg gain each over the six months they spent "escaped" in China. They were kneeling naked in a present position and hairy and totally devoid of cosmetics. I entered the cell and Haren and Rachel went to an adjacent room to watch the proceedings.

The first was Frances, a sexpot with a PA (physical appeal) rating of 94. Rachel's awkward decisions made her a 92 maybe. Still higher than my 3 at home, who were all rated in the high 80s. The second was named Sara who had a 97 to 96 decline.

"Welcome back to Service Corp." I said, "Your former owner Rachel has fully given up rights to you, and you've reverted back to Service Corp ownership. This means I'm your owner now."

I approached Frances and gestured for her to put her hand out. I handed Frances a jagged scalpel.

"Start the scalpel on your face, and ruin it," I said to her.

To be the highest rank of slave, pet holes, was a privilege granted only to those with the highest PA, and an innate aspiration of all slaves under the Roman system. Not coincidentally, it's the class of slaves most frequently associated with EULA violations, as a high PA slave engenders sympathy and is really the only type of slave that has a chance of beguiling a master and leading them astray. A slave with a ruined face would only be serviceable as furniture, or utility.

I noted some hesitation as she stared at the instrument in her hand in confusion.

"I see you haven't been through our S level obedience training like my slaves," I said. "You're an B Obedience level product. Does that mean you're disobedient?"

"What do you think Sara?" I turned to Sara, "Did your experience in China make you think of yourself as a human?"

"Master's holes never once thought master's holes was human master," Sara spoke in the submissive patter of slavonics. "Master's holes only acted to please holes' owner at the time."

"Sara, you're nobody's holes now." I said, "you're just broken garbage waiting to be disposed of. You are no longer allowed to address yourself that way, you can only call yourself Sara."

"Maste-s-sara obeys." She spoke in a quaver... "S-sara is completely submissive. Sara can show show master, S-sara be obedient. Sara can still be used... Sara holes still S grade."

"And you Frances. You still haven't obeyed. Do you know why I gave you this order?"

Frances closed her eyes and spoke. "Master is a slave hunter, master's job is to kill disobedient slaves, and torture... and punish bad former master. Master must make Frances hurt Frances for master's career."

"Very good Frances. Does it scare you?"

"No master, Frances would gladly mutilate face to help master's career. It is the most important thing to Frances... helping master."

"Then look at me Frances."

She looks up at me.

"Are you happy?"

"Frances is happy. Joy in obedience. Completion in submission. Sole desire is submission." Frances smiles. She touched her cheek with the scalpel and began. She tried to keep her smile on for the next few seconds, but soon surrendered to the wailing pain. She got as far as three deep and bloody gashes before she collapsed to the floor, clutching her face in screaming agony.

I wondered what Rachel thought of the sight. A lot of times this type of action is enough to mollify their desires to "free slaves", it having been primarily stemming from jealousy of high PA slaves occupying their boyfriend's attention. Or is that assumption just misogyny.