Knife Closet

	Knives clanged together, in the closet.  Elle had been standing in the same place for 11 hours.  Her watch still ticked away the seconds.  Her torn skirt and dirty blouse showed many red stains from her rough treatment over the past few weeks.  She'd finally gotten used to it.  Her thin arms were suspended from a meat hook and she was forced to stand on her toes.  Bruises like purple kisses covered all of her exposed skin.  Her once vibrant steel-gray eyes showed a look of hopeless forlornness.  How had she gotten into this situation she wondered, then she remembered.
	Elle remembered that rainy night that all this had happened.  It seemed  like so long ago, it had only been three weeks time.  She was getting out of class for the day and was going to hit the arcades with her friends.  She had recently spent months worth of savings on a new datajack with a higher bandwidth.  She knew that that combined with her new reflex package software would give her an edge.  And with that edge anyone who underestimated her would find them selves defeated and paying out their part of the debt.  Arcade gambling was illegal of course, but Elle had never heard of anyone getting caught.  She was good, one of the best: mostly at shooters, but she also could hold her own at fighters as well.  The days of button mashing and thumb jockeying were long over.  A datajack would link the game directly into the players brain.  The system tricked the brain into accepting the results as sensual input.  This pastime had attracted millions of young people and where there was competition there was obviously gambling: it seemed to just be human nature.
	The door opened and Elle was led from the knife closet.  The man leading her by her leather collar was called Ike.  He was a large olive skinned man with a bald head.  She'd never seen him do anything except stand behind the boss and lead people places.  She figured he was a body guard.  When she reached the boss's room, Ike moved to his position by the door and the boss told her to sit.  The boss, Mikhail sat patiently at an ornate wooden desk.  Mikhail had been a member of MVD(Ministry of Internal Affairs).  He lost his job in 2014 when an international inquiry into the South Ossetian war named him as the leader of the unit that took down Georgian internet access during the conflict.  He was discovered by a young reporter out to make a name for himself.  Shortly after the reporter was found perforated by rounds from an OC-14-4A Groza Assault Rifle.  Several of those rifles had been reported missing from the MVD armory earlier that day.  He was a sadistic bastard that thrived on the seedy underbelly of the world.  He motioned at Elle and told her to eat.  There was a plate on the desk with a meager meal on it.  Elle ate greedily and he just chucked his cold dark chuckle to himself.
	Elle arrived at the arcade around 2200 that Friday.  Since she left high school she'd become completely nocturnal.  She had a nice apartment in a less nice part of town, had the excess money to party any night she wanted, and god she loved her line of work.  The misogynistic idea that girls were terrible at video games still permeated the culture and her ability to look confused and ditzy often made opponents underestimate her.  She walked up to the arcade's coffee shop and bought a Espresso.  She had judged her caffeine tolerance perfectly: enough to increase her alertness, but not enough to make her jittery.  She'd generally start a night by picking on guys who underestimated her or only face her because the thought she was cute.  She'd rack up a win rate against them and when someone better took notice shed quietly leave before there was trouble.  That night was different, when she attracted the attention of a good player she was going to take them on and crush them.  Tonight she had an ace up her sleeve; She had an auto-dosing epinephrin pack in hand.  She set out toward her first victim of the night.
	When Mikhail finished eating he motioned for Ike to leave the room, he wanted some private time with his pet.  He knew Ike probably assumed things about what went on while Mikhail and Elle were alone.  It would have taken a man of utmost professionalism to not just rape the girl over and over again.  Mikhail was far from professional in his conduct, but to him rape was a far too cliched way of breaking a person, and breaking people is all he really cared about.  He abruptly grabbed Elle's long black hair and slammed her face first into the desk.  She hardly let out a whimper as her nose started bleeding.  He told her to get up and she obediently stood..  He stood as well and walked over to her.  He pulled out his lighter, lit a cigar and put it in his twisted mouth.  He hit her.  She sprawled across the ground, still soundlessly.  Her breathing had gotten heavy.  He rolled her onto her back and looked into her dead eyes.  He saw no defiance only a doll that would obey the whims of her master.  He liked seeing that.
	Elle had made $250 by 0300, it was a decent score, she wanted more.  She moved from the suckers to find some she knew, she figured a better player by this point in the night would have the capital required to double up her money.  She moved up to a shooter booth, it was called Rigid, the industry had been pumping out generic shooters like this one since 2001.  But generic meant predictable.  Predictable meant it printed money, not just for the fat cat developers, but also for hustlers like her.  She walked up and a guy she'd met last week jacked out and left, hurriedly.  He was a good kid, figured she was a skilled amateur moving up from the kiddy games.  She had beaten him 25-6 and had made $125 on the venture.  But, when he ran out of the place she'd drawn attention.  She pulled out $500 and asked if there were any takers.  This was risky, no tricks.  A guy she's seen but never player walked up with a roll of $20 bills in his hand.  She had a taker.
	Elle's face was disinterestedly passive when Mikhail pushed the lit cigar into her eye, only a single whimper left her.  He had blinded her in her left eye, the first permanent damage done.  He pulled out a scalpel from his jacket and saw a single remaining hint of fear in her eye.  He smirked to himself.  He told her to hold out her hand.  She complied, holding her fingers spread apart ready for pain at any moment. He cut the fascia between her thumb and index finger and the pain raced through her nerves.  The pain was akin to a paper cut from hell. She winced and he started laughing.  He knew that even someone as broken as her still felt that kind of pain.  He then pulled out four pins; he was going to hurt her more and more until there was nothing left and these were the next step.  He first took hold of her index finger he shoved the pin with much force under her fingernail and down almost to the first joint.  She winced in pain.  She didn't cry out, not even a whimper, so he inserted one under the cuticle of her middle fingernail as well.  She let out a whimper, but not the scream he wanted so he moved on to the ring finger, he could tell she was in pain, but she couldn't tell was that all he wanted was for her to scream.  She managed to muffle the scream again, barely.  The pain raced through her nerves.  She had once thought of getting a sensory enhancement for her sense of touch, but now she was glad she hadn't.  He held her little finger in his hand and prepared to insert the final pin.  He pulled it back and she couldn't handle it anymore, she screamed.  She smiled and stepped back and looked at the pathetic creature in front of him.  She fell to her knees and began to cry.  Only one thing left for him to do.  Mikhail pulled back his boot and kicked her in the face.
	Elle was ready to kick this guys ass.  She jacked in, thinking to herself her plans for how to beat this losers ass at this generic modern military shooter.  She selected the M-4A4 carbine and a sidearm.  Then found herself in the streets of Hong Kong.  The Sino-American war had been softly going on several years at this point, so it was open and 'edgy' material for game developers to exploit.  This kind of 1 on 1 death match was her style.  She loaded up and moved out.  She had not hooked up the eppy shot this game, she doubted she needed it.  She say a glint catch the sunlight from a third story window.  She dove, just as a .300 win magnum slug cut right through the wall next to her.  A follow up shot came quickly after and she was quickly pinned by his semi-automatic fire.  She figures by the velocity and the rate of fire he must be using the M21 PIP designated marksman rifle.  She scanned the map quickly and came up with a plan.  She pulled the pins on 3 of her smoke grenades and threw them in a line toward a flanking route on his nest.  She saw his scpoe glint as he shifted attention to her decoy.  Bang.  Game Over.
	Elle woke up to find that Mikhail had pulled all of the pins out while she was unconscious.  She breathed in and out, she was nervous.  She was sitting in a chair she had seen but never been sat in.  The dentists chair, an intimidating monster even in its moderately mundane safe natural habitat, but in here it was a place people lost things, and even her broken despondent apathy couldn't shield her from the terror of that thought.  Mikhail leaned over her from her left side, how hadn't she seen him standing there?  She turned her head to see a glass eye on the stand by the chair.  He pulled apart her lid and slid she scalpel behind her optic nerve, severing it in a precise motion.  He breathing increased ans he showed her the dead eye he was holding. He pried her eyelids back open and slid in the glass replacement.  He asked if she was ready to play some more, she muttered out a subdued answer.
	When Elle jacked out there was a ginger kid standing behind her.  He was clapping.  He made a smart-ass remark about how she wasn't terrible and if she wanted to play the big leagues she's at least not get slaughtered.  His name was Joey, she definitely knew him by reputation he was the top dog in this arcade.  She told him she'd take him on any time he liked; he smirked at her cocky attitude.  He asked if she played fighters, she smirked and told him that she definitely did.  He led her up to his private booth, there were two fairly obscure Japanese fighter machines.  Joey told her the bet was $1500.  Ellie smirked and pushed it to $2000, Joey laughed and commented on her having a lot of balls for a girl.  Elle set the Epinephrin level to be adjusted by her datajack while Joey wasn't looking.  She locked in, read up on combos for her character and got ready to fight.  Joey was good, very fast but she felt like he was toying with her.  She was able to match him on speed due to the stims, but he knew the game better than her so the ball was still in his court.  He commented that she wasn't as slow as he thought she would be. And while he was running his mouth she caught under his jaw with a combo that sent him flying and knocked him on his back.  Round One Elle.  The second round began furiously, Joey had taken the kid gloves off and was going for a quick kill, all Elle could do was block and hope for the best.  He pinned her up against the wall and finished her.  One to One.  Final Round!  Elle told her stims to go to the edge of the danger zone, she knew she risked a heart attack but if she lost and couldn't pay she risked as bad.  She started off very aggressively: faster, stronger, meaner.  She pinned him in a corner, then he got a glint in his eye and he sped up to match her speed.  They fought back and forth until there were only seconds left on the clock.  3. She started aggressively attacking only to be put on the defensive again. 2. she set her stim to maximum output. 1.she hit him, hard anf fast with a combo, KOing him. She had won yes, why was it.  She awoke gasping for air. She was having a heart attack.  Joey was standing there yelling ”that cheating bitch!” then a man named Ike grabbed her by the shoulder.
	Elle was led back to the knife closet by Ike.  She was having trouble breathing after that session, she probably had broken a rib.  It was hard to see any future beyond this.  It was hard to see a brighter tomorrow.  But for that matter it'd be hard to see anything with only one eye.  When she got to the closet Ike cuffed her hands to the meat hook like he did yesterday.  Unlike yesterday she was smiling.