Finding the Jewel Read online

  “Oh dear now, Chloe. Didn’t Mr. Scale tell you that we’re not eating fruit today?” rumbled the refrigerator.

  “What can I have then?” Chloe asked in desperation. “Besides the protein pellets? Those are awful!”

  “Protein pellets are specifically and scientifically engineered to give you the most complete nutrition without compromising your diet,” the fridge told her. “And their relatively bland flavor means you won’t be tempted to overeat them.”

  “I’m not tempted to eat them at all,” Chloe snapped. “Can’t you at least give me some vegetables to go with them? What about some carrots?” Carrots were at least a little sweet, she reasoned and they were a vegetable.

  “Well now, let me see what I have in my drawers for you today,” rumbled “Mr. Refrigerator” in its maddeningly jolly tones. “Ho-ho-hum…I bet it’s something yummy!” it sang to itself.

  Living in the damn prison house was like being trapped in a demented Disney movie. Only instead of dressing you in adorable new outfits and serving you dinner, the inanimate objects that talked and sang to you were sadistic weight-loss Nazis there to torture you, Chloe thought resentfully as she waited for it to finish its little routine.

  Finally one of the refrigerator’s smaller glass drawers popped out revealing…

  “Brussel sprouts?” Chloe looked at them unbelievingly. “That’s what you’ve got for me? Brussel sprouts?”

  She knew they were the latest trendy super food back home on Earth—her friend Amanda even called them “the new kale”—but Chloe had never been able to stand them. She had tried them every possible way—baked, roasted, broasted, tossed into salads and shredded into slaw—they always had a strong, bitter flavor no matter what was done to them, so she had given up on them some time ago.

  She had read somewhere that some people hated brussel sprouts because they had a recessive gene that caused the small vegetables to always taste bitter—the way some people had a gene that made cilantro taste like soap. Whether she had the gene or not, she didn’t know—but she did know she hated brussel sprouts—hated them!

  Suddenly something inside her seemed to snap. This horrible house was holding her prisoner and trying to force her to achieve an “ideal” body image she wanted no part of. And all so it could make her more desirable to whatever man came to buy her! She was being starved and fat-shamed so she could be sold as a sex-slave!

  Her life was complete shit, she was hungry and tired and crampy because of her period. And most of all, she wanted some damn chocolate.

  Yanking open one of the drawers full of baking and cooking utensils she never got to use, Chloe found the perfect tool—a meat mallet. It was a heavy wooden one with metal spikes on one side for tenderizing tough cuts of meat—not that she ever got to eat anything but pellets here, she thought savagely.

  Seizing it, she swung it as hard as she could at the glass-fronted pantry.

  “Give me those Thin Mints, you bastard! Give them to me now!” she snarled. “I don’t want your fucking brussel sprouts—I need chocolate!”

  Mr. Pantry made a prim gasp of dismay but though Chloe swung the mallet with all her might, it simply bounced off the glass.

  “What is this stuff—bullet proof glass?” she gasped, swinging again. “Why the hell won’t it break?”

  In the meantime, the fitness monitor on her arm had mistaken her vigorous actions for exercise.

  “Go Chloe,” it cheered even as the Pantry exclaimed in outrage and the Refrigerator rumbled deep disapproval. “You go, girl! Look how strong you’re getting! Your arms will be skinny in no time! Yay!”

  “Shut up!” Chloe shouted at it, still hammering away at the unbreakable glass. The green Thin Mint box winked at her from behind the pantry windows, as though taunting her with the chocolaty goodness she couldn’t have. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  At last she dropped the mallet and sank to the floor, sobbing.

  “Done so soon?” the fitness monitor on her wrist asked, disapprovingly. “Come on, Chloe—don’t give up! You were burning some serious calories there, girlfriend!”

  “Leave me alone!” Chloe tried in vain—for the hundredth time—to pull the tight-fitting plastic bracelet off her arm. Its immediate response was to tighten up until it cut off her circulation and her hand turned nearly blue.

  “Come on now, Chloe,” it whispered as it nearly pinched her hand off. “You don’t want to get rid of me—we’re friends! I’m your best friend.”

  These words made Chloe cry even harder because they made her think of her real best friend, Amanda and her parents and her little sister—all of whom were probably frantic with worry right now. They had probably made a police report but of course no one would ever find her. She was up in a space station somewhere, high above the Earth from what she could gather from the Commercians. Nobody was going to come looking for her here.

  She would become one of those “cold cases” that no one ever solved and maybe twenty years down the road some cheesy TV detective show would feature her and say how she had disappeared into thin air, leaving only her clothes behind and no one had ever heard from her again.

  “Now, Chloe—there’s no use getting emotional,” the refrigerator said sternly. “After all, crying is hardly aerobic.”

  “Mr. Refrigerator is right,” the pantry put in primly. “If you want some of my sweet treats, you have to earn them. You’d do much better to go work out in the gym for an hour than to lie on the floor like that. Laziness won’t get you the cookies you want so badly.”

  “Go, Chloe,” whispered the fitness monitor on her arm. “Get up and keep going—remember, no pain, no gain! If you want it, you have to work it. And nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.”

  “I hate you,” Chloe whispered through her tears. “I hate all of you. Just leave me alone. Leave me—”

  Suddenly she stopped. A deep, masculine voice she’d never heard before was shouting somewhere outside the house.

  “…is it?” Chloe heard the voice asking.

  “Where is what, my Lord?” the high piping voice of one of the Commercians asked. “Please tell me how I can be of service to you. Are you here to purchase one of our delightful discounted Earth females?”

  Chloe’s heart seemed to freeze in her chest. Was this one of the prospective buyers the little blue wormy bastards were always talking about? She’d known she was going to be sold at some point but somehow she’d thought she would have more time before it happened. After all, she was still much more pleasingly plump than the ideal image the Commercians kept pushing on her. They seemed so certain no man would want her until she was thin—but she wasn’t thin yet. So how could they be thinking of selling her?

  Swiping at her eyes, Chloe rose and made her way stealthily from the kitchen to the heavy wooden door at the front of the house. Pressing her ear to the wood, she listened with all her might. It sounded like the stranger was talking again.

  “The j—j—j—” He seemed to be having trouble getting the word out. “The J-juh-juh—”

  He’s blocking, Chloe thought automatically as the Speech Pathologist part of her brain kicked in. He’s trying so hard to say the word but it’s stuck—he can’t get it out.

  “I am sorry, what do you require?” The Commercian sounded uncertain and a bit impatient.

  “The jewel,” the stranger got out at last, the word almost exploding from his mouth as he attacked it like an enemy. “I w-want to b-b-buy the j-j-jewel.”

  “A jewel?” The Commercian sounded confused. “Pardon me, my Lord, but are you speaking a new dialect of Standard? I have never heard such pronunciation before.”

  He’s not speaking some new language you idiot, Chloe thought, pressing closer to the door. He’s got a stutter. A really bad one, poor guy.

  She felt a rush of sympathy for the unseen stranger before she reminded herself that he was probably there to buy her and force her into a life of sexual slavery. Maybe she ought to save her compassion for