Sedition by Alicia Cameron Page B

known that. “Torenze was your mentor… is that why you want him to be part of your project?”
    Cash laughs. “I’d rather have him dead,” he says, quite bluntly. “When I was fourteen, my mother arranged for me to spend a week in a re-education center. I brought home poor grades in my history class, and she decided that would be the best way to motivate me. Oliver was the one in charge of supervising me during this very creative punishment. He made sure I wasn’t too badly damaged, but he helped to get the point across.
    I stare at him in shock. “You can’t do that,” I say, even though he’s just told me that you can.
    “When your name is in the training manuals of all the re-education centers, you can,” he points out. “My mother didn’t give the orders for me to get damaged badly or raped or anything of that sort, but she let them starve and beat and terrify me. Oliver was with me most of the time, supervising. The whole experience made it very clear that I didn’t want to end up there. In a way, it started my interest in the subject.”
    I consider the kind of parent who could do this to their child, and it sickens me. It also explains why my master is the way he is. The ends justify the means, always, no matter how horrible the means really are. “How can you stand the thought of working with him again?”
    Cash smiles. “I’m disgusted by him personally, by how much he enjoys torturing people, but he’s everything I need. Besides, he’s the only person I know who hates my mother more than I do. After she let him go, he made it clear, both personally and professionally, that he was going to stand in her way, just like he perceived her standing in his. He’s well-connected, personable, interested in competing with my mother, and I trust him in business. He won’t question me too much, not until it’s too late for him to realize what he’s invested in. He’s my ticket to re-establishing myself in the slave training world.”
    “You can’t just start from scratch?” I ask, considering the option. There are new faces in research all the time; surely, he could just pretend everything was new.
    “I have to, but I need legitimacy of some sort,” my master explains. “I had some as Kristine Miller’s progeny; I have none as a wealthy financial advisor. Besides, it would consume almost all of my savings—there is an end to them, you know. I need business partners, the right kind, both for funding and for the image of my project. Keeping up my front not only as a business leader, but also as a slaveholder, is key to getting what I want. I can’t afford to look like I oppose the system; that’s asking for treason and rejection again. That’s why it’s so important that I impress, well, men like Oliver Torenze. Having him support my current project is perfect because he’s established in the field. I’ve been stripped of everything I used to be. He hasn’t.”
    “You just changed your name,” I mumble. “It’s not like you inhabited a new body.”
    Cash smirks at me. “No, but when I was younger, I was mostly working behind the scenes. Few people knew me in person, and if they did, they just knew me as my mother’s son. I didn’t make much of an impression back then, and what’s another attractive twenty-something? They’re everywhere, like bottled water, or slaves. Plenty of time has passed. You didn’t recognize me, although I’m sure you saw the story on the news. Presented with a new name and history, I may as well have inhabited a new body for all anyone else is concerned. I’ve had to reinvent myself. Everything I’ve done since my first project got exposed has been part of that. I need to fit the part I’m playing.”
    “That’s why you were so harsh,” I realize. “Keeping up appearances. You’ve rarely punished me for anything in private. That’s why you… the other night…”
    “I know.” His voice is soft, and if I try really hard, I can detect a trace