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Adult Content Warning - this story contains adult themes, including non-consensual bondage/slavery and forced sexual acts. If you are under the lawful age for such materials (18 in most jurisdictions) or if you would find such material offensive, please go elsewhere.
Safety Warning. This story may contain descriptions of practices that are decidedly unsafe, either in general, or if performed by someone without adequate training. There are a number of good books available on safety in the BDSM scene. Most large cities, and some not so large ones, have organized BDSM groups that will usually welcome a newcomer. I'm not going to point out which practices are safe, and which aren't. Any practice is unsafe if performed by someone with inadequate training and experience, or if performed when not paying attention. Please think before you act. Don't make yourself a candidate for a Darwin award.
Now on to the story...
Chapter 2. Jenny. Processed by Reliable.
Chapter 4. Jenny: This is your life. Adapt ... or else.
Chapter 5. Jenny. Ponygirls in their cages.
Chapter 6. Jenny: Training Carol.
Chapter 7. Jenny, Carol and the Tentacle Monster.
Chapter 8. Jenny: Ponygirl Ronnie.
Chapter 10. Jenny: As Luck Would Have It.
Chapter 11. Audry: Faux Ponygirl.
Chapter 12. Jenny: On the Road Toward College
Chapter 13. Audry: The Taxi Service Acquires a Wild Ponygirl
Chapter 14. Beth: If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.
Chapter 15. Jenny and Beth: At The Mountain View Motel.
Chapter 18. Jenny and Beth: Settling In.
Chapter 19. Jenny at the Taxi Service
Chapter 20. Jenny collars Beth.
Chapter 21. Jenny Discovers a Wild Girl Infestation
Chapter 24. Jenny: Programming Seminar.
Chapter 25. Audry: Good News, Bad News and News.
Chapter 26. Jenny and Beth: Preparations.
Chapter 27. Audry: A step forward?
Chapter 28. Jenny and Beth: What’s in the box?
Chapter 29. Audry: The light dawns.
Chapter 31. Jenny: Engine Girl.
Chapter 32. Jenny: All is Revealed.
Chapter 33. Jenny: Well, maybe.
Chapter 34. Jenny: Tamed Girls.
Chapter 35. Jenny: Vacation Time.
The date is sometime around 2400, and Jenny Jackson is ready to graduate from high school. She discovers, contrary to every reasonable expectation, that she is not picked as a wife, nor is she going to college. Instead, she’s been routed to a job as a collared worker in Reliable’s ponygirl manufacturing process. She finds out that manufacturing only looks simple; it’s anything but.
Meanwhile, a girl named Audry has decided to drop out and become a wild girl; she’s going to hide out at the Taxi Service as a ponygirl.
By now Jenny has spent several months in Stage 2 of Ponygirl Manufacturing, has gotten to criterion on shift work and is learning more of the business. She’s trained three of her former classmates and has been trained as both a ponygirl and an engine.
Then she finds out she’s headed to college. She collects the other three girls who will be traveling with her and gets the engines installed on their mounts in the rental car they will be taking. They have an enlightening discussion on the way.
Then they stop overnight. When the dust (not to mention the sex) settles, Jenny discovers that Beth thinks she’s Jenny’s wife. The settle in, and Jenny discovers her work assignment is with the Taxi Service. The taxi service uses ponygirls, of course. Lots of ponygirls. And she finds time to collar Beth, much to Beth’s pleasure.
“Something’s puzzling me, Vicky,” Jenny told the supervisor at the end of a shift several weeks later.
“You’re doing well as maintenance backup,” Vicky answered, “so that can’t be the problem?”
“Um, no. There are several ponygirls that seem to be behaving oddly, and I’m wondering why they haven’t been sent in for retraining.”
“Which ones?” Vicky asked. Jenny reeled off the numbers from their ID tattoos.
Vicky laughed. “Those aren’t ponygirls, honey. They’re wild girls. We’ve got half a dozen that are pretending to be ponygirls. They live here and duck in and out when they think nobody’s looking.”
“Wild girls? I’ve heard of them; one of the ponygirls that went through our unit was supposed to be a wild girl that they’d captured. I’d think the police would be after them.”
“The police only bother if there’s too many of them or they’re causing a problem. I gather it’s some kind of policy; they don’t want to beef up the police force enough to really eliminate the problem, but they don’t want it talked up either.”
“How do they work it?”
“The manes are real. Most of them have the gene mods. They’ve got a couple of neat gadgets that look and work like the jaw and throat blocks, but aren’t permanent. They’ve got removable collars and change them when they come on and off premises. And the collars are gimmicked so they’ve got the computers totally faked out. At least they think so,” she added with a chuckle. “Actually we’ve got spotter programming but it doesn’t affect how the computer treats them. We let them think we don’t know.”
She paused a moment. “I suppose I can tell you a bit. There are places you can get a lot of illegal, or at least off the official record, services. The police seem to ignore them as long as they don’t get too big or cause too many problems. I think the police actually know more than they’re talking about.”
“I wonder ... .”
“Oh?”
“Would it be permissible to tell them we know who they are and either do some work or get out?”
“I don’t see why not,” Vicky answered. “If they decide to go elsewhere, I wouldn’t weep. And if they actually did something useful it would make me a lot happier. As well as the rest of the management. What are you thinking?”
“Lt. Forsyth,” the man behind the desk said. “You’re Jenny? My admin said you had some questions about wild girls and, um, off the record services. I’m curious. If you wanted them, I wouldn’t think you’d be asking me.”
Jenny laughed. “I assume you’ve looked at the confidential parts of my dossier; I’d have to be real stupid to try to go behind anyone’s back on something that can be misinterpreted.”
“And you obviously aren’t stupid. So what’s the background?”
“We’ve got a small infestation of wild girls at the taxi service, and I want to know what I can do to them without getting in trouble, and also how they manage to do it. My supervisor said something about off the record services.”
“Off the record is technically not illegal,” he said. “At least if it doesn’t go too far. There are several issues bearing on what you’re asking. The first is a wild girl’s legal status.
“They stepped outside of large parts of the system when they went wild. Their only real option if they don’t like what you’re doing is to leave; they can’t complain without risking being arrested and sent down as ponygirls or engines.
“You can’t complain either if they disobey you or walk. You’ll simply get laughed at. Wild girls are wild girls, and anyone who expects one to act like a collared worker is, um, not too bright. Even if they’re pretending to be collared workers, which most of them are.
“It doesn’t give you the option of mistreating them; while they don’t have the protection of the legal system, you have to behave appropriately toward them. We regard inappropriate behavior toward a wild girl as symptomatic of possibly inappropriate behavior elsewhere.”
“I see. It’s both easier and safer to not make the distinction.”
“Exactly. Appropriate behavior means you should treat them the same way you’d treat anyone else in the situation that they’re presenting. Of course, taking care to protect your own interests would be prudent. Since they’re pretending to be ponygirls and sponging off the taxi service, it would be quite reasonable for the service to train them and put them to work as ponygirls as long as they don’t keep them from leaving.
“Your certifications from Reliable aren’t the best ones for training them, but they’re adequate if there isn’t anyone more appropriate available, and there doesn’t seem to be. So it would be legitimate for the taxi service to have you train them. Their only recourse would be to leave; there’s nobody to complain to.”
“That seems reasonable,” Jenny said. “I’m actually a bit farther along than the certifications show. They’re manufacturing certifications, and either you fully satisfy the criterion, or you don’t. Manufacturing operations do all or nothing.”
“That’s the best way; you never know where you stand with partials. Now, as to how they manage to do it. The manes and the gene mods are legal. That hair style isn’t unknown among some of the wilder set. The gene mods could get someone in real trouble if they tried to do unmodified competitive sports without declaring them, but there are a complete parallel set of sports where they’re needed to be competitive. The rest?” He looked at the readout.
“You’d be getting into some rather hard fetish stuff. The only pieces that are strictly illegal are the permanent throat and jaw pieces but they aren’t using those; the fetish people are the ones that invented the prosthetics.”
“Fetishes?”
“You probably haven’t heard of them. You’d be surprised at the number of people that use their wives as engines and ponygirls when they go on vacation.”
“If it’s more than zero, right, I’m surprised.”
“It’s more than zero. It’s a fraction of a percent, but that’s still a fair number of people. They say they like it.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. She’d have to be properly trained, and if she is she’d like it while she’s in the state. They’d better have it balanced, though.”
“Balanced?”
“If it isn’t balanced with the rest of the personality, it’s addictive. If it is it simply isn’t that attractive. Although I suppose they’d do it because their husbands told them to, and it’s not particularly bad. It’s just that they’re not getting on with their normal life while they’re playing.”
The lieutenant looked at the readout and frowned. “I see there are some complexities here. I presume they’ve got the computers foxed?”
“Well, almost.”
The lieutenant laughed. “That’s the third piece. Wild girls use the hacker underground to build up new identities. The hacker underground exploits a lot of holes in the system. It would be too expensive to fix all of them, and it would simply lead to an arms race. An expensive arms race that wouldn’t benefit anyone. We crack down on anyone that’s getting way out of line, and otherwise quietly keep track of the activity. A lot of collared workers, and not a few wives, have their collars rigged so that they can drop out of sight for a few hours here and there.”
I’ll bet they aren’t as secret as they think, either, Jenny said to herself.
“Now the ID tattoo is right on the borderline. The better hackers can create and erase identities fairly easily, and they do it all the time.” He studied the readout and then chuckled. “She seems to have gotten two new identities when she dropped out. One as a collared worker with a faked up owner, one as a ponygirl. The ID tattoo goes with the ponygirl identity, so it’s not really a separate issue.”
He made a note. “I’ll give you a couple of hacker contacts. These two have a real weird sense of humor bordering on the nastily malicious. Fortunately for them, they seem to know where the line is, and are very careful not to come close enough for a misstep to put them over.”
“So you did something,” Vicky said at the beginning of Jenny’s next shift.
“Oh?” Jenny answered with a wideyed look of surprise that wouldn’t have fooled a moron, unless she was in a real hurry.
“The computer seems to have decided not to ignore them any longer. It isn’t raising any alarms, but it’s showing their real brain scans and when they’re off premises. By permission, even. And I’d love to know how they got the computer to do that!”
“So that’s what he did,” Jenny laughed. “If you haven’t told them, they should still be in the dark. I’ve started a conditioning process, but that will simply make them better ponygirls while they’re on premises.”
“I noticed that. What does it do?” Vicky asked suspiciously.
“It creates the ponygirl and interface functional patterns in their brains. The ponygirl functional pattern is the same one that all the ponygirls have; the interface functional pattern will let them know who they are and what they’re about, but doesn’t give them access to language or most of the ‘higher functions’. It’ll let them decide whether they want to stay or leave. Either for the evening or permanently. Real ponygirls don’t have that one.
“They’re both keyed to having the prosthetics in their mouths. The ponygirl pattern will be in effect when they’re on shift – if they get that far. The interface pattern is the ponygirl pattern plus, and it will be in effect when they’re not on shift.”
“That ought to help a lot,” Vicky said. “You said on shift?”
“I want to start training them on something real simple.”
“Um?”
“Moving the taxis from the storage racks to the harnessing slots and back.”
“We’ve got enough that can do that.”
“The conditioning process takes a while; it will be at least a month before they can pick up procedures fast enough to work in maintenance, and that long or longer before they lose the ability to read the diagnostic codes.”
“You’re going to tell them to work or get out?”
“Tell them?” Jenny giggled. “I want to see how far I can get training them while they still think I think they’re real ponygirls.”
“That ought to be good for a laugh or six!” She paused in thought. “Spend a couple of hours working through the diagnostic backlog. Then the 2nd street harnessing area will be clear and you can use that. I want to see if you can pull it off without breaking down laughing.”
Two hours later Jenny stood up and stretched. She’d worked through the whole line of taxis with problems. Most of them had been dead simple – at least if you could read the diagnostic codes the computer put out. For most of them she’d used a marker to put a big red X on the parts to be replaced. Some of them she’d called one of the girls working on the taxis over and showed her what was wrong, and let her take it from there. She’d done three of them herself. That wasn’t because she didn’t think the girls couldn’t replace the part, it was because she didn’t know how to tell them which part to replace without taking it out herself.
For about the tenth time she made a mental note to try to get taxis that the ponygirls could maintain without help. It ought to be possible; Speedy certainly could do her family’s three carriages.
Now, she thought. She straightened her skirt and took her hair out of the net she’d been using while she was crawling over the machinery.
Where are they? she thought. She keyed in a command on her reader and looked at the result. Then she headed over to the servicing units.
The two she wanted were just coming out when she arrived. “Audry. Ceil. Follow.” She turned on her heel and walked toward the 1st street harnessing area without looking to see if they followed.
She didn’t see the two of them look at each other, shrug, and then follow her. The several supervisors and workers who were watching the affair on the monitor did, though.
She stopped where they could see the whole operation without getting in anyone’s way.
“Good girls,” she said as she turned and motioned them to where they could watch. Then she stepped up behind them and began stroking them, telling them they were good girls, and at the same time mentioning what some of the girls moving the taxis were doing. In a few minutes she had them relaxed and watching the flow as the girls took the taxis from the rack, stepped between the shafts and hauled them to a waiting line. Then when they got to the front they took it into the first open harnessing bay and walked back to pick up another taxi.
It took about fifteen minutes before she felt they’d gotten as much as they could just standing there watching.
“Good girls!” she told them. “Follow!” She walked to the other side, obviously confident that they were following her.
The 2nd street harnessing bay was empty, as advertised. She walked over and pulled one of the extra full racks down.
“Watch!” she commanded as she took one off the rack. Then she put it back in slow motion so that they could see exactly what she did. She did it three more times, and then she motioned Audry forward to do it.
Audry managed to fumble just about everything imaginable.
“Good girl!” Jenny praised her. Audry shot her an incredulous look, or at least as much of one as she could manage around the mouthpiece.
Jenny looked back as if she hadn’t noticed anything, and motioned for her to try again. This time she was smoother. Jenny corrected her movements a few times until she could take a taxi off the rack and put it back flawlessly. Then she started on Ceil, who had been standing there watching.
Ceil did better on her first try. Jenny had Audry show her how to do it when she fumbled.
“Good girls!” Vicky said from behind her.
“Huh?” Jenny spun around.
“You’ve got them better than I expected. Let’s do the movement next, and then take them over to 1st street and see how they do.”
“I’d call that a success,” Vicky said as she and Jenny watched the 1st street harnessing operation on the monitors.
“So would I,” Jeff’s voice boomed from behind them. “Are they going to stay?”
“Who knows?” Jenny answered. “It’s a win either way.” She frowned in concentration at the display of Audry’s mental process, and made a minor adjustment to the conditioning rules.
“The computer should take them off shift in an hour or so, and then we’ll see if they go back on command this afternoon. It’s going to be interesting seeing how this plays out.”
“Isn’t it just,” Vicky answered. “Jenny, clean up and scat before you’re late for class.”
Jenny looked at the clock and winced. She picked up her handbag and hurried out the door.
“Audry!” Shelly exclaimed. “I haven’t seen you for weeks!” She continued in a lower voice as she slid out of the booth she normally occupied to give her friend an enthusiastic hug: “I though the cops had picked you up, but I didn’t hear anything about a sweep.”
“No such luck,” Audry said as they settled at Shelly’s booth.
“So what have you been doing?” Shelly asked.
“I’ve been working. Without credit,” she answered.
“You decided to ease back into the system?”
“No, it decided to latch onto me. You know I’ve been playing ponygirl to stay at the taxi stable without anyone catching on?”
“Why you went to all that work?” Shelly shrugged. “Setting it up for you was fun, but I know I wouldn’t if I decided to drop out.”
“It seemed good at the time, and I thought it was working. Then this new girl shows up a few times a week. Looks like a college student. One day she walks up, picks me and Ceil out of the crowd, trains us on one of the jobs and puts us to work. No warning. One minute we’re standing there, a couple of hours later we’re in the line hauling taxis from the rack to the harnessing stations.
“And to top it off she acts like she believes we’re real ponygirls.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Nope. I wasn’t sure whether to run when I got off shift or hide. So I stayed a couple of days, and then tried to sneak off. No problem. No problem coming back either. Tonight’s the first night I decided to hit the haunts.”
Shelly just shook her head. “So they’ve got you working?”
“Regularly. I must be putting in four, five hours a day in the harnessing and unharnessing lines. And that’s really bugging me.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not the work. Frankly, I’m a bit happier that I’m doing something to pay back for the bed and nutrients. What’s bugging me is that I’m acting like one of their ponygirls.”
“How so?” Shelly leaned forward.
“They’ve got this work assignment system. Some kind of code words come over the speakers. Every time they do, some of the ponygirls drop what they’re doing and go do something else. I seem to be reacting to the damn thing, and I haven’t got any idea how it’s done.”
“Let me check something,” Shelly said. She slid her reader out of her purse. Her fingers twitched on the back for a bit as she looked at what it told her.
“I can tell you one thing. They’re not only on to you, they were on to you the first day you walked in.”
“Damn!”
“Your ponygirl collar’s got different programming than I put in.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“The masking routine for the brain scan is gone. It’s got something else that connects to both the scanner and the stimulators. I’d say,” she paused a moment, “they’re conditioning you.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. That’s a conditioning setup.”
“So they’re training me to be a real ponygirl?”
“At least while you’re on premises. This is a pure guess, but I think they’d be in real trouble if they tried to go all the way themselves. If they wanted that, they’d call the police and have you picked up.”
“And the police would turn me into a real ponygirl.”
“Or engine.”
“Yuck!”
“Oh, absolutely. If I was you, I’d find another hole to crawl into, fast.”
“I’m not so sure,” Audry answered thoughtfully. “And that’s what’s really bothering me. When I’m working, time just seems to flow and I feel good. Better than I’ve ever felt working. I might be getting addicted.”
“Well,” Shelly looked at her acquaintance, “I’d say you’re on the slide to becoming a ponygirl, for real and officially. They’re letting you take your time, but the longer you stay there the more they’re going to train you. And if it really is addictive, one day you’re just going to quit sticking your head out of the hole.”
“You think so?”
“I’m pretty sure of it.” She paused. “When I started doing the hacker thing, I knew it was dangerous, but I wanted to give the system the finger. I found out a few things. I’m not really outside of the system, and neither are you.
“They know about me, and they know about you, and they’re ignoring both of us – as long as we don’t contribute to too much disorder.” She picked up her reader again and studied it for a while.
“You seem to have walked into it. Your college student spent a few months working for Reliable Ponygirl and Engine Training before she got sent off to college. Her dossier lists a bunch of qualifications that don’t mean much to me, and has some blocked areas. I’d say she noticed you and asked for permission to train you and put you to work.”
“She asked for permission?”
“More than likely. She looks like she’s staying inside the system the same way I’m staying inside it. Know where the line is, and give yourself a decent safety margin.”
“I wish there was a way ...” Audry said.
Shelly picked up her reader again and looked at it. “If you really want to keep walking on the sharp edge of disaster, I’d suggest talking to Jenny.”
“Jenny?”
“That’s your student’s name. You didn’t know?”
“That’s her? I don’t think I ever heard it, besides I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying.” She stopped, startled at hearing what she’d just said.
“Damn! They’re further into me than I thought. I used to listen to whatever I could pick up.”
“Ponygirls aren’t supposed to understand what people say,” Shelly said idly as she studied her reader. “I really think you should get out right now. Or at least talk to her.”
“How? I can’t talk on premises.”
“At least without taking out that silly prosthetic.” She nodded. “Hold up your reader.”
Audry dug the device from her purse, and Shelly “I’ve given you a one-time contact. If she wants to talk to you, she’ll set the rest up.”
Jenny discovers Audry, and a few other fake ponygirls as well. Untrained ponygirl. Ponygirl trainer. Audry finally figures out what’s happening. So what does she do about it? You’re going to have to wait for the next exciting episode of Ponygirl Minder to find out.
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