A Pirate's Life for Mei

Captain Fowler

Fowler

Like all too many people, Captain Kenneth Fowler had an insufferable boss: Governor Rudigus Harrington. And right now, the morning after unprecedented disaster, having not had a moment's respite or sleep, Fowler was standing in the governor's office, getting quite an earful, silently wishing he could pull out a pistol and shoot the arrogant, fleshy bugger right in the face.

But he couldn't do that. Because Prisoner 5-9-1988, Mei Ling, had her grubby, stupid...infuriating hands on his custom-made, one-of-a-kind flintlock pistols!

How he despised that woman. He'd never been so furious in all his forty-two years. He couldn't wait to get his hands on her again. And when he did, he'd strangle her. He'd drown her. He'd stake her to the sand on the beach and let the sun cook her as the ants ate her. He'd torture her in all the most brutal and painful ways that he could think of—a hundred times over. Because she had not only stolen his beautiful sword and his two prize pistols, but she was responsible for the incredibly humiliating position that he now found himself in. It was all he could do to maintain his usual calm and dignified pose while his boss's spittle flew all over him in the other man's uncontrolled rage.

Governor Harrington was fat and quite ugly, an English toad of a man. He dressed the part he played to perfection in a long, blood-red coat that went below the knees, his oddly thin legs in black tights and his shoes made of black leather. The coat was very heavily embroidered with gold thread and a snow-white cravat poured from his neck like a winter waterfall. A thick, dark-haired wig, curly and hanging past his shoulders, covered his mostly bald head. A wart had taken up residence on his chin and decided to expand, apparently unchecked, with long, dark hairs sprouting from it. His vein-riddled nose was evidence of his over-fondness for the bottle.

While he wasn't known for being overly capable, he was known for being quite the political animal, which is why he was a governor in the prison system, in charge of a small but very profitable colony. He was the kind of man that took credit for the good work done by those under him, such as the work generally performed by Fowler. And Harrington routinely sought every opportunity to pass any blame onto others as well. He was not overly intelligent, but he could be cunning when it came to self-serving behaviour. And everything he did was self-serving.

Harrington, at the moment, was red faced and fuming. "You buffoon! You simpleton!" he shouted, jowls shaking. "How could you lose an entire ship—a brig—to one lowly wench? The entire administrative staff is laughing at me and the board is threatening to remove me from my position. All because of your bloody incompetence!" He slammed a meaty fist onto his oak-wood desk.

The office was immaculate, an artist's rendering of luxurious colonial surroundings. One wall was floor-to-ceiling glass doors that looked out over the small colony and the aquamarine bay beyond. The walls of the room were milk white and the shiny, satin drapes around the windows shimmered a deep, royal blue. The floor was black marble veined with more white. The desk took up a third of the space, and a pair of deep, green-leather couches filled the rest.

A beautiful NPC slave girl of Spanish blood, dressed only in pink, modern lingerie, lounged on one of the couches reading an erotic romance novel, waiting to be played with. The governor heartily enjoyed his digital playthings and had a dozen laying about the large mansion in various states of undress.

Harrington's wife lived outside the prison system, in the real world. While she undoubtedly suspected his activities inside the prison, rumour had it that she preferred it to suffering his attentions herself. Who could blame her? Besides, with him in here, she got to spend his entire corporate executive salary on herself.

A black NPC butler stood in the corner of the office, gray head always bowed, awaiting whatever orders or abuse the governor cared to throw at him. He was a favourite toy, secretly reprogrammed to be wholly subservient and utterly unaware of racism or affirmative action or anything of the kind. Unlike the NPCs living outside the mansion, he was incapable of rebellion.