When they were flying Carmella around, after they arrived at the terminal in Chicago their usual routine was that Bubbles would park the plane then immediately fetch the parked limo to drive Carmella back to the apartment. After dropping her mistress off she would return to the airport to retrieve Yum-Yum. While Bubbles was gone, Yum-Yum would change she sheets, wipe the toys down to remove any blood, clean the interior and replace any goodies that may have been consumed.

As always, after the plane was parked Bubbles told her passengers to follow her and that she would get them to the apartment. Yum-Yum headed toward the back of the plane and Bubbles started to hustle her charges out the door at the front of the airplane. With Yum-Yum disappearing into the back, Nancy asked what was going on. As soon as she was told she put a stop to it and told Yum-Yum it was unnecessary that she do the cleaning and other things immediately. She had a feeling that it would be better if Yum-Yum accompanied them to the apartment. She didn't have a specific reason for that feeling, but she wanted to keep the two slaves in sight until she knew them better. Although it was a bit of a tight squeeze, they all managed to cram themselves into the limo.

Bubbles and Yum-Yum were at the rear of the group as they all approached Carmella's apartment building. The doorman was doing his job and was paying attention to the approaching group. He didn't recognize them, but he watched with growing admiration and anticipation as the entourage of slaves advanced. While he savored the pulchritude he began to think about charging an 'admission fee'. His only hesitation about doing that was he also wondered what it was all about; why were they here, and who were they going to see. When he recognized Bubbles and Yum-Yum he knew those two belonged to a resident, so he reverted to simply ogling the new slaves. Particularly Rita. He had a love for redheads and Rita was more than worth ogling. He was a little surprised that Carmella had acquired new slaves; especially so many, but he looked forward with great anticipation to using the new supply of pussy and receiving many blowjobs from them. Nancy had instructed Bubbles and Yum-Yum to not say anything about Carmella's status because Craig had instructed her to not advertise the situation until it became necessary to do so. As they passed through the lobby Bubbles told the doorman that the newcomers would be staying in Carmella's apartment for a few days while Carmella was out of town, and that Nancy was free. He had assumed that because she was fully clothed, but Bubbles thought it worth mentioning just to be sure he knew.

When they entered the apartment, Pig, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Duh all jumped to their feet to assume the 'greet mistress' position. They had no sooner launched themselves into motion when Bubbles told them to relax because Carmella wasn't with them. The relief on their faces was almost comical it was so obvious. Bubbles turned to Nancy, addressed her as ma'am, then asked if she was going to explain things. Nancy asked what their names were. Bubbles pointed at Tweedle Dee, identified her, then pointed at Tweedle Duh, naming her. Nancy had expected the second one to be named Tweedle Dum, then when she wasn't, she stopped Bubbles to say, "I thought the pair were named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Bubbles confirmed that, then went on to explain that Tweedle Dum had been 'accidentally' killed and that Carmella's friend had suggested the name Tweedle Duh when Carmella acquired a replacement for her. Nancy just shook her head in mild wonderment. Bubbles finished the introductions by naming Pig. Nancy blurted "What?" Bubbles said resignedly, "Yeah, that's the name she gave her. It used to be Foo-Foo, so I'm not really sure which one is worse."

Nancy dug into her pocket for her cell phone. As she was doing that she said to no one in particular, "I was told to call home once we got here anyway, but I gotta see about this." She looked at Bubbles since Bubbles seemed to be the one taking charge with Carmella's slaves, telling her, "That woman is a fucking idiot, naming slaves like that. You explain things, I'm gonna see about changing a few things right now. Do something about dinner too, I'm hungry." Sasha immediately broke away from the group evidently heading toward the kitchen. Nancy stopped her, telling her that she had more important things to do and that one of Carmella's slaves would handle the food situation. She looked at her group and told them to get to work and to start looking. They didn't wait to be shown where things were; they just took off in the direction they expected would take them to Carmella's office. Home offices are almost always in a bedroom, so that was the direction they headed. Carmella's apartment was large enough that she hadn't converted a bedroom, but that didn't really matter because hey were headed in the right direction anyway.

Carmella's slaves thought they should stop the newcomers because it just wasn't right that they be given free rein in the apartment, and they were afraid that Carmella would take out her displeasure on them if they allowed it. But since a free woman had told the others to "start looking" and neither Bubbles nor Yum-Yum seemed the least bit concerned, they shut up and waited to be told what was going on. The free woman had drifted out of the room with her cell phone held to her ear, and her slaves had all gone into the back, so they turned their attention to Bubbles.

It took a minute or so before Brenda got Craig on the phone. Evidently he had been busy with Carmella. When he was on the line Nancy told him that they had just walked in the door. Then she said, "You're not going to believe this. She named the pilot Bubbles. The stewardess is Yum-Yum, although she looks every inch like her name, so it kinda fits her. She has three more; Tweedle Dee, Tweedle Duh, and get this... Pig. By the way; that stunning blonde reporter you were so hot over... she's a slave here. She's Tweedle Duh." He laughed, then commented that it was interesting that the reporter was a slave. He asked Nancy if she had learned how that happened, or if she had been a slave all along. Nancy reiterated her statement of a minute ago and emphasized that they had just walked in the door and that she had not had time to learn anything. She promised to get an answer before she checked in again in the next day. Craig thought she was done, having fulfilled his request that she call to report a safe arrival. She held him one more minute saying, "Boss, I'll transfer the other three to your account and I already did the pilot and stew... but boss, can I change all their names back to their real names? I can't go around calling one "Pig" and another "Tweedle something."

Just then they both heard a loud squeal of delight coming from elsewhere in the apartment. Craig took a guess and suggested that they must have heard Nancy make that request. Nancy told him that wasn't possible because the slaves were in another room and that she had been speaking softly. She said it was no doubt caused by the news that Carmella no longer owned them. She had no sooner gotten those words out then they heard a loud cheer and raucous laughter. Nancy laughed also then said, "I think they were just told you plan to turn the rich bitch into a pauper. Don't worry, I'll make sure they keep their mouths shut, but that all had to know, they might be able to help. Besides," she said with a hint of nervousness, "the pilot is smart. She figured out what was happening immediately, so there was no benefit to starting out things with a lie; I had to tell her." Craig heard the tremulous tone of her voice as she said that, then quickly affirmed that had done the right thing in telling them.

Nancy was ready to hang up but he prevented her from saying good-bye by asking a question. He said it seemed a bit strange that the slaves would be as happy as they apparently were simply by now being owned by someone else. He asked her if it also struck her the same way. As soon as he asked the question she realized that it had seemed strange to her too. She mentioned Bubbles reaction, then pointed out that the euphoria came from all of them, even when they were separated, so it wasn't one of them inspiring the others. After a moment's thought he added a suggestion. "Dig into that. Play on that emotion and see if you can find out what's going on. You might even find a bottle of wine or two and suggest they have a celebratory drink... a toast to their new owner if nothing else. Loosen them up; get them to relax and let their guards down, then see if they'll talk. Don't press. If they're too nervous to have a drink, drop the idea. If they don't want to talk, don't push it."

She chuckled. "I love that idea. Yeah, ok boss, I got it."

Nancy went back to Carmella's slaves. As she approached them their demeanor sobered as they forced a respectful calm onto themselves to await her orders. She opened up her laptop telling them they would begin with the basics. She said the first thing she was going to do was to transfer ownership of the three remaining slaves, then to change all their names. None of them showed any reaction to that announcement until she continued. "As of this moment you all have new names. They're the names you had before you were enslaved." Tweedle Duh... now back to being Shannon... muttered, "Oh thank god." Angela nodded, adding, "Now I can go back to being called Angel." Nancy looked at her and asked, "Angel?" Angela nodded. "Yes ma'am. Short for Angela. Angel was the call sign I used when I was a pilot in the Air Force."

Nancy looked at Angela with heightened respect. Being an Air Force pilot was a very worthy credential to have. She said, "I want to hear how an Air Force pilot became a slave, but not right now. Right now I have more important things to do. Maybe we'll talk about that over dinner, or after. Speaking of dinner..." She looked at the five slaves. Four of the five looked at Yum-Yum. She took the hint. "I'm Alessandra. Alex to my friends. I cooked for the bitch fairly often. Right after she bought me I had to cook something for her and as soon as she tasted it she said 'yum, yum'. Then she looked at me and told me that was my name. Most people assumed she named me that because of my looks, but she didn't. Anyway, I suppose I'm the best choice for fixing dinner. Do you have a request?"

Nancy chuckled and said with some degree of wonder, "You can cook to requests?"

Alessandra nodded. "That's assuming we have it of course. But cooking was my hobby while I modeled and I got pretty good at it. It was the best way I found to have something low in calories and still tasty and filling. Mostly low in calories though."

As she shooed Alex off into the kitchen Nancy commented, "You and Sasha have a lot in common. I suspect you two will hit it off together. This is great. Sasha has wanted to go to a two year cooking school for quite a while. Craig... that's your new master... wants to send her, but he doesn't want to lose her for that length of time because he fell in love with her meals and he doesn't want to give her up for that long because none of the others can replace her in the kitchen. Now I'm sure he'll let her go."

Alex wondered about what she had just heard but she didn't question it aloud. A slave wants to go to a two-year school and he's going to allow her to go? And how can the free one be so sure that he'll let her?

By this time KD returned from wherever it was that she had disappeared to. When she had first entered the apartment she began peering into corners, along the walls, and doing other unlikely things. Her behavior aroused the curiosity of all of Carmella's slaves but none of them had questioned it. Now she stood off to one side, clearly waiting for Nancy to finish what she was doing. Nancy noticed, then looked at her to ask, "Do you need anything?" KD answered that she was waiting for her to finish so she could talk to the slaves without interrupting anything. Nancy gave her the go-ahead, saying that she was off to find Carmella's computer and to get to work.

As Nancy departed, KD looked at the others and asked which one had been Carmella's slave the longest. One raised her hand, but didn't say anything. With her hand extended, KD walked toward her saying, "Kathleen Diane; but everyone, including the master, calls me KD. Pleased to meet you." Her target relaxed and smiled a welcome in return. She reached forward to accept KD's hand. "It's so nice not to have to say 'Pig' any longer. My name's Irene, and its my pleasure."

KD jumped right into it by asking if, while Irene had lived here, Carmella had ever had any renovations or physical repairs done to the apartment. Irene assured her that there had been none, then asked why. She asked what was it that KD was looking for. KD answered truthfully, admitting that she really didn't know. She said that it could be anything that had been hidden away. Anything from a computer to a safe, but was most likely a flash drive, an external hard drive or even an old style floppy disk. She said it might be a paper file, or it might not exist at all. Irene knew exactly what KD was looking for and where it was. But she also knew it was well hidden and it was unlikely that KD would ever find it. Given those circumstances she kept her silence while wondering if there might be some way she could work this into a deal to her advantage. She decided that she had to know more about these people, particularly about their... now her... master. She could afford to wait and see how things developed.

Carmella's office was instantly recognizable for what it was, so the four slaves pushed and jostled each other, each trying to get through the door first. They were stunned by what they saw. The large display detailing Carmella's war-fighting structure, with Craig's picture in the center, dominated the entire room. Rita was the first to approach it closely and to begin reading the names and other information that was summarized on it. It didn't take her long before she recognized the names of many of the people, and for those not employed by Shadow Industries, she was familiar with the name of the company they worked for and its relationship to Shadow Industries. It quickly became evident what this thing represented. The others were similarly studying the details, so when Rita announced her conclusion that this was Carmella's spy network, and this was the key to how she was planning to destroy Craig, the others could not dispute that. Rita was appalled to see some of the names she saw, then wondered out loud how Carmella had managed to recruit them into her army. Sasha, who had always been somewhat worldlier than her sister answered with a single word. "Money." She followed up with the offer of a bet, staking three lickings to one, that they would find a file or pay register, detailing the payments Carmella had made to each person, and that they wouldn't be small payments. Gina somewhat snidely said she wouldn't take that bet if it was offered at twenty to one.

Vivian drew herself away from the rogue's gallery and went to Carmella's desk. When she got there she told the others they were wasting their time because while what they were staring at might be interesting, it wasn't what they were there to find. That caused the others to turn away from the board to begin looking for other things to examine. Vivian was already at work in the desk, having opened the top drawer. Aside from the expected pens, pencils and other stuff, there was nothing of interest in it. She pulled the drawer out completely, held it so that she could examine the bottom, looking for something taped to the underside, then peered inside the opening. Satisfied that there was nothing hidden she replaced the drawer then opened a second drawer to repeat the process. The others had been watching her and took note of the thoroughness with which she was going about the job. That set the standard for all of them.

When she opened the second drawer Vivian saw it was filled with hanging folders stuffed with papers. She realized this drawer was going to take time because she intended to look carefully at every piece of paper until she was confident that she could trust determining the contents of an entire folder by examining only a few pages. Whether that would be possible would depend entirely on how organized and careful Carmella was. She would eventually learn that Carmella was very careful and very well organized. When Sasha saw what Vivian was doing she joined her at the desk, then asked if she wanted help. Vivian immediately accepted that offer and motioned to the drawers on the other side of the desk. She opined that it might make more sense if one person did the entire contents of a drawer just in case that might help in forming an overall understanding. Sasha opened the top drawer on the other side, saw it was filled with files also, so she pulled the drawer out completely to carry it to an open area, then sat on the floor to begin her reading and searching.

Rita and Gina looked at each other. The walls of the room were lined with wall units comprised of lower cabinets and upper shelves. Some of the shelves contained knick-knacks and other decorations, but there were books and binders too. There would be a lot of searching needed. Rita gestured to Gina, saying, "Pick a side." Gina shrugged, went to the end of one section of cabinets and started looking. Rita went to the other side of the room.

Nancy walked in to a quiet room with all four slaves industriously digging through their trove of papers, or whatever. She looked at the desk and saw a mouse and computer monitor on it with nothing underneath it. That told her either Carmella plugged in her laptop, which had yet to be found, or there was a tower computer sitting in or under the desk. That was Nancy's assigned job and since there was no way to avoid shooing Vivian onto the floor, Vivian went to sit next to Sasha without being told to do so.

Nancy found a tall, narrow door next to the still-spacious kneehole. She was sure the keyboard would be found sitting on top of the tower behind the door. The confirmation of that was going to have to wait however. A soft tug, followed by a harder tug proved that the door was locked. She was delighted to find that. A locked door virtually guaranteed that the computer would not be password protected. It would be far easier and faster to open the door than to crack a password, and a locked door was more than sufficient to keep slaves out of the computer. She didn't bother looking for the key. That was undoubtedly in Carmella's purse back in Eastlake. She mentally kicked herself, thinking they should have thought of that. She should have taken the purse, or at least taken all the keys and Craig could have kept the rest if he wanted it. Too late now. Thankfully though, Bubbles had had a key to the apartment in her flightsuit. But now she needed access to the computer behind the locked door. That called for KD.

KD walked into the office in response to the summons, followed by Irene. Nancy didn't know why the other slave had followed, but neither did she care. Without wasting any time she asked if KD was any good at picking locks. Given where Nancy was sitting, the specific of what needed to be picked was pretty evident. The answer was "If I can use a hammer I'm great, otherwise not so good." Nancy told her to go find a hammer. Irene spoke up, offering to show KD where the tools were kept. KD responded, "No need, I brought my own. I expected to need them." KD disappeared for a few seconds then returned with a large canvas bag filled with tools. She went to the desk and pulled out a large screwdriver and a hammer. Using brute force and a minimum of delicacy she had the door open in seconds. That told Irene a lot. These people were not playing around. They were determined, and not afraid to do whatever was necessary to quickly get their jobs done. That also told her that she had better make her pitch to the unseen master before too long if she hoped to have any bargaining power. But now was too soon. She knew Nancy had to play with the computer for a while before the time would be right. That probably meant later tonight or tomorrow.