Talking Trouble blinked, still on his knees on the carpet. He slowly lowered his hands submissively to the floor, palms up, fingers deliberately relaxed, and said, "I'm not sure what it is you want to know, master?"

Fuck. Frank decided to reorient himself as if this were a mission, and instead said, "Who enslaved you?"

A pause. Then, with the air of someone who very much did not want to talk about it, "Do you mean the intake officer at the government office, master, or the guardian who first signed me over?"

That raised way more questions. "Intake officer? Government office? The US government in your shithole universe runs the trafficking ring?"

Talking Trouble looked more confused than before. "I'm not aware of any trafficking rings running out of the United States Government, master, I apologize--"

Frank's eyebrows raised, and then a suspicion arose. "How did you get sold into slavery? The process, not just the people."

Talking Trouble's face goes briefly pained and then smooths out into complete calm, and he recites like he's practiced, "My guardian--Stick--took me to the government intake office and signed me into slavery. Then the intake officer started the initial examination, and upon finding my blindness transferred me to the defectives unit of the bureau's branch in New York--"

This sounded way, way more official and bigger than any trafficking ring. "The government is involved is this. You being enslaved is legal in your universe?"

"I--yes, of course, master, I'm not a captive or anything of that sort, I'm a slave, class M--"

"Explain what that means. Detailed."

Talking Trouble looks like he's swallowed a lemon when he says, "Class M slaves are unable to be freed in any capacity for any reason in any circumstance due to the potential threat to society they pose if freed. According to the Constitution--sorry, master, I don't recall the number of the amendment, please punish me as you see fit."

Frank shakes his head, forces himself to just go after the intel. "Keep going. It's fine."

"Thank you, master," and Talking Trouble bends further to the floor and tries to reach out more to kiss Frank's hand, and Frank goes still. Apparently recognizing the slow burning something in Frank's gut, he quickly goes on, "According to an amendment of the Constitution, put into practice immediately following the conclusion of the Civil War, slavery became legal only when a human is enslaved based on the punishment of a crime, the rights of guardians to surrender their children into slavery, the payment of a debt, or the dependency of the human being such that they could only survive in slavery," and here his voice sounds like even he can't quite believe the last point, "And while many other classes of slaves can be freed, depending on various legal processes and practical circumstances, class-M slaves are such that they have performed any single violent act as slaves and thus cannot be trusted with free will as free people."

Frank breathes in and out, something icy in his gut, growing. "What qualifies you as that?"

"The slaves which qualify as class-M are those with any work in butchery, slaughtering animals, executing runaway slaves, performing overseer duty and thus using physical violence to punish fellow slaves, bodyguarding and thus being able to use retaliatory or preventative physical violence, any contact sport such as mixed martial arts, any form of interrogation or killing work and/or experience in any military or private army, and any knowledge of any form of self-defense. I was immediately placed into class M when sold due to the fact that Stick attempted to teach me forms of martial arts as well as some bodyguarding work, master."

Frank zeroes in on that. "How old were you?"

Talking Trouble, eyes lowered, says "Eleven and eleven months, master."

Twelve. Frank feels a faint static in his muscles, an itch. He ignores it, gathers more intel.

"So let me see if I understand you correctly," he says. "Your world has legalized, socially acceptable slavery in the US, where parents can sell their kids, criminals can get sold, people can be seized to pay debts and sold, and people with disabilities or something can be sold. And if they have any 'experience' with basic things, if they butcher a single chicken, they can't be free. Ever."

"Yes, master," Talking Trouble says. Frank hears nothing but a very quiet scream for a minute, and then the sound of the shitty air conditioner and heating comes back, the hum of the minifridge, the way Talking Trouble's collar--and he's wearing a fucking leather collar, fuck--hangs around his throat, brushes just slightly against the too-big T-shirt.

Frank makes himself look at the T-shirt, and sees the logo 'PROPERTY OF AMEX AGENCIES' across the front. It's not a joke like those 'property of Harvard' shirts.

Something inside of him clicks into place like a safety, and he knows, he just knows that if he ever gets a chance, he's going to go into that world and kill every single slave-owner, everyone in the US government too, every 'intake officer', every parent that has ever sold one of their kids, starting with this Stick.

It doesn't even feel like rage, it feels like cold, something inexorable and unstoppable. It's a force inside of him, a wind whistling in his ears.

That's when the six mooks start shooting.