D2-670A
Part 6
"Daphne, wait up!"
Daphne turned at the sound of her name and saw two figures approaching her along
the dimly lit sidewalk. She tensed, but a moment later one of them became
recognizable as Shana. Another stunning woman was with her and they were both
dressed strangely in ill-fitting sweat suits.
"I'm so glad you're back," said Shana as they came along side Daphne. "I was
just staring to think you were staying somewhere else. Oh, this is Rene by the
way."
Daphne nodded a greeting at the stunning woman. There was something amiss here.
She could sense it. "Are you okay? You guys look ..."
"Yeah, we know. It's a long story and we'll tell you all about it. But for now
can we go inside? We're not sure how safe it is out here."
Despite her sense of unease, Daphne had been about to say "It's been a really
long day, and I've spent a good part of it being held hostage, so can you maybe
come back tomorrow/" when something in Shana's tone struck a nerve. The look on
both the women's faces confirmed it.
"Okay, come on in. Then you can tell me what's going on."
"Thank you," said the stunning woman, speaking for the first time in a tone that
conveyed just how relieved she was.
Whatever was up, Daphne reasoned, it was evidently big.
Just how big, wasn't revealed until fifteen minutes later when Rene activated
her D-key and gave Daphne her first look at an operational gateway between
dimensions.
*****
Marcus sighed in frustration as he stood in the bedroom of the empty house.
Shana Rodiegez and, more importantly, Rene were nowhere to be found.
"Maybe we should just call it a day and roll with what we've already picked up,"
said Tarrant, looking on from his seat at a somewhat battered old study desk.
Tarrant was referring to the young woman the Team had kidnapped when they'd
commandeered a vehicle near the arrival point. Kitara had played her role
perfectly - running out into the path of the car, hands tied behind her back and
eyes wide in mock panic above her gag. The young woman had screeched to a halt
before Kitara, and climbed from the car saying "What's going on?", before Rufus
had wrapped her in a huge bear hug. A few minutes later, the Retrieval Team were
seated in the car and ready to roll, while the unfortunate woman was tightly
bound and gagged and stashed in the trunk of her own car. Marcus had let Tarrant
do the tying, and watched with admiration as the little man went to work on his
victim, roping her wrists to her ankles, and then adding to it by tying her
thumbs to her big toes with thin twine. A choke cord attached to the spare tire
had ensured she wouldn't be trying to attract any unwanted attention, while the
head-harnessed rubber bladder that Tarrant had stuffed in her mouth and inflated
via the attached hand pump had served to reinforce that fact. Their new
acquisition in place, Marcus had used a map book in the car to plot a route to
Shana's address and they had been on their way with Rufus behind the wheel.
"We're not leaving without her," said Marcus evenly. "You'll just have to wait
to play with your new slave."
Tarrant shrugged. "You're the boss, boss. I was just offering a suggestion." He
scratched his head lightly. "So, where to now?"
By way of an answer, Marcus activated the processor block and again tried to
locate Rene with the tracking program. The block was well oriented now, so he
only had to wait a few moments before Rene's location was revealed to him. She'd
evidently stopped moving and was ... apparently ten miles north-east.
"Got her. She's less than half an hour away and currently stationary."
"All right then," said Tarrant eagerly. "Let's get this over with."
"Wait a minute." Marcus chewed on his lower lip. Maybe spreading their resources
a little more thinly was the order of the day - just in case they missed Rene
again. He was also thinking there had to be a big chance the Shana girl would
return home, if only to get changed and freshen up. And if they were already
linked, there was no reason why Rene wouldn't still be traveling with her ...
Someone was going to have wait here, just in case. Obviously he was going to
lead the chase himself, and he wanted Rufus with him to handle anyone who posed
a problem. Kitara, while a loyal slave, was just a female and could not be
trusted completely. Which left just one option.
"Tarrant," said Marcus, "How would you feel about waiting here in case we miss
Rene and she heads back this way?"
Tarrant frowned for a moment, before his mouth curled into a hopeful smile. "Can
I look after our new slave as well?"
Marcus was prepared for the question. He knew the way Tarrant's mind worked.
"Of course."
*****
Lois Davenport emerged from her private dungeon looking two parts flushed, and
three parts annoyed.
"This had better be good," she snapped at her Head of Security who stood
casually in the corridor leading to the dungeon. "I was right in the middle of
showing Dr. Landcom the wooden horse."
Christian suppressed a smile and handed over the tapes he had taken from
Veronica. It seemed that in one night Lois was determined to put her new
"plaything" through every ordeal that she herself had suffered at the hands of
Veronica. And on the subject of that particular individual ...
"I thought you should know that the woman who normally calls the shots in
there," Christian motioned toward the dungeon, "Stormed out of here quite
dramatically a short while ago."
Lois grasped the tapes in her gloved hands. "So? How is that my concern?"
"I engaged the tracking device on the company car she took, and she's headed
right for the Arnold residence."
"The lab assistant I specifically ordered freed?"
Christian nodded. "The same."
He watched as Lois took a deep, searching-for-calm breath. "So you think
Veronica's going to 'reacquire' this girl?"
"It would seem so, yes."
"Well explain to me then, Christian, how acquiring her at this early stage will
permit her to lead us to others who know too much about Dr. Landcom's
experiments?"
"Now you see why I brought this decision to you personally. Do you want me to
stop Veronica?"
There was a slight pause as Lois considered the implications of her response.
"Yes, and then I want you to bring her to me, here, in the dungeon. We're going
to have to have a long discussion about corporate policy."
Christian clamped down on the thrill of triumph that coursed through him.
Finally, after all these years, his greatest rival within Davidson Global had
caused him his final problem. He was just one drive and a few knots away from
having Veronica Sloane, meddling bitch, out of his hair for good.
"Consider it done." Christian spun on his heel and half-jogged down the corridor
away from his employer.
*****
It had taken near on an hour of explaining, supplemented by a graphic
demonstration of the gateway, but Rene suspected she had finally made a second
convert out of Shana's friend, Daphne.
The three women sat about in Daphne's small TV room. Rene and Daphne were
sitting side by side on the main couch while Shana looked on from her precarious
position on a blow-up arm chair.
"What about an education? Do the women in your dimension go through school?"
Daphne asked in the latest of a long stream of questions.
"Essentially, yes. But it's not the same as what I understand happens here. You
two would have been to a school with the boys of your age and progressed through
a set number of years, correct?"
Daphne and Shana nodded together.
"Well in my dimension all the girls are sent away to boarding schools when
they're six. And that's where they live until the end of our thirteenth year of
schooling." Rene felt the anger stirring within her as she recalled her past.
"The first twelve years involve being taught all the things I imagine any child
of this dimension learns - English, Mathematics, Science, History, and all the
rest of it. But the last is 'Prep Year'."
"Prep Year?" prompted Shana.
"The year in which we're trained in restraint and how to serve our future
Masters."
"Doesn't sound like much fun," said Daphne quietly.
Rene shrugged. "That depends on whether your idea of fun is being bound into a
straight backed chair for hours on end and having to learn the law on
appropriate bondage states for females." She smiled humorously. "Can you imagine
it? A whole class of eighteen year old girls being tormented like that."
"Did you ever try to escape?" asked Shana.
"Escape? To where? Until I was purchased by my Mast- by Marcus, there was
nowhere for me to escape to. You have to remember, my whole world is like this.
Females are programmed from pretty much the day they're born to be subservient
to males. We live, we serve, we die. It's the law - and even worse, it's the
natural order of things."
"But you made it this far," said Shana, "surely there are others like you."
Rene's emotions were racing. It was so unfair. These two women had no idea how
precious it was to be free. To call no-one "Master". To be able to make a
mistake without fear of sudden and painful reprisal. No words of hers would ever
be able to explain it to them, and if they were lucky they'd never have to
experience it for themselves. As far as she was concerned, being bound and
gagged for a few hours hardly cut it. Being a slave was infinitely worse -
especially when you took into account that the slave's of her world had no hope
of escape. Unless their new Master happened to be rich enough to own a D-key ...
"Yes," Rene said eventually. "A few. A secret group of women who worship a
special Goddess. My aim is to eventually join them. No matter how long it
takes."
There was silence for a few moments as each of the women realized continuing the
conversation would be awkward at this early stage. Finally, Daphne stood.
"Okay, we have to work out what we're going to do. Rene, do you think there's
any chance my encounter tonight was in someway related to your Retrieval Team?"
Daphne had told them about her ordeal at the hands of the woman in leather after
Rene and Shana had been through their respective stories. The coincidences in
their situations had escaped no-one, but Rene's world and all its differences
had commanded the bulk of attention until now.
"You said you were attacked in the early evening?"
Daphne nodded.
"Then no, because I didn't arrive until that time. The Retrieval Team must have
been at least forty five minutes behind me because that's how long it took me to
get loose and rescue Shana."
"So that means we're dealing with a different person or group who has the tapes,
and probably Heather." Daphne sighed heavily. "Great."
Rene rubbed her chin. "Whatever happens, we need to find her. Despite the fact
that she's obviously in trouble, opening another portal is the only way I'll be
able to elude the Team chasing me for any length of time. And I want to be out
of here before I lead them to you."
"But she could be anywhere," said Shana.
Daphne began to pace - something Rene had noticed she did a great deal when deep
in thought. "I've left a message for her at her hotel, but that's really all I
can do from here. Unless we go to the police."
"No," said Rene quickly. "No police. If they take me in for any reason, I'll be
a sitting duck for whoever's chasing me."
Daphne opened her mouth to argue but was cut off by the roar of the front door
exploding inwards in a spectacular shower of wooden splinters. Unfortunately,
Daphne's pacing took her in line with the doorway at exactly the wrong moment,
and the force of the blast caught her squarely, lifting her off her feet and
slamming her against the wall ten feet away.
Rene moved instinctively, rolling over the back of the couch and using it as an
impromptu shield. She glanced over to see that Shana, having been seated on the
opposite side of the room from the explosion, was physically unscathed but
staring in shock at Daphne who lay unconscious amid the shattered remains of the
door.
Rene was up and moving toward her new friend before the roar in her ears had
even started to fade, "Move!" she yelled as she grabbed Shana by the arm and
hauled her to her feet. Thankfully, the younger girl responded almost
immediately, and followed Rene of her own accord as she led the way into the
bedroom.
Turning, Rene slammed the door behind them and quickly darted over to the only
other exit remaining.
"Wh-what's going on?" asked Shana, wide-eyed.
"They're here," hissed Rene from her position at the second story window. She
unlocked and then pulled it open. "We're going to have to jump."
"Who's here?" asked Shana, evidently still in some kind of shock.
"Shana. We don't have time for this. Unless you want to be a slave - Move. Now."
Rene waited just long enough to see Shana start toward her and then leapt out of
the window toward the grass below. She rolled as she landed, trying to absorb
most of the impact. Nevertheless, the shock of the landing numbed her legs as
she rolled to a halt and she had to spend a moment waiting for the feeling in
them to return.
By which time the barrel of a gun was jammed into the base of her neck.
"Well, well. What do we have here?" said a feminine voice.
Slowly, Rene turned to see a woman dressed entirely in black pointing an
extremely large looking handgun at her forehead.
Or more specifically, a woman dressed entirely in black leather ...
*****
Shana paused on the window sill, none too eager to follow Rene's lead and leap
out into the darkness without first seeing what she hoped to land on. She gasped
aloud as right beneath her she saw someone standing over her new friend,
pointing a gun at her threateningly.
For a moment she was torn between escaping from whoever was up here with her,
and leaping into potentially even more trouble. But then Shana thought she heard
the sounds of someone outside the bedroom door, and that made her mind up.
She shoved herself away from the window sill and out into the cold night air,
trying desperately to twist her body so that she'd land right on top of the
woman menacing Rene ...
*****
