D2-670A
Part 14
Edric Storm - leader of Official Retrieval Team 33-B - grimaced with pain as he
slowly stood up. He felt as if he had been hit by a speeding truck. His entire
body ached, and his side felt like it was doused with white hot flame. He had
taken an MP-432 shot that had slagged his Hawaiian shirt along with a generous
portion of the left side of his chest, and the two had fused into some kind of
shiny membrane.
Despite the fact the bleeding had stopped - thanks to that very fusion - Edric
knew he should have been dead. But it appeared he had been lucky - even though a
small part of him was aware that his wound was likely to ultimately prove fatal.
Especially if he failed to receive medical attention, and soon.
Not that any medical attention was likely to be forthcoming. His D-key was gone
- either slagged when he was shot, or stolen by Rufus while he lay unconscious.
But he found a Tracking Processor on one of the dead body's. The Tracker was
crucial. With it, he could track Rufus, and anyone else he chose to seek. Every
member of the population was implanted with a personal homing beacon at birth.
The Council very rarely left anything to chance, and on this occasion, that
paranoia was going to keep him in good stead.
Although his teammates were both dead, Rufus did have an idea of where Rufus and
the slave were heading. He'd overheard them as he'd slowly regained
consciousness.
"Where did she work?"
"Davidson Global. We both worked there."
"You as well? Good. Then you'll be able to direct me."
"But she's not ..."
"No buts." Too concerned that opening his eyes would alert his enemies to his
level of consciousness, Edric had heard rather than seen the recalcitrant slave
being gagged, before Rufus spoke again. "Now let's go and see if this Global
place knows anything about where your boss might be."
Davidson Global. Edric had no idea where such an organization might be, but with
the tracker in hand, he did not need to. Very slowly, he pushed himself to his
feet and staggered toward the Warehouse exit, his hand clasped to his side.
What he did need, however, was transport.
And by playing dead on the side of the road he soon had that. Courtesy of a
passing Samaritan who had only an instant to appreciate the lethality of an
upper arching blow to the base of his nose.
Edric claimed the idling vehicle and swung in the direction of the implant's
signal.
*****
Rene suspected the four of them must have made an interesting sight as they
moved without hurry along the carpeted corridor. Heather led the way, dressed in
full dominatrix uniform. She held, in one gloved hand, a leather leash that was
attached to a D-ringed collar worn by Lois Davenport. The once mighty CEO of
Davidson Global shuffled along, naked, helpless and humiliated in her tight
bondage and silencing gag. Her legs were hobbled with six inches of rope that
Rene had tied in place to ensure she could move but not make an escape attempt.
Her head was also hooded to further stop unwieldy questions.
That much of the plan, Rene was happy with. She had her reservations about the
rest of it.
Heather and Rene had ungagged Veronica and listened as she explained why her
former employer had been torturing her in the dungeon. She told them about the
lifestyle that she and Lois had shared, and how only a select few in the company
knew of it. She admitted to being jealous when the subject of kidnapping Heather
had been raised. According to Veronica, Lois had organized this more for the
fact that she wanted the beautiful scientist as a slave, rather than for any
controversial dimension doorway she had created. Lois had gradually been growing
out of her submissive role in their relationship, and this was the final proof
that she was about to take the next step. Veronica had not wanted this to occur.
She was set within the company, could have anything she wanted, and was able to
fulfil all of her sexual desires with one of the most powerful women in the
business world. So she had taken steps of her own which had led her into
confrontation with Rene. From that point she had been as much a prisoner as the
two of them - and she suspected that she again would be, if she did not escape
alongside them. Veronica begged Rene and Heather to untie her so she could not
only lead them out, but by her very presence, give their party a certain
credibility they would otherwise not possess. After all, only one or two people
knew that she was no longer in Lois' favour.
Although it irked Rene, they had been forced to agree. Logically, it was their
only chance of escape. If they did not stick to the private areas of the
building where a bound and gagged woman was relatively common place, they would
be swooped upon by security in a matter of moments. She did not trust Veronica,
however, and she was well aware of the risk they were taking by allowing her to
move freely as one of their bogus captors.
Veronica now held the leash that was attached to Rene's own throat. The raven
haired woman was dressed in a tight latex skirt and opened necked white shirt
that she had pulled from a locker in the room adjoining the dungeon. There had
been no time to don the necktie or stockings and suspenders that she would
normally have worn (or so she explained), but she did pause long enough to pull
on the knee high leather boots that she insisted she always wore when in the
dungeon with Lois.
For her part, Rene was bound as the second slave of the group. She sported the
same D-ringed collar as Lois, but otherwise was completely naked. Her hands were
bound behind her with rope, and were attached to a crotch rope that sawed at her
clitoris uncomfortably as she moved. The rope around her wrists looked secure
enough, but Heather had tied it so that a short tug on the end of the rope Rene
held in her right fist would be enough to loosen the cords for her to free
herself in a matter of moments. The crotch rope had been judged a necessary
evil, given that they could not have her elbows bound or her arms pinned to her
torso if she was going to be able to escape quickly. Like Lois, Rene's ankles
were hobbled with a similar length of rope; and like the Davidson Global CEO,
her mouth was also tightly gagged. A large rubber ball had been pushed behind
her teeth and was held in place with half a dozen pieces of tape that covered
her mouth from nose to chin.
"Okay," said Veronica quietly, "You need to turn right just up ahead." That will
take us through to the private back-entry. The guards there know of Lois'
proclivity for bondage and are very well paid for their silence on the matter.
We'll need to report into them, and then one will fetch a company limo."
"Won't they ask about Lois?" asked Heather with a nervous glace at Rene.
At the sound of her name, the company CEO hummed into her gag, and turned to
"look" in Heather's direction.
"Not if I have her under my care. Here." Veronica said, handing the leash
attached to Rene's collar to Heather, and taking the other leash from her. "Just
be calm, and act like it's the most normal thing in the world to be leading a
beautiful, bound and gagged woman along by a leash. Okay?"
Heather nodded, and the four of them moved on to reach the double doors Veronica
had spoken of. She took the lead, and with a whispered "Ready?", made her way
through. Rene nodded at Heather to follow, prompting her into action.
She was halfway through the door when the alarm sounded.
At first, Rene thought they must have tripped something by accident, but she
quickly realised the alarm was not confined to the large security point ahead of
her. Back down the corridor behind them, and indeed through the rest of the
building (or so it seemed) she could hear the echoing of the general alarm.
Uniformed security guards were rushing around their desk toward the four women,
and for a few moments, Rene was frozen in shock.
The first of the guards reached Veronica who spun around and pointed at Heather
and Rene. "Grab those women!" She ordered in a commanding voice. "They're
attempting to force me to kidnap Lois!"
Rene cursed into her gag, and pulled on the length of rope to loosen her hands.
The rope instantly slackened, but by the time she was able to wrench her hands
free, a guard's hand had grabbed her arms and was pulling a pair of cuffs free
from his belt. Rene looked over to see Heather being pressed up against the wall
by another guard. Two more were also on the way. Dimly, she heard the guard
telling her to "Hold still!" above the din of the alarm, but it was Veronica's
triumphant smile she was focused on. That, and the words she silently mouthed
with those lips:
"Now you're mine."
*****
Rufus weaved in and out of the mid-afternoon traffic, moving quickly, while
trying not to draw too much attention to himself. He grimaced as he shifted down
a gear. His body was a mass of aches and pains that the bastard Edric and his
goons had inflicted upon him, and every time he moved, one or another of them
flared up. But that was the least of his worries. Marcus was dead, and he was
shit out of options. Rufus knew that his life was now forfeit. He had no ties
with the Council beyond his now-dead employer, and it was probably already a
widely known fact that he was involved in an illegal Retrieval attempt. The
second he stepped back into his own dimension, he would have every Council Rep
alive attempting to gun him down. That was the law.
But it was not an option that Rufus was prepared to accept.
Hence his current plan. The burly bodyguard glanced over at his unwilling
companion. The pretty red-head stared up at him with eyes wide above the gag
wrapped around her mouth. She was clearly terrified. And why not? Although she
was female, that did not constitute a life of servitude in this dimension. She
had probably never even been bound and gagged before twenty-four hours ago. So
to have been through everything she had, and to now find herself the captive of
the man she had effectively saved, must have been a hell of a shock to the
system.
He had tied her hands behind her back and crushed her elbows together with a
slightly longer length of cord before even leaving the warehouse. When she had
protested, he had stuffed a wadded ball of cloth past her teeth, and then
pressed a knotted cloth into her mouth and tied it behind her head. He had tied
a third length of cloth over her lips to hold everything in place, and then
hurried her out to the car. Once inside, he had bound her ankles, forced her to
bend forward, and tied her head down to her knees.
She was still tied that way now, but it was coming to the point where Rufus was
going to have to ungag her. He had made it as far back as the city proper, but
from this point he had no idea where Davidson Global and the female scientist
(something that he still had trouble accepting) were located.
Rufus slowed the car long enough to reach over and pull the covering cloth and
the knotted cleave from the female's mouth. She retched quietly and managed to
spit the wad out. The slimy material rolled down the side of her leg and onto
the floor of the car.
"What ..." The female licked her lips. "What are you going to do to me?"
"Nothing, okay. Female or not, you saved my life. And I'm not going to forget
that."
Hope flashed across her pretty face. "Then why did you tie me up again?"
"Because I didn't have time to argue. And I don't have any more time for it now.
So listen up." As he spoke, Rufus indicated and pulled into a side alley. "We
have to find your friend, the doctor. With her research, she might be my only
ticket out of this dimension." He rolled the car to a stop, and, ignoring a
flare of pain from his ribs, leant over to begin unknotting the rope holding the
female in her folded over position.
"But the research is still in the experimental stage. There's no way she could
transport a full human through a dimension door."
Rufus shrugged as he finished with the knot and helped the female into a more
comfortable sitting position. "Maybe, maybe not. But I'm guessing that having
this," he produced his D-key, "will speed matters along."
"Why don't you just use that one to get away?"
"Because it will only take me home. I need to disappear into another dimension
completely. That way they might never be able to track me." It was the best plan
he could come up with. The only plan in fact. It was his one chance, and he had
to move quickly.
The female considered this for a moment. "Do you promise not to hurt Heather or
myself?"
Rufus nodded without hesitation. "Of course."
"And Rene?"
"As far as I'm concerned, she is free to go where she pleases."
"Good. Then untie me, and I'll show you the way."
Rufus was a little reluctant - it was instinctive to want to keep any female
bound (and preferably gagged) - but in this case, he was willing to go against
type.
As soon as the female was free, she turned to look at him with an even gaze. The
fear was gone, and had been replaced by something more ... calculating.
"What?" he prompted.
"There's something you should know." The female took a deep breath. "Heather
isn't supposed to be in the city. She's supposed to be in Seattle trying to find
a backer to finish her research."
The implications of that hit Rufus like a hammer. No escaping. No starting
again. Just time running before the inevitable occurred, and he was executed.
Rufus snarled angrily and was just about to roar at the female when the phrase
"supposed to be" struck a chord.
"What are you saying?" He glared at her. "And make it good."
"Heather is at Davidson Global. The CEO of the company, Lois Davenport had her
kidnapped and shipped back to her yesterday. She decided she wanted Heather's
work for herself and was going to force her to complete it in, how shall we say,
a 'private' capacity."
"So why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I work for Lois Davenport - have done since well before Heather hired
me. That's how I know where she is."
"Work for?"
"I'm essentially Lois' protege. She suspected Heather was on to something based
purely on the brilliance of her academic work. So she planted me to keep an eye
on things after Davidson Global head-hunted her. It's a well kept secret, and
something that we've worked hard to make sure stays that way. Christ, I even let
that sadistic bitch, Veronica, tie me up like a Christmas turkey to make sure I
was never implicated in Heather's disappearance."
Rufus frowned. As far as he was concerned, the female was talking gibberish.
"So what I'm trying to say here is, if you're going to "rescue" Heather from
Lois, then I'm going to need some kind of compensation for selling my mentor
out." The red-head paused and flashed a thin smile. "And I want Rene."
Rufus processed all that for a few moments. He didn't trust this female, but the
situation dictated that he would have to go along with her. "That could be a
little difficult to organize."
"I doubt it. If Rene was captured by that team of troopers I heard you
mentioning, then she is being kept at Davidson Global with Heather."
A slow smile crept across Rufus' lips. "You really are full of surprises, even
for a female."
"I'll try and take that as a compliment. And please, call me Daphne."
The ex-bodyguard shifted the car into reverse and began backing out of the
alley. "Alright Daphne, I hope that your intimate knowledge of this company will
lead us right to the two female sla- ah, Heather and Rene."
"Don't worry," said Daphne, as she distastefully tossed the remnants of the rope
that had bound her into the back seat. "I know about a private back entrance.
But that means that Lois will know I was involved in stealing the women away.
And then all the world won't stop her from finding me." She paused monetarily,
as if considering her own words. "Either she's going to have to disappear as
well, or you'll have to let me accompany you through the Dimension portal - with
Rene in tow, of course."
Rufus' mind swirled with the many possibilities that were suddenly presenting
themselves. "We'll see ... Now, point me in the direction of Davidson Global."
*****
