Brain Storm (US Edition) (8 page)

The final checkpoint to enter the lower levels required a dual key. She placed her hands into two trays next to the door. The left hand tray was filled with a cool gel that would mould itself to her fingerprints and also take her pulse. The base of the other tray was covered in holes. From random points under her hand needles came up and extracted DNA samples. The combined system prevented access being granted to an operative who had been killed and had their hands removed to provide the needed DNA or fingerprints. In theory the machine which measured the pulse could tell the difference between an agent just wanting access and one who was being forced  into getting the door open for somebody else.

Sara passed the checkpoint and stepped inside. There was no need for her to wipe the gel off her hand as it slipped away as if it had never been there when she took her hand out of the tray. Her first stop as always upon returning from an operation would be the same as her last before she left. To the quartermaster. She handed each item back accounting for any damage. She had to give details on why she was returning less sedative doses and bullets. Those details would be compared to her proper debrief to compare them for discrepancies. When she was finished handing back all of her kit, except for the black body stocking, she couldn't wander around naked, she had to sign and endless number of form. Copies of those forms would be stored along with the forms she had had to sign when checking the equipment out. Those forms would then be compared to check she wasn't siphoning any off to sell for her own profit. The forms would also be gathered together and assessed annually comparing them with the amount of equipment used by other agents on similar operations to make sure she wasn't being unduly wasteful of resources. As Ash was fond of telling her the organization worked on a budget. Because this part of ECSIS didn't exist its funding had to be provided surreptitiously. As wastage from other agencies or profits from 'private' organizations like the law firm they ran.

When she was through with the quartermaster Sara headed directly to her own small office deep under the ground. However quickly they wanted her to give
this debrief she needed to shower and change. The organization understood that agents acting in the capacity that Sara did would require a place in their office to clean up after some of their operations and provided for them accordingly. In the back of Sara's small office, only large enough for a desk and a computer terminal with a couple of chairs, agents like her weren't supposed to spend great lengths of time cooped up in offices, was another small room. It was basically just a cubicle with a shower drier unit and a tiny cupboard for a spare set of clothes. There wasn't even room to change in the cubicle.

Sara locked the door to her office from inside and stripped out of the body stocking. Her sweat had caused the garment to cling to her skin and when she peeled it away and the air-conditioned atmosphere touched her exposed flesh she was tempted just to stand there and let her skin tingle. But she had to get on with the debrief sooner or later. Dumping her body stocking on one of the chairs she stepped inside the cubicle and waited for the cycle to begin.

***************

Carla had finally discovered something that was effective at keeping her mind from wondering who had taken her and for what purpose. All it took was a painful hunger. Carla didn't know how long it was since she had last eaten but that last meal had left her the wrong way a long time ago. She felt even more light-headed now than she had when she first came to in this place and had had to throw up because of it.

She stood at the door pounding with her fists and yelling for somebody to come and fetch her something to eat. So far her anger and confusion had kept her from tears. She had always recognized the desperate position that she was in but hadn't given in to feelings of despair. Now she was hungry, she was tired, and she was scared out of her mind. She was desperate for something to happen because she was going crazy with the anticipation.

Stopping her pounding, leaving bloody marks where she had hit so hard she had broken her skin, she retreated back and curled up underneath the
meager shelter of her shelf/bed. She was on her side clutching her knees up under her chin when the tears finally came. She did nothing to stop them. Just let them roll down her cheeks to drip onto the floor. Her whole body was crying together shaking with the rhythm of her sobs.

That was when her captors chose to finally give her some sign that she hadn't simply been locked up here and abandoned. Forgotten about. The door to her cell opened and true light entered the cell. Carla tried to look but her water filled eyes turned everything into a blur. There was a dark shadow which eclipsed the light. The shadow shifted blocking out more of the light from the bottom of the door but letting more in above it. Then the shadow retreated and the door was closed again.

Carla remained where she was, huddled under her bed, for a few moments and then she scrambled out to see what had been left for her. On the floor where the shadow had stooped she had been left a tray of food and a small plastic cup of water. Carla immediately tucked into the bowl of cold beans and the chunk of bread. They hadn't provided any utensils but she was happy enough to be able to scoop the beans up greedily with her fingers. A tiny voice in the back of her mind was busy telling her to take her time, not to rush the meal in case it came back up the way of her last meal. But a louder voice shouting out at her from her stomach was telling her to get it down her neck as fast as possible.

Carla used the bread to mop up the last of the juice left by the beans and washed it down with the lukewarm water. She left the tray on the floor where it had been placed and where in her hurry to eat she had sat with it. She went back to the bed/shelf but with some of her determination rekindled she forgot about cowering away underneath it and sat on top instead waiting for someone to come and remove the tray. Nothing had really changed, Carla's situation was no less desperate than before and she was no closer to having an answer to any of her many questions, but she felt different in herself. There was nothing she could do right then to change anything. She just had to sit and wait for her captors to make their next move, until there was something she could do.

She didn't have long to wait. The door opened very shortly after she sat herself on the bed. This time her eyes were clear and they quickly adjusted to the difference in lighting. A pair of men entered her cell. They were of almost identical heights and builds, average on both counts. They both had their hair cut close about their head but one had hair that was such a dark blonde as to be easily mistaken for black if it weren't highlighted by the bright light from behind shining through it. The other man's hair was ginger, not as rich a red as Carla's own almost scarlet mane, more of an orange. The ginger mans complexion was also paler than his companion's as would be expected of someone with that color hair.

              The darker man retrieved the tray from the floor and held it in one hand. In his other he held a short staff with a pronged end. The ginger man also held a pronged staff. He thumbed a control and electricity jumped between the prongs.

"This way." The ginger man gestured with the tazer device and Carla slipped off the bed and stepped towards the door. She didn't know where they were taking her but at least it was something. She prepared herself for her first glimpse of wherever she was other than the interior of her cell.

The ginger man lifted his left arm and showed Carla the blindfold he carried. She didn't put up a fight while he fixed it tightly over her eyes plunging her into darkness. She was guided by the touch of the prongs between her shoulder blades. They dug the prongs in deeply but at least they hadn't given her an electric shock.

The two men escorting her thought it was enormous fun to make her walk into walls. They creased up every single time. When she tried to bring her arms up to protect herself from any more bumps she had them slapped back down.

"Do that again and you get a taste of this." There was a buzz of a tazer close by her face and her skin tingled with the closeness of the electricity.

After a few more minutes, and several more bumps and bruises, they reached their destination. Her blindfold was removed and Carla got her first look at where she had been taken.

"You've got to be kidding," she said turning to the men guarding her. Somewhere along the way the dark one had got rid of her dinner tray.

Both men gave lecherous smiles and shook their heads.

"If you don't want to do it yourself we get to stun you unconscious and do it ourselves," the dark when said with a gleam in his eye.

Carla looked back at the shower cubicle and stepped inside still fully clothed. "Fine, turn it on."

Again the guards shook their heads. "Not until you strip, or else we get to do that for you as well."

Reluctantly she turned away from them and started to remove her dirty clothes. They were still covered in dried mud and a crusted with blood, the most recent addition was provided in the form of splash back from her vomiting episode. She got down to her underwear and looked back over her shoulder at the guards. They just stood there and shook their heads in unison. Carla got the idea. Keeping her back to them she started to step out of her panties. She kept her movements as
restricted as possible to avoid giving them too much of a show and used her free hand, the one she wasn't using to pull down her underwear, to provide a modicum of cover from behind. With that done she unclipped her bra one handed and tossed it away. Then she used her other arm to cover her chest.

"Get on with it then."

When the shower finally came on it was so cold that it took her breath away. Her instinct was to jump back out of the way of the spray to where the men stood watching her. But she didn't let her instincts control her. She stood her ground beneath the frigid torrent and kept her arms around her providing at least a small measure of modesty. Goose bumps rose all over her body as the icy needles continued to prick at her flesh.

Her red hair was darkened in the wetness and clung to her skull and upper body. Because of the water it was long enough to reach the tops of her breasts, but not so long to cover them. Her arm would have to remain where it was. She kept her body positioned in a way so as to prevent her guards getting a look at her from any other direction but directly behind. The shower cubicle was too narrow for them to move to the sides so that at least on
e of them was guaranteed to get a look.

All the same it was an entirely unpleasant experience. She could feel th
eir eyes all over her back. As much as she tried to conserve her modesty nothing could change the face that she was standing there naked and exposed and they were watching her.

The hot tears that rolled down her cheeks were in stark contrast to the ice cold rain of the shower.

Chapter
Seven

In a small darkened room a single figure sat staring at banks of glowing monitors. The monitors provided the only illumination in the room and their continuously shifting images caused  shadows to jump up and vanish randomly in all different directions. One monitor was five times larger than it's more numerous brethren and was located centrally on the wall of the small room.

The figure sat watching the screens from behind a small console. His right hand grasped the tracking ball on the console as he scrolled through the images until he found the one he wanted to highlight. He applied pressure to the ball and his chosen image appeared on the larger screen. The sounds of water falling filled the room in an accompaniment to the picture on the monitor. Only the enlarged image provided sound out loud as well although sound was monitored and recorded constantly along with each image. There were many other such rooms as this where people sat monitoring other images and rooms where analysis was made of pre-recorded data. This was only the first stop for what he was seeing. No doubt the image on the large screen now would be replayed many, many times.

So engrossed was the watcher on the image of the young woman standing there naked under the water, that he almost didn't notice the increase in lighting as another person opened the door and entered the compact chamber. He tore his eyes away from the alluring display for a second to see who was disturbing him then he flicked his eyes back. It took a moment for his brain to register who it was that he had seen but when it did so he suddenly stood bolt upright and turned to face him.

"Sir," he said trying to think of something else to say to cover up for the minor embarrassment. It was his job to be watching this, in fact this woman was one whom he had been expressly instructed to pay close attention to. But when someone as high up as that walked in on you staring at a naked woman you couldn't help but feel guilty. Of course normal people might have felt guilty for such an invasion of privacy in the first place.

"Back to work," the newcomer said in a commanding voice. He stared at the screen without any visible reaction to the naked woman displayed on it. It might as well have been a weather report. "Has there been any indication that she is aware of what is going on?"

The watcher sat himself back down as instructed an
d swiveled his chair around to face the other man. "No sir."

"Keep an eye on her and inform me instantly if that changes." And with that he just turned away and left the room. He was quickly forgotten as the watcher got back to his own private peepshow.
And to think they paid him to do this.