The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

The people and events in this story come from my brain, not the real world. Regardless of what that tells you about my brain, it means that I’m not writing about you, your mom, your friends, or your friends’ friends. So you can’t sue me. Neener neener.

If you’re under age in your territory (and you know what I mean), then read something else.

© 2000 by Aerosol Kid. All rights reserved

This is part four of a story about Akiko Masumi, a Japanese-Californian secret agent, and her best bud Max. In this installment, she conveys her feelings about her misadventures so far. Let’s join her, shall we?

Assault with A Deadly Akiko

My ears were buzzing. It was a lingering side effect from Anders Milic’s crazy enslavement technique. I was sitting in the back of a Sabre 65 jet, near the engines, and my head was killing me. We were flying through some chop, which I was battling with Dramamine. Add the icy blast of the plane’s air conditioner to the fact that I couldn’t get warm (despite the thick black wool fatigues I had on) and you had one unhappy Akiko.

There were only four of us in the spacious cabin: Max was lounging in one of the few chairs next to me, and two goons in dark specs faced us from up near the cockpit—our escorts for the day. I kept jumping up and pacing the open area between them and us. I’m sure I was working their nerves, even though they did nothing to conceal their interest in my butt.

My memory was churning, trying to reach past the last few days and all the fucking and sucking, all the different people who had used me in order to own me. It wasn’t even like I was doing it on purpose; something in my head had sprung loose in the last round of abuse on that weapons dealer’s boat. Now I had two cages wrapped around my brain, slipping around its edges, fighting with one another. And every so often, I could sneak between the gold and silver bars and remember things.

Max had dozed off with her Ray Bans on, so she didn’t know I’d been bumming cigarettes off her for most of the flight. Or maybe she did, and she was chill with it. (I know, I know; it’ll stunt my growth. Don’t worry, I didn’t keep it up for too long.) As a fresh cloud of smoke tickled my lungs, Keeley’s face jumped into my thoughts again. I exhaled, hoping she was safe, wherever she was.

“Are you gonna do that all the way to SFO?” one of the suits wanted to know. He waved smoke away from his person, to show me how much I was putting him off.

“You don’t like it, exit’s over there,” I said, blowing smoke toward the hatch. I couldn’t believe it. The fool got up out of his seat and stepped to me.

“How about I put that out for you?” he warned, crossing the cabin and getting in my area. He reached for my hand, and got about halfway before he found himself on the business end of my bad mood. In one smooth motion, I spun him around by the wrist and pinned him in a brutal hold. A satisfying series of pops rippled from his fingers to his shoulder. I put my cig out on his neck with my free hand. He let out a peculiar yelp, as the second man leapt to his feet and reached for his gun. When people pick fights with me I’m used to finishing them, so I snapped Mr. No-Smoking’s neck like a twig, then crossed the cabin with a nifty pirouette kick to disarm the second guy before my first kill even hit the floor. I don’t know what that idiot was thinking anyway, pulling his piece in a pressurized cabin.

I guess I’ll never know, because as soon as my feet came back to the deck, I crushed Extra Number Two’s larynx with my upturned palm.

I was tingling all over. Lordy, that felt good! Then I sensed movement behind me, and turned to find Max standing a few paces away. She had her poker face on.

I was thinking clearly for the first time in days, and it felt fucking fantastic. “Maxi, this is our chance! We have got to get back to Nepthys. As soon as this plane touches down, we split, right?”

She calmly regarded the bodies behind me. “Fuck an A!” Max didn’t say. “I agree completely!” she failed to add. She sized me up carefully behind her shades, then closed the gap between us. “I was afraid you’d say that,” she said simply. My jaw hung open, and before I could find out what her damage was she said, “Remember the swirling snow as the horses cross the field in winter.”

What a fucked up thing to say! Especially right after your best friend saves your neck. Still, the line did have a certain lyrical quality about it. I turned the phrase over in my head, dimly aware that something weird was going on. Max seemed to be more calm and collected than me, and I was suddenly embarrassed for spazzing out like that. I mean, it was pretty harsh of me to kill those guys for getting irate about my smoking. You can’t even smoke on most planes anymore! Max was so much more mature; she’d never fly off the handle over something so trivial. I realized that I should just shut up and let Max run the show. I bowed my head slightly in front of her.

“Come sit with me, Akiko,” Max said, pulling me by the elbow, back to my seat. “Sit down. Look at me.” I did as I was told. Max slipped her sunglasses off and met my gaze. It was like falling into ice water. I shivered as the buzzing in my ears returned.

“Akiko, do you have reservations about this mission?” Max asked sternly.

I was getting dizzy. “No,” I whispered.

“Beg pardon?”

“No!” I answered, with more conviction. I sounded like a cranky toddler in need of a nap.

“That’s good, because Anders would be very disappointed if we were to fail.” Anders. Anders Milic; the guy who made my ears buzz and my pants wet. The guy who made me do anything he wanted.

“I don’t want to get in trouble,” I whined. I was so cold.

“No ma’am, you certainly do not want to get in trouble. Remember the last time you acted up, on the boat?”

I couldn’t remember exactly, but it involved being naked with lots of sushi around. I couldn’t go to the bathroom for like, eight hours. I didn’t want to be bad.

“So are you going to behave?” Max demanded.

“Yes, Max.”

“Good. Now get some sleep.” I was instantly drowsy. “We’ll be there shortly.”

It was starting to get ripe in the cabin. One of those guys must have run to the border for his last meal. I felt so bad for pissing Max off like that. “Can I have a hug?” I pleaded.

“Of course you can,” she said, then she patted my head and gave me a warm, lingering embrace. And kissed me.

I dreamed of horses the rest of the way.

* * *

I found out that the pilot was under strict orders not to leave the cockpit during the flight for his own protection, and he was reluctant to come out when we touched down. He wasn’t thrilled about the bodies, either.

Our ride was waiting for us on the tarmac. It didn’t take long to get back to the Soporo Health Spa. We got some funny looks in our black commando gear as we made our way through the health spa lobby, but the guards waved us into the restricted basement floors of Min Sect headquarters with no hassle.

Once through, a phalanx of suits approached us briskly in the hall. Leading them was Agent Pink. He marched right up to us and demanded, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Awww, didja miss me?” I smiled, seizing the opportunity to irritate him.

He smiled. Turned to one of his goons to share a laugh. His boys thought I was pretty funny. My smile got bigger.

Then his fist connected with my chin, sending me sprawling on my ass.

“What the fuck have you been doing for the last four days?” he bellowed down at me. Max just stood there, unsure of what to do. “Our satellite recon clearly shows that Milic’s yacht is not, repeat not, destroyed. How could you screw this up? We burned the instructions into your tiny little minds!” He poked at his head for emphasis. This was a side of Pink that I was unfamiliar with. A little blood trickled down my chin.

“Please sir,” I mumbled, wiping the blood away and working my jaw back and forth. “Give us a chance to explain.” I held my arms up and pouted at him, and he responded by jerking me roughly to my feet.

“Well?” he demanded. He was so pissed! His lower lip trembled. I guess his ass was on the line, because he was the one who’d overseen my capture all those days ago. I can’t say I felt too sympathetic for him, after he popped me like that. So I accelerated the plan.

“It’s like this,” I began. And before anyone could react, I twisted him around to face his men and whipped out a small sub-machine gun, which I poked into his temple. “You messed with the wrong chick!” I yelled into his ear. “You’re gonna rue the day you ever stuck me in that Blue Room, chuckles! And I’m personally gonna make you sorry for every pair of high heels I had to wear because of you!”

By this time, there were six pistols leveled at me and Max. My bud had drawn her pistol, and was anxiously shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Akiko, steady up!” she hissed. Alarms were starting to go off throughout the compound.

“Akiko-ch... Akiko-san,” Pink stammered. “Let’s be reasonable.” He mouthed something I couldn’t see to one of the guards, who turned tail and ran off. “Maybe I spoke in haste. We can give you another shot at Milic.”

“I have a better idea,” I told him. “Tell your boys to back the fuck up.”

He thought about it for a minute, so I pressed the gun into his skull a lot harder and caressed the trigger. That seemed to inspire him. “Back the fuck up!” he said. “Drop ‘em!” The suits hesitated, then lowered their weapons.

“Amscray!” I said, motioning them away with my free hand. “Tell them.”

“You heard her! Clear the hallway!” I’ve never seen guys move away from me in such a hurry.

“Akiko,” Max sing-songed under her breath. “Where are you going with this?” If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be on Max’s bad side again in a hurry.

“We’re going ahead to the first objective,” I said, trying to balance my desire to appease her with my need to settle up with Agent Pink. “This cretin is now our tactical asset.” Then into his ear I yelled, “Move!”

I sensed people moving into position all around us, just out of sight, but we had the advantage in the narrow corridor, so we moved a short distance to a door marked “Blue Theater”. I shoved Pink inside, then Max moved in swiftly to assess things. I was in last, and in the dim blue light I could see that we were alone. I made sure to lock us in. There was another door on the opposite side labeled “Pool”, which Max and I planned on using to get to our next objective. We had a long list of shit to blow up.

Agent Pink moved to put a familiar black gurney between us, then clasped his hands together. “Akiko, please. If you’ll just calm down...” Outside the door, I could hear lots of yelling and shuffling.

“Shut up!” I said. “I’m tired of your yap.” I retrained my weapon at him. “Max: charges.”

His eyes widened as he realized that Max was busying herself with explosives. He tried a different approach. “Max. I command you to stop what you’re doing. Submit.” Max looked at him over a chunk of C4 and just rolled her eyes. Her fingers never stopped working. This didn’t do anything for Pink’s stress levels. “What did Milic do to you? What’s going on?” He wasn’t really addressing us, just kind of babbling.

Just then there was a loud clang. Something was going on outside. I turned my head toward the door, so I didn’t see the chair that Pink lobbed at me. It caught me in the chest and I went down on my ass, still sore from its first meeting with the floor a few minutes ago. I threw the chair clear and was just starting to realize how much my left tit hurt, when Pink landed on me.

I have to admit he wasn’t half-bad at fighting. He knocked the wind out of me and got a few good jabs in before I threw him off with my legs. Then I finally got my chance to bust him in the puss but good. He wiggled out from under me after kicking me in the groin. It went on like that for a few seconds more before I heard the unmistakable sound of Max switching her Glock 18 over to automatic. We both froze.

“That’ll be quite enough of that,” Max chided, poking her gun into Pink’s back. I smiled gratefully at her as Pink got up off me. She looked around for a moment, then we came to an idea in the same instant. Smiling thinly, she motioned at him with her pistol. “Get up on that gurney.”

“Screw you,” he suggested. But Max wasn’t having any more. Deftly, she lowered her gun and fired into his leg. Pop-pop-pop. His scream echoed through the big theater, reminding me of my command performance with Blue Man.

“Get. On. The gurney,” Max repeated. There was more clanging going on outside.

Cursing, Agent Pink hoisted himself onto the gurney in question as blood gushed from the impressive wound on his thigh. I made quick work of strapping him in, ignoring his manic protests. Max finished setting the charges.

Another clang from the door: the Min Sect boys were close to breaking it down. Max flipped a switch on a tiny module affixed to her belt, then called “Let’s roll!” We positioned ourselves in front of the poolroom door, donning thick gloves and ski masks. I nodded at Max when I was ready.

Agent Pink screamed to his minions from the table behind us. “Hurry! For God’s sake, hurry up!” The main door burst open and we took our cue. Max went first as we slipped out the other door, into a familiar, eerily lit blue hallway. The dragonflies were on us in an instant, but they were out of luck because we weren’t wearing sexy workout clothes this time around. There was a lot of commotion in the Blue Room, which was almost drowned out by the deafening drone of the glittering metallic insects swarming around us, but we made it to the end of the hall in short order.

We burst into the poolroom, scaring the shit out of several Soporo patrons. I’m sure they thought it was a stick-up: us in our black garb, brandishing guns, them in their yuppie swimwear. But we didn’t have time to explain the situation, we just leapt straight for the deep end. Max triggered the explosives just before we hit the water. There was a deafening roar, which we heard as much as felt as our feet brushed the shaking pool bottom. About two dozen dragonflies began to drown all around us. I broke the surface of the water just in time to see a tongue of flame lick the doorway we’d just come through. Plaster and other shit rained down from the ceiling in the final seconds of the aftershock. Max and I reached the edge of the pool at about the same time, and as we pulled ourselves out a tall, Ken-looking guy in a Speedo approached us.

“Dude, you really fucked up our health spa!” he said.

I pulled off my ski mask and gloves and wrung them out on the deck. “You don’t know the half of it,” I told him. “This is really a secret terrorist installation.”

A skinny blonde wandered up to us. “I’ve been working out in this ‘terrorist installation’ for three years. Now there’s no more weight room, you bitch!”

A crowd of suntanned Californian yuppies was gathering around us now, and something was not right here at all. Another one piped up from the back. “Yeah! I wasn’t finished doing my ab work!”

Max gave a contemptuous little snort and showed them a hand to talk to. “I don’t think you people are grasping the big picture.”

Ken pushed his way to the front. “I think we understand just fine,” he said, and misted us down with some Industrial Strength sleepy spray. I slumped to the pool deck, a soggy, drowsy mess. As sleep overtook me, I wondered if things could possibly get weirder today.

* * *

I came to in what was fast becoming my least favorite position: naked, on my back, strapped to a table. I itched all over, and realized why as a blue dragonfly buzzed by my head and patiently stung me on my neck. Crap.

“Yes, good. You’ll need to be awake for this,” a voice said. I caught a whiff of Yardley’s and knew all I needed to about its owner.

“Korjdaan...” I managed, as my eyes closed under the weight of the bug venom.

“Quite. You and Maxine have done an exceptional job.”

I frowned, seconds away from passing out, but curious about his logic.

I felt a hand squeeze my arm. “Please do try and stay awake.” I opened my eyes and tried to focus on the blurry head looking down at me. “Granted, there was some collateral damage, but I expected Milic to try something like this. And my disguised operatives intercepted you with little trouble, before you could cause any critical damage.” A wave of embarrassment cut through my sleepy haze. I couldn’t believe we fell for that. They were convincing yuppies, though.

“I wanted to see what this Milic was capable of,” Korjdaan continued. “And I wanted Pink out of the way, so I sent him to meet you. That irritating man was trying his damndest to take my job, and Control seemed to like him.” He paused. “Ah well. Problem solved.”

Max showed herself to be equally slow on the uptake. “But... how?” she slurred. “How did you know we’d come back and turn against you?”

The Chairman allowed himself a soft laugh. “My dear. You don’t get where I am by being shortsighted. And you ladies are formidable operatives. Luckily, Milic’s methods are crude. He tried to... persuade you with blunt force, mostly. His meddling in your minds will be easily reversed. And then you will finish him off for me.”

I felt another dragonfly sting me on the hip. “Haven’t you let your friends chow down on us long enough?” I pleaded weakly. My veins were burning with bug-venom.

“Please...” Max echoed.

“It’s necessary, I’m afraid. We must recover your devotion to us, so that we retain your services more effectively than we did with your troublesome superior.”

“Keeley,” I moaned.

“Indeed. It seems she has gone missing. We intended to use her at Nepthys headquarters, but she disappeared en route. After you’ve dealt with Anders Milic, you will of course retrieve her.”

“No...” Max whispered.

The lights dimmed, and a blue floodlight suddenly bathed my body. The room spun. Korjdaan cleared his throat. “You will cease your opposition to me,” he declared musically.

“Fuck you,” I croaked. Then another sting. My kingdom for some Off.

“You are no longer able to resist,” he continued.

“Stop,” Max said.

“You will do as I say.”

“Okay,” I said. “I will do as you say. Except on Thursdays and Sundays, when I will invite you to... g-go fuck yourself.”

Korjdaan laughed again, louder this time. “I’ve become quite fond of you, Ms. Masumi. If I were a younger man... Perhaps by the time I’m done with you that will not be an issue. Well.” His voice changed register. “You are powerless to resist.”

“Powerless...” Max said.

“Powerless to resist,” I agreed, slipping deeper into the blue.

“You belong to me. You are powerless to resist.”

“I belong to you,” I said. Or was it Max? Or did I belong to Max? I wasn’t sure.

“You are the property of Min Sect, and by extension, mine.”

“I belong to you, sir,” I breathed, just before I passed out.

* * *

“Welcome back, ladies,” Anders boomed magnanimously as Max and I entered his massive office. He threw an arm around each of us and herded us to a couch. The smoke from his cigar trailed lazily behind us. It smelled nice. “Please, tell me all about your visit to California.”

My bare legs squeaked on the leather couch as I made myself comfortable next to Max. The yacht was docked at a port in a sleepy little town near Acapulco, so we’d taken the opportunity to lose the heavy wool uniforms in favor of these excellent minidresses, compliments of Anders.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Max said. I bit my lip. She had fallen back into her role as leader of the operation. Anders had conditioned us such that she was my superior, and my handler. Now that the Chairman had broken that conditioning and restored his own, it was hard for me to get in character as the underling. As a matter of fact, I was a little irate with Maxi for playing the part so well; she’d been kind of a bitch to me ever since we got back on Anders’ boat. If she wasn’t so cute I’da smacked her.

Anders slipped into a huge black chair behind an impressive mahogany desk and puffed on his cigar. “Give me the details,” he prompted.

“Well, we did have a little hiccup on the flight to the mainland,” she said, glancing over at me.

“Yes, I’m aware of that. But you were able to contain Ms. Masumi and finish the job. This is acceptable.” He smiled patronizingly at me. I fumed inwardly. Next time I ‘hiccup’, you’re gonna be a lot less pleased with yourself. Still, I sucked it in and looked down at the carpet demurely.

Max continued. “We were able to neutralize the base. The Chairman and his assistant are dead. We escaped unharmed.”

“Yes, my intel seems to confirm this,” Anders said. “It’s hard to get the exact details, but it’s quite obvious that the base sustained considerable damage. Did you deviate from the plan at any point?”

“No sir,” Max replied. “It was by the numbers.”

Anders studied us for a moment, then his eyes started to roam over us. I could tell where this was going. “Akiko, you look tired. How do you feel?”

I made like I was getting sleepy at his suggestion, and coyly answered, “Well sir, I think I’d like to lie down for awhile.”

He grinned lecherously. “I think it’s time you had another session with our doctor. He’ll fix you up good as new. Max, please escort Ms. Masumi to the infirmary and report to Doctor Windbigler for a short session. You ladies will be joining me for dinner this evening. It’s going to be a late night for you.” Obviously, he was looking forward to an athletic three-way.

“Yes sir!” Max responded breathlessly, throwing herself way too far into the part, as far as I was concerned. Ham. She rose to her feet and offered me her hand. I took it and let her lead me out of the room in a faux daze.

Once we were out on deck where the sea could mask our conversation, I spoke up. “Okay, Commander Max. How are we going to do this?”

“Sorry baby,” Max whispered to me as she continued to lead me by the hand. “I had to be convincing. You can take it out on me later.”

I made a pleased little noise at hearing her come on to me. All was suddenly forgiven. “Oh I’ll take it out on you, all right,” I flirted. “Seriously, though. What’s the drill?” Max slowed down, to buy time. “I say we go ahead and get this over with, while Milic’s entourage is in town. Head down to the infirmary right now, pick up some shit, then do the deed.”

A gaggle of Anders’ henchman passed us then, taking a good long look at the two mind-fucked hottie operatives leaning on each other as they made their way to another hypno session. When they were out of earshot, I grinned. “I like the way you’re thinking. Yo, let’s do this,” I told her in my best Missy Elliot. Max just smiled, shushed me and steered us toward a stairwell.

* * *

We were intimate with the layout of the ship before we set foot on it the first time, thanks to Min Sect. Of course, all I remember from that day was singing karaoke and letting Max jump my bones. But I knew exactly how to get to the armory. I even knew the pass code for the electronic locks. Before anyone saw, we slipped in and started to help ourselves to some very nice toys. Max threw me a duffel bag, snagged one for herself and started cramming it full of stuff. I found a pair of thigh holsters and strapped them on just below the hem of my dress. Sexy! The way we were planning to operate, discretion was unnecessary. I found a pair of Glocks to accessorize, then filled my own bag with clips, a few bundles of plastic explosive and a shotgun. When I was finished, I got behind the door and pulled my piece. Max joined me and nodded “Yup.”

Right away there was trouble: a beady-eyed grunt looking tres startled at the two ladies armed to the teeth who’d just burst out into the hallway. I dropped him before he got to his gun. The shot sang through the hull, causing immediate, ship wide panic. We hustled to the end of the hall, burrowing deeper into the yacht. We were on our way to the boiler room and nothing was gonna stop us. Max dove down a staircase, smoothly rolling to her feet at the bottom. Then my eardrums flinched as she strafed the room with her machine pistol. I glanced around the deck before gliding down the stairs behind her.

She had made stroganoff out of the four or five unlucky guys down here. Smoothly, we picked our way around the mess and continued on our way. An irritating alarm began to chime, and there was a lot of commotion on the decks above us. I decided to save ammo for the trip back upstairs.

We made it to the boiler room door without any difficulty. Max straddled the doorway, to keep our avenue of escape free, while I unzipped my bag and went to work. I placed explosives around the most volatile machinery while Max entertained herself by blowing the legs off of anyone stupid enough to venture down the steps. Humming Johnny Cash to myself softly, I wired up the plastics to a timer, set it and took one last look at my handiwork. Pretty as a Christmas package. Glancing at Max, I committed us to a course of action: get off the fucking ship as fast as possible.

I grabbed my shotgun and shouldered my bag, then joined Max in the doorway. No one else was volunteering to have their knees turned into Spam, so it was pretty quiet in the hall. Max crept up to the last safe inch of space near the stairwell and exuberantly lobbed a grenade up to the next deck. I swear I heard her giggle at the resulting stampede of feet as she rolled to find cover. I squatted down quickly and covered my ears as the deck thrummed painfully under my feet. A gust of hot, acrid air fried some of my hair, and I felt like a few things were disconnected in my chest, but I scrambled over to Max so that we could get our asses upstairs. She giggled as she bounded up the steps. “I say God damn!” she Elvised, as I watched her butt wiggle its way up to the hell she’d just created.

Anders’ men had given up on the stand-in-front-of-our-guns-and-get-wasted strategy and opted for more prudent sniping positions. Things got a lot harrier at this point, but we had our Min-Sect conditioning and our giant balls to guide us. I kicked out of my high heels, took the lead and soon we were up on deck.

Which was not a great place to be, just then. Bullets whizzed by as we ducked and sprinted for the nearby lounge. If these assholes knew that the whole ship was about to go up, they definitely wouldn’t be hanging around trying to ventilate us. I allowed myself a deep breath as we made it to the lounge and slipped inside. Then a stream of bullets made the pretty Monet copy next to my head even more impressionistic. Unthinking, Max and I rolled under a table and tipped it onto its side for cover.

“Good afternoon, ladies!” Anders yelled amiably from across the room. “I take it you are no longer my helpless fuck bunnies.”

“ This boat is going to explode in three more minutes!” I warned. He peppered our surroundings with machine gun fire.

“Even if I believed you, I think that’s more than enough time to kill you and make it to the dock. That way I won’t have you lovely operatives to worry about.”

I gave Max a look and a nod that we’d shared more times than I care to remember. She winked as I moved noiselessly around to the bar. “You won’t survive this, Anders,” Max chided, keeping him occupied. “Better to get out of here while you still can.”

Bullets sprayed around the room recklessly, making it easier for me to get all the way behind the bar on my hands and knees undetected. “It will take more than threats to scare me,” he replied.

“I’m coming out of here in a second, Anders. Better be ready,” Max warned. I rounded the corner of the bar and saw him then, crouched behind a table with a machine gun in either hand. Max and I must have been on the same wavelength, because she jumped up and took a potshot at him, giving me the distraction I needed to roll over behind him.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he teased Max, craning his neck around the side of the table to get a bead on her.

“Nope,” I said, causing him to flinch and hit his head on the table. He spun around, raising his machine guns, but I was way ahead of him. The recoil of my shotgun was very satisfying: another creep who had messed around with my brain was history.

“Door!” Max yelled, jumping up from behind the table to run for the exit.

I threw my shoulder into it, but it wouldn’t budge. Anders had locked this one. Max shoved me aside, and before I could figure out what her plan was, she perforated the door with her pistol and kicked it open. She grabbed my hand and jerked me out onto the deck with her, heading full steam for the dock. Bullets zinged by as we hotfooted it for the gangplank. Good thing we didn’t have far to run, or that would have been it for us. Max didn’t bother with the stairs; she just hurled herself into the air and landed square onto the dock. I executed a more graceful imitation, landing exactly where she did, but Max was already hoofing it for dry land. The dock seemed to stretch out forever as I sprinted after her as fast as I could.

My bare foot smacked onto hot pavement as the first concussion pounded into my back. It seemed to take forever for me to spill onto the street, as scorching wind whipped my hair and my dress. I became aware of the sound during my reflexive tumble—Aikido training taking over even as the mouth of Hell opened up right behind me.

I was stunned and I had the wind knocked out of me, so I cowered in a sweaty, singed ball as pieces of boat rained out of the sky around me. I noticed Max then, wrapped around me protectively. Bless her heart.

She didn’t let me sit there for long. “On your feet!” she barked, tugging me up by the hands. “Move, move!”

Her sergeant routine made it through my shell-shocked skull, so I began to trot with her down the street. Curious and horrified townspeople were spilling down the pier, yelling and pointing at the inferno by the dock. We slipped through them—unassuming young ladies in extra crispy sundresses—and made our way to a pair of seriously kick-ass motorcycles. Our tickets to the airport, and back to Min Sect headquarters.

I had a little trouble kick starting the bike in bare feet, so Max roared off ahead of me. In a few seconds I was right behind her as we screamed through the streets, narrowly avoiding a few irate pedestrians. Man, it felt good to have that thing between my legs, if you know what I mean.

I pulled alongside Max, and she grinned at me through a tangle of blonde hair. I was about to smile back, but something in my rear-view mirror caught my attention: a black van with tinted windows about ten yards behind us. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, then goosed the throttle. Max looked behind us, then surged ahead as well.

Now what? I thought to myself, exasperated. The big ship go boom, our heroines ride off into the sunset. The End, right? But there was no mistake, the van was after us. The road was beginning to wind sharply through the foothills of a mountain range, forking ahead of us. Thanks to the Chairman, I knew the way to the airport in my sleep. But the van made an aggressive move just then, attempting to ram us. Max and I split up left and right to make a hole, and then the damned thing swerved right at me.

Fuck! I missed the turn! Max sped off to the left, into the tunnel I was supposed to be in right about now. I was careening down the right fork in the road, which turned to gravel and threatened to spill me on my ass. I fought for control of the bike as the van lurched down insanely to follow me.

At this point I had a new problem. I was out of gas! Whoever was in the van had played me from the beginning. They had me right where they wanted me. My idea was to pull over, ditch the bike as fast as I could, and head for cover in some nearby trees, where I could speak with my new friends with the Glocks strapped to my thighs. I jammed on the brakes and swept the rear of the bike around beside me, preparing to bolt, but as I did the handlebars crackled with energy. My arms shook with live current, my hair stood on end, and my jaw locked shut. I was very lucky; the bike came to a halt soon after without giving me too much road rash. My leg was cut up pretty bad, but I wouldn’t find that out until later. I was stunned as a bug in a bug-zapper. The heavy motorcycle pinned me on the ground.

I was dimly aware of the van stopping just behind me. Some folks in ski masks extricated me from the bike and carefully put me in the back of the van. As it pulled back onto the road, I was strapped down to something. My nervous system was doing the flashing-12:00-on-your-VCR thing. Those assholes had jolted me a good one.

But which assholes were these? Who knew about this operation? I had no idea, just a strong feeling that my long day was far from over.

FIN