The Mindfield – Prologue (The List)
The Enslaver stared at the list and tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a self-satisfied smirk. There were five names on the paper and no further information or instructions. Of course, anything else would have been superfluous. He knew exactly who these women were and he knew what the writer of the list wanted him to do with them. Not for the first time, the villain wondered if anyone else in the world enjoyed their job as much as him.
- Arclight – Amanda Gambling
- Cypher – Carol O’Donald
- The Shroud – Miriam d’Antwain
- Slipstream – Phoebe Jones
- Snowblind – Natasha Bryant
He was impressed that they had managed to penetrate the superheroine’s “secret identities”. It would make locating his targets all the more simple. Briefly he considered each name. The only difficulty he could envisage was The Shroud; her magical abilities were more than a match for his own. He would need to think of something very special for her to play with.
The other “slaves-to-be” would be a challenge, but he knew that he was more than a match for any of them. Arclight was strong and tough, Cypher had an affinity for electronics, Slipstream was blisteringly fast and Snowblind could manipulate the temperature. These were all very useful abilities to be sure, but of limited use when it came to resisting the spells that would bend them to his will.
The villain decided to leave Miriam’s capture until last. He needed time to arrange suitable entertainment for the mystic heroine. So, working alphabetically, his first victim would be Arclight. A lithe and muscular redhead, the heroine was certainly an imposing figure. The Enslaver wondered how much use her much-vaulted invulnerability would be again what he had planned for her.
Luring the heroine into his trap proved staggeringly easy. It seemed that she had developed quite a competitive streak. In fact, Arclight would do almost anything to avoid sharing the limelight with her fellow heroines. All that the villain needed to do was to entice her with an unsolved crime, leaving just enough clues to draw her to him.
A high-profile robbery, which devolved into a kidnapping, seemed appropriate. Although all the superheroines would notice this, he planned to leave Arclight a metaphorical “trail of crumbs”. This would give her the head start she needed and with luck, she would be so keen to beat her friends to the “prize” that she wouldn’t notice what was really going on, until it was much too late.
The battered car swerved madly across the road, nearly colliding with a lamppost before the driver somehow got it back under some semblance of control. Amanda wrenched the wheel to one side and still barely managed to avoid the oncoming vehicle. She cursed as her car bumped over the curb, a loud grinding noise suggesting that she would need a new exhaust far sooner than planned. She might be invulnerable, but her car unfortunately wasn’t.
It took several seconds for the off-duty heroine to realise that the other car had been quite literally riddled with bullet holes. She smiled triumphantly, it seemed that she really was on the right track. Briefly she considered turning the car around and trying to follow what was obviously the getaway vehicle, but by now even its brake lights had disappeared in the darkness.
Instead she opted to retrace the criminal’s journey. She knew that they had lurched, drunkenly onto the main road, emerging without warning from a small track. The dirt road led up into the thinly wooded hills. Gritting her teeth, and imagining the damage that the rutted trail would do to her suspension, Amanda carefully indicated.
They must have had a reason to be on this track. Signs at the entrance proclaimed, “no through road”. The heroine stayed in low gear, trying to keep the revs down. It was a bumpy journey, but she could not help but imagine what glory would come when she tracked the villains to their lair. With any luck she would recover the stolen money, rescue the hostages and have the bad guys locked up before breakfast.
Unfortunately for the young woman, she was not destined to have any good luck at all today.
The Mindfield – Chapter One (Look who else needs rescuing now)
Amanda drove her car cautiously up the narrow track; she was relying only on her sidelights in the hope that she would be less obvious to anyone keeping watch. After several minutes of dirt track, the young woman saw the dark silhouette of a building in the distance. She immediately pulled her car off of the road, and spent some time hiding it from view. Obviously a concerted effort would easily find the vehicle, but all she wanted to do, was to evade the casual onlooker.
Once she was sure that her car was camouflaged, the detective made her way carefully up towards the farmhouse. She could make out no signs of life, the windows were all dark, and nothing stirred in the cool night air. Her trained eyes did, however, notice the recent tread marks in the mud and a discarded chocolate bar wrapper. It was apparent that someone had been here recently.
Amanda picked her way forward, using what cover she could find, until she reached the stone walled house itself. The front door was locked, but rummaging in her pocket, the young heroine pulled out a small metal device and immediately set about breaking in. The lockpick gun made quick work of the old mechanism, and seconds later she was turning the handle and peering inside.
The house showed similar evidence of recent occupancy, but certainly nothing to tie anyone here to the break in and apparent kidnapping. Amanda was beginning to get frustrated and was thinking strongly about calling for backup, even though she knew that the other heroines would use the opportunity to steal her glory. Then, suddenly, as she was about to give up, she discovered the small wooden door that led down to the basement.
Having searched everywhere else, and finding nothing more incriminating than a few discarded beer cans, she knew that something important had to be concealed downstairs. Peering into the gloom, Amanda drew her torch and waved its powerful beam back and forth before descending. At the base of the narrow stairs was another door, this one more sturdy and modern looking. She checked the handle and to her surprise discovered that it wasn’t locked. Carefully she pushed the door forwards before stepping through into the room beyond.
Of course, Amanda had no idea about the small booby trap that had been left for investigators like her. She didn’t notice the small wire that was released as she opened the door, and was oblivious to her danger as she entered the basement itself. What she was aware of, however, was the sudden rushing noise from directly above her. The startled woman looked directly up; recognising the sprinkler head a split second before several pints of water thoroughly drenched her.
The young woman cursed loudly as her costume was drenched. The cold water seemed to soak straight through to her skin, chilling her and bringing her out in goose bumps. She couldn’t understand why anyone would go to the trouble of laying such a childish trap. All she could think about was what the rest of the team would say if they saw her like this. Then, suddenly Amanda saw what else was in the room and she immediately forgot her own troubles.
She saw the three small cots, briefly noted the shackles and the strange machines, but her attention quickly focussed on the two naked and unconscious women.
“What kind of sick……”, began Amanda, shaking her head in disbelief. “What on earth have I stumbled across?”, she thought, “this was obviously more that just some bank robbery gone sour”.
Her train of thought was abruptly stemmed by a sudden wave of vertigo. Amanda felt the room spin, for a moment she closed her eyes but found that this merely served to make it spin more rapidly. She reached out with her hand, trying to steady herself against the doorframe, but her vision swam and twisted and she nearly stumbled. Looking down at the stone flooring and bending forward brought some relief from the curious sensation, and the young detective remained like that for some time while the spinning slowed and finally ceased.
“It must be the shock,”, she reasoned.
The pattern of the flooring held Amanda’s attention for some time. “How fascinating”, she murmured and obligingly the pattern rose gently towards her. The young woman was confused to suddenly find herself lying on the cold damp ground, but for some reason it seemed too much of an effort to attempt to rise. Her earlier chill had now been replaced by a warm lassitude that seemed to flow through her body, melting her muscles as it went.
Amanda had never drunk alcohol, but this was what she imagined it must feel like. Deep down she knew that she should be worried or even scared, but the soothing warmth gently lulled her worries away, leaving her happy and placid. Her body felt heavy and boneless, she struggled briefly to move, but it was so much more pleasant to merely lie still and let these feelings wash over her. She giggled softly, not quite asleep yet but gripped by a weariness that would soon overcome her.
The young detective didn’t realise that the “water” with which she had been so thoroughly soaked contained a combination of a powerful anxiolytic (or colloquially, “what, me worry?”) and DMSO (dimethylsulphoxide), an industrial chemical whose main property was to allow other chemicals to pass through, for example, the skin. Thus, once properly drenched, the drug passed quickly through her skin and into her bloodstream.
In the basement, two girls slept on in their own drugged slumber, while on the floor, mere feet away from those she had come to rescue, lay the superheroine. She was still conscious, but could only revel in the wonderful detached sensation. The warmth had reached her neck and face now, and her thoughts were becoming more and more sluggish. It was hard to concentrate now, there were so many things that she should be doing, but anything was too much of an effort.
A gently smile played across her lips as her eyelids flickered once. “Just a little sleep and I’ll be right as rain……”, she thought, “then I can do whatever I was supposed to.”
With one more deep breath, which seemed to expel the last of the heroine’s energy, Amanda drifted into a quiet sleep, troubled by strange and vaguely erotic sensations. Her eyelids finally closed and her body slumped completely relaxed on the hard stone floor. Her breathing came slow and even now, as she lay awaiting the return of the villain who had so easily felled her.