Dress Off 08: Hotpants in Helsinki

Bree then leaned in closer. "And then there's you. A woman of advancing years," her captive's eyes narrowed even further at that, and the glare she was giving Bree might have made a lesser person flinch, even knowing the woman was bound and gagged, "who probably didn't wake up this morning with a burning desire to be thrown out of a two-story hotel suite into a swimming pool full of men, while naked and gagged." Bree leaned back now and smiled broadly. "Yet here we all are!"

****

"I'll say this again -- nod once if you're going to tell us who you are working for." Bree's conversational and light tone was somewhat at odds with how she held the scissors over one side of the restrained woman's frilly skirt. She at least seemed to have the captive woman's full attention, as her saucepan-wide eyes followed the mesmerising movement of the cutting implement, and Bree took the opportunity to flick one of the woman's exposed nipples, instantly getting a grunt, a flinch and a muffled hiss in response.

The bra was already hanging open, deftly cut in the middle so that both cups were now on display to the room. The woman had groaned, squealed and squirmed as Bree had destroyed the item with one simple snip, after refusing at the first asking. However, with her panties shoved in her mouth and her hands secured firmly behind her, Bree sensed the woman's predicament was making her re-think her defiance.

Bree started to make small incisions on the skirt, cutting upwards, while the woman wriggled helplessly.

"You get three chances." Bree said, as she used her other hand to tear at the frilly skirt, cutting up jaggedly from the hem to the waistline. "The bra was your first chance." Again, Bree playfully slapped her prisoner's naked, exposed breasts, for effect. Again, the captive shook her head to signal she wouldn't comply, although it didn't take an expert in body language to see that there was growing uncertainty in her mind. "This skirt is your second chance, and it's rapidly slipping away!" Bree cut some more, so that now the skirt was revealing the woman's naked crotch underneath, and was barely held together by the thinnest of slivers of material. "Your third chance will be when my partner and I are dangling you over our balcony, asking the question 'can a bound and naked woman swim?'"

Bree leaned in closer and fixed the woman with a steely gaze. "Trust me, you don't want us finding out the answer to that using scientific experimentation..."

The bound woman's nostrils flared, and the dying embers of her defiance caused her to try and headbutt Bree, but the blonde beauty was far too fast for her, and just smiled as she casually finished off her captive's skirt with one quick rip, pulling both sides of the now torn skirt apart, and fully exposing the woman's bush. The skirt flopped down on both sides of the bed, and the woman's naked bottom half trembled.

"Not bad!" Bree said, taking it all in as the woman groaned at the growing indignity. "But still a distant third in the 'best pussy in this room' competition." Bree winked at Monica who simply rolled her eyes and made a "let's hurry this up" hand gesture.

The woman grunted something into her gag, and as Monica moved over to the sliding glass doors that led to the room's balcony, the woman began to vigorously nod her head.

Bree's smile widened. "Monica, our companion here apparently wants to be our friend after all!"

Monica still went through the motions of sliding the door open, and the sounds of splashing and laughing from the pool below seeped into the room.

The woman's nodding intensified, as Bree slapped her thigh playfully. Finally, Bree peeled the tape back and let the woman spit out the balled-up pair of panties, and gave her a moment or two to catch her breath and compose herself. Then, with a quick nod at the head to Monica, the two agents unceremoniously picked up their bound prisoner from where she lay on the bed, leaving behind the tattered skirt, and carried her struggling nude body to the sliding doors, where Monica positioned a chair and Bree pushed the woman down to sit, facing out on to the brightly lit balcony.

"Just a quick reminder," Bree said, "that you're down to your last chance. So any attempt to delay, deceive or dodge our questions will result in you going over that balcony and dive bombing the pool." Bree paused for effect. "And if you think that's a comparatively easy way out of your current predicament, then you should check out what my friend here is doing right now."

The woman's head swivelled to look at Monica, who waved one hand casually from where she was holding her laptop, the camera facing the naked woman.

Bree dropped to her haunches so that her face was level with the prisoner's. "I doubt even if you're willing to go over the balcony naked and try your chances, that you'd want the act broadcast to the world."

The woman groaned again, her eyes dropping. "I'll tell you what you want." She grumbled.

Bree smiled and patted her on the head. "That's the spirit!"

****

The next ten minutes were a treasure-trove of information for Bree and Monica. Their prisoner was a contractor, paid by a company she only knew by the name "Restoran", who apparently were paying handsomely for their re-capture, and who had instructed the woman to take them back to Brisbane courtesy of a private jet parked at Nausori International Airport. Bree had nodded knowingly at Monica when her brunette partner had pointed out that was only thirty minutes drive from their hotel.

Restoran, whoever they were, clearly weren't short on cash, as the prize tag on Bree and Monica's recapture was an eye-watering US$5m.

While the woman couldn't tell them much about the true purpose of the game that Bree and Monica had just endured -- something that Bree had grudgingly had to accept after the look of terror on the bound and bare brunette failed to elicit any information, as she was momentarily half-dangled over the balcony's edge -- she did have a contact at Restoran, whose name she quickly gave up.

Similarly, as she grimly clung on to the chair with her cuffed wrists for fear of being dangled a second time, she provided the code that would allow Bree and Monica to pass themselves off as Restoran contractors to the private jet's crew. That meant that the two finally had an exit off the island, and maybe a ticket all the way back to the States.

Finally, the woman confessed that on a trip to a Restoran location in Brisbane, she'd overhead an executive mention that the organisation had offices throughout the world. Whatever they were up against clearly had their tentacles in quite a few places.

Bree nodded mutely as the Australian finally finished talking and left her in the chair, having first re-applied the gag to the protesting woman, beckoning Monica to follow her back into the room.

"So, sounds like we have an escape plan." Bree said. "If we can reach HQ and gather reinforcements, we can storm that island and get our friend back."

Monica stared at her computer screen for a few moments, and her face screwed up in concern.

"Oh come on Mon, she's not so bad looking that the video you took can be all that terrible!" Bree said, trying to lighten her partner's mood.

"Bree," Monica said, ignoring the comment entirely, "we have a problem."

"Private jet ride, but economy class outfits?" Bree asked.

"No Bree. Slightly more serious than that." Monica turned her laptop screen to face Bree. The blonde bombshell looked at it for a moment and gave what she hoped was a good impression of someone understanding what they were seeing. Finally she gave up on that though, and just shrugged.

"It's all Latin to me, babe."

Monica turned the laptop screen back to face herself. "What this means is that I've hacked into our systems back at HQ, however there's an order that's been sent out by the Director ordering our capture."

Bree stared at Monica for a full minute, mouth hanging open. When she finally spoke, it was in a hushed whisper. "There's no way that Director Foxwell sent that of her own free will."

"Well quite," Monica replied, "but the order was verified from her account, so that means Director Foxwell isn't acting of her own free will, which means --"

"-- that HQ is compromised." finished Bree.

"And," Monica added, "it means that we can't be expecting help from any field stations we might be able to make it either."

Bree pondered this news, and glanced at Monica. She could see the same thought form in her lover's mind. "So that means there's only one person we can really reach out to."

"Agreed." Monica replied, matter-of-factly.

Bree just nodded and looked back to the balcony, where their guest was still sitting on her chair, facing the warm midday air without a stitch of clothing to protect her tanned skin against rays of the sun.

"Well, we've got a ride, we've got a destination, and we've got a loose end."

Walking back to the balcony, Bree placed a friendly hand on the bound woman's shoulder, almost causing her to jump out of the chair while a muffled yelp escaped from the gag.

"Good news! We're letting you go!" Bree said, cheerfully. The woman's shoulders sagged in relief. "And we're not going to throw you bound and gagged over the balcony into the pool below." The woman cast a suspicious glance up at Bree, but the blonde agent held up a hand as if to say "I swear it's true!".

"However," Bree continued, "we do need you to send a message to your bosses. You think you can do that?"

The woman nodded cautiously, while Monica arrived and handed Bree a permanent marker she'd found in the supplies they'd procured yesterday.

"Good, good!" Bree said. Then, pushing the woman down roughly so she was bent over, Bree proceeded to scribble in the permanent marker on the her back. Satisfied finally, Bree let the woman sit up again, and she could tell there was a seething anger in her captive's face.

"Oh relax," Bree said, "that's not anything obscene or rude."

Bree stepped back and thoughtfully studied the brunette's naked and tanned breasts. "Unlike this." Bree stepped in quickly and made short work of scrawling "SLUT!" across the woman's chest. The woman screamed through the gag at the indignity, but Bree ignored her.

"Now as I said, we're women of our word, as your employers are about to find out. And we said we wouldn't throw you bound and gagged into the pool, so we won't. But we can't have you following us out of here, can we?"

Bree now took the roll of tape from Monica, and within seconds had turned the seated woman's simple gag into five or six loops of tape around her face that would take serious effort to remove. Stepping back again the survey her handiwork, Bree gave a satisfied nod and winked at Monica.

Lifting the woman up, Monica undid the cuffs that bound the woman's hands behind her back. Before the captive could react though, both agents grabbed an arm and a leg and hoisted her in the air, squealing and wriggling as she was manhandled towards the balcony edge.

"I think this satisfies the conditions of not being bound and gagged, don't you Mon?" Bree enquired. Monica nodded her agreement, while the woman futilely struggled against their grip.

"If you'd caught us, the bastards you work for would have done far worse to us!" Bree hissed into the woman's ear, "So consider this a mercy!"

With a quick glance over the side to ensure no-one was directly underneath, Bree and Monica heaved their guest on to the edge of the railed, and Bree gave the bare woman's ass a hard slap for good luck. Then, without any further ceremony, the two agents threw their guest over the railing, leaning over and smiling in satisfaction as the flailing woman firstly hit the water with a huge splash and then -- after a few seconds -- surfaced, her hair a sodden mess and the words "SLUT!" visible even from this distance. A crowd of men stared in disbelief at the bounty that had just fallen from the sky, and within seconds an array of phone cameras had appeared, as the stricken bounty hunter became the unwilling model for a host of soon-to-be online photos and videos.

"You get a pic of our other message, babe?"

"Sure did." Monica replied.

"Well, post it and then let's go. We've got a plane to catch."

Monica tapped her away on her keyboard for a moment, and then closed the lid in satisfaction. Up on several image sharing websites, fresh content for a ravenous world, was now a small album of photos of a naked, bound and gagged woman. And on her back, written in permanent marker, was a simple message.

"Dear Restoran. We're coming for you. Love and kisses, Bree and Monica."

****

Angelica Highsmith reclined on her black leather couch and sighed. The soft light overhead bathed her face and the serene, calming decor of the room was at odds with the troubled expression she now wore on her seasoned but still beautiful face.

Her apartment had, mere minutes ago, been a serene island of tranquillity. She glanced at the language app on her phone, and distractedly ran through the German phrases that she'd been learning. In the four years since her semi-retirement from the Agency, Angelica Highsmith had learnt six languages to near fluency.

Now however, she'd received four late-night visitors who each had their own grim news to share.

Bree Carson and Monica Fairchild had arrived first, having parachuted into the country from a private jet procured from the Pacific Islands, so as to avoid some unnecessary questions at border control over the location of their passports. Having hurried here directly from where they had landed, Bree and Monica had arrived in just the clothes they wore, and Angelica had barely finished making them comfortable when there was another knock on the door.

Olivia 'O' Berkeley was well-known to Highsmith, having been with the Agency for a decade, and the regal ex-matriarch of the Agency had smiled warmly when she'd found the woman whose toys had been behind the success of many a mission standing at her apartment door. When Bree and Monica both erupted in happiness at seeing Brittney Barecat in tow, Highsmith needed no further prompting and had beckoned them both in, taking a careful glance around the lobby outside her Seattle penthouse suite as she closed the door.

When minutes later she learnt that not only had Tess Trueheart been captured, but that Sonya Foxwell had somehow been put under a spell, Highsmith took several sips of her wine as she silently absorbed the shock.

While she took it all in, the four visitors debriefed each other on their separate adventures. Bree and Monica recounted their escape from firstly the Arena of Embarrassment and then Suva. This was then followed by Brittney and 'O' describing their dash to the Seattle safehouse, and -- when they'd paused to take stock of their situation and realised there was no way to reach anyone else -- how 'O' had the flash of inspiration to reach out to Angelica Highsmith instead. As 'O' had reasoned, if they couldn't reach Bree and Monica directly, then they had to try to contact the person that Bree and Monica might reach out to instead.

Brittney had somewhat cattishly remarked that she was impressed when 'O' had revealed she'd actually remembered something useful like where Highsmith lived, which 'O' had apparently taken minor offence to, and had used as the fuel for a sarcasm-laden travelogue on their journey over. Judging by Brittney's expression, she'd strained a jaw muscle or two keeping her mouth clenched shut.

As the four agents finished their analyse of the current situation, Highsmith stood up and paced up and down the floor a couple of times, swirling her wine glass in a preoccupied manner. Finally she sat down again and her four visitors fell silent. Bree then stood up and began to pace, as if there was too much nervous energy in the room for them all to be seated.

'O' had already handed over the Director's laptop to Monica, who had in turn made short work of the security and handed it back to 'O', who now had her head buried in the screen while Monica quietly watched Bree try to walk herself into dreaming up a plan.

Looking up at Bree, Highsmith placed her chin on both hands and stared intently.

"How much do you know about the Helsinki Archives?" She asked.

Bree shrugged. "Well, there's the stuff I guess most people know -- a set of documents, encrypted with a one-way pad, which makes it impossible to decrypt without that pad. Supposedly written by some old European sect nearly a hundred years ago. As to what's on them, well, something worth going to an awful lot of trouble to hide and something worth going to an awful lot of time and effort to find." Bree screwed up her face in thought, while Highsmith simply listened and said nothing. "I always imagined it must be indescribable riches. I mean, it couldn't possibly be some kind of technology that is still relevant and worth finding a century later."

As Bree continued, even Olivia stopped her tapping away on the laptop and focussed on what the blonde-haired agent was saying. Sitting next to Bree on the couch, Monica took one of Bree's hands in her own, as Bree chose her next words carefully.

"Except..." Bree said slowly, "except that doesn't really make a huge amount of sense. The old sect that supposedly wrote the Archives apparently weren't exactly known for their ostentatious living, so how would they have acquired such a treasure?"

There was a the faintest hint of a smile on Highsmith's mouth, creasing the edges of a face that was surprisingly smooth for someone of advancing years. "Indeed," she replied, interjecting even as she indicated with a graceful wave of a hand for Bree to continue, "although you don't always stay rich by spending what you have."

Bree shrugged again in acknowledgement. "Still," she said, "I've started to wonder now if the archives aren't about how to find something physical, but if it's some other kind of information." She glanced at Monica and Olivia. "Not tech or anything, but... well, I don't know, something else." Her voice trailed off, and it was now Bree's turn to stare intently at Highsmith.

Highsmith's mouth twitched again, and there was a small encouraging nod. "Such as?" She asked.

"Well, maybe a conspiracy, but what could be so bad that it would have any ramifications so many years later? And clearly since there have been many people hunting for the Archives over the decades... somebody must know what's really in them and think that they're still worth finding."

Highsmith gave a short, low laugh. "It would certainly be a shame if everyone has been hunting something worthless all these years."

"And then there's the question of the encryption keys." Monica joined in. "The Archives are useless without the one-way pad that was used to encrypt them, and the pad simply by itself doesn't do anything."

Highsmith nodded in agreement. "Bree said that you were undercover in Harrington's organisation. Did she or anyone else in there say anything about the Archives?"

Monica shook her head. "Harrington wasn't exactly the sharing type, unless she had a healthy dose of humiliation to deal out." Monica's face looked troubled for a moment, and now Bree squeezed her hand in return. Monica's face flickered with a thankful smile and she leaned a little closer into her lover and best friend.

"However," Monica continued, "I genuinely don't think Harrington knew all that much more other than it was something others wanted, and so it was something that she had to possess."

Highsmith's face darkened again for a moment. "I suspect Harrington has suspicions over what is in the Archives." She stood up now and started to pace the room. All four agents watched mutely as she walked over to the curtains, opened them up slightly, and stared up at the moon-lit night sky.