Strange Queens Ch. 03

But then he frowned. Something hadn't quite been right about his past few thoughts. Not the way he'd take her tonight, or the superiority he obviously was entitled to. No, something in his little mind nagged him. What was it? He'd fired the shot, he'd earned the fuck. No, get your brain off the sex. The shot. What was it about the shot? Had it missed? No, he'd seen it was right on track to hit her. Was she down? Well, she should be, by now. Had she hit you? Well, hold on a second, let me just check.

Randolph -- his name was Randolph -- looked about himself in surprise to find the escaped girl darting into the cell corridor across the way from him, apparently un-downed from his dart. Somewhat outraged to find that he had actually missed that perfect shot, Randolph made to follow her. But his body was strangely reluctant to do his bidding. Indeed, it was as though his body wouldn't move at all. Much as he willed it, his legs stayed straight under him and his arms remained drooped by his sides. And then he saw his arms, big and bulky, arms he was proud of, begin to sway. They swayed more, swinging back and forth hypnotically. Then, they held themselves out before him and the world around them rotated ninety degrees as he fell backwards right beside the fallen bodies of his boss and his colleague, his eyes already glazing over, as his brain happily returned to thoughts of the girl he would spread wide later that day.

Rachel was moving fast. The first doors were twenty odd feet down the hall, deep enough to separate them from the world and from escape opportunity. She was there in seconds. Not even stopping to think, she threw both raised guns up and stepped into the doorway of the cell that had until recently belonged to herself and Jordan, firing. Two darts hit two men and they sagged, the third rose to his feet before she stopped him.

'Another inch in any direction and you're getting two of these right in your fucking neck.' Rachel said, ice cold tone level and serious. The guard's hands froze, on the way to his belt. He stepped back, Rachel stepped back too. 'Turn around.' She said in warning, still icy, still staring hard right into him. He paused, perhaps considering that she would likely just dart him in the back, before obeying.

'I guess it isn't so hard to be a commander, then.' Rachel said, lowering her guns. The guard spun, his gun up and his finger depressing the trigger, only to see the cell door slam shut behind the escapee and hear the lock bolt home in the solid steel.

Seven. Rachel had managed to knock out a third of the team on her own, and only with a little luck at that. The big guard, perhaps the one she'd seen shirtless outside, had narrowly missed her with a volley of shots before, and it wasn't until Rachel was through the doorway that she checked her left wrist cuff to see a deep score etched across it's reflective surface. She'd felt like something had whacked her arm, and this was her proof. It was a scratch mark from the literally needle sharp tip of the hypodermic needle on the dart that had been in line to slam right into the middle of her thigh, only saved by her swinging arm as she'd kept running. She'd practically punched It away, it seemed, or at least stopped it from hitting her.

Rachel had to wonder how long it would be before the rest of the guards came in, and, not as relevantly, until her luck ran out. True, it had only been about a minute now from the guards entering, and a minute could pass very quickly. But the outhouse was small, likely an off-room for changing, for conversing, swapping staff, and meetings, and whatever else needed to go on privately but without leaving the building proper. The remaining fourteen guards would be storming in soon, Rachel thought with a chill, very soon. She would have to move very quickly.

Lifting her leg Rachel yanked something wedged in her ankle cuff out and held it up before the locked cell door before her. It was one of the other things she'd found in the cabinet, another key hung on a hook beside the refilling station, a key marked simply with a note that read "cell". Seeming pretty obvious, she'd nicked it, and now she was going to use it as quickly as possible. Fitting it into the lock, she heard a click as tumblers fell home. The doors on these cells utilised a very simple, and yet very unbreakable method for sealing their doors: crossbars. Right in the centre of each door was a solid metal beam with two large handles welded into it on both sides. In the middle was a very non-home-made Keilworth lock, a deep tumbler lock system that effectively did the same job as the little knob on hotel bathroom doors does, it locks the heavy metal bar inside the recess in the wall, or outside it. The lock simply stops it from sliding.

Rachel twisted the key, heard the lock snap, and grasped the handles tightly, heaving as she pulled the metal beam away from the tightly fitted indent in the wall. Less of an indent and more of a hole, it was deep, much too deep to be walked out of its home like one would with the bar locks on standard doors. It retracted from its recess and Rachel stepped back, pulling the door wide. She looked in and saw two girls before her that she could just about kiss just from seeing them. For there before her, one lying back on her metal bench, the other sitting facing the far wall, was Amanda and Cassie, the tall and tiny girls who had come to talk back in the shipping crate all those days ago. Amanda had been resting, only woken when the door had swung open. Cassie, her tiny frame bent low, unmoving, was just sitting on the end of her bed, eyes closed, hunched over, facing away.

Amanda for her part couldn't have cared less about the door opening, lying flat on her metal frame, resting forlornly. Guards came, they went. Sometimes they brought drinks, occasionally food sometimes they just stood and looked at you and thought dirty thoughts. But then she'd looked up and immediately felt her heart start to ram itself violently at the inside of her ribcage, because she'd seen Rachel, another naked girl in chastity belts just like her own, except hers free from the restricting chains, standing there, a key in one hand, a pistol in the other. Amanda was up in a flash, her legs swinging off the bed, a tall and elegant frame which stood a good half-head over Rachel's wider and more busty shape. Thin, feminine to a fault, with perfectly defined jawline and high cheekbones, Amanda sported a shock of perfect dark auburn hair that framed her face. Out of them all, she would be the most likely to be a model. She would probably barely have to try, her body modelled itself.

'Rachel? What the hell? What are you doing?' she asked in amazement, stepping up to her. The two girls hugged, but that was all they had time for. With a serious look, Rachel pressed one of her pistols into the taller girl's hand and held up her key.

'No time, Amanda. Just cover me and don't get hit. I'll explain when the rest of you are out.' She said quickly. In a flash she was down on her knees, fiddling with the chains between Amanda's legs and their adjoining cuffs. In the distance behind her, she heard a metal door fly open and shouts echo down the hall. In the first cell, the one that had been opposite Rachel's own, the guard's would be only about forty feet away at tops. They'd be here in seconds.

'Amanda, the moment your legs are free I need you to take the key and free her,' Rachel said quickly, nodding without looking over at Cassie. Cassie hadn't moved a muscle the whole time.

'But Rachel, Cassie's not-' Amanda had started, but Rachel was up and pressing the small metal key into her hand, taking the pistol back and readying herself by the door.

'Oh, and take this, too,' Rachel said, tossing her another key, a larger one. 'Get the other doors open. The moment I say so I want you to get behind me and start opening them up, everything you can. Okay, ready. Go!' Rachel said without a moment's hesitation. Amanda had barely stepped up to her before she was moving, twisting quickly and aiming both pistols directly down the hallway at the cafeteria. Amanda stepped quickly out and moved to the next door down, ten feet away, as fast as her newly freed legs would take her. She fitted the key in the lock and twisted, hearing the chunk of the lock as it's weights dropped free and released the beam. She dared not look up as Rachel shouted, hearing the pneumatic cli-click, shuck, click of the dart pistols firing. Quickly, she hauled the beam out of its recess and hopped inside, covering her head with her arm and not even daring to look at the defending female. As she stepped inside, she'd heard the sizzling whoosh of something whistling right by her ear, and then she was back in a solid grey room, two chained women before her, the world outside muffled once more.

A few seconds later, Rachel was inside too, one arm still held around the corner, loosing rounds towards the doorway. Hurriedly, she crouched down and yanked something from her waistline, pulling something identical looking from the bottom of one of her pistols and jamming the new one in. A magazine, Amanda realised. A new clip.

'Four in left, and this is six in right. Ten shots. I got one man twice, but they were bottlenecking themselves in the doorway. I think they were too eager, perhaps freshly dosed up. Either way, it helped, but I can't miss again or I'll have to count on hand to hand fighting, unless I can find another pistol.' Rachel mumbled, checking her pistols. Amanda, still unsure of herself, was unclasping the lock on one of the two occupant's wrists. They held them out before their body for her, but did nothing else to show their excitement to be freed. Rachel looked at them both as she stood up.

She didn't recognise them, both being older women than Rachel and Amanda. One must have been about twenty four, the other closer to thirty. Though not by any means unattractive, their bodies simply sat hunched over and they seemed hopeless and dejected. The female who's hands had been freed simply returned the unlinked arms to her sides.

'What are you doing? We're busting out of here right now and we need your help.' Rachel said, her chest rising and falling from the adrenalin coursing through her veins. 'There's about ten guards outside and we can't leave until they're all asleep.' The girls didn't move, though one -- the partially freed one, who's ankle cuffs were now being unclasped by Amanda, did look at her. With a start, Rachel saw gold eyes, actually gold eyes that matched her shock of bright blonde hair on her head, looking with utter depression back at her.

'You can't escape here,' she breathed softly. 'It isn't possible to get past twenty one guards and get out without being hit once by one of their darts.' Rachel looked at her intently.

'How did you know there are twenty one guards here?' she asked, evenly. The girl, when she replied, spoke flatly, emotionless.

'Because we tried once before.'

'We counted every guard we could, we checked our numbers between each other, each lunch and dinner, we would double and triple check. When we tried it, we were the last two in the cafeteria. We each got close to a guard, slipped their guns and put them down. I got three, her, two. Then one of them landed me and I was useless. She-' she gestured towards the other girl, sitting on her own bed, equally slumped but not bothering to look up '-got it worse, got four of them in her. She was in here for four days without waking up for anything more than water. She would wake up, eat food I'd left for her by her bed, and faint again in a few minutes, and dribble and drool and touch herself the entire time. I don't think she's been the same person since.' The gold eyed girl said, still flat toned. Then, she slid herself off the bed and stood.

'Well. If you want to try, go ahead. But it won't work. All you're getting yourself into is a lot of trouble.' Amanda had managed to remove the chains connecting her arms and legs to the rest of her, so the only real movement she lacked was bending her torso. It would have to do. Rachel looked at her, shocked. She wanted to ask how she could just give up, how she could simply believe there was no trying. But she didn't. She knew what was stacked against her, and she had to admit, she wasn't confident about the small army she would be facing now. But she would face it, she thought. For Jordan, and for Amanda, and for anyone else who could care enough to run with her.

'My ankles.' Came a voice from the beds behind them. Rachel turned, the gold eyed woman looked up. Rachel had thought it had been Gold Eyes, but she was looking with intent curiosity at her inmate. For a fraction of a moment, no one breathed.

'My ankles. Please.' And Rachel heard where it had come from. Gold Eye Girl's inmate friend, her failed escape partner, the girl who hadn't looked up once, was sitting there, head down. But she'd spoken. Her hair, long and messy, obscured her face, but Rachel had heard it clearly. Quickly, Amanda crouched down and released the locks binding the woman's ankles tightly to each other, and stepped back as the girl stood up. A tall girl, though not as tall as Amanda, she was evenly built, her skin a tanned olive, her black hair long and greasy. Her harness bore signs of hair peeking from its sides and the reflective metals showed the stained ghosts of drops and rivulets on both the harness and the rounded breast caps. She raised her head slowly and sucked in a breath of air, releasing it. Her eyes were closed, her breath slow. She was calm.

'Effie...' the golden eyed girl said, stepping up to her. But the other girl, Effie, didn't respond. Instead, she looked for the first time at Rachel, locked eyes with her.

'When I run, shoot everything. Get your friend to get the next room open, and get in. Forget me, just do it and don't stop for anything.' She said evenly. Rachel gazed into her eyes, seemed to see something in them. Then she nodded, and stepped aside.

With goldilocks looking at her in stunned silence and Amanda standing nervously behind her, Effie stepped casually out of the room and into the hallway, facing the door. A guard stood, back to her, outside the threshold. She could see guards moving fast behind him, two dragging fallen guards away from the doorway leading down to the girls' cells. She took one more breath, let it out from pretty lips. Her eyes were set, focused. Then, she opened her lips, and with a sigh, breathed, almost lustfully;

'If you want some, boys, you'd better come and get some.' Then, she dropped her frame and was running in an instant, her first stride propelling her body fluidly forwards, long firm steps carrying her with surprising speed down the concrete hall. At her words, the guard by the door had caught the sound and turned just in time to see the prisoner pelting towards him. He spun, shouting to his colleagues, his pistol rising. Effie just came, never stopping, not even flinching. She was five feet away when the guard's first shot flew from the barrel and lodged itself firmly in her stomach, the black casing instantly sealing itself to her skin, the hypo delivering the pressurised serum deep into her bloodstream in seconds. Still she didn't stop, the purple shell dropping with a ping to the concrete right beside her foot as she ran. The second shot had even less distance to travel, only about a foot, and it was a wild one, loosed right as the guard had started to jump back, seeing she wasn't going to stop. The casing rammed into her shoulder and discharged instantly, the hardened glass canister dropping away in moments, empty. Then she was on him, her chained frame collecting him and carrying him backwards into the cafeteria.

Outside, three guards were variously crouched or bent over two others who had gone down immediately after Rachel's bombardment of the door to buy Amanda time to unlock the next cell. Turning as they heard the shout of their ally, they had been quick enough to see him get picked up and lifted from his post, their bodies' momentum carrying them both directly back into the crowd of men that formed the first aid squad. The two crouching were the slowest to move, and suffered for it, the flying female and male combination falling into them and collecting them both like a snowball.

The whole ball lost momentum as it pushed into the slumped bodies and the guards made to move -- only to find that the girl had managed to catch them, one with her chained wrists around his neck, the other with her legs around his chest. The man caught in her clutch felt her strong thigh muscles tensed, felt them rhythmically pulsing, but they were around his ribcage and the thighs, being home to the strongest muscles in the human body, were tightening rapidly around him, holding him tight. The other guard had been a fluke, unlucky enough to catch the chains under his chin when she'd flown into him. His head was lifted sharply backwards and he lost balance, dropping backwards. The concrete floor punished him with a sharp impact that forced him from consciousness, for a short while at least.

The other guards, four of them in the cafeteria, two by Gloria's limp form, two just exiting the kitchen, were at the ready instantly, darts already bursting from muzzles. They sprinted over and blasted the escaped woman's body with darts, each dropping two or three from their pistols. In the space of six seconds, the girl's body had gone from a metal clad girl of skin and hair to a metal clad girl of skin, hair, and dart casings. As the guards relaxed their itchy fingers on their triggers, the last of the purple vials popped away from its grip with a gentle click and rolled off her limp body.

Though they didn't realise it, this had been exactly what Effie had wanted. Her friend had been right when she'd thought she had changed. She had.

After that day when they had riddled her with four darts, she'd spent her next week locked in the most utter and pure bliss the human body could physically experience. She'd been nearly comatose, sure, from the outside, but inside her brain was working overtime producing pleasure generating endorphins and stimulating her hormones beyond safe levels. By the time her brain had slowed down, it had become so accumulated to the sensory overload that it found it was disparagingly unused and lonely without it. The neurosis, the intensely firing neurons that had gone nonstop for days on end were quiet, the hormones that had fuelled her and changed her body just as they do in puberty had done well, and like many drugs, she found herself suffering horribly from the utterly depressing lows one experiences when they come off a drug high.

Hers had been so intense that her body had shut down when it was at its worst, trying to save itself from the pain it wasn't prepared to feel. So engorged was she on the reception of pleasure that her mind would focus on little else other than sustenance, food and water, and only for long enough to refuel. Then it was back to dreaming of the pleasure she would never feel again.

This would continue until she eventually returned to normal brain function. Slowly, she'd begun to wake up, to spend the day sitting up. Occasionally, she would walk about. But that had been it for her. Until the day that she had heard that thirteen dart-wielding guards were outside with their fingers on their triggers, and someone stood before her with a key that could grant her her dream of utter bliss once more. She'd known what she'd had to do immediately, and she was ready. She was as ready as the suicide bombers of modern day are ready to die; with utter faith and complete clarity. Her plan had been simple. Get herself shot as much as possible. The thought had never occurred to her that such impossibly high levels of barbiturate hypnotic drugs were likely to kill a human, overloading their receptors, sending them into a coma, eventually denying proper bodily function entirely. She didn't care regardless of whether it killed her or not. She would be back in bliss. This was the one and only thing she craved more than anything.