‘In other words,’ he ended, opening his eyes again at last, ‘you will have yourself a crop of perfect, mindless, docile and obedient slaves - and that includes Ms Muirhead.’
At Christina’s command, Lianne stumbled to a halt and stood panting, sweat running down the bridge of her nose and sideways along her lip to dribble onto the straps of her bridle. The powerful blonde looked across to where the lap counter board stood, noted the number showing and gave a grudging nod.
‘You’ve done much better than I expected,’ she said, ‘but then there is a stubborn streak in you, slut. Not that it will remain there for much longer, I can assure you. I have a way of knocking streaks out of my slaves, believe me.’ She walked across, detached the long check rein from Lianne’s bridle and jerked her head sideways.
‘Come,’ she said, ‘it’s time for William to groom you and then there will be some entertainment for you and all your friends to enjoy. The stupid red-headed slut, Marlon’s sister, seems to think she might be some sort of match for me, so I intend to give her the opportunity to find out that she is not.
‘I am even going to concede certain of my natural physical advantages, which I think is extremely generous of me, under the circumstances. Then, when I have beaten her, I think we shall have her join you in the stables for a while. A week or two with a horse face should teach her due humility.’ She stopped, dragging Lianne to a halt, and peered down into her eyes.
‘I am sure you understand what I mean,’ she said. ‘It must be so frustrating not to be able to talk, even if the bit were removed, and also to know that you look more beast than human. Maybe I can arrange for VESTA to handle a few more improvements.’ She slapped Lianne across her rump.
‘This arse and these legs are still far too human,’ she said. ‘Maybe we can give you a proper pony body from the waist down. I wonder what it will feel like to have knees that work back to front - interesting, do you think, Amber?’
She laughed, jerked the lead rein again and they continued back towards the stable buildings.
‘This really is most remarkable,’ James Naylor said, as much to himself as to Christina. He stood in the centre of the room, turning slowly, studying every tiny detail of the cupboards, racks, stands and their contents. He stepped over to the nearest rail, selected one of the long boots that hung from it and turned it over slowly in his hands.
‘Quite incredible,’ he whispered. ‘It’s impossible to tell, isn’t it?’
Across the room, Christina was putting the finishing touches to her outfit, aided by the lithesome Marika, whose brown form was being displayed to its best advantage by the brief cut of the white leather skirt and halter she now wore. Naylor smiled to himself as he tried to accustom himself to the sight of a Marika who was now taller than Christina. Or to put it more accurately, he reminded himself, a Christina who was now shorter than the Asian girl.
‘There are a few anomalies,’ Christina said, as Marika finished tightening the dildo harness about her hips, ‘but they’re not that important and Koenig reckons they can all be taken care of in time.’
‘But even this is far more realistic than I ever expected,’ Naylor said, replacing the boot and taking up in its place a complex head harness. ‘I mean, when I came to here, for a moment or two I thought the machine had failed. It’s hard to believe I’m still laying out there in that coffin-like thing.’
‘It takes some getting used to,’ Christina agreed, holding out a hand for Marika to begin fixing the whip to it. ‘But you’ll be surprised how quickly it happens. What about you, Marika? This is also your first time inside VESTA.’
‘I am trying not to think of this as anything but the real world,’ Marika replied, her features expressionless as ever. ‘And in a way that is all it is; an extension of one reality taken into another, a form of reincarnation without the intervention of the death mechanism.’
‘Don’t get her started,’ Naylor laughed harshly. ‘When she starts banging on about karma and levels and all that other religious bullshit, I start falling asleep.’
Marika did not appear to react to the insult, but her words were carefully measured. ‘You may dismiss many things simply because you choose not to understand or believe them,’ she said, ‘but be careful they do not ultimately dismiss you. We tamper with the natural laws at our own risk and should not forget that for every cause there is an effect and for every effect a cause.’
‘Well, I’ve got my cause all nicely mapped out, thank you girl,’ Naylor said. He was working his way along the rail and had discovered a very lifelike rubber face mask, complete with attached wig. In its unstretched state the features were very distorted, but even so, there was no mistaking the identity of the woman’s face it was meant to replicate.
‘I can’t understand why the machine has gone to all this bother,’ he said, pulling the rubber this way and that. ‘After all, if we want to make someone look like someone else, why not just programme the computer to do it anyway? It’d be a lot quicker than fitting this over someone’s head.’
‘But not so symbolic, I think,’ Marika said. She took up the claw-nailed glove for Christina’s other hand. Naylor shook his head.
‘I’ve never been able to understand all this so-called symbolism,’ he said. ‘You want to bring someone to heel, give ‘em a dose of pain and promise ‘em more of the same and they soon come around to your way of thinking, I reckon.’
‘Some understand and some don’t,’ Christina retorted. ‘I long ago gave up trying to re-educate you, James.’
‘Is that so?’ Naylor snapped. ‘Well, bully for you, but you’ve been able to enjoy your little games thanks to me and don’t you ever forget it, so don’t get on your high horse.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Christina replied, sweetly. ‘Not when I can have all the horses I want right here, but then...’ She did not bother to finish the sentence and the room fell silent, while Marika continued to prepare her for the coming duel.
A huge mirrored wall had been added at one end of her stall and Lianne studied her reflection in it in dismay, for it had taken almost no time at all for Christina’s latest whim to be put into action. Presumably her computer expert had now mastered Marlon’s creation, for the transition had taken place without Lianne realising it, and it was only when she’d raised her head from the drinking trough and turned to move to the back of the wooden cubicle that she’d suddenly become aware of the changes in her lower body.
The mirror had appeared at the same time and now, as she stood before it she saw, instead of just the parody of a pony girl, a creature that might have come straight from the pages of mythology. A centaur or centauress, with the hind legs and flanks of a horse and the torso of a well-endowed human female. Above which, unlike the beast of ancient legend, sat a head that was more equine than human, yet still retained enough of its original features not to hide her true identity.
She looked down at her hands, or rather to where her hands should have been, for her arms now ended in useless hoof-shaped stumps, on the underside of which were glittering horseshoes that matched the ones upon which she now stood.
Fighting back tears of horror and helpless frustration, she turned slightly, noting dully how her new tail swirled with the movement and wondering just how much further the perverted amazon bitch would be prepared to go in her crusade of revenge.
The rattle of the stall door disturbed these thoughts before Lianne had time to dwell on them and she turned to find William standing there, lead rein in hand, clip held up ready to attach it to Lianne’s bridle. He showed no surprise at her unexpected metamorphosis, simply made a clicking noise with his tongue that indicated he expected her to come to him.
‘Got a special little surprise for you, Amber,’ he whispered, patting her muzzle. ‘Going to drive you down to the new arena. There’s going to be special games today - cart races and a big gladiator contest to start with. Afte
r that there’ll be a new pony girl to keep you company; name of Flame, so they tells me.
‘Now, you walk on steady like and we’ll get you hitched up to your nice new racing buggy. Don’t know who’s going to drive you for the races, but just you remember I’ll be watchin’ you.’
Nadia, try the door again.
The voice inside her head brought Nadia out of her dozing state instantly. For a few seconds, not understanding its source, she looked around the empty room in bewilderment.
I’m not there with you.
‘Marlon? Where the fuck are you?’
That’s not important now. Just listen to me and do what I say.
‘But there appears to be some sort of malfunction going on here,’ Nadia protested, rising to her feet.
It’s not a malfunction. I haven’t got time to explain. You have to trust me.
‘Why? What’s going on? What’s wrong?’
It’s your friend Naylor and, from what I can tell, the woman whose leg young Lianne broke back last year.
‘What about them?’
If you’ll just listen, I’m trying to tell you. They’re here, them and some others and they’ve taken over control of VESTA. I can tell you, that big dyke is in her element with all this. She ought to be locked up and the key thrown away.
‘But how...?’
I’ll tell you later - no time now. For the moment they can’t monitor the circuit you’re on. They think it’s gone down but it hasn’t; it just went into a sort of limbo for a while. The same with Ellen’s circuit. The German bloke has checked that the self-diagnosing modules have activated, which they have and he’ll know something is up before long, so we have to rely on speed here.
‘Can’t you do anything out there?’
I’m not out there. At the moment I’m - well, it doesn’t matter, but I’m sort of able to be in two places at once, at least for a few minutes. I daren’t push it, though. I need to check out a lot of things in a very short time, but I’ve already activated a few things they don’t know about as yet.
In a few minutes your pod will disengage, but be very careful. At the moment Naylor, the Christina woman and some Indian girl are all hooked up to VESTA via active terminals, but there are at least a couple of gorillas wandering around the house - sort of minders, I guess you’d call them. So when you come to out there, take it very easy. Don’t jump up and start pulling wires off you until you’re sure there’s nobody in the room with you.
Before you unhook you’ll be linked to Ellen’s circuit. Tell her what I’ve told you and then see what you can do to take the goons out of the equation.
‘Shouldn’t I just switch off the power to VESTA?’ Nadia asked. ‘That’d put a stop to all this straight away, wouldn’t it?’
Except that VESTA has back-up supplies, because we don’t know what damage a sudden power failure might cause to the participants. In any case, that’d mean the people on the active terminals coming out of it several seconds ahead of all of us and they have guns with them out there. No, I have a better plan. Just trust me.
You and Ellen should be able to deal with the heavies. There are only two of them, or there were last time I saw. They’re probably outside patrolling the grounds anyway. I’m sure the pair of you will think of something.
‘And what will you be doing in the meantime?’
Like I said, trust me. I’m a great believer in an eye for an eye... poetic justice, if you prefer. There’s a little scene about to go down, involving my sister.
‘Your sister? But...’
I repeat, it’s a long story. Just do as I say, okay?
‘Okay.’
Fine. See you soon. Go find Ellen.
The racing buggy was not that much different from the one she’d been harnessed to earlier, although Lianne saw that its black and gold design gave it a much flashier appearance than its training counterpart, and she also thought its construction appeared much lighter.
The shaft to which she was harnessed was also contoured so that the length over which she was impaled and chained was able to remain parallel to the ground, but several inches higher than before, compensating for the increased length of her new hind legs. Miserably, she stood passively while William finished buckling and chaining her, and then dutifully began to walk forward when he climbed into the seat and flicked the whip across her back.
However, William was not satisfied with this pace and very soon she found herself trotting along at an astonishing trot, moving much faster than she could have imagined before her latest metamorphosis. She looked down at her useless arms, which hung just a few inches clear of the ground, and wondered how long it would be before Christina decided that they, too, should be altered, so that she would be able to canter and gallop on four hooves, instead of just two...
Alma and Tara stood quietly to one side, watching Clarissa as she studied her reflection in the long mirror Tara had wheeled in.
The mask had been the final addition, a carefully contoured creation of thick toughened leather, that covered her face entirely whilst leaving her cropped hair in clear view. Over the eyes were clear plastic lenses, which although they did nothing to hamper her vision, gave her eyes a peculiarly enlarged appearance when she looked at them in the glass.
‘The mask is for protection,’ Alma had explained, as she finished buckling it into place, ensuring the lenses were correctly aligned with Clarissa’s eyes. ‘Without it the eyes would be an obvious target for your opponent to concentrate on, which would ruin the spectacle.’
‘And we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ Clarissa retorted. ‘And does my opponent get to wear a mask too?’ Both women nodded in unison.
‘It is always the same for both contestants,’ Tara told her. ‘You are evenly matched and it becomes a test of skill.’
‘Except this bitch is a head taller than me and several kilos heavier,’ Clarissa said sourly. They shook their heads as one.
‘Not at all,’ Alma assured her. ‘You and your opponent are the same height and the same weight.’
‘But…’ Clarissa’s mouth remained open for several seconds, before she understood the significance of this. Finally, behind her mask she grinned.
‘Oh, I get it,’ she said. ‘In here we can all be anything or anybody, so the bitch-dyke thinks she’ll lull me into a false sense of security. Well, maybe I’ll have a few surprises for her before she finally beats me.’
‘Beats you, mistress?’ Alma looked genuinely surprised. ‘Surely that is defeatist of you?’
‘You must fight to win,’ Tara added.
Clarissa flicked her forearm through its restricted arc, drawing a satisfying crack from the multiple thongs. ‘I don’t quite know how to put this, girls,’ she drawled, ‘mainly because you’re basically a pair of unthinking electronic bimbos, but then that’s not your fault, is it?’ She stared at the two faces, neither of which registered any reaction to this challenge.
‘However,’ she went on after a short pause, ‘let’s get one thing straight, especially as I’ve got no way of knowing just who might be listening in to this little tete-a-tete. If you, the blonde cow, this bloody machine, or anybody else thinks for one minute that I’m going to believe I’m getting into a fair fight, you can bloody well think again.
‘She may have had me looking like some sort of perverted bimbo, but that’s one thing I ain’t, right? So I’m not daft enough to think I’m going to get a fair crack here. Okay, she might spin it out for effect and I might just get a couple of good ‘uns in as a result, but ultimately this fight is what is known as a fix.
‘Come the end, I’m gonna end up flat on my back with her rubber cock in me. What happens then I don’t know, but if that’s what decides the winner, that’s what’s going to happen to me.’ She reached down and encircled the thick dildo with her clawed hand.
‘You might as well not ha
ve bothered strapping this thing on me,’ she continued. ‘She and I both know I ain’t gonna get the chance to use it - mores the fucking pity!’
‘But you must fight!’ For the first time Alma appeared concerned, and her companion likewise.
Clarissa pursed her lips, cracked the whip again and nodded grimly. ‘Oh, I’ll fight all right,’ she promised. ‘Where I was brought up it goes against the grain to lay down and give up without giving it a real go, even when you knew the other drongo was going to beat the living crap out of you eventually.’ She turned back to the mirror for one final look at herself.
‘Jeez!’ she whistled. ‘If ma could see me now, she’d have a blue bloody fit!’ She tilted her head, first to one side and then to the other, and then stood up straight, thrusting out her breasts.
‘Right,’ she snapped, turning back to face the two women again. ‘Let’s do it!’
Whatever was going on, VESTA had really excelled in creating the backdrop, Lianne thought, as she trotted into the arena beneath a high arched gateway and came obediently to a standstill at William’s signal.
The stadium was a large oval, with tiers of seating banked up all around, seats that were packed to capacity with what appeared to be a very expectant and eager crowd. Underfoot and across all of what Lianne thought of as the playing field area, for want of a better description, the ground was firm but covered with a layer of white sand. All that was missing, she reflected, was a bunch of cowering Christians and a pride of hungry lions behind a metal gate, waiting to be turned loose for their lunch.
Approaching from the outside, her first thought had been that she was going to be raced against other pony girls, but now they were inside there was no sign of any sort of racetrack, nor any posts or ropes that could be used for marking out such a course. There were posts - six of them in fact - but they were being put to a different use altogether and it did not take Lianne long to work out the identities of at least some of the figures bound to them, despite VESTA’s alterations to their physical appearances.
Vesta - Painworld Page 21
