“Yes,” Laurina replied tentatively. “A little.”
“Well, for both our sakes let’s hope ‘a little’ is enough.”
Hearing an audible tone once again, Sinza reached up to the small flesh toned patch hidden within the folds of her ear. Making a slight motion, the tone changed to a quickening pulse. Gaining her bearings, she turned quickly to Laurina and shouted, “I’ve got Galicia’s signal. Let’s get out of here!”
The two women ran through the entrance and down a long corridor, with Laurina firing on any guard who happened to emerge in their path, while Sinza focused most of her attention on Galicia’s homing signal. Minutes later they rounded a corner and came face to face with Galicia, who was herself being followed closely by two black-robed men. Laurina’s eyes widened in recognition of her sister, before narrowing at her predicament. Two grunts echoed through the air as both women lashed out at her pursuers, with Sinza clothes-lining one, causing him to land heavily on the floor striking his head. Laurina swung her weapon and struck the other in the temple with the butt of her rifle, causing him to crumple as if shot. Both men writhed for a moment before slipping into unconsciousness.
The commando and the redhead quickly followed after the Initiator, who led them through a door and into the stairwell where she had taken refuge earlier. As the door closed behind them, Galicia tapped the air and the door was sealed shut, covered in a faint green glow. The three of them ducked into the alcove next to the bottom of the stairwell to rest a moment.
“Gal! I can’t believe I finally found you!” Laurina whispered fiercely and she wrapped her arms around her sister and hugged her tightly. Galicia hugged her back just as hard.
“I missed you terribly Laur, “she replied, “But I didn’t expect you to come after me.”
Her older sister shook her head with finality.
“You little twit! You know that there’s not a flippin’ thing on Earth that’s gonna keep me away when you’re in trouble. I’m just glad that you’re alive!”
Both sisters gazed at each other in awe of being reunited, with a touch of sadness shadowing Galicia’s face. Emotions ran high as the two fought back tears and hugged each other even tighter.
“Good work Gal!” Sinza interrupted, lifting both women to their feet. “I knew you’d come through. Sorry to break this up, but we don’t have time for a family reunion right now. Let’s get moving!”
Quietly, the three women made their way up the stairs, while at the same time listening for sounds of pursuit. At the first landing, Galicia erected another blue barrier upon the door before they passed. On the next level, she erected her barrier not a moment too soon. Several black robes had reached the door and opened it a foot, before being forced back into the hallway by the blue power. Shouts echoed in the hallway as they alerted their fellows to the presence of the women. Taking the stairs two at a time, the three women from the Carbon World bounded up flight after flight of stairs.
By the time they reached the uppermost landing, a panting Sinza called a halt, allowing them all a chance to collect their breath.
“Do you know the way out of here Gal?” Laurina gasped as her chest rose and fell from the exertion.
Galicia shook her head in frustration.
“As I tried to read the CCE currents, another Initiator must have programmed a Murk, obscuring my readings. All I can get is a general direction.”
Sinza smiled ruefully. “Well, did you really think it would be easy to escape from this damned freak show?”
Galicia grunted indignantly at her companion’s sarcasm as she opened the stairwell door a crack. Seeing no one in front of her, she opened it wider and glanced left and right.
“Coast is clear, Sinz.”
“Alright, let’s move out!”
Choosing to go right, Galicia, Laurina, and Sinza moved stealthily down the empty corridor like cats seeking prey. The irritating double gong of the alarm continued on this level as well, keeping the women on edge. Sinza decided to take point position, to protect the others, and slowly moved ahead. Surprisingly there was no activity on this level, and as she listened, her trained senses could not detect anything amiss. Moving to the left of the corridor, she advanced cautiously, silently signaling the other two to fan out behind her, as they approached a series of doors on either side.
Straining their senses to the utmost, the three women walked slowly past the group of entrances, toward the end of the corridor.
As Sinza passed the last doorway, a large arm reached out from the darkness and grabbed her hard by the hair. Before any of them could react, her weapons were knocked from her hands, and Sinza was quickly pulled through the doorway, while the metal door was shut and bolted behind her. Her assailant took great care to keep her from turning around by grasping more of her hair and yanking it downward. As she struggled fiercely against her still unseen captor, her mind noted that she had been pulled into a large dimly lit office. Suddenly a set of fleshy lips pressed against her neck, and a familiar voice breathed into her ear. The sudden recognition chilled her blood and caused her body to go limp.
“Well, hello there girlie. We meet again!”
Chapter 10
Seeing the door quickly closing, Galicia immediately rushed over with Laurina right behind, but they were too late. Just as she grabbed the door handle, the metallic grating of double bolts sliding into place greeted their ears.
“Sinza! Sinza! Dammit!” the blonde Brit pounded her fists on the door in frustration.
Laurina raised her purloined rifle.
“Maybe I can shoot out the lock like the coppers do on the telly,” she said tentatively.
Galicia shook her head as she held a hand over the gun barrel. “Save your ammo Laur,” she directed. “I’ll blow the door. You take out anyone other than Sinza who is behind it!”
“Got it!”
Galicia prepared herself to use her Initiator powers to forcibly open the door when a shot rang out, and a bullet struck the wall inches away from her face. Turning around, both women were greeted by the sight of several black-robed guards pouring out of two of the doorways behind them. Laurina quickly leveled the first two with a burst of fire from her rifle, but four more entered the corridor raising their own rifles. Galicia immediately changed tactics and tapped the air several times, producing a blue force shield, just as a hail of bullets cut through the air. The projectiles hit the blue barrier and bounced harmlessly away.
“Damn, that was close,” the redhead muttered.
A moment later, the blue barrier winked off and on repeatedly like a light switch being tampered with by a child.
“Bollocks!” Galicia exclaimed as she reacted to the change in the shield’s intensity.
“What’s wrong?” Laurina called out.
Galicia turned her attention away from the barrier for a moment and looked toward the growing group of black-robed men not ten feet away. Sure enough, one of them was standing apart from the others. He was an older man, tall and lean, with olive skin and a thick mustache that resembled the bristles of a hairbrush. She watched as he was frantically but methodically tapping the air in front of him.
“Looks like the blokes have their own Initiator,” she replied. “And he’s good too! It’s all I can do to keep him from hacking my shield further.”
“But what do we do about Sinza, Gal?”
Galicia spared a grim glance toward her older sister as she tapped the air furiously. “For right now, we can’t help her. She’s on her own.”
“So good of you to come back to play with me,” Mert chuckled. The guard captain had shifted his grip on Sinza’s hair, pulling her against him, as he wrapped his other meaty arm around her throat. “Seeing that you’re all finished up in the Arena, that frees you up for a little time with old Merty. And I’ve got a little somethin’ right here that your just gonna love.”
Sinza was pulled even closer, and she could feel Mert stiffening against her mostly bare buttocks. Reaching behind her, he grabbed
a hold of Sinza’s thong and tugged it downward.
“Like I told ya before,” he breathed into her ear. “Winner take all. And when I say all, I mean all!”
Sinza opened her mouth to fire a retort when Mert’s grip tightened around her windpipe.
“Now none of that smart tongue of yours. Just relax and let me take you to heaven, girlie.”
Knowing that she needed to act quickly, Sinza immediately went limp. Mert smiled wickedly as he sensed that the woman had finally accepted the inevitability of the situation, and had given in. Keeping a grip on her neck with his right arm, he reached with his left hand for the zipper of his pants. As he freed his genitals, the raven-haired commando reached out with her right foot and scraped it along the inside of his instep, stomping hard to the floor along the side of his foot.
As fiery pain lanced into the guard captain, he instinctively reached toward his foot, loosening his grip on her throat in the process. Sinza wasted no time in seizing the opportunity, by spinning about and freeing herself from his grasp. Before he could recover, she stepped backward to create a bit of distance between them. Focusing her strength, she drew her right leg back and issued a brutal kick to Mert’s exposed genitals.
“Aiiieeee!” the guard captain screamed, as he crumpled to his knees from the brutal blow, clutching his now bleeding privates. “You fucking bitch!”
Quickly grabbing his hair with her left hand, Sinza pushed his head back and threw a hard jab at his exposed throat, crushing Mert’s windpipe. A second blow struck his nose, breaking it. A third blow landed with a loud crack as she broke the big man’s jaw.
“Urrrkgh,” he gurgled wetly, grabbing futilely at his throat and ruined face as a fount of crimson ran like a river from his nose and mouth. Sinza held onto him by the hair with one hand as he started to pitch forward. Shifting her stance, she maneuvered herself behind him, grasping his chin with the other hand. Using all of her might, she twisted Mert’s head sharply, breaking his neck. Letting her adversary go, she watched as his body slumped heavily to the floor. Mert lay face up twitching spasmodically, as his eyes looked up with surprise and reproach at the woman who had finally bested him. Sinza stared back at him triumphantly, as he began to go into the throes of death.
“That’s ‘Ms. Bitch’ to you, motherfucker!”
The roar of gunfire echoed through the hall as Athena’s guards pinned down the two fugitives from the Carbon World. The blue shield Galicia had set up about them was still holding, but it was taking all of her concentration to maintain it, thanks to the persistence of the black-robed Initiator. Both women were becoming frustrated at the standoff. Galicia chafed at not being able to use her powers to attack, and every time she tried to focus part of her energy into doing so, her shield would waver and start to fade, and she would have to abandon her attack strategy to shore it up again. Meanwhile, Laurina felt totally worthless since she couldn’t fire her weapon without passing beyond Galicia’s shield. Time was ticking away, and both were afraid that the delay and the noise of combat would bring even more of their black-robed adversaries into the corridor.
“Isn’t there anything you can muster to counteract the blighter’s attack,” the redhead asked.
“He’s been trained well,” Galicia replied. “It’s almost like he’s anticipating my every move! We could move down the corridor while I keep the shield up, but that means totally abandoning Sinza, and I don’t want to do that.”
“Well, we’ve gotta do something Gal. We can’t stay here forever or we’ll be overrun!”
“I’m open to suggestions Laur,” Galicia replied.
As the two women pondered their situation, the Arena guards had aligned themselves in two ranks, spacing themselves in an arc so that each one of them had a clear field of fire. Their Initiator stood in the rear behind the second rank, working at weakening the force field surrounding the two women. A sheen of sweat covered his olive-skinned brow as he probed the barrier for any deterioration in intensity. While he considered her an enemy, he held a reluctant admiration for the blonde Initiator. She was certainly no pushover. However, sooner or later her endurance would weaken, and then he would have them both.
He was so focused on what he was doing that he didn’t sense the presence behind him until it was too late. There was a sharp stab of pain in his back that took his breath away, and suddenly the male Initiator looked down to see a thin blade sticking out of his chest. As awareness dawned on him, a flash of metal caught his eye, and then a burning sensation ravaged his throat.
Galicia was concentrating so hard on protecting herself and her older sister that she inadvertently stumbled forward when the other Initiator’s attack ended abruptly. Peering through her shield, she saw movement behind the now headless man, and as his body pitched forward, she marveled as a short figure grasping twin blades bounded forward toward the nearest black robed attacker. Two quick flashes and he slumped to the floor, while his assailant was already pouncing like a cat toward the next guard. He screamed a warning just before the knives struck his throat.
Alerted to this new threat, the other men turned towards their attacker, bringing their rifles to bear. Before they could fire, however, Galicia now free of her rival’s attack, began tapping the air in front of her, moving the shield forward. The blue force bent forward into a V, knifing between the guards like an arrowhead. The twin walls of the V quickly split apart toward both walls of the corridor, sweeping up the men in their wake while avoiding their bladed nemesis. Like giant fly swatters, Galicia’s power splattered them mercilessly against both walls, and the sound of splitting melons echoed through the air. Blood and brain matter clung wetly to both walls, in odd but matching patterns, like a gruesome painting done by a mad artist working in gore.
“Crikey!” cried Laurina in equal parts of awe and disgust. “What a bloody mess!”
With their attackers dispatched, Galicia released her hold on the power and allowed it to dissipate into the air. Breathing heavily from prolonged exertion, the blonde Initiator dropped to her knees breathing heavily. She wanted so badly to hurl a retort back to Laurina but she was too winded to speak. Her older sister rushed forward and cradled her in her arms protectively, just as the lone figure walked up to them.
“Looks like I caught up with you just in time, roomie,” a cheerful voice spoke.
Laurina looked up with a smile as she watched the small ample figure wrinkle her nose.
“Quite right Doro,” she sighed with a smile. “Quite right!”
After catching her breath, Galicia looked at her sister and the newcomer gravely.
“We’ve got to go rescue Sinza, and then find a way outta here.” She stood up on wobbly legs and faced the heavy locked door.
“Give it a moment Gal,” Laurina said with concern.
“Yeah,” Lil’ Doro chimed in, her normally bright voice now slightly subdued. “You don’t look too good.”
“You don’t understand,” Galicia replied. “Every minute we delay could mean---“
The sharp snap of bolts sliding back caught their attention, and the women fell silent. The three of them quickly took up defensive positions around the door. Laurina raised her purloined rifle prepared to fire, while Doro crouched on the balls of her feet holding her long, sharp knives at the ready. Galicia began to tap on her invisible keyboard as the handle turned and the heavy door opened.
“Looks like I missed the party,” a smirking Sinza spoke as she came into view.
Chapter 11
Sinza spoke briefly about her encounter with Mert to the others as they quickly vacated the blood-strewn hallway. The grisly tale greatly relieved Galicia who shuddered at the thought of the “pervy lout” who had made their captivity nearly unbearable. Lil’ Doro led them to a hidden alcove on another level, and with no immediate danger present, the four women were able to rest briefly. The three Carbon Worlders listened intently as the small gladiator was concluding her explanation of why she aided them.
“…and af
ter realizing that there was no way that I would be able to end my contract, I knew that I was in trouble. When I almost died in the Arena, even though Athena revived me and I was able to win, it hit me that my life would always be dependent upon the whim of an extremely fickle woman who fancies herself a Goddess, and I could fall out of her favor at any time. I can’t take another five years of this! I’ve had enough of being a plaything for her amusement. There is more to life than being a gladiator. Sure, I have fame and admiration, and access to the good things in life, but there are things out there that I have never done, and I want to experience them all. I want to enjoy living my life on my own terms, and no one else’s.
As she spoke, Galicia leaned over to her sister and whispered, “Blimey, she’s sure a chatty one, isn’t she?”
Laurina shrugged good-naturedly.
“Besides,” Doro smiled brightly as she continued, “I was hoping that you’d take me with you.”
Sinza bristled immediately. “Now wait a minute. That’s outta the question!”
“Please! I can help you,” Doro pleaded. “I know Athena’s complex like the back of my hand and I can get us past the guards too. You need me, just like I need you. Plus, after meeting and talking with Laurina, I can’t help thinking that you might be my ticket outta here.”
Galicia looked at the small gladiator with sympathy.
“Well Sinz, perhaps we could take her with us. She’s definitely on about helping us out of this sticky spot.”
Sinza eyed the diminutive woman with suspicion as she unconsciously flexed her trigger fingers.
“I don’t like it at all,” she said sternly. “Why should we trust this Arena rat? For all we know, this could be a trick and she could be leading us back to Athena.”
Hearing this, Laurina immediately came to Doro’s defense.
“A trick? Are you kidding? Listen, while you were playing footsie with that Mert guy, Doro pulled our asses out of the fire by taking the head clean off of that bloody spell caster, or whatever you call ’em...”
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