Axillon99

by Matthew S. Cox

  Shoes scuffed around her. She turned her head, trying to follow the motion, not that she could see anything. The crackling pfssh of a beer or soda can opening came from her right. She strained at the bindings, but succeeded only in causing a burning spot on her right thigh to flare up. Dakota struggled at the cords on her legs, trying to force her knees as close together as she could.

  After an eternity of listening to men move around, drink, and click small plastic objects, a set of soft footsteps approached her. The overwhelming presence of generic scented body spray enveloped her. Fingers traced the strap over her cheek to the back of her head. A buckle clattered, and the tension holding the rubber ball in her mouth released.

  She spat it out when he pulled, and worked her jaw around in a weak effort to ease the soreness.

  “There. Much more comfortable, right?” asked the lighter-voiced man.

  “Who are you people?” She again stretched her jaw. “What do you want?”

  “Ahh, that’s the question, isn’t it?” He dabbed at her face and chin with a paper towel―or something that felt like one. “Little drool there.”

  She squirmed. “Would you mind loosening the cuffs? Your trained monkey put them on a little too tight. My hands are gonna fall off.”

  “Well, if you help us out, this won’t take long at all. You’d even have some time left to run some missions before you have to go to sleep.”

  Dakota froze in disbelief. “You guys seriously think I’m going to just go home and play a game like nothing happened after this?”

  “You will if you want to go home again,” said the deep voiced guy.

  She swallowed saliva.

  “We’re here to find out who you’ve sent copies of the stolen data to. If you can convince us certain information is secure, then we go our separate ways and everyone acts like none of this ever happened.”

  The burn on her thigh intensified. She squirmed, gritting her teeth, but couldn’t reach it.

  “How many copies have you made and where are they?”

  “I didn’t copy it.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, we know you did.”

  She threw her weight at the belt across her chest, but barely moved it. “I mean, I didn’t make multiple copies. Just the copy I have.”

  “Of course you didn’t.” He sighed. “I’d really prefer no one get hurt. Has anyone ever told you that you’re quite pretty? It would be such a shame to change that.”

  She shivered, momentarily forgetting how to breathe. “Really! I just sent it to myself. No one’s seen it!”

  “Hmm.” The man’s voice sank in front of her, coming from lower than her eye-level. Cold metal touched the top of her left foot. “This is a hammer.” He traced it around her skin, despite her best effort to pull her vulnerable feet away. “I shouldn’t need to explain what happens when a delicate little woman’s toe winds up between it and a concrete floor.”

  Dakota whimpered, “Please don’t. I’m not lying.”

  “How many copies did you send out?”

  “Just the one to myself,” she half-whispered. “To a couple throwaway email service accounts. I swear no one else has seen it.”

  He clucked his tongue.

  The hammer stopped touching her foot. She thrashed and pulled at her legs, murmuring a constant stream of “Pleasepleaseplease.”

  Crack! The hammer smacked down on concrete―but not her foot.

  She shrieked, jumping so hard the belt holding her chest against the chair crept up a half inch. It took her a few seconds to realize she hadn’t pissed herself. When the initial shock wore off, she tried to curl up against the restraints. Involuntary tears and sniffles started, despite her not wanting to look so vulnerable. Dakota got angry with herself for cracking so fast, but that only made her tremble harder.

  “Dude,” muttered one of the other guys. “Maybe she’s not lying.”

  A hand clapped twice on a jacket, and the deep voice muttered in Spanish, “Come on, man. Torturin’ kids ain’t what we signed up for.”

  “Yeah,” replied the other one, likely the driver, also in Spanish. “I, umm. I ain’t got the stomach for this kinda thing. You wanna pop her nice and clean, let’s do it. Not this shit.”

  She jumped at the clatter of the hammer dropping on the floor.

  “Fine,” said the guy with the softer voice, the evident boss. “Okay, girl. How’d you get in?”

  Sensing a hint of humanity in her abductors gave her brain a tiny ledge to grab. Few things in her twenty-two years had terrified her as much as being blind and tied to a chair, but these guys didn’t know about the back door. Her inner hacker snarled in defiance, refusing to give up such a huge prize.

  “Sweet-talked someone in your IT department into resetting a VPN connection.” She squirmed at the belt over her chest, working it upward millimeter by millimeter. “It’s not like they show in the movies.”

  Metal grazed across her neck beneath her chin, followed by a faint click. “Convince me.”

  Dakota didn’t have to act much, despite lying, to tremble. “You want me to wet myself or something? Would that do it?”

  The gun fell away from her chin. She started to exhale with relief, but a slap rocked her sideways. If not for the belt crushing her chest against the seatback, the hit would’ve sent her tumbling to the floor.

  She gasped, too stunned in pain to say a word.

  “Are you sure? Who’s the person you spoke to in IT?”

  “Mike,” said Dakota, going for the most common name she could think of. “I told him I was a new assistant to Prakash.”

  Another, harder, slap caught her on the opposite cheek, flinging her head to the side. Despite the blindfold, stars flickered by her vision. She cringed in on herself, whimpering and sniffling, only half an act. A fist hit her in the gut, knocking the breath out of her.

  “I can’t watch this,” said the deep-voiced guy in Spanish, before walking out.

  It took her a few seconds to start breathing again. His accent is weird. Not a native speaker… they must not know I understand them.

  “Please,” whispered Dakota. “I didn’t even look at the data yet. I just copied a bunch of folders looking for game stuff.”

  Light voice grabbed her throat and squeezed. “You think we don’t know what you found?”

  Dakota gurgled, working her shoulders back and forth to nudge the belt upward. He’s bluffing. He’s gotta be bluffing. “It’s true!” she wailed. “I only wanted to check out the guts of the game for optimization character building. I swear!”

  Again, he slapped her hard across the face; that time the chair tilted up on two legs for a second.

  “I think you’re feeding me a line of shit. But I get that you’re feeling a little stressed out right now.” His voice glided away and circled her. “We’re going to give you a little time to think about your situation.” He leaned over her from behind and patted her cheek twice, right on the tender spot. “I have clamps, needles, and a soldering iron… and you have a lot of beautiful, untouched skin. Think real long and hard about your priorities.”

  The men walked out, slamming a door that sounded metal. Scraps of Spanish conversation filtered through the wall, mostly the two men who grabbed her off the street objecting to torturing a young woman. It would’ve reassured her except for the one guy’s statement that he’d be totally fine simply shooting her in the head, but drew the line at torturing a girl. They argued amongst each other about how best to proceed.

  She wriggled her shoulders in earnest, pushing with her chest at the belt. It crept up, approaching her throat. A little more and it might slip over the back of the chair. Oh, please don’t be watching me.

  Dakota had no idea where she was, if she’d even make it out of the room alive, or what these men would do to her―but she did know one thing.

  She wouldn’t just sit there and wait to find out.

  Causing Trouble

  26

  The belt snagged on the back of the chair,
refusing to move upward any more. Growling to herself, Dakota lost a few seconds to a panic-induced struggle, futilely trying to reach her cuffed hands up to grab the leather strap across her chest. With each passing second, dread that she maybe had minutes to escape or she’d wind up dead increased.

  Sweat dripped off her nose; her heart hammered in her eardrums. No amount of brute force she could muster did any good. One fortunate attempt to jerk her body free caused her ass to slip forward. The belt rode up under her chin, compressing her throat enough to cause a cough. Her brain re-engaged and she focused on scooting her butt forward. The leather snugged into her neck, making her gag. She kept squirming her ass forward, twisting so the strap passed up and over her head. Cord bit into her ankles as her legs bent, but she didn’t care about pain.

  Living mattered more.

  Once she got clear of the belt, she wobbled upright, still with her ankles tied to the chair legs. She stooped enough to grab the front edge of the seat and pulled it up, tugging at the chair until the smooth metal leg pulled free of the cord binding her right leg. She kicked the loose bundle of wire off before freeing her other leg, then paused a few seconds to breathe.

  Spanish arguing continued, muted by the closed door and distance. Light Voice called the other two ‘chickenshits’ for not having the balls to handle a crying woman. Another said he hesitated because ‘she looks like sixteen,’ which got them debating her age.

  She bent forward and wriggled until she got her chained wrists past her butt. Screw booty! My flat ass just saved my life. Thinking about the size of her rear end made her think about Eric―and worry that he might be in danger. Dakota shuffled to the side, stumbling when she tried to stand on one leg. Her right foot came down on a painfully sharp object; she recoiled with a gasp and careened over sideways, the handcuffs digging into the backs of her knees. No longer worried about balance, she pulled her legs out one after the other and got her hands in front of her. The instant she reached up, ripped the leather blindfold off, and hurled it to the floor, a rush of confidence came on.

  Dingy pea-green walls surrounded her in what looked like a small break room inside an abandoned warehouse. A dead sink on the left held a mountain of trash next to tall metal cabinets with doors so dented they couldn’t close. She’d been tied to a hospital-green chair with a metal frame and meager padding. Its three identical cousins stood around a small, square table to her left loaded with scary things like a box of detachable hypodermic needles, razor blades, and an icepick. One solid metal door presented the only exit. Trash and glass fragments littered the floor.

  The rambling Spanish voices continued arguing about what to do with her, but sounded distant, like they’d gone downstairs. Holy shit! They didn’t hear me. She whimpered a little and examined her right sole, but whatever bit of debris she’d stepped on didn’t cut her. The men had tossed her sneakers and socks nearby, so she hastily jammed her feet into them and leapt upright. Not far away, the hammer the one guy had been ready to break her toes with lay on the floor beside a stack of old fishing magazines. She reflexively tugged at the cuffs, tight enough that her hands had gone red, and glared. In addition to the torture supplies, the table held Chinese take-out, beer cans, and a rectangular stun gun with two metal nubs―no keys.

  “Grr.”

  She glanced down at her right thigh, where two small holes had burned through her yoga pants. Dakota spent a moment glancing back and forth between the stun gun and the hammer. The stun gun didn’t require any physical strength to use, but if they got it away from her, it would be right there for them to use (again) on her. On the other hand, swinging a hammer as a weapon with her hands chained would be awkward, plus all three of them had her beat for strength. Her main advantage seemed to be that they didn’t want to kill her―at least not right away―so they probably wouldn’t whack her in the head with the hammer if they took it from her.

  The burn on her thigh flared.

  “Mama wants payback.” She grabbed the stun gun in both hands and crept up to the grey steel door, listening.

  “You two need to harden up,” said Light Voice in Spanish. “They want this information found, and weren’t too particular about what happens to the little blueberry. So we break a couple fingers, couple toes, maybe give her a nipple piercing or five. I’m okay leavin’ her alive since you two are such bleedin’ hearts, but we need the information.”

  “This girl have a cat or something? Maybe we threaten the cat, she talks?” asked the other guy.

  Light Voice sputtered. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Her cat?”

  “Hold on.” Deep Voice chuckled. “You’re all bent out of shape over threatening a cat that may or may not even exist, and you’re cool with mashing that girl’s toes with a hammer?”

  “People suck,” said Light Voice. “Even cute girls. Animals never screw you over.”

  Dakota clutched the stun gun tighter. Time to get out of here. She shifted the stunner to her left hand and gripped the knob with her right, twisting her whole body as she turned it, like that would make the task quieter. That little part of her brain used to activating stealth mode in the game twinged over and over.

  At not seeing her arms go semi-transparent, involuntary tears rolled down her face. Come on, Kota. Hold it together. This isn’t a game. Stealth isn’t magic. Just be quiet. Don’t freak out. The door squeaked a little when she pulled it inward, but the conversation downstairs didn’t skip a beat. Outside, a small landing offered a stairway to the right next to a water cooler, and a corridor leading left. Her abductors sounded like they were at the bottom of the stairs, so she shied away from the right and hugged the wall heading for the corridor.

  More hospital green paint flaked from the metal walls, exposing rust spots. Three doors on the left went to a locker room, a shower, and an area with tall metal shelves loaded with tiny boxes and larger cans. She peered through the window of the only door on the right into an elevated observation area that had control stations for cranes or something mounted to rails inside the main warehouse area.

  Dakota stepped with care, avoiding putting her sneakers down on panels of broken glass or kicking empty soup cans. She imagined herself as Fawkes so she wouldn’t be afraid of the price of making a mistake. Every time the conversation downstairs paused, her breath caught in her throat. She pushed herself up to go a little faster, heading for the rightward corner at the end of the hallway. If she couldn’t find an escape route, maybe she could crawl into some place, hide, and hope the men assumed she got away.

  At the end of the corridor, she peered around the corner. A small room had a trio of tall metal cabinets on the right, a couple rotting raincoats hanging on pegs, and a door that led out to the roof. Shivering from fear, she hurried over to the flimsy wood door. Glass that had broken out from its window crunched under her sneakers. The door didn’t look like it could lock, or even close well enough to keep out the rain. She brushed it open and stepped out onto a massive, flat roof.

  From here, she had a good view of a river and dense urbanization on the other side, probably New Jersey. The familiar cluster of high-rises comprising the Manhattan City Center sat way off to the right, so she felt confident they hadn’t taken her out of New York.

  “Crap,” she whispered, still absentmindedly fidgeting at the handcuffs, which had become painful.

  She hurried away from the door, hunting for a place to hide. The much smaller second story of the warehouse perched like a building on top of a giant rectangle. Other than the upper floor, the expansive roof offered no cover. Right as she began to panic again, a glint of metal in the sun flashed from the distant edge: a ladder.

  Careful not to make noise, she scurried across the roof to where two metal rods looped up and over the three-foot high retaining wall. They braced a simple rung ladder, the lower half of which had retracted upward, a fire escape designed to prevent people outside from climbing up to the roof. She whined out her nose, not trusting the rickety thing, but she feared being ca
ught even more.

  I’m only on the second floor. It’s not that big a drop. Screw fear of heights.

  She threw one leg over and froze, unable to get a good grip on the ladder while handcuffed and holding the stun gun. Dakota clamped the plastic box in her teeth and gripped the rung with both hands before swinging her second leg over and trusting her life to half-inch thick steel rods. Completely focused on not making noise, she lowered herself one rung at a time. It surprised her when her left foot hit pavement. She hadn’t even noticed the second section of ladder glide downward.

  Yes! I’m out. Shit! Now what?

  She spat the stun gun into her hands, then looked left and right along a wide-open stretch of road between old dock warehouses. This whole area had been in decline for the past twenty years. After the political mess with China, most manufactured goods came from Mexico (which didn’t require boats) or India, except cars and electronics, which Germany and Japan provided a disproportionate amount of. Oceanic transport all came in via the West Coast due to the president’s brother owning a shipping company out of LA.

  So, yeah, people in this area who had to do nefarious shit always came to the docks. No witnesses and plenty of room.

  Trying to think of the fastest way to be found by the police, she took three steps to the right before stopping. Wait… no. If I go to the cops, I’ll have to confess to accessing CSI’s computer network illegally. She bit her lip. Even if they didn’t prosecute her for that, going to the cops would require her to spill everything and implicate the others… or at least put them at risk.

  Shit. They’re at risk now! Against her better instinct, she ran back toward the warehouse doors. I’ve gotta warn everyone.

  She crept up to the edge of a huge cargo door and peered around the wall into a cavernous space. Dozens of puddles covered the floor around a black Lincoln Town Car. Walls far away on the left mirrored the shape of the upstairs floor, blocking her view of the distant half of the warehouse floor. A battered steel door with a sign declaring hardhats as mandatory wobbled back and forth in a faint breeze.