Chapter
6 Like Fish in a
Barrel
Natassia cradled
Kyla and Violet as close to her as she could while she treaded
water. Both of her companions
were shivering violently with the cold.
The
Dragon’s
Eye blazed brightly,
giving off an eerie light in the darkened
elevator. Natassia was drawing
on its power, using the energy of the gem to keep her companions from going
into hypothermia, but the water was deadly
cold. Without the powerful talisman
all three women would have soon died of the intense
cold.
“The water must be refrigerated,” said
Natassia. “It is unnaturally
cold. I’m not sure how long
I can sustain us against it. I
have never used the power of the
Dragon’s Eye
so continuously
before.” The length of their
ordeal worried her. She had no
way of knowing whether or not the power of the glowing gem would continue
indefinitely or whether it would weaken with
overuse. They had been shut in
the water-filled elevator for almost an hour
now. Her companions were approaching
the limit of their endurance, despite the ability of the Dragon’s eye
to keep them from freezing. Also,
the water had stopped rising about one foot from the
ceiling. There was always the
chance that whoever had turned it on in the first place would do it again
and finish them off.
Natassia continued to churn the water vigorously with her
legs. Neither Kyla nor Violet
was moving much now. With a feeling
of absolute helplessness and dismay she realized that the two girls were
very close to dying. She shifted
her grip so that she could temporarily support the two women with one arm
and struck frantically at the ceiling.
She had done this many times before in the last hour without result,
but she couldn’t think of anything else to
do. The situation was
desperate.
Clunk! To
Natassia’s amazement a section of the ceiling gave
way. Her repeated pounding must
have loosened a hidden panel. She
explored the opening with her hand.
It would be a bit of a squeeze, but it was just large enough for her
to fit through. Holding Kyla
with one arm, she lifted Violet into the
opening. The girl was not as
big as she was and Natassia was able to cram her through the
hatch. She kept on shoving until
the girl’s feet disappeared and then lifted Kyla into the
opening. This was a bit more
of a challenge. Kyla was much
taller than Violet. Fortunately,
she was not heavily built and Natassia was able to lift her to safety as
well. Now it was her
turn. Grasping the edges of the
opening with both hands she pulled herself
upward. Her larger, stronger
build made it more of a struggle, but she too was soon through the
gap. Immediately, she moved to
her friends.
It was hard to see them
in the dark. Only the
Dragon’s
Eye provided
any light, but the space was small and she located them without
difficulty. She pulled her companions
to her, warming them with the energy flowing from her
body. Now that the freezing water
was no longer a factor she was able to revive both the
girls. Kyla awoke
first.
“How did we get out of the water?” she
asked. “I thought we were
goners.”
“Just dumb luck I guess,” replied Natassia, “but now we’ve
got to figure a way out of this hole.”
She stood up and began to feel round the elevator
shaft. Perhaps there was an access
ladder. Her groping fingers
encountered metal. She was in
luck! She could feel the metal
rungs of a ladder.
“I’ve found a way out,” she
said. “Come over here and
follow me.” She closed her
hands on the rungs. A powerful
electrical shock coursed through her
body. The tremendous surge of
electricity would have killed anyone else, but the
Dragon’s
Eye protected
her. However, the continuous
current flowing through the steel had forced her hands to close tightly on
the rungs. She could not let
go as the electricity coursed through her
body.
“Uuuugggghhhnnn!
She cried, her mouth wide-open wide with pain
and surprise. As her two companions
looked on in absolute horror, she slumped forward in a dead faint, still
clutching the ladder in a death
grip.
“We’ve got to
get her off there,” screamed Violet, “she’ll be
killed.”
Kyla looked desperately around for some non-conductive material that she
could use to rescue her friend.
Suddenly, in a flash of inspiration she pulled off her leather
belt. It was still damp from
the time she had been trapped in the water-filled elevator, but she could
think of nothing else. Holding
the belt at each end she looped it over Natassia’s still convulsing
body. Kyla felt a strong electric
shock, but she could still move her arms.
Yanking back with all her might she pulled Natassia away from the
electrified ladder. The powerfully
built heroine tumbled away from the ladder and fell in a heap on the elevator
ceiling. The two girls bent over
her, fearing the worst but hoping for the
best. Kyla checked the pulse
in Natassia’s throat.
“She’s alive,” she said with enormous
relief. Just then the elevator
started to move.
It moved down past the floor where the three women had been trapped, then
it came to a halt. The door slid
open. Several men in white lab
coats stood there. They were
holding guns and wearing strange goggles.
One of them stepped forward.
“Come with us,” he ordered, gesturing with his
gun. You too, Blue
Avenger.”
Kyla gasped. The man could see
her! But
how? “It must be something
to do with those strange goggles,” she
thought.
“That’s right, Blue Avenger,” said the
man. “I can see
you. Or rather I can detect where
you are. You have clouded my
mind, but you cannot cloud these radio-emitting
goggles. They allow me too see
an image that locates you precisely.
You may as well come quietly.”
Kyla did not resist. There were
too many of them and if she tried to use force against them there was a real
danger that Violet or the unconscious Natassia would be
killed. Another of the men grasped
her by the arm and pulled her arms behind her
back. There was a sharp click
as a set of handcuffs was fastened to her
wrists. Violet was similarly
handcuffed, as was the still inanimate Natassia, but not before her cowl
was removed and with it the circlet holding the
Dragon’s
Eye.
Now Nova had lost the source of her
power. They had been caught like
fish in a barrel. The elevator
had proven to be a deadly trap and they had walked right into
it. What would happen to them
now?
Natassia stirred and opened her eyes.
She tried to move and then gasped in sudden surprise when she found
that her arms were locked in place behind her
back. It was quite a shock for
a woman who normally would have dealt with such restraints by simply snapping
them. Seeing her awake, her captors
jerked her to her feet. The white
clad crimefighter responded by delivering a powerful kick to the head of
the nearest lab-coated escort. The
blow knocked him head over heels across the
floor. She was manacled, but
not helpless.
Momentarily caught off guard, the rest of the half dozen men simply stared
at her, but Natassia was still moving.
The first man had not even stopped rolling before she drove her foot
into the midriff of her next closest
opponent. He too went down, and
then she turned her attention to the next
man. Suddenly there was a shot,
the sound of the firearm filling the small hallway outside the
elevator. Natassia whirled to
face the man who had fired his gun and stopped
cold. He was not pointing the
gun at her, but rather at the head of her friend Kyla, who he held by the
neck. “That’s right,
Nova,” he said. “Stop
what you are doing or your friend gets her brains blown
out.”
Natassia gauged the distance. Could
she move quickly enough to disarm the thug holding Kyla before the gun went
off? She hesitated, and then
was seized from behind. Two men
forced her to her knees and attached a short length of chain between her
ankles. She would do no more
kicking. Mentally, Natassia
cursed. She could have fought
off the two men who had grabbed her, but Kyla might have been killed, so
she was forced to let them take her
prisoner. Now escape would be
much more difficult.
“That’s better,” said the man holding
Kyla. He motioned with his gun
and the three young women were marched down the corridor to another heavy
steel door.
“This place is like a fortress,” Natassia
thought. Getting into it would
be tremendously difficult, and that meant that escaping it would be difficult
as well.
Reaching the door, the man who appeared to be the leader of the group pushed
a number of buttons on the wall next to
it. Smoothly, with almost no
sound the door slid back into the wall.
The man stepped aside and the captive females were herded into a room
full of bizarre apparatus. Each
of the girls experienced a spasm of fear as they
entered. The room was outfitted
like a torture chamber.
There were several people waiting in the
room. One of them stepped
forward. “Welcome
heroines,” he sneered.
“And welcome back Violet.
I’m so glad you decided to
stay.” Natassia and Kyla
recognized the little man immediately.
It was Ivan Retinoff, the “Mad
Doctor.” Both women
shuddered. They had already
experienced some of the vile little man’s
brutality. The other men in the
room seemed to be technicians. They
were dressed like Retinoff in white lab
coats. All except one of
them. This man seemed strangely
out of place. He was huge, standing
almost seven feet tall and wore a stupefied expression on his
face. Natassia wondered about
him. What purpose could such
a man have in the Mad Doctor’s
retinue?
Kyla gave an audible gasp. She
stood looking with her mouth open in shock and
horror. Natassia followed her
gaze. “Jade Dragon!”
she exclaimed.
From across the room, the Jade Dragon stared back at her friend in helpless
humiliation. Retinoff seemed
to have known that the women were coming and had brought her down to this
room where he could display her properly.
From the high ceiling several steel beams thrust down into the
room. About seven feet
off the floor a metal crosspiece was welded to each beam, forming an upside-down
metal “T.” The bottom
part of each beam was adjustable so that it could be lowered to accommodate
people of different heights. Sun
Lin was strapped naked to one of these
“Ts,” her arms spread
parallel to the floor. Leather
straps around her wrists and upper arms secured her the horizontal
bar. The height of the bar was
set just low enough for her to touch the floor with her
toes. Each ankle was strapped
to a tether that spread her legs about three feet
apart. Her beautiful breasts
rose and fell as her chest heaved with
emotion. She had led her friends
into a trap again.
Retinoff’s assistants led the other women over to the Jade
Dragon. Tears rolled down the
oriental heroine’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as they drew
near.
“It’s not your fault, Jade,” said Natassia, “I was
careless. I was supposed to be
your backup and now I’ve failed you.”
“Very touching,”
interjected Retinoff. “It
is going to be great fun entertaining you four
ladies.” He motioned to
his men.
Natassia, Kyla, and Violet were each led over to one of the bondage
beams. Within a few minutes they
were suspended in the same way that Sun Lin
was. Retinoff walked in front
of them inspecting each of them.
“This is amazing,” he
said. “I think I have died
and gone to Heaven. Three of
the most beautiful and dangerous women on the face of the earth, and I have
them all. First the Jade Dragon,
and then you.” He stopped
in front of Nova. “Our first
encounter was interrupted. Are
you still a virgin?” Natassia
did not answer. “Well, I
will soon find out.” He
reached into his lab coat and pulled out a small sharp
knife. Taking the thin material
of her costume in his left hand, he made a small incision near the neck of
her costume. Pulling the knife
carefully down through the material he began to slowly undress her.
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