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			DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
			Jamie's Story — by Van Chapter 5

Jamie looked Anne and Jodi's bound and gagged, primitively decorated forms up and down, savoring the fact that she was free, and in charge, and with a little luck things would remain that way for the rest of the day... and into tomorrow night... probably.  (Margo was unpredictable, but Kat was the real wild card in the deck.  If things didn't go as Jamie had planned...  and Kat did get her claws into her...)  Jamie suppressed a shudder, then smiled and addressed her formerly fellow captives.

"Here's what's gonna happen, ladies," Jamie said.  "At least for the moment, neither of you gets untied."  Jodi seemed unsurprised, but Anne frowned and protested through her gag.  Jamie reached up and straightened the unhappy lawyer's hair with her fingers.  "Don't get all huffy," Jamie admonished with a coy grin.  "There's a reason for my... uh... villainy."

Jamie indicated the three branches of the trail immediately before them.  "To the right, the trail to a nice little beach about a third of the way around the Island.  In the middle, a long, branching set of trails that eventually lead to the far beaches.  To the left, another long set of branching trails that lead up into the mountains."  She turned back to her companions (now her captives, as they were all fully aware).  "I have a little surprise almost ready for the 'Evil White Huntress' in a valley clearing about three kilometers from here up near the first peak, but I need a little time to finish preparations and position the bait."

Jamie looked significantly at Anne.  "Hello, Bait," she said with a grin.  Jodi giggled through her gag.  Anne turned and gave her a very dirty look.  Jamie chuckled, then addressed the amused honey-blonde.  "Don't be so pleased with yourself, Jodi," she admonished.  "Who do ya think is gonna be buying me time to finish the trap?"  Jodi's amusement faded, and it was Anne's turn to laugh.

Jamie continued, with the air of a General explaining her battle plan.  "The reason neither one of you gets untied is, of course, because Margo needs to find you exactly as she expects to find you."  She pointed to the right.  "Jodi, you go that way, leaving a clear trail.  The trail's a straight shot, and you can't get lost... except that near the beach you'll come to a narrow stretch of swamp.  If you look, you'll see the trail starting again on the far side.  Go straight across, get to the beach, then turn right, back towards the resort."  Jodi nodded her understanding.

"'Bait' and I will head for the mountains.  Margo will follow your trail first, Jodi," she explained, "because she'll know there's a slight chance you might actually make it back to the resort by that route.  The beach turns into rocks, but a swimmer like you would be able to backstroke around them."  Jodi nodded again.  "Anyway, either you make it to the resort... or you don't.  Either way Anne and I get the time we need to finish the trap."

Anne and Jodi gave each other questioning looks, then slowly nodded to the affirmative and turned back to Jamie.  "Good," Jamie said with a grin, "you've figured it out.  Either you do it my way, and we all have at least a chance of not becoming Margo's, and more importantly, 'Kitty-Kat's' playthings... or you do it Margo's way: run 'til you drop, and she finds you... then Kat finds you."  All three shuddered at the prospect.  Jamie and Jodi knew first hand the kind of tender mercy they could expect to receive if Margo's pet was let off her leash.  Anne could only imagine.  Jamie nodded to Jodi.  "Off you go," she commanded.

Jodi smiled around her gag, bowed (as gracefully as she could, with her arms bound), then turned and ran down the right-hand trail.

As soon as Jodi was out of sight, Jamie gestured to the left.  Anne paused, sighed, and jogged towards the mountains with Jamie close behind.

Jodi found the trail to be clear and easy to follow, just as Jamie had said.  She jogged along the sun dappled path, moving quickly, but purposely twisting her sandaled feet now and then in order to leave clearer sign.  Her bonds and gag were little encumbrance (she was used to moving around under such... constraints); but she soon found herself drenched in sweat.  Even though she was in superb condition (she was an aerobics instructor, after all), Jodi knew she was going to have to pace herself carefully.  She was not used to this tropical heat and humidity.

After about a mile, the towering buttressed trees gave way to thick brush and Jodi could smell the ocean.  She surmised that the beach was near.  Also just as Jamie had said, the trail seemed to abruptly end at the edge of a stretch of swamp.  She peered through the heavy foliage and surveyed the several yards of wet, slimy, gray-green earth.   In addition to the salt of the ocean, other odors wafted on the breeze.  The earthy scent of the rainforest had given way to a sweeter, stronger smell, not as pleasant as the forest, but not unpleasant.  Several species of exotic plants, a few with really spectacular flowers, seemed perfectly at home among the swamp's puddles and shallow pools.  Flying insects buzzed in clouds, but thankfully seemed to have little interest in a bound and gagged human.

Jodi turned her head left and right.   There seemed to be no way across or around the swamp,  although Jamie had said all she had to do was... "go straight across."  Jodi looked again.  Beginning directly before her, she noticed that a narrow, roughly linear stretch of the swamp was almost devoid of plants.  She followed it with her eyes... and could just make out a patch of bare sand on the far side.

Jodi sighed.  She couldn't go back, and she could always wash her sandaled feet in the surf when she got to the beach.  She took a careful step onto the swampy soil... and found it to be surprisingly firm.  She took another step.  Her feet were only sinking in to the level of her toes.  The mud was squishy between her toes, and actually felt kind of nice, Jodi decided, smooth and soupy.  Four more steps and she was almost halfway across.  On the next step, she sank up to her ankle... but the soil underneath was still firm.  She took another step, and another.  She took another, and discovered it was a serious effort to pull her mud slimed foot free of the swamp.  The sand and the resumption of the trail was only about three more paces away.  She took one more laborious step... planted her foot, and sank up to mid shin!  Jodi squealed through her gag and leaned back in alarm, struggling to maintain her balance.  After coming perilously close to falling backwards, Jodi finally succeeded in righting herself... and found herself mired in the swamp not quite up to her knees.

The dry sand of the trail was only an arm's reach away (...unless your arms happen to be bound behind your back, of course).  Jodi took a deep breath and attempted to move her right leg.  She pulled with all her might, and succeeded in lifting it about six inches; however, she made no progress whatsoever towards the trail.  She dropped her right leg and strained with her left.  Same result.  She settled her weight again... and found she had sunk to just above her knees.

Jodi made the chilling realization that she was trapped!  And she was sinking!  Jodi pulled against her bonds and whimpered through her gag.  She felt a rising wave of panic... and stifled it.  Slowly, carefully, with all her strength, Jodi attempted to lift her left foot... and found she was as hopelessly bemired as she was bound.

There was a rustling noise in front of her.  Jodi looked up and noticed a stump near the beach side of the trail, about a yard away.   The palms or ferns or whatever the hell they were rustled and parted... and a spider stepped from the foliage and onto the top of the flat, mossy stump.

Jodi's eyes widened in terror.  She didn't like spiders... especially big, green, big, shiny, BIG, hairy, HUGE spiders!  Jodi whined, panting in fear.  The awful thing was as big as her head... and it was looking at her with red, glowing eyes... lots and lots of red glowing eyes!  The spider's mouthparts clicked and it moved its legs a little, as if testing its balance.

"That's quicksand," the spider said with Eve's voice.  "I think you should try to remain perfectly still," it suggested, "and wait for Margo to come rescue you."

Anne flexed her right leg and tried again to get comfortable.  She craned her neck and looked down towards her left ankle.  Anne wasn't much of a Girl Scout, but even she was impressed by the subtle camouflage of Jamie's arrangements.  It looked exactly as if Anne had wandered through this clearing, stepped over a pair of heavy fallen branches, and managed to plant her foot in the exact spot that caused one branch to roll and trap her left ankle between two interlocking forks.  She couldn't pull her ankle free, and (an observer might surmise) her early efforts to kick the top branch away had only succeeded in making it roll again, trapping her even worse.  Now Anne was sprawled on her stomach, the smooth bark of the branches holding her sandaled foot in a viselike grip.

Jamie had carefully arranged "Bait" (as she delighted in continuing to call the bound, gagged, hot, sweaty, nearly naked, and increasingly indignant lawyer); then had shuffled around her, pantomiming the futile efforts of an equally bound partner to free her trapped companion (and leaving tell-tale marks on the forest floor in the process... the point of the pantomime exercise); and finally, had "reluctantly fled" higher into the mountains.

Anne lifted her hip off the ground with her bound hands and shifted her weight, trying to find a spot that had slightly fewer sticks and protruding roots... to no avail.  Jamie's final instructions to "Bait" had been for her to "act helpless".  Anne didn't need to be much of an actress, as she really was helpless.  The entwined, heavy branches really were inextricably holding her in this semi-awkward position in this dirty, green, growing, orchid overgrown, bird and butterfly infested... place.

Jamie was nowhere to be seen.  She had warned Anne that they ("they?") would probably have to wait for some time before Margo arrived on the scene.  Anne wished Jamie had told her exactly how the rest of the supposed trap worked, but the carrot-top pip-squeak had explained that the less "Bait" knew, the less she could give away.

Anne sighed and looked around once again.  If Jamie was nearby, she was very well hidden.  Anne sighed again, and rested her gagged head on the leaf litter, not sure if she should wish for Margo to hurry... or not.  She had to admit that she was sort of enjoying herself.  Bound, gagged, virtually naked, perhaps abandoned in the jungle, being stalked by a ruthless hunter who was going to do... things to her.  Anne shuddered in delight... frustrated delight.  Why couldn't any of those damn roots protrude in a place where they could do some good, she mused.  Anne continued to "act helpless," deciding she could best achieve this aim by mewing through her gag, writhing, and rubbing one of her favorite body regions against the damp, soft humus, imagining all the wonderful... she meant horrible... things that Margo would do to her if her poor, pitiful, inescapably bound and gagged self didn't somehow find a way to extricate herself and get away.  And Kat...  What about Kat?  (Was it really that bad being Kat's... toy?  What would Kat do to her if she got the chance?  Was she going to find out?)

Margo eased down the trail towards the beach, knowing she had to make good time, but being careful not to miss any sign of her prey side or back-trailing.  Jodi's footprints (Margo was sure they were Jodi's) led straight towards the swamp and the beach.  Margo came to the swamp, parted the thick foliage... and was greeted with the sight of Jodi (still bound and gagged, of course) mired in the swamp up to her navel, her ridiculous lizard tail and the flaps of her loincloth floating on the surface of the wet mud.  The honey-blonde's back was to Margo, and the poor thing seemed to be using all her concentration to stand perfectly still so as not to sink any further.

Margo smiled and quietly backed down the trail until she came to the hidden side trail that led around the swamp.  Within two minutes, she was back at the scene of Jodi's predicament, this time emerging from the forest on the beach side, perhaps two yards from her prey.

Jodi was very happy to see her.  She smiled through her gag, clearly relieved to see anybody, even an "Evil White Huntress" in full regalia: boots, jodhpurs, bush jacket, pack, net-gun, and jungle hat.

"My, my," Margo said with a smile.  "So you decided you were a swamp lizard.  Not a very good one, are you?"

Jodi, twisted in her bonds, then went very still when she abruptly sank about two inches deeper.

Margo checked the safety on her net-gun and leaned it against the nearby stump.  "Hello, Eve," she said to the huge "spider-bot" sitting on its flat surface.

"Hello, Margo," the spider-bot answered.

Jodi watched as Margo unshouldered her pack and took out a coil of rope and one of the over-sized snap-rings used by climbers, a carabiner.  She tied a small bowline in the end of the rope and snapped the swing-gate of the carabiner through the loop.  With an expert hand, Margo tossed the rope over the limb of a tree so that it dangled directly over Jodi's head.  "Would you be so kind," the TESSERACT CEO asked the spider-bot, gesturing towards the rope.

The bot leaped from the stump and swarmed up the rope.  Jodi watched anxiously as it climbed over the tree limb and down the rope until it came to the end, then clutched the carabiner with its hind legs and dangled head down.  Jodi knew the robot wasn't really an impossibly huge, hairy, green spider waving its legs directly over her gagged head... but the image was chilling nonetheless.  Margo slowly faked out the rope and the bot dangled lower and lower.

Jodi flinched when she felt the bot's arachnoid legs brush her shoulders.  It seemed to be doing something to her bonds at the nape of her neck (where "Eve's Impossible Knot" was tied).  There was a click, and the robot swarmed back up the rope, over the tree limb, down to the ground, and back to its perch atop the stump.

Margo heaved on the rope, and Jodi felt herself being hauled up by her bonds.  It wasn't exactly comfortable, but it beat the heck out of drowning in quicksand!  Jodi rose about six inches, then Margo let the rope go slack and Jodi sank back down.

"M'mmpfh?" Jodi mewed.

"Good, the limb's solid," Margo remarked, and pulled the free end of the rope through an exposed root in the stump.  She pulled the rope taut, then shook out several inches.  "Help me estimate the length, Eve," Margo said, ignoring Jodi's continuing gagged inquiries.

"How deep do you want her to sink?" the spider-bot asked.

Sink??  Jodi wailed through her gag.  Margo contemplated her bound, gagged, distressed employee.  "Oh, chin deep I think," she answered, "with the head back, of course."

"Of course," the spider-bot answered.  Margo continued playing out slack until Eve-as-spider said, "Enough."

Margo tied off the rope with a triple knot, then turned to regard her "victim."  Jodi was showing her best wounded pout.  "Yes, I'm going to leave you," Margo purred.  "I have two other jungle girls to catch, and I don't think you'll be going anywhere."

Jodi turned her face away in a huff.  She liked a dirty trick as much as the next person, but this was a wet, slimy, hot, humid, and very dirty trick.

Margo chuckled.  "She will be all right in there, won't she, Eve?"

"I'll check her every few hours for leeches," Eve answered.

Leeches??  Jodi got over her huff very quickly, and struggled against her bonds, pleading with her eyes.  Margo watched as the captive's efforts caused her to sink an inch deeper.  Jodi ceased struggling and hung her head.  A tear trickled down her gagged face.

"Oh, very good," Margo applauded, "but you're not fooling anyone."  Jodi looked up as Margo shouldered her pack and retrieved her net-gun.  "We both know you'd be delighted to find anyone else on the island in such a situation, wouldn't you?"

Jodi sighed, then whined through her gag as her employer gave her a small wave, turned, and left.  Margo's footfalls faded almost immediately.  Jodi looked at the stump, and found that Eve's spider-bot had retreated from view as well.  A minute passed.  Jodi heard a bird call from somewhere nearby.  A butterfly gracefully fluttered across the swamp and landed at the edge of a particularly wet spot on the swampy ground not far from Jodi's helpless form.  She watched as its long, curly tongue flicked at the edge of the water.  Jodi reminded herself to ask Jamie why a butterfly would drink like that.  The insect in question slowly, rhythmically opened and closed its wings as it drank.

A second butterfly joined the first.  Jodi watched in fascination as the thin black tongues darted and flailed, lapping at the water.  Jodi felt the rope stretching from the stump, over the tree limb, and down to her bonds move slightly, and noticed that she had sunk an inch deeper into the swamp.

Following Anne and Jamie's trail into the mountains had been more challenging, but only slightly so.  Margo moved carefully, her net-gun at the ready.  So... Anne and Jamie had decided to stick together, she mused.  In their place, Margo probably would have insisted they each strike out on their own, reasoning her hunter would have to cover much more ground to follow three different trails before sunset.  Margo smiled.  It really didn't matter.  She knew the Island.  It wasn't that big or that easy to get lost in the interior.  The lowlands were dense and hard to traverse once you left the trail, and the mountain valleys and rills were steep and difficult to climb even if you weren't bound with rope.  Maybe Jamie was on the run and Anne was following.  Margo wasn't a good enough tracker to tell.

Margo came to a clearing, the start of a mountain valley that led towards Gondaloo's first tall peak.  (Tall by local standards, she mused.)  Margo stopped.  She could see Anne lying on the ground at the far side of the clearing, just before the valley narrowed and the trail began to really climb.  Margo took ten paces closer and examined Anne's plight.  The "Ring-Tailed Lawyer" was lying on her stomach, her left leg under a pair of heavy branches, her bodypaint, ludicrous furry tail, and cute little ears making her look for all the world like a sleek, furry animal caught in a trap.

"Really put your foot in it, didn't you?" Margo called to Anne.

Anne mewed through her gag and shook her head miserably.

"Lucky you didn't break your leg," Margo scolded.  (She knew Anne wasn't hurt.  Eve would have sounded the alarm and called off the hunt if something serious had happened.)  Margo slung her net-gun and started forward.  Even from this distance she could read the trail around Anne, how Jamie had tried and failed to help her friend, then had done the only sensible thing under the circumstances: run like hell.  "You're making this too easy, Anne," Margo chuckled.  "Since you seem to like that woodpile you've pulled down on yourself so much, I think I'll leave your ankle where it is, stretch you back over the crook of that limb, take some rope and..."

Margo paused in mid sentence.  Something she had just said...  "'Too easy'," she whispered.  Margo reached for her net-gun—just as there was a loud sproing and a loop of rope sprang from under the leaf litter, tightened around her ankles, and pulled her off her feet.  She dropped the net-gun and reached for the knife in her boot.  It was half out of its sheath—when a coil of rope was thrown around her shoulders and pulled taut, pinning her arms to her sides.  She turned her head to find Jamie, still in her "Jungle Princess" costume but unbound, ungagged, and grinning from ear to ear.  The rope lasso was in her right hand, the end of a thin cord in her left.  Jamie tugged on the cord, there was a second loud sproing, and the lasso snapped tight around Margo, stretching and holding her flat on the ground, taut between the ankle and chest ropes.

Margo continued to struggle... until Jamie calmly stepped closer, picked up the net-gun, and thumbed off the safety.

"I arrest you in the name of the Gondaloo Native Constabulary," Jamie announced, solemnly, "for poaching jungle girls without a proper license."

Margo smiled up at her employee and friend.  "I suppose for the honor of the Evil White Huntress Club I should resist," she said with a theatrical sigh.

"And make me chase you around the clearing?" Jamie asked with a laugh.  "Why don't we say I used a narcotic tipped blowgun dart on you, or something similarly native and nasty, and you swooned gracefully to the forest floor.  Fewer bruises that way."

"Okay, oh wise and merciful Princess of the Gondaloos," Margo chuckled.

"We'll see about the 'merciful' part," Jamie said with a feral smile.

Jamie slung the net-gun over her right shoulder, pulled Margo's knife from its boot scabbard, cut the straps of the huntress' pack, and tossed the green nylon harness of pouches and pockets to the side.  Jamie unsnapped a buckle, and Margo's bandolier of net shells joined it.

"That pack was new," Margo groused.

"I think you can afford another," Jamie laughed, then rolled Margo onto her stomach, knelt with one knee firmly but lightly between her tall prisoner's shoulder blades, pulled Margo's leather gloved hands together behind her back, and using a long, thin cord—carefully, meticulously, savoring every second—began binding the wrists of her friend, employer, and benefactor—the richest, most powerful woman on the planet.