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			DAMSELS UNDER GLASS: THE SERIES
			Kat's Story — by Michael Masterton Chapter 1

Jamie Seaton, Ph.D., Marine Biologist, walked along the corridor, trying not to think that her paradise would soon come to an end.

A cute, shoe box-sized robot scurried behind her like an oversized beetle, mopping up the trail of dripping water from her reefsuit.  The attentive machine was one of many in the deserted Gondaloo Island Private Resort, but Jamie was the only human at the resort—for now.  The resort will have its grand opening in a few weeks, and this corridor will be full of people.  Jamie shuddered at the thought.  At least after that initial ordeal, visitors to the island would be select.  Only Margo Wells and her guests, or small groups of TESSERACT customers and executives would disturb her privacy now and then—but it would irretrievably change everything.

She chastised herself, tried to convince herself she was being silly.  TESSERACT’s brand new, fully automated, six star luxury resort could not stay empty forever, but the last year had been heaven for her.  Jamie had been alone most of the time, with facilities she could have only dreamed about when she was doing her Ph.D., and the solitude assisted her research as much as the resources, and the subjects amongst the fauna and flora, on and around Gondaloo Island.  She owed a lot to Margo Wells.  Not every newly minted Marine Biologist was given an open-ended post-doctoral fellowship that amounted to full control of a complete automated research institute and virtually unlimited access to the very latest hi-tech toys.  Margo had helped her to fulfil her dreams—and her fantasies, she thought, her lips curling into a smile.  Yes, she was indebted to Margo Wells.

She would still have to change her habits after the Grand Opening Gala, however.  There would be times when she couldn't idly walk through the resort after diving with the dolphins, or her trips in the submarine yacht, Neptune’s Bride.  She would have to use the secret passages instead.  At least, for a few weeks, she would still be alone all the time.

But was she alone now?

She stopped.  She was in the atrium, near the lobby.  She looked around, sensing that someone else was there.  She turned around 360 degrees, but couldn’t see anything.  There was no movement outside past the huge panes of glass, except for the palm trees outside swaying in the gentle breeze, framing the view of the clouds reddened by the sunset.  The robot that had been scurrying behind her screeched to a halt, slamming into her ankle.

“Go away,” she barked at the machine.  It reversed, did a u-turn and scooted back up the corridor.  She laughed to herself.

“Maybe I have been alone too long,” she said.  After rubbing her shin, she resumed her journey, which was now nearly complete, to the door marked “Gondaloo Marine Institute - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY.”  She entered a pin number on the keypad by the door, and it slid open.  She walked through the doorway, into the part of Gondaloo Resort where she would always be able to have the solitude she wanted.

But she didn’t see the leather-clad figure that snuck in behind her before the door slid shut.

Almost thoughtlessly, Jamie tossed the data, still wrapped up in it’s waterproof protection, onto the bench in her spacious quarters.  She looked at the disk, wondered whether she should download the data now, or wait until she had her shower.

“Eve, what time is it in Seattle?”

“22:05 last night,” the voice of the Artificially Intelligent hub of the TESSERACT network replied.

Jamie sighed.

“Well, I think they can at least wait until I get out of this damn reef suit.”

Jamie unzipped the reef suit, peeling the lycra away from her freckled, pale skin.  She examined her long red curls in the mirror.  Her hair was a mess, but it would have to wait.  She got a short satin wrap from a hook on the wall, and draped it around her lithe, petite body, tying the sash around her slender waist.  She reached under the bed, where she had stashed a pair of white ballerina-style slippers.  She slipped them onto her feet, picked up the data tape, and walked out the room back into the corridor.

The ballet slippers made soft shuffling noises as she walked to the room housing Gondaloo Island’s central computer terminal.  She was looking forward to when Eve’s local nexus was fully integrated with Seattle, and then she wouldn’t have to go to the information systems control room to do priority tasks like bulk data transfers.  Once ‘Gondaloo Eve’ was ‘mature,’ such trips would be unnecessary, but for now it still was, and Jamie was starting to worry that the integration process was taking longer than it should; but, as that snooty technician in Seattle seemed to always delight in reminding her, she was a Marine Biologist, not a Computer Scientist, and she should “leave those details to us, Sweetheart.”  She sighed, keyed her familiar pin number into the pad by the door, and watched as it dutifully slid open.

Jamie surveyed the various displays at the terminal, checking all was in order.  It was a token gesture; Eve would warn her in plenty of time if any of the systems started to malfunction.

“System status,” she confirmed with Eve.

“All systems functional.  Currently 40% of resources are free for ancillary tasks.”

Jamie frowned - the normal figure was 60%, but 40% was within the upper limits.  She shrugged her shoulders, removed the data tape from its waterproof case, and inserted it in the appropriate drive.  The drive lit up and whirred in response.

“Connecting to Seattle campus, please wait,” said Eve, “connection successful.  Upload commencing, estimated time 19 minutes, 26 seconds.”

Jamie smiled, as she remembered uploading and downloading much less used to take just as long, or even longer, when she first went on-line in the early 1990’s.  The more powerful computers became, the more people wanted them to achieve.  It always seemed to be one step forward, two steps back.  Not that it mattered at the moment.  Approximately 20 minutes was plenty of time for that shower Jamie was looking forward to.

Jamie walked back into her quarters, undoing the sash of her gown.

“Eve, how about some music?  Enya, I think.”

“Certainly, Dr. Seaton.”

“‘Jamie,’ Eve.  Call me Jamie.  I’ve asked you before to stop calling me ‘Doctor.’  It sounds so bloody formal.”

“But you are a Doctor, Dr. Seaton,” Eve responded.

“Never mind,” Jamie sighed.

“Which Enya album would you like to select, Dr. Seaton?”

“Not her Millennium album, I’ve played that so many times.   I wish she’d put another CD out.  How about something from The Memory Of Trees?” 

“Commence with track....?”

“Anywhere Is.”

Enya’s voice filled the room.

“I walk the maze of moments,
but everywhere I turn to,
begins a new beginning,
but never finds a finish....”

The gown slid from Jamie’s naked body.  She spun around so it would fall onto the bed.

“I walk to the horizon,
and there I find another,
it all seems so surprising,
and then I find that I know....”

Jamie faced the bed again, and lifted up her foot to remove one of her ballet slippers.

“You go there you’re gone forever,
I go there I’ll lose my way,
if we stay here we’re not together,
Anywhere is....”

Just as her hand came in contact with the soft sole of the slipper, a huge force slammed into her back, propelling her face down onto the bed and knocking the wind from her lungs.  Jamie gasped.

"Eve, an intruder!" she shouted.

Jamie's mind raced as her nostrils were overwhelmed by the smell of leather.  Gloved hands swiftly grabbed her wrists and brought them together palm-to-palm in the small of her back, then tightening loops of rope were wrapped around them and cinched and knotted off just as tightly.

"Wondering how an intruder could have penetrated the Island's defences?" her attacker inquired in a chillingly familiar voice.  "I am a part of this Island's defences."

Jamie craned her neck, catching a glimpse of her captor's wicked grin.  It was Katherine 'Kat' Mayfair, Margo's personal bodyguard and security expert.

“Kat!” Jamie complained, “don’t you believe in knocking-mmmpphhh!”

Her protests were stifled by a gloved hand clasping over her mouth.

“Shh, my little Freckle Fox,” Kat admonished, “now, are you going to be a good girl or is ‘Kitty-Kat’ going to have to unsheathe her claws?”

Jamie had learned some time ago that the safest option with Kat was to go along with what she suggested.  She nodded, and the hand was removed.  She remained silent as Kat took her by the upper arms and stood her up.  She winced as she felt more rope tighten around her elbows, bringing them together until they were almost touching.  Kat tied off the elbow tie, then spun Jamie around to face her.  Kat paused to indulge in the sight of her naked, helpless captive.

“Hmmm, that elbow tie does wonders for your titties,” she remarked as she pulled out a longer length of rope seemingly from nowhere.  She roughly turned Jamie ninety degrees, anchored the rope from her elbow tie, then wound it around her chest and arms, above and below her breasts.  She tied it tightly, then pushed Jamie onto the bed.  

As Jamie looked up at her captor towering over her, the sense of helplessness started to engulf her.  Her captor assumed a classic dominant stance—arms folded, booted legs slightly apart.  Her piercing green eyes were framed by a long mane of dark, straight hair.  Kat’s luscious lips curled into a smug smile as she looked over her prey.  Jamie shifted uneasily, discreetly testing the ropes binding her wrists behind her back.  There was no hope of escaping Kat’s ropework, but she knew that already.

“Eve, shut that Celtic crap up,” Kat growled, and the music stopped, "it's bad enough that you sound like her on Gondaloo".

Kat raised her arms in a very feline stretch, then looked down on her squirming prisoner.

"I don't know why Margo indulges you, Freckle Fox," she mused, "letting you give Eve her own local persona, different from Seattle, from how she's supposed to look and sound.  I just don't understand.  And why you'd choose to give her the voice of that schmaltzy, New Age, so called 'singer' of glorified elevator muzak...."

Jamie glared at her captor —insulting her favourite singer was going too far.  But Kat had aborted her jealous tirade, and her attention was now absorbed in sifting through the soiled panties in Jamie’s laundry basket.  She picked out a white cotton number decorated with pink flowers.

“Really, your taste in underwear is nearly as bad as your taste in music,” Kat commented, then suddenly became very interested in the crotch of the panties she was examining.  “My God, something got you very hot and bothered while you had these on.  They’re on top of the pile, so you must have been wearing these yesterday - hmmm.  Eve, what media has Dr. Seaton accessed in the last 24 hours?”

“For the purpose of research, or entertainment?”

“Entertainment.”

“Dr. Seaton accessed the World Wide Web for a period of approximately three hours yesterday evening.  She visited one of her favourite interactive video-story sites.”

“And what did those interactive video stories depict?”

“The subject matter would be best described as ‘Damsels in distress’”.

“And her response to this ‘subject matter’?”

“A very high degree of sexual excitement.”

“Why, Dr. Seaton, you’re going as red as your hair.   Looks like I’m about to make some of your wet dreams come true.”

As Kat walked over to Jamie, she turned the panties inside out and screwed them up.

“What are you going to do with them?” Jamie asked anxiously.

“I thought a woman of your intelligence would be able to guess that,” Kat answered with a feral smile.

“You’re not going to put those in my mouth!”

“I don’t think you have any say in the matter.  Now, open wide and take your medicine like a good girl.”

Jamie kept her mouth firmly closed, but her resistance was futile.  Kat just clutched her chin, and firmly prised her mouth open, her deft, practised fingers thrusting the cloth wad into Jamie’s mouth.  She kept the packing in place with her fingers while producing a role of white cloth tape from somewhere in her leather cat suit.  She removed her fingers, but in an instant had pulled off a strip of tape and pressed it firmly over Jamie’s lips.  Several more strips followed, until Jamie’s face was covered from her nose to her chin.  Kat smoothed her gloved fingers over the tape as it gripped the skin of Jamie’s face.  

“What’s the matter Dr. Seaton, Kat got your tongue?”

Jamie glared at her as she snorted at her own joke.  The contrast between her circumstances and her captors were obvious and overwhelming.  Jamie had soft ballet slippers on her feet, while Kat wore high heeled leather boots that came up to her knees.  Jamie was naked, while Kat was fully clothed in one of her trademark black, tight, leather catsuits.  Jamie’s hands were tied behind her back, and she was now silenced with a mouth filling gag, while her captor was free to use her hands, and free to speak.  She used her hands to gently but firmly pull Jamie to her feet.

“That upload you started should be finished by now,” Kat said as she ushered her bound and gagged captive towards the doorway into the corridor, “enough frivolity Dr. Seaton—we’ve got work to do.”

Jamie shuddered, knowing there was little she could or say about whatever Kat had planned for her.