Incursion

+++++ Please note: this is the sequel to my other story Acquisition; I suggest you read that first before continuing. Thanks for reading! +++++

***

Her heart pounded with excitement as the adrenalin ran through her body. They were inside at last.

Once they had timed the intervals the regular security patrols it had proven much easier than anticipated to slip through the guarded perimeter that surrounded this place. After that, a short, heart-pounding dash across open ground had taken them to the wall of the house and then in through the small window beyond the neatly raked gravel path that seemed to crunch like thunder beneath their feet. Mercifully, the alarm system had been nothing special and it was child's play to bypass it and then clamber through the opening.

The two black clad figures huddled in the inky blackness of the room until it became clear that they were alone. One of them used a small torch to probe the darkness and reveal a series of shelves neatly stacked with cardboard boxes and tins. According to the plans they had studied, this small room had originally been designed as a larder area for the kitchen and its use hadn't been changed in the hundred odd years since the overly elaborate faux-Gothic mansion had been built.

Both figures breathed more easily. The initial jolt of adrenalin was beginning to fade slightly as they took stock of their surroundings.

"Well that was easy," Adrienne muttered under her breath, slightly disappointed at the rather lackadaisical security. Not a laser beam or pressure sensor in sight. Just a simple house-alarm to bypass. Hardly the stuff James Bond movies were made of. The niggling doubt resurfaced again in her mind. What if they were wrong? What if this was just the house of a rather reclusive millionaire who guarded her privacy? She knew that her job was on the line. It would be back to reporting the crappy stories about the cuddly new arrivals in the zoo and endless traffic reports if she messed this one up.

"Don't kid yourself,' Keyshia retorted quickly. She had her own reasons and concerns about this whole operation and her companion. It was dangerous doing something like this with a rookie. Moreover,a rookie who she distrusted completely. But their paths had crossed when they had been researching Ms. Gloria Abernathy and her extravagant lifestyle. A discreet patron of the arts with a massive fortune and equally massive political connections; the whole set up appeared too good to be true.

Keyshia's involvement had begun with the untimely death of her mentor and best friend Chloe. Chloe had been like a big sister to her. She'd worked her way out of the ghetto and gotten a decent job for herself and she had tried to reach out to Keyshia. But Keyshia had always stubbornly refused to go straight. This life was what she knew. She'd paid her dues hustling for small pieces of the action but she had moved up to breaking into the houses of rich people and keeping the proceeds for herself. She had managed to become an independent thief and free from the mob rackets that unconnected people like her usually ran up against. Breaking and entering was her life and she was happy with it. It was a hell of a lot safer than getting shot for a measly twenty bucks by some macho clerk with a shotgun behind the counter .

Chloe had died over two years ago in a car accident, or so the report went. It just didn't feel right. The bizarre drunken midnight drive Chloe was supposed to have taken didn't make sense. That was not Chloe. Yet, as far as her family and the authorities were concerned, the issue was closed and they had moved on. Without anything tangible to go on, Keyshia was just left with a vague sense of disquiet about Chloe's demise.

At that point she had met Adrienne Cooper, the brash, up and coming news talent, clawing her way up the celebrity ladder. Opinionated, confident, sure of her own potential greatness, blonde and ambitious the young reporter sniffed a story that might catapult her into a higher orbit.

But right now they were both still huddled in this darkened storeroom. Adrienne had the small digital camcorder in her hand now, readying the controls to record low light video.

"Don't you point that at me," Keyshia snarled, "I don't wanna see my face on the evening news, bitch."

"Relax," Adrienne mollified her erstwhile companion. It was proving more difficult than usual to use her manipulative charms to get what she wanted from her companion in crime.

Slowly the two intruders made their way to the closed door. Holding her breath in anticipation, Keyshia slowly turned the handle and gently opened the door. She cautiously peered around the open door and scanned the scene before proceeding into the room. They were in the deserted kitchen now. A variety of stainless steel commercial cooking implements and gadgets graced expensive Italian marble worktops and equally pricey ovens. Everything had been spotlessly cleaned and put away for the night.

In the corner farthest from them a stairway led downwards. Keyshia nodded to Adrienne and the two women crept forward and proceeded with caution down the dimly lit stairwell and into a different world.

Whereas the house above ground retained its original character and features, the basement was a completely new construction of smooth white walls, tiled floors and strip lighting shining down from the ceiling. They found themselves in the middle of a long, brightly lit corridor.

"Well what now?" Adrienne asked.

"You go one way, I go the other. We keep in touch with the radio," Keyshia decided; glad to be rid of Adrienne for a while.

"Ok, I guess," Adrienne agreed. "I'll take left I suppose."

"Perfect," Keyshia murmured. "Remember to keep out of sight," she warned, before she began to proceed down along the right hand corridor.

* * *

Adrienne cautiously crept down the deserted corridor. Luckily it was night and so far there didn't seem to be anybody around. She had sneaked a peek into a couple of rooms but all she'd seen so far was what looked like stored computer parts and more boxes which she hadn't bothered to investigate. So far it was looking as if this was going to be a complete washout. She hadn't even used her camera once. It was still in the pocket of her combat trousers.

All this time and effort for nothing.

Suddenly a door in front of her slid open. Adrienne gasped in shock before instinctively pressing herself against the inside wall of the featureless corridor. The corridor curved at this point so it provided some level of concealment, providing whoever it was didn't decide to walk in her direction. Heart racing, the frightened reporter prayed for a miracle.

A figure stepped out of the open doorway and into the corridor. Even in her terrified state, Adrienne worked hard to stifle an audible gasp. The woman was like something out of a fetish catalogue. She was in her thirties, average height and build with a pale round face and brown eyes topped with long red hair tied back. However her unremarkable physical appearance was more than compensated by her attire; she was dressed in some sort of tight bodysuit made of a shiny white material, long black thigh boots and gloves. Around the redhead's neck was a very uncomfortable looking, rigid black collar with the number 9 embossed upon the front.

The shiny woman paused in mid stride. Adrienne was shaking now. Daring not to breathe, Adrienne closed her eyes.

The white clad woman turned to her left and began to march with a steady stride down the corridor, away from Adrienne.

Adrienne's mind whirled. Her heart was still pounding loudly in her chest. What was that woman wearing? If only she had managed to grab some footage of her with the camera. Adrienne cursed herself quietly for that failure. Already her well-honed journalistic instincts were starting to overcome the initial shock of this bizarre encounter.

Cautiously Adrienne moved towards to the door the rubber-clad woman had come out of. There were no signs or markings to indicate what was beyond the flat metallic sheen of the door. Holding her breath, Adrienne took another step forwards and pressed her hand against the cool hard metal.

Suddenly the door slid open, inviting her inside.

Adrienne hesitated momentarily, heart pounding. Should she go inside?

Overcoming her fears, Adrienne stepped over the threshold and into a white room. Her mouth hung open at the sight that befell her eyes. The door slid closed behind her unheeded.

It was unbelievable.

Adrienne stood. The young reporter's mind was frozen in a combination of shock, horror and revulsion.

The white room was completely unadorned apart from the blank boxes of a computer network that lined the walls. A small dais containing a monitor stood to one side of her.

But the defining feature of the room was a stout steel chair that was located in the center of the chamber. On the chair, locked into a reclining position by the various straps that held her fast, a naked female form sat. The woman's sweat drenched body glistened in the fluorescent lighting of the room. Adrienne could clearly see the end of a silver vibrator protruding from the restrained woman's downy pussy. The captive was writhing as much as the straps permitted as the intruder buried within her mercilessly continued to bombard her sex.

The woman wore some sort of silver metal helmet like device over her lank, plastered down dirty blonde hair. It was made up of a series of thin wires knitted together to form a dome that covered the helpless victim's head.

Heavy silver headphones covered the girl's ears while a wraparound visor partially obscured a pair of extraordinarily wide blue eyes that seemed to stare sightlessly ahead. The blonde's lips were moving constantly, talking in a low continuous voice that Adrienne couldn't hear from where she stood.

The initial shock was dissipating. Already Adrienne had the camera out and switched on. Taking a deep breath, Adrienne adjusted the ISO to compensate for this poor light. It would make for grainy pictures but there was no other option. Besides, a bit of graininess and some camera shake made for a more exciting and "authentic" looking piece of footage.

Watching the viewscreen carefully, Adrienne panned the camera around the room, establishing the setting before settling on the lone, seated woman. There was no way that any TV station would show what was happening below the girl's waist but a little bit of tit should spice things up a bit and ensure the footage got noticed. Slowly, Adrienne stepped forward and zoomed in until the girl's face filled the screen completely.

Adrienne was close enough to make out what she was saying. The same few sentences repeated on and on. Zooming in even further, Adrienne focused on the constantly moving lips.

"I am a slave. I am obedient. I am mindless. I am property. I am a slave..." the girl recited over and over in an apparently endless loop.

Adrienne shuddered at the sight and sounds. Only now was the full impact of what she was seeing beginning to dawn. The woman was being brainwashed. She was being turned into someone's slave.

It was repulsive. Disgusting. Vile.

But...

But...

But it would launch her career into international stardom. No more crappy local news. Her days of new animals in the zoo and doorstepping local celebrities for a trite, meaningless quote were over. This story would be picked up worldwide. Intrepid reporter risks own life and safety to show an unsuspecting world the horrors that lay behind the façade of an upstanding pillar of the community. This had to be good for a Pulitzer. After that...well... the sky was the limit.

Adrienne took a few more establishing shots of the room before picking out a few details that would pad out her footage. She caught a single bead of sweat as it made its way down along the flushed cheek of the girl before splashing on to the tiled floor beneath the chair. Very arty. The perfect ending shot to the piece she would edit together. Already she could hear her own voiceover, a strangled outraged plea for innocence lost and a call for justice to be done.

She checked the monitor. Less than five minutes of footage recorded. But it was dynamite. Nuclear. Time to get the hell out of here before the crazy rubber lady came back.

Pausing only to securely return the camera to her pocket, Adrienne turned her back on the naked slavegirl strapped to the chair and cautiously made her way back out into the corridor.

* * *

Keyshia had seen some strange stuff in her time. All those years of breaking and entering had shown her the dark side of people and what they were capable of behind closed doors. But this was by far the weirdest and creepiest set-up she'd ever encountered.

After leaving Adrienne to her own devices and praying that she wouldn't get them both caught, Keyshia had proceeded cautiously down the empty corridor. She'd tried a few doors and discovered more storage areas full of various pieces of equipment. The last room she'd entered had been a real surprise. It had been like a large walk in closet but it had contained some very, very kinky clothing: neatly stacked shelves of brand new boots, rubber catsuits and leather collars in various sizes and colours. That was just freaky. What was so odd was the sheer quantity of the fetish clothing. Why was there so much of it? Ms. Abernathy certainly had unusual tastes.

Those questions had been foremost in her mind before Keyshia had encountered the first person she'd seen in this eerie underground lair. Unexpectedly, the woman had appeared from out of a smaller side corridor just in front of Keyshia. Luckily the woman had a very large box in her arms which completely impaired her forward vision. The woman marched with purpose along the corridor, guided by instinct alone, her face pressed forward against the heavy looking box.

The woman was young, in her early twenties, squat and heavily built like a wrestler or a bodybuilder. Her firm, toned body was obscured by the burden she carried but even so, Keyshia could clearly see the erotic outline of her figure through the skintight red rubber catsuit that hugged her body. Keyshia's instincts kicked in and she hurriedly crept out of sight behind a convenient doorway. The woman took a corner when she reached the main corridor and marched onwards without pausing.

Keyshia cautiously stuck her head out from behind her hiding place and watched the woman walk past her.

Part of Keyshia was more than a little freaked out by this, but on the other hand it merely served to confirm her suspicions. Something very odd was going on here. Ms. Abernathy was no squeaky clean society player.

Keyshia stayed put in her hiding space for a while just to make sure the girl was long gone.

Acting without thinking got you into trouble. Keyshia decided that she needed to find a computer terminal or something and find out just what the hell was going on here.

Controlling her breathing, Keyshia cautiously proceeded onwards.

* * *

Adrienne was lost. It was her own damn fault as well. Once she had gotten out of the room with the sweaty, naked woman she had randomly dashed into some sort of store room to playback the footage she'd gotten. Her heart was in her mouth as she watched the 4 minutes and 38 seconds of video she'd recorded, desperately praying that it looked as good on screen as it had when she'd been shooting it.

It did.

Only then had Adrienne allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God. Her Pulitzer was assured. The last few minutes of the woman mindlessly droning on about how she was a slave was explosive.

Now it was time to leave. The problem was that she was disorientated. The blank corridors and unmarked doors all looked the same. Which was the way out? After a few moments of indecision she randomly chose a direction and proceeded cautiously down yet another featureless brightly lit corridor.

Adrienne had been walking for about ten minutes now. A series of turns she had taken had brought her to a very different part of the complex. Adrienne found herself in the middle of a passageway with a series of doors on either side emblazoned with large numbers proceeding in a sequential order. A long glass panel was fitted to the door but the rooms beyond were all in complete darkness so she had no idea what they contained.

She was really starting to worry now. To get lost like this was unforgivable. She had to get out of here and fast.

Suddenly Adrienne froze. The distinct sound of bootheels against the tiled floor was clearly audible. A measured, constant pace. Adrienne turned to look back the way she'd come from, the direction the sound was coming from.

The footsteps were getting louder and closer. It was more than one person as well by the sound of it. Perhaps two or even three.

She could see them now. A pair of women marching side by side, one blonde the other brunette. Slaves dressed in gleaming plastic and rubber.

Whatever momentary hesitation Adrienne had been feeling disappeared instantly. Without pausing she threw herself into the nearest room, one marked with the number 48.

As soon as she opened the door the lights in the room flickered on. Trembling with fear Adrienne scanned the walls for a light switch or whatever she could use to turn them off. She could see nothing. The only furniture in the tiny, bare room was something that looked like a black vinyl padded couch or bed that filled one side of the claustrophobic cell.

Adrienne looked back at the door. The slaves were too close now. There was no way she could get out of here without being spotted and they would easily be able to see her through the long glass panel facing into the corridor.

Holding her breath, Adrienne threw herself at the bed. She was lying comfortably in a specially moulded section of the vinyl clearly designed to accommodate the shape of the average human body. Her head sank slightly into the raised section of the bed which seemed to cup the rear of her skull quite firmly.

As soon as she lay down, the lights extinguished completely. Even in Adrienne's current agitated state she realized that they must be on some sort of switch when she lay down. She breathed a sigh of relief, safe in the darkened interior.

The footsteps of the two slaves were getting louder. Coming closer and close to her. Adrienne's heart was pounding. Please let them just walk past, she prayed. The rhythmic clip of heels grew more and more loud.

So intent was she on trying to decipher the sounds coming from the corridor, Adrienne had paid no attention to what was happening to her in the darkened room. As soon as she had lain on the bed, the cranial interface sequence was automatically engaged and complicated equipment hidden beneath the padded covering that Adrienne's head now rested upon sprang to life.

Adrienne heard a low, electrical hum. The slaves were only feet away from her now. Her only defence was the darkness. Their strides never varied. Onwards they came. Adrienne held her breath, willing the darkness to swallow her up completely. Then the footsteps were receding. Growing weaker. They had passed her by.

Adrienne had hardly time to breathe a sigh of relief when she became fully aware that something was happening within the couch she lay on. The buzzing noise was very loud now. Something was sliding out from the left hand side of headrest, making its way across to meet the other side. She couldn't see what it was in the dark. There was an audible click as it slotted into position. Unsteadily, Adrienne reached out with her hand, tentatively groping in the dark. Something hard and smooth like glass. It ran a few inches above her face.

It was time for her to leave. Adrienne would have to slither down the bed in order to get her head from out of the glass screen. She tensed her muscles in readiness.