Part 4
********
They got changed into VR suits and Steve loaded the recording of Fiona’s previous adventure into the system.
“You’re sure about this?” Steve asked, concern evident on his face “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, I can do this on my own if…”
“No.” she interrupted immediately “I want to, I, well, actually, to tell the truth, I think I need to.”
Steve paused for a moment, still debating about whether or not to flat out refuse to let her do this, but he knew that in the end there really was only one person who could make that choice. “Okay, but if you want to end the sim just say, alright?”
Fiona nodded, her mind already focused on what she was about to do as Steve continued. “When we’re in there we’ll be spectators. What happened can’t be changed but we can pause and manipulate that recording however we want. If you see anything unusual, anything you missed the first time round, yell. Other than that, just relax and go with the flow.” He waited until she nodded at him, a curt bob of the head, impatient to get inside the virtual world that had started this whole thing. With a quick motion Steve hit the commit button and the world around them slowly melted away, replaced with the dungeon setting from the recording.
As Fiona looked around she found herself almost face to face with herself. Her digital image was standing in a combat position, still clad in the white silk outfit as she faced her black-clad opponent. Over to her right Fiona saw Steve walking around the frozen scene, seemingly taking in every detail as his gaze flicked rapidly between the two figures.
“Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary.” He said, completing his circuit. “Everything seems to be where it is and there’s no obvious signs of any tampering. Let’s run this forward a bit, I want to get a good look at your mystery man.”
As she watched the scene jumped to life, Fiona watching herself walk up to the frozen figure of Nicole, reaching out a hand and flying backwards into the wall, the chains wrapping around her to hold her firmly in place. The shadows seemed to come to life and the man appeared as before, pausing for only a second before sending Nicole flying back onto the wheel. The man raised a hand, and Steve stepped forward, pausing the scene before either of the two women was disrobed. Fiona felt herself flush, wondering for an instant why she almost whished he’d let the scene play on a little.
Steve walked up to the intruder and started a very slow circle around him, once again giving the impression of seeing much, much more than was visible on the surface. As he got about half way round, he started a running commentary, more for the benefit of the recorders than her she knew, but it was still a welcome link to normality in this frozen world.
”Hmm, on the surface it seems to be a normal VR construct, nothing special at all other than the manner of its arrival. Looking at the attribute layer, wait that can’t be right. Both attribute and matrix layers look normal, nothing like what was seen earlier. But that would imply that something had changed since the last scan of this file was made, which isn’t possible as the file’s been locked away from any access. Note, check for any research on exploits that can devolve once executed.”
As he completed his circuit Steve turned to Fiona. “Okay, something very odd is going on here. I took the scan of this thing myself yesterday and it was, well, just as I showed you. But looking at it now, in here, it looks like any normal program. Which shouldn’t be possible as this is the first time this particular code has been run since that scan was made, and this particular recording can only be viewed, not altered.”
“So where does that leave us exactly?” Fiona asked her curiosity peaked.
“Back at square one without any idea where square two is lass. I…” Steve broke off as a faint ring echoed through the room, as if someone had just dropped a pin into a metal cup. “Did you do that?” her asked.
“No, I thought you did.”
”Unfortunately not, which means there’s someone else in here with us.” Steve moved forward cautiously until he was alongside the frozen figure of the man. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He turned back towards Fiona and was about to ask if she could see anything when it hit him. The man’s hand had been raised to make the hand gesture that would remove Nicole’s dignity, but now it was down by his side, the fingers curled into a fist.
The blow hit Steve hard enough to knock him off his feet and send him flying backwards into the corner of a wooden x-frame. Fiona ran over, reached down and pulled him up to his feet again as they turned to look at the impossible. There, in the middle of this frozen world, her mystery man was coming to life, taking a slow but smooth step forward and looking around as if seeing the world for the first time. His eyes locked on Fiona’s and he took a step forward. She gasped and shrank back, though she didn’t move so much as an inch away from the advancing figure. Steve, holding his ribs where he’d hit the frame, stepped in between the two breaking the man’s eye contact. There was a pause, and the very air itself seemed to crackle, then the man smiled slightly and gestured to either side.
With a clatter of chains the two chained women were freed from their bonds, both moving hesitantly at first then with more confidence as they made their way to flank the man. He tilted his head forward and the women started to advance towards the two humans. On a hunch Steve took a couple of steps to his right, and both women turned to follow him. Reaching out with his mind Steve tried to trigger the escape sequence to end the scenario, but it simply wasn’t there, as if someone had erased it. Fiona and Steve retreated towards the wall as the women stalked them, the man following close behind.
“I think we may have a problem here.” Steve said, racking his brain to think of a way out of the predicament they found themselves in.
“No, really, I wouldn’t have guessed.” Fiona replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “How about hitting the exit button and getting us the hell out of here?”
“Great idea, unfortunately the exit button seems to be out of order.”
“You want to try that again?” Fiona demanded, an edge of panic creeping into her voice.
“I’m trying to get us out of here, but whatever that thing is,” Steve indicated the man who was watching the pair of them with interest “it seems to be able to influence my link to the system, I can’t get at any of the interfaces.”
“So we’re trapped?”
“Not quite, see that light over there?” Steve pointed in the direction of the only electric light in the room, a small, round cover over a dim bulb positioned on the far wall about six foot off the ground. “That’s a hard wired exit point, I always put them in everything I write just in case of any problems. All we’ve got to do is punch that and we’re out of here.”
“Wonderful, any idea how we’re going to reach it?”
“Well, as these two seem to be locked on to me, I’ll go left and try and pull them off, you go right and hit that light.”
“Sounds like a plan, when do we split?”
“How about right now?” Steve said, darting off to his left and seeing the blur of motion from the corner of his eye that indicated the two women were chasing him. He heard Fiona scramble right, heading round the wall towards the exit button, but he didn’t have much time to worry about her now, he had problems of his own. The pounding of feet seemed to be getting closer alarmingly quickly and he turned on his heel to face his attackers, only to be rewarded with a stiff kick to his already injured ribs, followed by another to his chest which knocked him down to a hard landing on the floor.
Fiona heard the thud of a body hitting the ground but didn’t have time to look back. Her target was only a few feet away, just a second or two more and they’d be out of this nightmare. She reached out with her right hand, stretching for the light. Suddenly a force grabbed her and yanked her back, flipping her in midair so she landed face down on the stone floor, the impact driving the air from her lungs as she could do nothing but lay still for a moment. As her strength returned she forced herself back upright, expecting to have to fight for her life any moment. But the man was just standing in front of her, maybe five feet away between her and the light, watching her intently. For a timeless instant she felt their eyes lock and she fell, drawn into their depths like a moth to a flame. She lost all sense of her body, her personality, her soul as the world faded around her.
Then everything rushed back as a new sensation raced through her body. She looked down in horror and saw her clothes move, seemingly of their own volition. They undulated over her body like a tide, as the smooth, soft cotton shifted into something rough and course, like a thousand miniature paintbrushes had been sewn into the lining. There was no warning and the ticklish sensations overwhelmed her, laughter pouring uncontrollably from her mouth as she sank to her knees, eyes wide with shock at what was happening.
Steve shock his head to try and clear the ringing in his ears and looked up just in time to see and hear Fiona fall, her laughter ripping through the room like a buzz saw. He tried to move forward, scrambling towards her on his hands and knees, only to be met by a boot to the jaw that had him seeing stars. Slumping to the left he rolled over to his back, flexed his legs and kicked up, using the momentum to flip his body back to a vertical base, the landing a little more wobbly than he would have preferred. Taking a quick breath he turned smoothly, right foot extended, arms in a guard position towards his attackers. A part of his mind was still struggling to deal with the reality of seeing two Fiona’s in front of him, one calm, poised and trying to beat him seemingly to death, the other on her knees in ticklish agony. But he’d spent far too long in VR to be thrown by something like that for long, and he forced the confusion away, concentrating on what had to be done.
Nicole made the first move, coming at him fast and low, legs snaking out to trip him over, hands and arms looking to strike at his knees. Resisting the temptation to perform the obvious counter and jump out of the way, he moved towards her, throwing in a step to his left after she was committed to the move, locking her right arm off and twisting round. He didn’t have the leverage or the time to do any real damage, but it was enough to pull the muscle and ensure that she wouldn’t have a full range of motion in that arm for a while.
From his right Fiona dove in, fast and hard at waist height to tackle him to the ground. Off balance he shifted awkwardly, just enough to avoid the body check, and tripped her trailing leg with his right, sending her sprawling. Spinning round he ducked a high kick at his head from Nicole with his right arm, grabbing her foot and forcing her leg up and away, tipping her off balance to the floor. Turning quickly to face Fiona he was surprised to find her a full six foot away by the wall, and he barely had time to recognise the silver line she was spinning from her right hand as the end of a chain before she threw it with perfect accuracy at his head. The chain hit him across the chin and he spun to his knees, blood pouring from the cut the chain had left on his face.
The real Fiona in the meantime was in trouble. The assault on her body was relentless, every time she curled and twisted to move one spot away from the attack, the fabric covering her body would simply target whatever spot was revealed by the motion and resume it’s tickling with ever greater ferocity. In desperation she tried to tear the fabric away from her body, forcing her hands to grip the collar of the shirt and pull, but it was hopeless. The laughter being forced from her had already weakened her, and whatever transformation had been performed on her clothes had seemingly increased it’s strength and durability a hundredfold.
She reached down for the hem of the shirt; if she couldn’t break it maybe she could pull it off. To her horror she found the hem had vanished, the shirt melding somehow with the trousers and everything seemed to have shrunk slightly from their previous loose, flowing shapes to an almost form fitting second skin. As she watched through tear filled eyes, she saw the waves in the cloth increase in speed as they seemed to change pattern, moving from the upwards motion of the previous minutes to a spiral design centred on her stomach and hips. As the waves travelled over her body they would hit a devastating pattern of her most ticklish areas, never lingering long enough to allow her to adapt, never regular enough to predict and always with a slightly less sensitive area in between to allow her body to start relaxing before the next onslaught.
She lay on the ground, curled up helplessly, not even registering she was at the feet of the mystery man until a particularly violent laughing spasm shock her body and she rolled into his foot. Forcing her eyes open she saw him looking down at her, and the expression of casual interest on his face sparked something deep inside her, a rage the likes of which she’d never known. As her body convulsed with a fresh wave of ticklish hysteria her mind stayed in control, forcing the body to use the motion to move a few inches towards the wall, towards the light. Inch by ticklish inch she moved forwards, getting ever closer to her target, her mind refusing to succumb to the torments being loosed on her body. She felt her right hand meet the stone of the wall and slowly turned, forcing herself to get her feet down flat on the floor, until she was in a crouched position directly under the light. She tensed for one last effort, and was almost driven into insanity as what felt like every thread, every stitch of her clothing started to tickle her at once. Her knees buckled and she collapsed against the wall, the light so close she could almost touch it, but without the ability to stand it might as well have been on Mars.
Steve made it to his hands and knees before a boot caught him in the ribs, the crack that echoed through the room proof enough that at least one bone was broken by the impact. A scream was ripped from him and he collapsed to the ground, hand wrapped protectively around his ribcage, only to roll away as the heavy chain was brought down hard across his back, shredding his shirt and leaving a long line of red behind it. Another kick, this one directed at his thigh, thudded home, but there was no snap of bone this time and he rolled with it to the wall. Reaching up he grabbed a manacle that was securely attached to the ceiling and, ignoring the pain in his ribs as best he could, pulled himself upright.
Fiona, or at least this VR version of her, was facing him, an evil smile on her face as she spun the chain around her head before letting it fly at his face. At the last moment Steve brought his hand up and ducked down, the metal hitting the wall harmlessly as his fingers locked around the chain itself. One quick tug brought Fiona within range, her right hand still holding the chain, the arm extended in front of her as Steve spun, aiming a fast, powerful spin kick at the nerve centre just below her armpit. There was a thud as he made contact and she crumpled, half her body temporarily paralysed from the blow. Before either of the women could react Steve had brought the manacle down and clapped it around her unresisting wrist before ducking and rolling out of the way of Nicole’s side kick that would have damn near collapsed his chest cavity if it had connected.
Glancing over he saw Fiona, the real one that is, collapse underneath the light, driven to her knees by the forces playing with her body. In that instant Steve formed a plan born of desperation, knowing that if it didn’t work they were pretty much out of options. Forcing himself to ignore the various cuts and bones wracking his body with pain, he moved as smoothly as he could out into the centre of the room, keeping his back to the man and his victim, relying on the laughter to give him an accurate position for the two of them. Nicole moved forward, her hands and feet flying as Steve concentrated on parrying the blows, wincing slightly as his forearms groaned under the impact, holding his ground and trying to frustrate his attacker, relying on one simple fact: that the personality he’d created for this women was still their and was still calling the shots.
********
They got changed into VR suits and Steve loaded the recording of Fiona’s previous adventure into the system.
“You’re sure about this?” Steve asked, concern evident on his face “You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, I can do this on my own if…”
“No.” she interrupted immediately “I want to, I, well, actually, to tell the truth, I think I need to.”
Steve paused for a moment, still debating about whether or not to flat out refuse to let her do this, but he knew that in the end there really was only one person who could make that choice. “Okay, but if you want to end the sim just say, alright?”
Fiona nodded, her mind already focused on what she was about to do as Steve continued. “When we’re in there we’ll be spectators. What happened can’t be changed but we can pause and manipulate that recording however we want. If you see anything unusual, anything you missed the first time round, yell. Other than that, just relax and go with the flow.” He waited until she nodded at him, a curt bob of the head, impatient to get inside the virtual world that had started this whole thing. With a quick motion Steve hit the commit button and the world around them slowly melted away, replaced with the dungeon setting from the recording.
As Fiona looked around she found herself almost face to face with herself. Her digital image was standing in a combat position, still clad in the white silk outfit as she faced her black-clad opponent. Over to her right Fiona saw Steve walking around the frozen scene, seemingly taking in every detail as his gaze flicked rapidly between the two figures.
“Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary.” He said, completing his circuit. “Everything seems to be where it is and there’s no obvious signs of any tampering. Let’s run this forward a bit, I want to get a good look at your mystery man.”
As she watched the scene jumped to life, Fiona watching herself walk up to the frozen figure of Nicole, reaching out a hand and flying backwards into the wall, the chains wrapping around her to hold her firmly in place. The shadows seemed to come to life and the man appeared as before, pausing for only a second before sending Nicole flying back onto the wheel. The man raised a hand, and Steve stepped forward, pausing the scene before either of the two women was disrobed. Fiona felt herself flush, wondering for an instant why she almost whished he’d let the scene play on a little.
Steve walked up to the intruder and started a very slow circle around him, once again giving the impression of seeing much, much more than was visible on the surface. As he got about half way round, he started a running commentary, more for the benefit of the recorders than her she knew, but it was still a welcome link to normality in this frozen world.
”Hmm, on the surface it seems to be a normal VR construct, nothing special at all other than the manner of its arrival. Looking at the attribute layer, wait that can’t be right. Both attribute and matrix layers look normal, nothing like what was seen earlier. But that would imply that something had changed since the last scan of this file was made, which isn’t possible as the file’s been locked away from any access. Note, check for any research on exploits that can devolve once executed.”
As he completed his circuit Steve turned to Fiona. “Okay, something very odd is going on here. I took the scan of this thing myself yesterday and it was, well, just as I showed you. But looking at it now, in here, it looks like any normal program. Which shouldn’t be possible as this is the first time this particular code has been run since that scan was made, and this particular recording can only be viewed, not altered.”
“So where does that leave us exactly?” Fiona asked her curiosity peaked.
“Back at square one without any idea where square two is lass. I…” Steve broke off as a faint ring echoed through the room, as if someone had just dropped a pin into a metal cup. “Did you do that?” her asked.
“No, I thought you did.”
”Unfortunately not, which means there’s someone else in here with us.” Steve moved forward cautiously until he was alongside the frozen figure of the man. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He turned back towards Fiona and was about to ask if she could see anything when it hit him. The man’s hand had been raised to make the hand gesture that would remove Nicole’s dignity, but now it was down by his side, the fingers curled into a fist.
The blow hit Steve hard enough to knock him off his feet and send him flying backwards into the corner of a wooden x-frame. Fiona ran over, reached down and pulled him up to his feet again as they turned to look at the impossible. There, in the middle of this frozen world, her mystery man was coming to life, taking a slow but smooth step forward and looking around as if seeing the world for the first time. His eyes locked on Fiona’s and he took a step forward. She gasped and shrank back, though she didn’t move so much as an inch away from the advancing figure. Steve, holding his ribs where he’d hit the frame, stepped in between the two breaking the man’s eye contact. There was a pause, and the very air itself seemed to crackle, then the man smiled slightly and gestured to either side.
With a clatter of chains the two chained women were freed from their bonds, both moving hesitantly at first then with more confidence as they made their way to flank the man. He tilted his head forward and the women started to advance towards the two humans. On a hunch Steve took a couple of steps to his right, and both women turned to follow him. Reaching out with his mind Steve tried to trigger the escape sequence to end the scenario, but it simply wasn’t there, as if someone had erased it. Fiona and Steve retreated towards the wall as the women stalked them, the man following close behind.
“I think we may have a problem here.” Steve said, racking his brain to think of a way out of the predicament they found themselves in.
“No, really, I wouldn’t have guessed.” Fiona replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “How about hitting the exit button and getting us the hell out of here?”
“Great idea, unfortunately the exit button seems to be out of order.”
“You want to try that again?” Fiona demanded, an edge of panic creeping into her voice.
“I’m trying to get us out of here, but whatever that thing is,” Steve indicated the man who was watching the pair of them with interest “it seems to be able to influence my link to the system, I can’t get at any of the interfaces.”
“So we’re trapped?”
“Not quite, see that light over there?” Steve pointed in the direction of the only electric light in the room, a small, round cover over a dim bulb positioned on the far wall about six foot off the ground. “That’s a hard wired exit point, I always put them in everything I write just in case of any problems. All we’ve got to do is punch that and we’re out of here.”
“Wonderful, any idea how we’re going to reach it?”
“Well, as these two seem to be locked on to me, I’ll go left and try and pull them off, you go right and hit that light.”
“Sounds like a plan, when do we split?”
“How about right now?” Steve said, darting off to his left and seeing the blur of motion from the corner of his eye that indicated the two women were chasing him. He heard Fiona scramble right, heading round the wall towards the exit button, but he didn’t have much time to worry about her now, he had problems of his own. The pounding of feet seemed to be getting closer alarmingly quickly and he turned on his heel to face his attackers, only to be rewarded with a stiff kick to his already injured ribs, followed by another to his chest which knocked him down to a hard landing on the floor.
Fiona heard the thud of a body hitting the ground but didn’t have time to look back. Her target was only a few feet away, just a second or two more and they’d be out of this nightmare. She reached out with her right hand, stretching for the light. Suddenly a force grabbed her and yanked her back, flipping her in midair so she landed face down on the stone floor, the impact driving the air from her lungs as she could do nothing but lay still for a moment. As her strength returned she forced herself back upright, expecting to have to fight for her life any moment. But the man was just standing in front of her, maybe five feet away between her and the light, watching her intently. For a timeless instant she felt their eyes lock and she fell, drawn into their depths like a moth to a flame. She lost all sense of her body, her personality, her soul as the world faded around her.
Then everything rushed back as a new sensation raced through her body. She looked down in horror and saw her clothes move, seemingly of their own volition. They undulated over her body like a tide, as the smooth, soft cotton shifted into something rough and course, like a thousand miniature paintbrushes had been sewn into the lining. There was no warning and the ticklish sensations overwhelmed her, laughter pouring uncontrollably from her mouth as she sank to her knees, eyes wide with shock at what was happening.
Steve shock his head to try and clear the ringing in his ears and looked up just in time to see and hear Fiona fall, her laughter ripping through the room like a buzz saw. He tried to move forward, scrambling towards her on his hands and knees, only to be met by a boot to the jaw that had him seeing stars. Slumping to the left he rolled over to his back, flexed his legs and kicked up, using the momentum to flip his body back to a vertical base, the landing a little more wobbly than he would have preferred. Taking a quick breath he turned smoothly, right foot extended, arms in a guard position towards his attackers. A part of his mind was still struggling to deal with the reality of seeing two Fiona’s in front of him, one calm, poised and trying to beat him seemingly to death, the other on her knees in ticklish agony. But he’d spent far too long in VR to be thrown by something like that for long, and he forced the confusion away, concentrating on what had to be done.
Nicole made the first move, coming at him fast and low, legs snaking out to trip him over, hands and arms looking to strike at his knees. Resisting the temptation to perform the obvious counter and jump out of the way, he moved towards her, throwing in a step to his left after she was committed to the move, locking her right arm off and twisting round. He didn’t have the leverage or the time to do any real damage, but it was enough to pull the muscle and ensure that she wouldn’t have a full range of motion in that arm for a while.
From his right Fiona dove in, fast and hard at waist height to tackle him to the ground. Off balance he shifted awkwardly, just enough to avoid the body check, and tripped her trailing leg with his right, sending her sprawling. Spinning round he ducked a high kick at his head from Nicole with his right arm, grabbing her foot and forcing her leg up and away, tipping her off balance to the floor. Turning quickly to face Fiona he was surprised to find her a full six foot away by the wall, and he barely had time to recognise the silver line she was spinning from her right hand as the end of a chain before she threw it with perfect accuracy at his head. The chain hit him across the chin and he spun to his knees, blood pouring from the cut the chain had left on his face.
The real Fiona in the meantime was in trouble. The assault on her body was relentless, every time she curled and twisted to move one spot away from the attack, the fabric covering her body would simply target whatever spot was revealed by the motion and resume it’s tickling with ever greater ferocity. In desperation she tried to tear the fabric away from her body, forcing her hands to grip the collar of the shirt and pull, but it was hopeless. The laughter being forced from her had already weakened her, and whatever transformation had been performed on her clothes had seemingly increased it’s strength and durability a hundredfold.
She reached down for the hem of the shirt; if she couldn’t break it maybe she could pull it off. To her horror she found the hem had vanished, the shirt melding somehow with the trousers and everything seemed to have shrunk slightly from their previous loose, flowing shapes to an almost form fitting second skin. As she watched through tear filled eyes, she saw the waves in the cloth increase in speed as they seemed to change pattern, moving from the upwards motion of the previous minutes to a spiral design centred on her stomach and hips. As the waves travelled over her body they would hit a devastating pattern of her most ticklish areas, never lingering long enough to allow her to adapt, never regular enough to predict and always with a slightly less sensitive area in between to allow her body to start relaxing before the next onslaught.
She lay on the ground, curled up helplessly, not even registering she was at the feet of the mystery man until a particularly violent laughing spasm shock her body and she rolled into his foot. Forcing her eyes open she saw him looking down at her, and the expression of casual interest on his face sparked something deep inside her, a rage the likes of which she’d never known. As her body convulsed with a fresh wave of ticklish hysteria her mind stayed in control, forcing the body to use the motion to move a few inches towards the wall, towards the light. Inch by ticklish inch she moved forwards, getting ever closer to her target, her mind refusing to succumb to the torments being loosed on her body. She felt her right hand meet the stone of the wall and slowly turned, forcing herself to get her feet down flat on the floor, until she was in a crouched position directly under the light. She tensed for one last effort, and was almost driven into insanity as what felt like every thread, every stitch of her clothing started to tickle her at once. Her knees buckled and she collapsed against the wall, the light so close she could almost touch it, but without the ability to stand it might as well have been on Mars.
Steve made it to his hands and knees before a boot caught him in the ribs, the crack that echoed through the room proof enough that at least one bone was broken by the impact. A scream was ripped from him and he collapsed to the ground, hand wrapped protectively around his ribcage, only to roll away as the heavy chain was brought down hard across his back, shredding his shirt and leaving a long line of red behind it. Another kick, this one directed at his thigh, thudded home, but there was no snap of bone this time and he rolled with it to the wall. Reaching up he grabbed a manacle that was securely attached to the ceiling and, ignoring the pain in his ribs as best he could, pulled himself upright.
Fiona, or at least this VR version of her, was facing him, an evil smile on her face as she spun the chain around her head before letting it fly at his face. At the last moment Steve brought his hand up and ducked down, the metal hitting the wall harmlessly as his fingers locked around the chain itself. One quick tug brought Fiona within range, her right hand still holding the chain, the arm extended in front of her as Steve spun, aiming a fast, powerful spin kick at the nerve centre just below her armpit. There was a thud as he made contact and she crumpled, half her body temporarily paralysed from the blow. Before either of the women could react Steve had brought the manacle down and clapped it around her unresisting wrist before ducking and rolling out of the way of Nicole’s side kick that would have damn near collapsed his chest cavity if it had connected.
Glancing over he saw Fiona, the real one that is, collapse underneath the light, driven to her knees by the forces playing with her body. In that instant Steve formed a plan born of desperation, knowing that if it didn’t work they were pretty much out of options. Forcing himself to ignore the various cuts and bones wracking his body with pain, he moved as smoothly as he could out into the centre of the room, keeping his back to the man and his victim, relying on the laughter to give him an accurate position for the two of them. Nicole moved forward, her hands and feet flying as Steve concentrated on parrying the blows, wincing slightly as his forearms groaned under the impact, holding his ground and trying to frustrate his attacker, relying on one simple fact: that the personality he’d created for this women was still their and was still calling the shots.
