Chapter 3

“Wakey, wakey, boys and bitches.”

“Fuck of ... Ow.” Helen went to sit up and leaned on her hair. “Goddess of the Stars! What did you do to me, you Fucking Cripple??? What’s this, you... (the following five minutes were censored by the universal proclamation of the author’s brain cells. As ‘Subject Helen’ discovered her new wardrobe and hair style, the full-length mirror in the closet was put to good use.)

Puma was not as much of an early riser as her nemesis and was woken from her slumber during Helen’s tirade. Wondering at the cause of the blue language, she stared at the nearly unrecognizable visage of her nemesis in a cartoonish space girl’s outfit with paired, meter-long high-braids.

The thin, high-cut leotard was thick enough not to be transparent, but thin enough that exceedingly wispy, unlined panties would in the Villainess’s future. The backless nature of the leotard meant that bras were not going to be used by the Villainess unless an alternate type of body covering could be found to meet her new tastes.

Sydney’s imposed taste for Helen.

An uncontrolled laugh escaped the Heroine at the sight of her arch-enemy being humiliated. How she wished that it had been her that had triumphed over the narcissistic bitch.

Upon hearing the mocking laughter, Helen started in on Puma, reigniting her tirade.

“Kriss, dear,” Puma retorted in saccharine sweet tones, “don’t blame me, it was your choice. Besides, who is this ‘Goddess of the Stars’ you keep mentioning?”

“Goddess of the Stars? What are you talking about?”

Both heads swiveled in concert, staring at the fourteen-year-old wheel chair bound girl who was in charge of orchestrating their predicament.

“Helen, what did your card say?”

“Pilgrimage to ... Fuck me. Goddess of the Stars, you fucking cripple, I will destroy you after I get out of this.”

“Correct. Instead of God, from now on you will cry out for your Goddess.”

(The long beeping sound you hear is the censor overworking the little red button.)

“Feeling better now that you have that out of your system? The next game will be a trip through the labyrinth.”

“A maze?” Puma interjected before Helen could start swearing again.

“Correct, a maze. To be fair, you will each get a pair of goggles, earphones, and wands to use, along with two hours to become accustomed to navigating in virtual reality. The rules are simple: the fastest person to reach the center of the labyrinth is the winner. If you stumble on a trap, five minutes will be added to your score. Both of you will enter your own, identical maze at the same time and in the same place.”

“Our own maze?”

“Correct. This competition is a timed one, fastest to finish wins. The only obstacle that will add time are the traps, and you will be informed of the five-minute addition when you trigger one.”

“Do your traps do anything else, like zap us?” Helen had restrained herself from swearing for the time being.

“No, they add time only. You will see a red flash on your time indicator when the five minutes are added.”

“What’s the catch?”

“There isn’t one. Just like your chess game. It’s straight by the rules. This time, neither of you can see or influence what the other does. Neither will I, or anyone else, influence your time.”

With little more grumbling and asking for clarification, the two accepted the briefcases with the stand-alone VR sets from Boris, reluctantly equipping the units and following along the tutorial program.

Two hours later, both women removed their goggles and headsets as requested by the script on the tutorial screen.

“Damn. I’ve played VR games before, but that is amazing,” Helen said in wonder, forgetting her anger with the novelty and admiration of Jeff’s latest toy.

“The plants and birds sounded real, I even saw and heard mosquitoes. How did you do that?” Puma questioned Sydney.

“Master’s other apprentice is good with computer games. I borrowed those from him. He’s currently working on the tactile and will probably have an initial stage ready in a few months. Smell and taste will be last, as they are the hardest. Are you two ready for the game to begin?”

Neither looked all that enthused at Sydney’s latest ‘game’.

“Good, get comfortable and get something to drink or eat from your refrigerator. The next round will begin in ten minutes. If you have to use the bathroom, do so now.”

Two nervous women, one sitting in her easy chair, the other pacing across her thirty-foot room, waited for the countdown. I opened a split screen; I knew Sydney did too, and even Jeff had opened one from inside his office to watch and see how his toy worked for beginners.

The setting was an old Britannian country estate with a twelve-foot tall, six-acre, natural hedge maze. The faded, cracked and broken three-foot diameter flagstones revealed clues, but only if the maze-goer was aware and willing to experiment enough times to learn the pattern. Not that I recommended that for a single timed race.

The pattern was not a simple one, nor was it Catherine-worthy. Sydney’s requirements overrode Jeff’s wishes for a harder version than beginner level difficulty.

Puma completed the maze, finding an easy path to the center, in ninety-seven minutes, fifty-two seconds, but had racked up an impressive thirteen penalties for an additional sixty-five minutes and a total of almost 163 minutes.

The curvy brunette Heroine sat nervously watching her opponent with increasing confidence of her victory with each passing minute.

Helen’s more cautious approach had her touch the red button on the statue’s nose at the center of the hedge maze in just over 116 minutes.

Unhappily, Helen removed her gear and threw it on the bed in disgust. Seeing the pleased, mocking look on her adversary’s face in the other cell made the newly anointed-space-girl scowl.

“What did you get?” Helen called out.

“A hundred-sixty-two minutes.” There were nerves still in Puma’s response, not as much as earlier. But some.

“One sixty-two? Well fuck...”

Repeating Puma’s time, she took a breath and looked at the ceiling for a count of ten, Helen listened to her opponent’s gleeful laugh before responding in a monotone. “You lost, bitch. One fifty-one. And nine seconds.”

“How!?” Puma moaned.

“Well done, Helen. You broke the code. You did well, girl.” Sydney seemed genuinely pleased with Helen’s performance.

Helen was not quite sure what to make of the praise. I noticed a smug pride, along with a wariness directed at her tormentor.

Puma paled, both at Helen’s time and Sydney’s confirmation of her failure.

Wheeling to the card table, which had not been touched since her last visit (though the chairs had long since been taken away by Boris), Sydney begun shuffling the now-forty-card deck. Both ‘Pilgrimage to the Stars’ cards had been removed after Helen’s choosing.

“This is the same deck as the one Helen chose from, minus the two cards she activated, leaving forty active cards and two wilds.” Spreading out the tarot like cards in a fan, “Choose your three, please.” Sydney’s age and remaining little girl mannerisms showed through her offer. The Heroine had little choice but to acquiesce, regardless of her desire to flee.

“Leave it to Beaver.” Squawking with laughter in the other cell, Helen sounded as if she approved of that one, with its blatantly-stated double entendre.

“Shut it, Handlebar Hair. Or maybe I should call you ‘Goldilocks from the Stars’.”

“Enough, Helen. Stacy wasn’t allowed to make any derogatory comments while you chose, give her the same courtesy or I will mute your field.”

“Show us your beaver!” The unrepentant Villainess mock whispered. At Sydney’s glare, no further comments were uttered aloud. But the laughter didn’t fade, nor the glow of amusement at her nemesis’s impending balancing of the scales.