Chapter 1

“It has happened again!” the excited news reporter blurted over the radio waves.

“In the latest incident, Dr Mary Butane contacted the police at 6:43am this morning to inform them that the Roper Aged Care Facility in Cairns was missing half its residents.”

“Fifty-four residents and five of the oldest members of staff are missing and believed to have been abducted. Dr Butane stated that she, the patients and the staff left behind were all unharmed.”

“This is the twentieth nursing home in Queensland to report missing patients in the last nine days. At present, one thousand, one hundred and eighty-nine residents and fifty-one staff members that vary in age between fifty-five and ninety-five are missing in Queensland alone.”

“It is interesting to note that no males over the age of seventy-five and under ninety-five were left behind. None of the women over ninety were taken.”

“We have received reports that an equivalent number of care centres in each of the other four states have also lost patients. The Northern Territory and Tasmania have also reported the abduction of patients and staff from five facilities each. Oddly, the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) had not made any such reports.”

“It is estimated that five thousand people have now disappeared. The police are baffled by how these kidnappings have been conducted and where the people could have been taken. One officer said that it is as if the older staff and occupants had simply gotten up and walked out.”

“In many cases, of course, this would have been impossible as the residents were bedridden or wheelchair-bound. Still, no one has claimed responsibility for the removal of the patients and staff.”

“It has been reported that the security cameras in each facility were functioning, and they simply showed that the people had disappeared, all at the same time. The patients and staff that were left behind had lain down wherever they were and gone to sleep.”

In a more humorous voice, the male reporter said, “It has been bandied about that the residents were abducted by aliens.”

“Some people are saying it was an act of God but can’t explain why the younger members of staff and patients and the very old patients were left behind. The families of those left behind are thanking God for leaving their loved ones.”

“In other news...”

Boyd shivered, even though the air temperature was a comfortable 24^oC.

His bemused brain was still trying to figure out how he had come to be standing on a wooden platform with an erection and in front of a bevy of women. Most appeared to be between their mid-twenties and mid-thirties in age.

They were dressed in different coloured, tunic styled dresses of various lengths. Some of the tunics were more blousy and others much tighter. Some of the more wealthy people wore a toga (the bit that wraps around and over a tunic), but many didn’t. They wore a variety of sandals or thongs.

The women were all fit-looking, and some of them had an odd bluish or greenish tone to their otherwise pale-cream coloured skin. They did have different coloured hair in several styles, from long to short, and light-coloured streaks of blue, green, red, pink or brown in their hair.

Boyd also felt that something about the women was off but couldn’t determine what.

Boyd tried to shake the fuzziness out of his head.

He looked down to see, lightly furred and firm pecs, a stomach with muscle definition and a cock he hadn’t seen in such a state in fifteen years. He couldn’t remember it being as big as it appeared, nestled in a patch of coppery-red, curly hair.

Not that it was porn star huge, but he was sure that it was more than enough to please most women. Not that he’d had that problem when he had been capable of getting it up in the past.

Boyd looked back up and then around. The platform he was standing on was roughly 20m long and 10m wide. It stood a half-metre off the ground. To his rear was a Barn-like, wooden building. He guessed it was about 50m wide and 12m high with a low-pitched gabled roof.

Two plain, normal-looking doors, 10m apart, were on either side of the centre of the building. They gave access to the platform. The doors were both open and laid back against the wall. A set of steps, 2m wide, on each side of the stage, nestled against the side of the building.

At 2m intervals around the stage to the railings on the stairs were fence poles. They were about 2m high and bent at the top back over the platform for about 40cm. The top section was strung with three rows of barbed wire.

The straight length of the poles supported a tightly strung, chain mesh fence. The diamond-shaped holes were at least 15cm across. A gate at the top of each set of stairs was closed and guarded by a woman.

Boyd had to chuckle at the tall, blonde, female guards. They were dressed in some sort of white, mid-thigh length tunic. Over the top was bronze-looking chainmail armour. The padded armour covered the shoulders and dropped to just below the crotch. A thin, gold, cloth trim edged the chain mail and the tunic.

The guards wore steel, open-faced helms with fancy, gold scrollwork on them and a row of short spikes down the centre to their neck. Laced, leather, mid-calf boots protected their feet. A wide belt with brass studded baltea (dangling straps) covering their groins and a sheathed dagger on one hip completed their ensembles.