Chapter 3

Midnight.

Crystal walked her apartment alone in an apprehensive mood. Her nerves felt tight. It was not the same thrill as the dangerous game she'd played in San Diego, across the continent, years before. This time she had a sense of dark foreboding. Some of the brightest computer minds in the world were right here in New York. Her company, A-C, might have some security checks she didn't even know about. If they ran an inventory on the entire memory of Domino's 1100, they might get curious about the "Starshell" tape.

She'd sent Leaf and Sydney out on the town to get better acquainted. Sydney had eyes for her, of course, but was smart enough to leave the sex decisions in her hands. He'd probably take Leaf to his empty apartment for the night... and to work the next day to start her on the payroll as one of his secretaries. He knew if he did what Crystal wanted that he'd get more sex from her, but not otherwise.

Crystal stood on her terrace, staring out across the city. Most of the time the City exhilarated her with its bigness, its boldness, and its quickness. It was a place worthy of her own superior brain. But some nights, especially late like this, she felt like a scared little girl in the embrace of the giant beast that the City was. The streets were also a place of aggression, robbery and sometimes even quick death. She shivered in the fall, night air.

An orange light burned in one of the apartments almost directly across from hers. This late most of the lights in the banks of windows were out giving the impression of blank, staring eyes, but that one apartment light seemed always to be on. She wondered who lived there.

She turned quickly from the terrace and went to bed. It wouldn't do to acquire nerves and dream fearful fantasies at the beginning of this most important adventure that required her utmost attention... She had rested only a few moments when her computer terminal came to life with a ghostly clatter of typewriter keys. She heard the sound faintly in her living room. At the same moment a red warning light lit at her bed and an ominous soft bell chimed.

Crystal always slept naked. She didn't bother to put anything on as she bounded out of bed and raced to the living room. She certainly expected no message in the middle of the night. Were the technicians working on the Domino this late? She had programmed the memory so that she'd receive a warning if there were ever a question about "Starshell".

She flipped on the side light and stared at the yellow roll of paper in the typewriter roller.

"HELLO, STARSHELL..."

She almost fainted right then and there. Her heart pounded. There was only one human in the universe who knew about "Starshell" and that was she. If anybody else ever used that term she was in deep trouble.

Ding, ding, ding. The keyboard shifted the roller down several spaces. Another message was about to come in. Then the type head clattered as if a ghost figure, invisible, sat there and typed.

"WAKE UP, STARSHELL. WE NEED TO TALK."

Absolute panic gripped her body. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rush out of her apartment, rush out of the city, run, run, run, as she'd run once before. She stood there, sickened, shattered, swaying. She froze for long moments. There was only the sighing of the nightwind on her terrace outside.

She got hold of herself. She had to find out who was talking to her. They already knew who she was and where she was, so it was too late to run and hide.

Domino had turned on her machine.

"WHO?" she typed and waited. Then she realized she had to sign off the message for the computer to handle it. She wrote: "STARSHELL".

"DARKSTAR" came the reply. The message went on. "I KNOW ABOUT A BRILLIANT WOMAN COMPUTER SCIENTIST FROM SAN DIEGO, CHRISTINE LOCKWOOD. SHE STOLE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS FROM THE WESTAIR CORP. THEY ARE STILL LOOKING FOR HER. DOES THIS INTEREST STARSHELL?" She sat there transfixed for long moments. It was the end of the line, doom and disaster. Somehow she'd been traced all the way across the continent. Her insides knotted and tears came to her eyes. For her it was not the beginning, but the end... prison... disgrace...

She sat there completely destroyed. At last she typed.

"STARSHELL IS INTERESTED." What else could she do?

Then her telephone rang. "Darkstar" wanted more intimate contact with "Starshell" than through the Domino computer. She answered, listened, and gave her replies in monosyllables. Then she hung up and walked, stunned, uncaring, still weeping, to her big glass doors. She threw them back and stepped through, going out onto her terrace, naked. She turned on the small spotlights and stood exposed, staring at the apartment across the street with the orange light, with a bitter gall in her throat, showing off her body to him and anybody else who might be looking out at this hour, for long moments.

It was deeply humiliating, like being made to perform a strip tease. She knew that hot eyes through binoculars drank in every aspect of her womanly charms. If his binocs were any good he could count her pubic hairs, she knew. Then she had to turn and present her naked, rear. That was even harder because she had a deep fear of anal sex interests.

Tits and her ass. He got the whole show. She went inside again, still following instructions. Moments later, wearing only a thin robe which her tormentor insisted had to be "sexy", she rode down to the ground floor of her apartment building in the service elevator, stopped it, and sneaked to the lobby, which was unattended. When a dark figure from the outside buzzed, she rang him in and returned to the elevator. She turned out the lights and stood facing the rear of the elevator, as instructed.

DarkStar came up behind her and whispered: "Keep facing the rear." He started the service elevator up and then turned. He left the light off. He stood behind her, gave a soft chuckle of triumph, and felt under her arms to squeeze her breasts. She gasped and started to struggle.

"Just stand still, Christine," he hissed. "It's a lot better than five years in prison and a lifelong felon's record."

"I won't be fondled," she shot back. His hands were hot and heavy on her breasts, through the robe.

"I think you will, Christine. I've got you dead to rights. I went to prison on account of you, and I've been looking forward to this meeting for a long time."

She knew who it was then and her heart sank. The Programmer from WestAir, Gunson... no Gunnar Strand, the Swedish young man who- --who...

Ohmigod!

"I'm a little tougher than I was back then four years ago, bitch. Back then I was hypnotized by green eyes, big tits, and long blonde hair..."

His fingers dug inside the robe to fondle her naked tits.

"I wanted your sweet young body and let you play circles around me, Christine. I never got your body. I got a year in jail and a felon's record. They thought we were in it together. How does that scratch you?"

She just couldn't handle this, those hot hands squeezing and manipulating her breasts. The body signals were all wrong, feeling the good shots of sex desire against the shattered destruction of her nerves.

"My name's Crystal," she snapped. "Crystal Locke, not Christine Lockwood." Then she gasped as the fingers dug into her breasts. "I'm sorry, Gun... Gunnar. I did it for my father. He was dying of cancer. You know..."

"I know all that sad story. There's my sad story. A year in prison... and trying to get a job as a convicted felon later. Then I got smart and did what you did. Changed my name, hid out across the country. Then I got smarter and looked for you."

"How did you find me?"

Anything to get her mind off her misery, mental and physical. Those hands gave her nipples pleasure-torture.

He chuckled. "Used the computer, what else. I used some of the latest work on information theory, specifically probability statistics. I asked the computer: "Mr. Computer, given this girl, with these characteristics running and hiding from the law... where would you go, what would you do?" The computer answered... and here I am."

The elevator stopped at her floor. He swung her around and lifted her easily onto his shoulder. He was a big man, about thirty-two, strong and determined. She gasped as he slung her on his shoulder like a fireman saving a fire victim.

"Don't pick me up!" she squealed. "I'm a person, not a child."

"You're a luscious fuck I never had," he grunted.

Gunnar Strand had changed a lot, indeed, since she'd first known him. Become bestial. There was nothing she could do but allow herself to be toted down her hall on his shoulder, naked in the thin robe like some girl slave of an ancient Roman.

A couple came out of one of the apartments and strolled down the hall to stare at her on Gunnar's shoulder in astonishment.

"Oh, -h-hullo, Crystal," said the man.

"Hello, Mr. Donaldson," she answered, blushing and furious.

The elegantly dressed Gunnar tipped his felt hat and marched right on by, enjoying her humiliation. She would've kicked her leg and screamed, but that would have only emphasized her helplessness and made it better for him. The other couple went on, with New York tolerance of human foibles.

In her apartment, Gunnar threw her on the bed and calmly tied her wrists to the headboard.

"You say there's nobody here. That nobody's coming. That the girl I've seen staying here is out for the night. I plan to check first. And to make sure you don't grab a weapon and sneak up behind me."

"Dammit, Gunnar, we're civilized! You don't tie a woman up like some bitch dog, and..."

Gunnar said: "Brilliant, yes. Sophisticated, yes. Civilized, no. Not me. Towards you."

She got her first look at him and what she saw made her shiver. He did look like some citified Dracula, impeccable in Bill Blass coordinates, but a leering savagery showing underneath. There was something altogether Nazi about the glitter in those moody blue eyes. His prison time had surely brutalized him.

He left the room. She heard him searching the apartment carefully, and it took him a long time. When he returned he'd mixed himself a drink.

"Well, Gunnar, what do you plan to do with me," she said. She was beginning to react to this disaster, thinking up plans...

He was drinking a Scotch and soda. He took out an ice cube and tossed it on her navel, exposed in the robe. She jerked and twisted and tossed it off. He merely flicked a second ice cube on her belly. The ice burned.

"Oh, Gunnar, dammit," she protested. She dared not get rid of the second ice cube, or he might dump the whole bucket on her. Oh, but it did burn her belly. He was torturing her, humiliating her...

He sat there like the computer brain that he was, pondering a mathematical solution. She knew he was as bright as she was, and, since prison, probably dangerous.

"That poor kid I used to be. All brain, no body. Married to a nice girl, who divorced me of course when I went to jail. That poor bright-stupid kid, victimized by green eyes and big tits that he never got to fuck. What do you think I should do to you?"

"I suppose you would fuck me," she said with a shudder. She would be lucky if that was all he did to her. "May I be untied?"

"No, not right away." He took the ice cube off her belly, where it had melted a little, and frozen a cold spot. He shoved it in her cunt while she squirmed and gasped.

"OH, NOW, GUNNAR, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. OH, GUNNAR, MY CUNT. OH, OH, OH."

"Happy Birthday to you, dear Crystal."

"OH, OH, OH."

It was so cold that she felt the opposite. It burned her like a hot fire in her soft, tender sex passage. She twisted and squirmed.

"How about six more."

He wanted her to beg. She begged. "Oh, Gunnar, don't, please don't."

"Fuck me, Gunnar, please fuck me," he said. "I'm a worthless girl, but I'm crazy for you to fuck me."

She hastily repeated the message, word for word: "FUCK ME, GUNNAR, PLEASE FUCK ME," she said. "I'm a worthless girl, but I'm crazy for you to fuck me."

He rewarded her by taking the fire out of her guts. She sighed in relief as he fingered the cold cube from her body.

"Are you turning me over to the police, Gunnar?"

She knew that West Air would have her extradited to California and push the trial, too, if he turned her in. If he did, she'd had it.

"Why would I do that, dear heart?" he said. "You're a computer crook, unconvicted. I'm a computer crook, convicted, though innocent. We're both under aliases and a long way from the last job. This suggests that the next theft be much bigger and better."

She gasped as she strained at her bonds. "Gunnar, the only reason I'm setting up Domino is to pay back the hundred thousand. There are ways that won't hurt them much. I want to return what I stole and clear my name with West Air. I don't want to get in deeper."

"Well, well, such Disney sweetness from the ice blonde! Deeper? Let's see how deep you really are."

He leaned forward and plunged his fingers into her cunt.

She had to lift up her belly to this outrageous invasion of her sex organ and give a tremendous gasp at the friction of his fingers. It gave her a sexy if unwelcome thrill. At the same time she was smart enough to see that her luscious body saved her for the moment. He might've killed her or roughed her up. He might've simply sent the police to get his revenge from the distance. He'd been hung up on her good looks before prison, and he still was.

"Ah, now, Gunnar, that's no way to treat a fellow computer th- thief!"

"Thief? Huh-uh, not you, Crystal. Not an honest thief. You stole that money for your father and sent him off to one of the Scandinavian countries to live his last two years in comfort. You figured that West Air took the last ten years of his life, and that's what you charged them."