The Six Pack part 1 edited by John Drake
                     1

  Diana ran desperately. She had a company car in the basement car park. If she could get to that she would be home free! 
  The harried executive started heading for the elevators but she was literally feet away from them when they all flashed out of service. The reach that these people had was truly shocking-she had to move fast. 
  Diana swallowed nervously;
    “Bastards!” She was not in a position to shift though as she was also carrying a briefcase full of paperwork! Her load was heavy and she cursed the three inch pointy black stilettos with their absurd toes and pencil heels. The shoes were not designed to be run in! She also had a fine pair of gray silk stockings held up by garters and pencil skirt-also not an item designed for rapid movement…
  In her thirty two years she had never had to get from the top floor to the basement via the fire escape stairs! It was the last of her worries but this was going to ruin her suit. 

  Diana remembered the emergency meeting. The Shareholders had appointed her far from unanimously but they had few options other than selling their company for far less than it was worth to SV. They knew that the old Managing Director’s plus cronies were working against their interests. 
  Some wanted to wait, some wanted to sell but the majority of them wanted to keep fighting. Legal action was going to be brought against the old MD but he was being protected by SV so it was unlikely he would even lose his remuneration package.  
  Diana was sure that part of the reason they wanted her to keep going was that the stronger the company was, the better the price they could sell it for. The company was not competing against SV industrial consortium in there market, that company wanted to move into there market by acquiring other companies i.e. hers! 

  Her gray silk blouse was tight across her chest and she was panting as she started to run down the stairs as fast as she could;
    “Dammit, dammit!” Diana Keening croaked as her tightly-tailored suit jacket’s shoulder pad scuffed against the dusty wall of the staircase. She was panting quickly but she needed to keep moving-she had some inclination of what was coming for her!   
  She gritted her teeth as she could feel her hair coming loose-that should have been the last thing to think about. It was literally only a few hours ago that she had had it done and now it was practically ruined;
    “Oh, boo-hoo…” The desperate brunette slammed against another staircase wall, thinking of her possible future, compared with having to pay Andre to make another trip to hear…
  She had one hand on the stair-rail, one hand on the briefcase and her legs were working so fast she was a blur-there might as well have been sparks coming off her heels!
  Finally she got to the bottom. Diana very carefully glanced through the fire exit window. The parking garage was unusually dark, just the emergency lights burning. Carefully and slowly she pushed the door open. There was a creak and Diana held her breath. There was no one there;
    “So far, so good…” She looked left and right, among the executive’s and manager’s cars. 
  A big white van caught her eye. She remembered the make as a Chevrolet step she wasn’t sure why, then she remembered they had a couple a while back as delivery vehicles. The tradesmen used another car park… Her heart was pounding-she needed to get out of there quickly!
  A closer look at the van revealed it had a name on the side- Sunny View for the managed care in society. The brunette gulped, she didn’t want to end up in their care! The only managing she wanted to get done was to manage to get away!
  The van drove forwards and stopped. Six bulky shapes slowly discharged themselves from the van, four from the back and two from the front. They split into three teams of two and started to scour the car park. Diana disappeared as best she could, squeezing herself behind a dumpster that the cleaners had not bothered to collect. 
  Two of the people from the asylum walked towards her. They were both women over six feet tall. They had steel toe-capped boots and guards on their arms and legs that looked like the ones riot police wore. To complete the terrifying look they had stab proof vests and big helmets with visors. 
  A black woman with dreadlocks carried a huge Tazer that looked like a cattle prod;   
    “Come out dear-we don’t want to hurt you…” She shouted. Diana was not convinced! 
  Next to her the other woman held something that looked like an air rifle. She actually had an eye patch and there was a scar just visible under it. The two of them noticed the door Keening had used hadn’t fully shut and Diana silently cursed as they went to look at it.
  She dragged the briefcase out and headed to a Mercedes people carrier. Diving under the vehicle, she dragged the case behind her just as two more of the asylum staff arrived. 
  The next two were also women, a tall redhead carried a side handled police baton-she had a good six inches on her colleagues. There was a heavily built woman, a body-builder or something who carried what looked like a giant super-soaker with a barrel-like backpack strapped to her back. 
  Diana didn’t know what was in the barrel but she would lay money that if she was hit with it she would not be moving very fast. The two women headed away from her and Diana looked for another vantage point. She spied a guard’s station booth-she could hide behind that! 
  The executive very slowly walked over to the booth, trying to make sure her heels didn’t make a sound on the concrete. She took a deep breath and squeezed herself behind the booth clutching the brief-case as if her life depended on it, it probably did!     
  She needed the paperwork to put away the traitors in her own company. The final pair of asylum staff wandered past her. There was a thin-looking blond with a big noose on a stick looking like something for dealing with dangerous animals, not people. The other woman, a redhead held some kind of canister of pepper spray or C.S. gas.
  Diana was pretty sure whatever it was would completely incapacitate her… 
    “Diana come out, we just want to help you!”
  The high-haired brunette was not buying that line! She carefully waited for all six of the women to move to the other end of the car park and then snuck out from her hiding spot towards her car. She made a mental note to herself that the budget for company cars should be cut. These things were a waste of money! The sales guys had to look good but the rest could bring their own cars in or make do with something cheaper. 
  It was not easy to crouch down in the heels and tight skirt but slowly she crept from car to car dragging the briefcase behind her. Her car was literally ten feet away and she started to relax. She had the key in one hand, the bag in the other. She stood up and confidently strode forwards. Her heel came down on a discarded can and suddenly her backside was hitting the concrete with a thud while the can bounced off, creating a rattling noise;
    “Shit!” Diana hissed. The company would have a strict no littering policy very soon if she could just get into her car…
 
  Diana remembered finding the files. The Managing Director was making some strange decisions and it was more than the usual cronyism. The overall effect had been to deliberately make the company’s financial position look worse to push the stock price down. Even thought the company was going well from a sales production and R+D perspective. It meant that the shareholders were far more willing to sell to SV. 
  It had taken Diana a long time to prove it-pure luck that she managed to find some paperwork relating to an agreement between SV and the MD! Miss Keening was doing it in the shareholders’ interests and her own. It should be her name on the MD’s office-she was practically running this company as the Operations Director! Whatever he got was better than letting him continue to sell the company out.   

  She desperately scrambled to her feet. The asylum staff charged across the car park towards her. 
  Keening half hopped, half ran for the car. She wasted precious seconds shaking the right key loose from the bunch. The key went in Diana heard a THUNK. 
  Imbedded in the side panel of the door was a dart the sort that looked like it would tranquilize an elephant-her bottom had been there seconds ago!
    “Don’t run away-we are here to help you!”
  The thugs were getting close. Diana opened the door, threw the briefcase into the back and jumped in. She locked the car door and took a deep breath. Diana Noticed the asylum staff closing in on her, she bet that they would get out of the way rather than be run over! A sense of elation washed over Diana. She put the key in the ignition and the engine turned over-nothing. A desperate fear crept into replace the elation she suspected-she was screwed… 
  The woman with the Ivana Trump hairstyle tried the ignition again and again she swore and banged the steering wheel nothing. The redhead stood in front of the car with a confident smile and pulled something out of a uniform pocket. It looked like spark plugs. Diana swallowed, those should be inside her car!
  The tall thin blond shoved some sort of wire into the door frame and the door to her car opened. Diana tried to make a dash for it out of the other door of the car, she could just see one of the beaten up old maintenance vans around the corner. she had one hand on the briefcase and one hand on the door handle when a loop of wire slipped around her neck and pulled her back. Diana let go of the briefcase and grabbed hold of the pole that the noose was attached to with both hands but she was dragged out of the car, her heels sliding and she was kicking to get some sort of purchase. She was being treated like an animal not a person!
  Her bottom hit the concrete with a stinging smack and the noose loosened a little. The asylum acquisition squad hauled her to her feet and the red head made a gesture.   
  Two of the women held her arms while a third held the noose. 
    “Please, whatever they are paying you I’m sure I can match it!”

  Diana Keening had moved to this medium sized city because she wanted a job. She had specifically targeted the main office of one manufacturing company where she was sure her mix of skills would lead her to the top. The woman had done her gap year from college there and she had done well. A good letter of recommendation from her line manager from a different branch and she had got a job at the main office. She had made it to Operations Manager - Operations Director! 

  Red shook her head;
    “Silence, you prima donna!”
  A cherry-red medical silicone ball gag over two inches in diameter was shoved unceremonious into Diana’s mouth. A look of frustrated indignation spread over her face as it was buckled tightly stretching her lips around the invader. The woman mumbled her curses as they pulled out a large bundle of black rubber from the van that they had come in.
  The first thought in Diana’s mind was ‘That will wrinkle my suit!’ when they started pulling the horrible thick rubber up her arms. She chided herself-a wrinkled business suit should be the last thing on her mind! The inside of the jacket had talcum powder in it to help guide her body and her hands were forced into the mitten sleeves of the it. They were practically useless with the thickness of the rubber. She could already feel the suffocating rubber starting to tightly embrace her body it would be hot, like her own private sauna!
  Diana was able to struggle a little but not much as the two women held her and two more handled the jacket. It was pulled-up over her shoulders and the first buckle at the back of the jacket was tugged snug. The next followed and the jacket started to tightly conform to her torso-she could already feel herself sweating. The next two straps were tightly buckled pulling the jacket into her ribs tightly and the following two were worked, pulling the jacket into her tight waist.
  The straps down the back of the jacket were tightened again until the rubber practically squealed in protest. Diana moaned into her gag with each tug that further increased the compression on her rubber encased torso. Her shoulders were wrenched back it was a struggle to take a deep breath and her waist felt like there was a corset over the top of it. The straps on the back of the jacket were carefully folded back on themselves so that there was no way to get them loose. 
  Diana Keening felt her arms forced in-front of her through a central loop just below her breasts then her hands were pulled through two side loops the ends of the sleeves met and the buckles came tightly together. She grunted pleadingly into her gag as it was made tighter and tighter and tighter. Finally when she could not even move her arms to squirm in the jacket the straps were done up on the sleeves the end of the strap neatly fed away.
  The redhead walked up to her shorter prey and looked down. Diana’s eyes followed and she realised that there was a broad rubber crotch strap-she shook her head desperately. The red head nodded with a smile…
  The strap was fed between her legs and pulled slowly tight. The read head was enjoying this! Slowly her skirt was pulled up further and further by the strap until first her stocking-tops and then her grey silk panties were exposed. 
  The prisoner moaned into her gag as the broad rubber strap was buckled and the wide section of rubber started to sink deep between her legs. It was humiliating, frustrating and quite distracting to have the rubber invader cutting into her! She squirmed and wiggled but there was no comfortable place-the strap was just getting tighter and tighter. A blushing Diana initially felt the strap buckled and moments later she disappeared into the van. 

  Diana watched the world fly past. The van was very large-there were two sections, one with seating for four people and what looked like two equipment lockers. The second part was cordoned off by a large, heavy door. It was opened and a light flickered on, it was a very small padded cell!
  Diana was shoved into it and a strap was done up around her waist. The guard looked at her hair and pulled out the hair pins holding it together just in case, then the door was slammed shut and the light went off. Diana was left crying into her gag in the dark claustrophobic space every struggle causing the strap to taunt her, tight between her legs.

                                       2

  Sahar had to swerve out of the way to avoid the big white van that thundered out of the darkness and she wobbled into the car park. She was just about to shout and honk her horn at them when she noticed who it was. The sanatorium van, they rounded up the local nut jobs and kept them out of the way of nice normal sane people. She thought to herself, ‘Well maybe not that sane, I’m dragging myself into work at this hour to recheck some damn research results!’ She muttered under her breath;
    “Hope you find whichever crazy bastard you’re looking for-lock ‘em up and throw away the key!” 
  They were quite fed up with nut job hippies campaigning that they were destroying the planet-there had been several of them about! The white van was probably here for one of those loonies;
    “Sorry they can’t come to the phone. They’re a bit tied up now!” She giggled. 
  The security guard at the gate recognised her and let her in without a word. She was pulling way too many late nights if the security guards recognised her...
  Sahar parked her car in the employee’s car park. She had been at a nice party when she got the dreaded call that the results needed to be rechecked. 
  She was of Iranian descent, a nicely proportioned twenty nine year old research chemist who, at the moment was wearing a red party dress which contrasted nicely with her dusky skin. She tottered out of her VW in her party frock and three inch red heels, looking down at herself regretfully. It was shaping-up to be a great party, too...
    “Not wishing to boast but I look fabulous, too!” She spat, turning her long shapely brown legs in the narrow heels. The dress was short with slits that were a little too high and her mass of curly black hair had been stylishly quaffed. It was her bad luck to be the most junior member on the team-therefore the one that could be ordered back to the lab to do the work while everybody else had a good nights sleep!
  Sahar looked in the car mirror at her bright red lipstick, her exquisite blush. All that effort, all that makeup gone to waste! Her sexy little dress too, all for nothing! She huffed as she got out of her car. She was not used to heels this high. The dusky girl sighed and tottered through the car park towards the lift. Sahar fished her pass key out of her handbag and a few seconds and she remembered the associated code. 
  She knew that they were due to start building the new factory soon. It needed the new machines ordered so that they would be built ready for delivery the same time that the factory was ready to receive them. The machines had to be sound. Any errors in their construction and they would be worthless. 
  Sahar had worked in the laboratory that had designed the new manufacturing processes. They needed to be certain that they could scale them to an industrial level. A lot of money was riding on it and they had to be absolutely certain what worked in the lab would work on the factory floor. They were building a new factory based on the idea that they could achieve a large advantage over any competition by having the next big advance in their industry therefore every single factor that could affect the machines had to be tested again and again. 
  One of the back up test reports had been misplaced so now it was easier to send Sahar into the lab to redo the tests than for whatever lazy twit that had lost the report to go and find it!
  Sahar got into the lab. She buttoned up the tight white Lab coat over her dress, put on her safety glasses and pulled her hair into place with a scrunchie. She dug out the testing protocol it was 34G-2 to find the optimum temperature for one stage of the industrial process. Grumbling to herself, Sahar set up some of the machines in the lab to rerun the tests. It would take an hour or so.
  The dark haired girl got to work. She turned on the radio, some jazz station-she hummed, it helped her to think. She had done this so many times she could practically do it in her sleep. She set up the computer to record the results. She started the 1/18th scale model of the factory machines from the mini prototypes. They had refined techniques that they were going to apply on an industrial scale. 
  Sahar made sure that all the recording devices were correctly calibrated. A few were a little off but it only took a minute or two to get them in full working order and she left the machine running the test-she felt like some kind of zombie.
  She chuckled as she imagined herself walking along the corridors zombie-like and raised her hands out, dragging her feet;
    “Coffeeee, coffee…” Then she picked up the pace. There was a staff break room around the corner and she opened the door, felt for the switch & clicked it on. 
  The Coffee machine sat in the corner. Sahar turned it on-some coffee would be good about now. She retrieved some milk from the fridge that didn’t look like it was spontaneously going to turn into cheese. 
  The machine was ancient;
    “They can afford a complete new factory but give them one request for a new coffee machine and they look at you like you want a gold plated Bunsen burner!” She mumbled to herself. Sahar put her cup under the machine and pushed a button. The coffee machine sat there doing nothing. She took her shoe off and hit the coffee machine! It gurgled, shuddered then finally started pouring some coffee into a cup. The girl turned it off, kicked off her heels and sat down resting for a minute. She slowly set a timer and dozed off.

  Diana Keening was the managing director of a large company. The last managing director had been booted out as it was found he was trying to sell the company out, under the board of director’s noses. Diane was newly minted after getting the weasel fired. The brass plate on her office door barely a day old, she did not have time to stop for a moment. They were not going to say that she let the company slide into bankruptcy-she was not going to let the company fail!
  The directors had appointed her far from unanimously, she was fighting internal struggles the old M.D.’s cronies infested every part of the company-it was the old boys’ network she was desperately fighting against. The company was in trouble, the S.V. industrial consortium was snapping at her company to try and perform a hostile takeover. 
  S.V (Sunny View)-what a stupidly sugary name for a company it was all P.R. a big medical group that was diversifying, fast growing larger than it had any right to. She had seen its public face, urban gentrification - people thrown out of their homes to build shopping centers but stories like that were squashed it had its fingers in the media. The private prisons and asylums that got rid of society’s problems, but on the inside it was rumored that they made Guantanamo bay look like a five star hotel!  
  A shiver went down Diana’s spine there were rumors that people who got in their way disappeared. It was horrible to think about. She didn’t have time to sit and worry though, she had to act. Her belief when confronted with any problem was to work on it-sheer determination had got her where she was today!
  Her staff called her Diana ‘Over-Keen’, she spent every waking minute in the office! She had bumped up against the glass ceiling and shattered it… She had to work so hard she must have drank ten cups of coffee a day with nicotine patches under her blouse, red bull anything to keep her awake and alert. 
  She had a laundry service pretty much delivering to her office-she even slept in a fold-out bed there! Diana spent relatively little time in her small apartment. She lived out of a suitcase in the office. She woke and her phone may as well have been grafted to her ear. She was a fighter that would not go down without a fight. 
  The brunette paused for a second for the design of the new factory machinery. One of the back up test reports was missing, report 34G-2. 
  She spoke to people. One way or another that report would be redone, they needed the design specification for the new machines confirmed tomorrow when the production order would be placed!
  S.V. was intent on stopping her company, commercially devaluing its stock then buying it up and asset stripping it. They had bought ground to build a new factory. It had taken so long to get planning permission. The local judges had queried every aspect of it. The local planning department had dragged their heels. The local politicians & the Mayor had asked more questions then the Federal Government had asked questions-it was ridiculous!
  Barrier after barrier had been put down in front of her company, everyone had taken time and money to jump over, crawl under or simply demolish. Even now Diana had to fight a bunch of hippies were campaigning because a type of blue flower she had never heard of, almost indistinguishable from another common blue flower was everywhere else. 
  She was literally employing an army of security guards to watch a bunch of hippies to stop them monkey wrenching the site. The S.V. Corporation was always implying that if the company was properly run i.e. by them then such issues would evaporate.
  The company was starting to get into debt. Soon the shareholders would look at the balance sheet and decide it wasn’t worth the effort of fighting S.V. 
  Diana was not going to let the company that had nearly a decade of her professional life be bought out by S.V. sold, asset stripped and her friends made redundant. Her work simply added onto the pile of trophies under S.V.’s belt. 
  First she had to win the internal fight, and then she would win the war. S.V. were working a campaign against the company that was truly grand-the damn Chairman was batting for S.V. and probably so were a lot of his old boys’ network cronies. Diana had to find them, route them out and get competent people in their place who would not work against the company interests.
  ‘Over-Keen’ had so little time she was practically a prisoner in her own office. She had to convey a sense that everything was fine. She had to remain immaculately presentable-hair, nails, perfect suit, blouse, skirt, hose and shoes-all perfect. 
  A man could get away with a three day shadow but she had to look effortless. What an insidious double standard! It got to the point that her stylist came to her late at night via the car park to maintain her public face to the board to her staff. In the evening she had her hair done while she looked through business reports; she had to find which members of the staff were solidly in the hands of S.V. those she needed to isolate fast. 
  There were other people who were loyal to the company, others who would follow whoever looked like they were winning the vast majority really. She had three suspects for the hard-line supporters of the old boys’ network-the Accounts Director, the Deputy Director of Marketing and the company H.R. Manager. She had found emails and signatures-they were definitely working with S.V. against the company! 
  She needed hard proof though. Most things she had found were circumstantial, she dug into the records.
  The Accounts Director had deliberately made the company’s financial position look worse to the auditors so that the company was easier to purchase on paper. It meant that the board of directors was far more willing to sell to S.V. thinking the cards in their hand (so to speak) had a far lower face value. 
  That was easy to prove, it had taken her hours but she had the real reports, internal back up copies and the ones that the Accounts Director had sent to the auditors. His ass was going to be easy to boot out for gross misconduct or incompetence. The Marketing Deputy Manager was harder. He seemed to be deliberately sabotaging some of their key account customers, sending them to S.V. 
  It was harder to prove. He worked in the field of wining and dining people-hardly anything he said was documented. There were second hand reports and comments from other staff members. She could demote him as his sales targets were falling. He could be sidelined to a place where he could do little damage. Maybe she could even fire him-let the employment tribunal fight it out later. Whatever he got was better than letting him continue to sell the company out. 
  The H.R. Manager-there was another one! From one perspective it looked like a couple of the best staff they had had been head hunted and offered positions at S.V. better salary, better terms and conditions. 
  One of them had passed the info onto Diana. She had some information, it looked like the info was lifted straight off his HR file but the Manager was not the only person with access to his files. There were other things. The HR Manager had personally perused claims against several of what Diana would label the hard line loyal members of the management tea- the Facilities Manager, the Quality Control Manager and the Operations Manager.
  Each had had some petty dispute raised into a full blown investigation that had threatened to have them removed from the company. It was hard to prove anything. Diana would find it difficult to make anything stick…
  Then she had a bad feeling. Something reminded her of a memo that went over her desk. She found some medical files conveniently buried in the archive. 
  The H.R. manager was responsible for the company medical program for the executives and managers. The Deputy IT Manager had been the only other female. She had gone on indeterminate leave then disappeared. Diana would have labeled her as one more of the company’s hard line loyalists. 
  She found the woman’s medical report. A company psyche profile had shown her to be fine, coping well with the stress of the job, maybe even in a position to take over the department. Diana looked deeper. The woman had been committed to an institution controlled by S.V. the committal was based on a physiological assessment carried out by a Doctor that Diana had never heard of. It was based on reports produced by the HR Manager…
  The H.R. Manager had removed a potential supporter. It seemed that the I.T. Manager was one of the hard liners from the old boys’ network as well. That meant that they were probably monitoring the emails that Diana had sent! They knew what paperwork had been requested and they knew that she knew who they were…
  Diana had to get the incriminating paperwork and get out of here! The company retained a law firm they were independent she could clean house from there, get all four of her problems out of the building and get on with fighting the takeover and the construction of the new factory.

                                        3

  Sahar was woken up by the timer-it was so late, she wanted sleep. She huffed, shut the timer off and put her shoes back on. Why didn’t she have a pair of trainers, she asked herself? She returned to the lab and checked the machinery. It was alright. She printed-off the test results and dumped them into a file then stuffed the file in a big brown envelope ready to be sent. 
  Sahar returned to the main floor of the building. She just had to drop the report off at the mail room and it would be on its way tomorrow morning. She tripped on her heel and swore as she dropped the report and it slid under a table. Sahar bent down on her hands and knees and crawled under the table after it. She could see the report she just had to reach for it.
  Sahar froze when she heard two sets of foot falls two people walking around at this hour talking to each other. Sahar did not want to be seen in this humiliating position! Also she had other reasons. She knew something was going on so she just happened to have a recording device on her-she let it run.
  The two men stopped literally five feet from her. One of them was definitely the H.R. Manager;
    “Thanks for letting me know that Over-Keen was onto me.”
  The other voice was the I.T. Manager;
    “I have been monitoring Diana’s email and phones for some time. I thought she might find us before we could deal with her.”
  The H.R. Manager laughed;
    “Don’t worry about her until the hostile takeover happens. She’s going to be spending all her time locked up inside a padded room. It will completely ruin her when we let it out that she broke down and had to be committed just a few days after getting the top job!”
  The I.T. manager chimed in;
    “Soon S.V. industries will acquire this company. We get a nice pension and settlement package and we can retire for life. What about Diana?” 
  The H.R. Manager laughed;
    “For her commitment to the company they might decide to give her a life long commitment!” He paused for a second, “A pity, she is a beautiful woman. A few months of being locked up in a ball gag and straitjacket might make her quite compliant. After this is over, I might go and see her just for a friendly conjugal visit…” 
    “Make sure she has a ring gag in her mouth and shackles on her legs!” The other joked.
  Sahar was discussed as she listened to the conversation of the two pigs, though she was sure that that little conversation would come around to bite them on the ass. She waited for them to stop and then switched off the recorder. She looked carefully under the table, breathing very slowly and trying not to make a sound. 
  Slowly, very slowly the two managers walked away. She had to get the recording to someone that knew what to do with it. The girl also had to get the damn report delivered or she would not have a job in the morning. Slowly Sahar edged her way out from under the table. She had to get moving quickly. Then a thought crossed her mind. The Asylum van! They must have already got Diana-she didn’t want to join her!
  Sahar considered her options. She could try calling the police or she could try her contact in the local press... 
  Sahar thought for a minute;
    “They can’t control the local Police can they?”
  Nervously Sahar dropped the report into the mail slot for the post dispatch. She saw it slide home that was one less problem…
  She didn’t want a phone call to be traced to her mobile so she decided to try the Police. 
  She dialed an external line. It rang twice and then a woman picked up the line;   
    “Police Emergency-Response line. How we can help you?” 
  Sahar started to talk;
    “I work at a local company, there‘s something going on. The directors are corrupt. I have evidence that they are having people who get in their way committed to the Sunny Views Institute! There is some major corruption.”
  The line went quiet for a second there was a nervous murmur, the operator spoke;
    “I am afraid I will have to pass you onto my supervisor.”
  There was a pause on the line and a stern woman’s voice was heard;
    “Stop wasting police time with these unfounded accusations. If you continue to spread these lies then I will personally haul your ass out to Sunny Views for you to have a seventy-two hour assessment! What is your name, Miss?”
  Sahar put down the phone. She gulped, it was very bad if the reaction from the police was like this! Then the local police could not be trusted…
  She walked for the car park-she needed to get out of here! The usual security guards were present but she could not be sure that they were not in on it. Sahar hid as a group of people walked out of the security office. There were the two managers she had seen talking earlier and there was a redheaded woman about six feet tall she was dressed in a suit of riot gear she looked pissed. Sahar set her recorder to active. She grabbed the H.R. manager and put what looked like a can of pepper spray to his eye;
    “Make another request like that and I will personally blind you-burn you eyes out with pepper spray!”
  The H.R. Manager spluttered;
    “But we had a deal with the director of the asylum!”
  The redhead looked at him;
    “That is right but it does not include any inappropriate contact with any of the patients, you deal with the Director and you do what he says. I say this literally, the torments of hell await any that cross him!” The little fat man spluttered. The redhead stopped for a second she had an ear piece on a radio to her ear she listened intently then she turned to the H.R. manager, “Your lack of judgement has compromised you further, this was the last time we covered up for you for free. Someone overheard you. This time the director has changed the deal, you are out of pocket 5% of what was agreed-and I mean all of you.” She looked at the other manager. The I.T. manager looked nervous;
    “-But we had a deal…”
  The redhead looked at him;
    “The director has changed the deal. Pray it is not altered further, for every person we have to disappear your share will disappear as well. Speak to your associates, make sure that they keep their mouths shut!”
  Sahar gulped nervously. She tried to play back the recording. For some reason it had not recorded. That was ominous. Sahar gulped again it had literally been five minutes since she made the call and they were already looking for her. What were these people? Who was the director?
   She had a good understanding that something was going on. The pressure in the company that had forced the old managing director out, Over-Keen taking over the company, the trouble with getting the new factory started. Sahar knew that there was someone trying to purchase the company cheap-was it this director? It sounded like it.   
  Sahar had one other contact, someone who could possibly do something about this whole corrupt affair, break this thing wide open. She couldn’t see her direct but she did have one friend that owed her a favour. Her mind span. She needed to get the information moving then she had to disappear before she ended up grunting in a ball gag sitting in a straitjacket next to Diana in a padded room!  
  Slowly, she headed in the other direction to a maintenance room housing a boiler, a pump or something. If she could get in there then she could make it into the fire escape and out of the car park!
  The maintenance room was a dusty collection of rubbish. Someone who kept saying, ‘That might be useful…’ had filled the place with junk. She moved through the rubbish, found the fire exit and moved on. The girl noticed some of the asylum’s goons in the car park-they were dressed like riot police. 
  An enormous redhead carried some sort of police baton. There was also a heavily built woman a with an industrial high pressure sprayer. Sahar was a chemist, she could just see the hazard labels on the side of the tank it looked like a giant version of a glue gun-if she got within thirty feet of them they would literally be scraping her off the floor! The door slammed shut on a closer & Sahar squealed in surprise. The two goons turned and she ran. 
  The glue hit her on the back, she fell over but before she could be hit again she shook her way out of her lab coat that was now glued to the floor. The dusky brunette ran for all she was worth out of the executive car park and into the larger staff car park.
  Sahar could see the two asylum goons reach the car park but they were slowed down by there heavy gear. She found her keys and jumped into her car. The starter spun and it caught first time;
    “That’s a novelty!” She put her foot down on the gas, she needed to get the hell out of here before the goon squad caught up with her!
 The car skidded off a bollard with a trail of sparks. Sahar just had enough time to signal the guard to raise the gate before she was out of it, off the company property and onto the main road. 
  Escape! Sahar could not believe that she had gotten away from the damn place! She calmed down-the last thing she wanted now was to be arrested for reckless driving. She eased off the pedal and started to obey the speed limit;
    “You’re not giving me a straitjacket today!”
  Outside the company car park the two asylum staff looked at one another as Sahar‘s tail lights disappeared into the distance;
    “Is that tracker in place?” The other nodded.
    “Sure. One way or the other she will lead us to the nosey reporter.”

  Sahar knew that this day might be coming, she had been leaking information to the press for some time. She was paid a bit for doing it but mostly it was her indignation at what was going on at the company. The girl knew a little bit about the old MD. He had been sacked for his dealings but the rest of his cronies were still there and still orchestrating his plan. 
  Sahar parked outside her apartment, grabbed her recorder and literally ran up to the door. She opened the front door with her keys and hopped through the door, slamming it behind her. She ran up the stairs taking them two at a time. When she got to the third floor she opened the door and darted inside. 
  Sahar pulled the dead bolt and put the chain on the door. She grabbed a chair, wedged it up against the door and then sat down, shaking uncontrollably. 
  Her room mate Melanie was woken up by the commotion and came wandering out of her bedroom in her bra, panties and socks. Her eyes were a little blurry, she blinked a few times;
    “What’s all the noise about?” She came over, knelt down and hugged her reassuringly. 
  Sahar pulled herself together. She walked into the open kitchen, opened the fridge and downed a can of some cheep red bull knock-off. It was the caffeine and sugar she needed to keep her going. 
  Sahar turned to her room mate;
    “Classy, I am in deep trouble. There is a huge amount of corporate corruption at the company I work at. I have overheard something I shouldn’t and now I need to disappear.”
   “Can’t you go to the police?” 
  Sahar shook her head;
  “Already tried that. This is big, they have the police wrapped around their fingers! I’m going in a few minutes-I need you to give this to a friend of mine.” She picked up a large envelope filled with various evidence, put the recorder in it and sealed it. She gave it to Classy. Melanie looked confused for a second. Sahar looked at her “I need you to do a big favour for me-give this information to a reporter, Penny. She has contacts outside the local press. Drop the information into this post box at this address.” 
  Sahar handed Melanie a scrap of paper with an address and a post box number. Melanie nodded. She had a few things to think about. She made herself a coffee while Sahar changed.

                                          4

  Denise Lawson was an accountant for a large company she was the Accounts Supervisor (or Assistant Manager as she thought of it), a qualified accountant and had worked to qualify in the company working her way up from a junior data entry clerk. 
  She had worked through accounts payable, through the internal accounts and had climbed every rung of the ladder. They called her a Senior Supervisor so that they could pay her less. Her job description had no sign of the word Manager and yet her job description had her managing almost everything for her lazy Director. She was working to become the accounts director and was sure that he would be replaced at some point, due to the fact he seemed to have screwed up a major audit of the books making the company look very bad. Denise assumed that the day he was gone would be very soon.
  Slowly Denise was collecting information on that little hiccup. She wanted a good solid case to present to Diana. Very soon she was going to schedule a meeting with her and get the work done. Now that Diana over-keen was in charge she was sure that she could get the old pig fired, take his place and would do a better job. The current Accounts Director had gotten his place through knowing the old Managing Director, not through knowing anything about the company, anything about the particular accounting practices in the industry or actually being very good at either being a Manager or an Accountant. 
  Denise had carried the man for several years. All the functions of his job that required any actual work were normally handed to her at the last minute!
  She was thirty two years old. A tall five-eleven athletic woman of afro-Caribbean decent dressed in a smart business trouser suit coloured light brown. The suit clung to her tight round bottom and her long athletic legs. She wore a cream blouse under the suit which was tight across her chest. Her suit jacket was done up tightly emphasising her flat trim waist and wide round hips. She had rich, dark brown eyes like two pools of melted chocolate and possessed a clean complexion with minimal make up. 
  Wearing silver pendant earrings that looked a little like raindrops, she had a bob of black hair that came down to her neck framing her face. Her inch black kitten heeled shoes completed her outfit and she had a warm broad smile with a light red/ rose make up. 
  In her youth she wanted to be an athlete. She trained very hard and as a result she had a very athletic body. Her ambitions were thwarted at the last minute-she lost out to a leg injury just before a crucial qualifier, this meant she had to turn away from a career as an athlete and seek employment where she could. Her sport of choice had been the decathlon as a result she had a good all round training regime witch gave her a very healthy body. Years after that now that she had built up a career in accounts she still had a fantastic flat stomach, the result of lots of weekend and evening training. She had athletic legs but one of her best assets was her very sexy tight ass and thighs. 
  Denise was quite broad in the shoulders due to her exercise regime. She was a little intimidating but very beautiful, having a very trim waist and round statuesque hips. She did not have large breasts but was comfortable with her body and had powerful athletic arms to go with her shoulders. She didn’t need a mans help for DIY.

  Denise managed to keep herself fit-she had never really given up her fitness regime. She still trained to keep at her prime. Just because she was an accountant didn’t mean she was going to give up the habit of a life time. 
  On Monday nights she would go to a race track and time herself on the 100m run she would aim at a time her best and work towards it. On Tuesdays she would go to the same track and practice the long jump, Wednesdays she would practice the high jump-determined to maintain her levels of fitness. Thursdays she would run the 400 meters against a friend, Fridays she would run the 110 meter hurdles, Saturday mornings she would give her arms a work out with shot put, javelin and discus. In the afternoons she would do the pole volt. On Sundays she would do the 1500 meters-a really good run. She was very fit! She did a little swimming and cycled to work.
  Denise was sometimes very late from work especially recently when the company was busy trying to build a new factory, trying to repel a hostile takeover and trying to get its internal finances straight. She was busy with jobs that ‘Over-keen’ had given to the accounts director that had then been passed straight onto her. 
  She found the figures didn’t add up in a major way. She thought that she had found a payment on the system that was incorrect-the budgets for certain things didn’t make sense. There was a payment their hidden as something else. She went into great detail because she knew that the pig director would simply put the blame on her if she found something wrong and could not explain it. 
  She took a step back and observed the last month’s figures. The woman checked the figures herself. There was a great deal more spent on security contractor payments than there should have been... 
  Denise found the invoices that seemed out of the ordinary. They were not security payments, no-they were medical payments part of the executive health care scheme for some sort of consultancy work. Denise scratched her head, there were quite a few security payments to keep a large security presence on the new factory site to keep the monkey wrenches away from the machinery but if they injured one of the guards then that was down to the security company not her company. Denise scratched her head.   
  There was a separate accounts file and system for employees injured, their claim forms, the medical insurance.
  Denise was sure that she had found something completely out of the ordinary. She needed to checks the payment codes against some other files to try and find out what this large anomaly on her records related to. Looking at the codes she could see there was something similar. The company normally had a physiologist carry out reviews of top managers or senior personnel to ensure that they had the right mindset for their jobs. However it looked like when certain managers were recruited (Denise was sure that they were all cronies of the old MD) a different doctor had been brought in and had written them all glowing reports that helped get them hired. 
  Denise was certain something was going on if they were paying off the old Managing Director’s pet Psychiatrist!

  Sahar kicked her heels off. She reached behind her back, unzipped her dress and squirmed out of it. Reaching around her neck she found she still had the lab goggles there. She pulled them off and flung them away. 
  She pulled on a pair of socks, a pair of tight skinny jeans, a tee shirt and a pair of sneakers. Sahar pulled cash and her ID out of her purse and dumped them into a small bag she had already packed just for such an emergency. She had a few other things under the bed but she chose to travel light. She would ditch her car, get a rental and head for the horizon! When the story broke and the corrupt managers were exposed then she knew it would be time to come out of hiding. Diana might be very happy with her, she might even get a promotion out of this if things went her way!
  Sahar looked at the apartment, she would miss it. She put on a leather jacket and shouldered the bag, pulling a cap over her hair. She grabbed Classy and gave her a goodbye hug. Classy was saving her time by delivering those documents-it meant she could make her escape that much faster!
  Sahar opened the rear window to the apartment, she would leave by the fire exit. Classy waved to her as she shut the window and carefully Sahar headed down the fire escape making a secret getaway would not be easy with a broken leg falling down a fire escape!
  With a creak she lowered the ladder to ground level and climbed down. There was a fire exit gate where the rubbish was also collected. She took a step forwards. Suddenly out of nowhere there was a member of the asylum staff in the riot gear-it was the red head with the CS spray!
  Sahar gaped. The woman smiled. The gate was still locked. Sahar would have to find another way out of the building! Suddenly she felt something tighten around her right ankle and she was dragged off her feet. There was a steel noose around her leg! Sahar looked behind her, there was another member of the asylum staff-a thin looking blond woman with a big noose on a stick.
  The woman was hiding behind one of the rubbish bins and Sahar found herself dragged across the floor. Her hat came off and rolled away. The thin woman shouldered the fire escape gate, opening it and letting the redhead in. the blond was trying to drag Sahar through the gate but Sahar didn’t want to go with them! She tried to grab hold of a pipe-her fingers held for a few seconds then the woman gave her a strong pull and Sahar was dragged out through the fire escape gate;
    “Please just let me go, I wont talk to anyone!”
  The redhead responded;
    “No dear, you get to go to a nice peaceful place.” 
  Sahar started to scream. The redhead moved to a bag on the side of the pavement. She reached inside and casually walked over to Sahar;
    “You’re going to be quiet then we get your friend, what was that nickname? Classy!”
  Sahar looked at her defiantly;
    “Leave her out of this, she doesn’t know anything!” The ball-gag in front of her was very large and the strap seemed to have a little lock on it, “Please no, don’t gag me please! Mumps mmph!” 
  The redhead took some considerable delight in shoving the gag into Sahar’s mouth and buckling it tightly behind her pearly white teeth. The strap cut into the sides of her cheeks and ensured her protests were reduced to minimal grunting.
  Sahar tried to struggle as they grabbed her bag and pulled it away from her. She tried to hold onto the handle only to have it pulled out of her grip. She hands flew to the gag to try and unlock it; it seemed to be locked tight. The two woman were on her. Sahar felt her jacket seized and her left arm pulled out of it then she was rolled over the jacket was pulled away. She felt the redhead grab her left leg. Her sneaker and sock was pulled off and a few seconds later the blond had her right shoe and sock off.    
  They released the wire around her ankle and Sahar was practically turned upside down and shaken out of her skinny jeans by the two powerful women. She tried to cling to her t shirt-the only scrap of clothing she had apart from her underwear! Moments later it was literally ripped of her body. The blonde held her arms behind her back while the redhead went and got something else from the bag...
  Sahar could see the thin grey rubber straight jacket as it was pulled out of the bag. It looked so tiny but then the rubber was stretchy, perhaps she could wiggle out of it? Somehow she doubted it. A few seconds later they were forcing her hands into the tight confines of the rubber sleeves. She struggled and squirmed but soon the jacket was pulled up tight to the point that the rubber was cutting into her armpits. They unhooked her bra and it was gone. The rubber continued to advance it was too tight as they pulled it over her breasts and shoulders! The collar was tight over her neck with no gaps. Soon the first strap was buckled up as tight as it would go. A few seconds and the next strap was done up. Sahar blushed at how tight the rubber was over her breasts. Another strap and she could feel that the rubber had almost encased her torso like it had been dipped in the molten material and then shrunk around her. The final strap was done up just below her bottom. The red head patted her on the bottom then grabbed her knickers and pulled them down around her ankles and then threw them away. 
  Sahar blushed red as the crotch strap was done up it was tight between her legs then disappeared between her buttocks only to emerge at her waist. She struggled a little as her arms were forced through the central loop of the jacket and then pulled to the sides her palms just touching the bottom of her rib cage flat against it. With a final tug it was securely buckled. Sahar tried to struggle. The rubber stretched an inch then her arm was returned to its pervious position. 
  The asylum staff were nowhere near finished. The redhead went to the bag and pulled out a locking leather harness, it looked to Sahar like complete overkill. A central ring was positioned over her torso just under her breasts. A main strap went around her body and her upper arms pinning her arms even more securely to her sides. Two straps went over her shoulders close to her neck crossed and were buckled to the back. From these straps a thick collar was wrapped around her neck. A strap went under her breasts tightly squeezing them causing her to bit down hard on her gag. Another strap was wrapped around her crossed arms then passed through her legs and buckled tight. A big padlock finished it all off. She moaned into her gag in frustration.
  The redhead put her clothes hat and shoes into her bag. While the blonde woman held her. A second later the redhead made a call and the van drove around the corner.   
  The van stopped a few yards from them. The redhead threw the bag that the restraints came from and Sahar’s bag into the back of the van. Sahar’s only hope was that the information that she had collected would get to Penny then the information would enable her to get police in from outside the area. 
  It was a long shot! The two asylum staff picked her up and heaved her into van like a sack of potatoes. A second after that they jumped in themselves and drove away.

  The inside of the van was quite large Sahar had seen such vans used for furniture removal and noted that there were already two of the asylum staff in the back. A second later and she was pushed through. There was a heavy locked door with steel plates either side. It was unlocked and a light flickered on. There was Diana in a heavy rubber straight jacket as black as the night, she looked dazed and confused-a large ball was crammed into her mouth. 
  Sahar was shoved into the cell next to Diana. She felt a strap being done up around her waist, the door was slammed shut and the pair had a moment of recognition where they saw that they worked in the same company then the light went off. 
  They both muffled incoherently into their gags trying to communicate, locked and left crying in the dark cell.

                                         5

  Denise was certain that there was something odd going on. The payment records were not filled in correctly yet someone had approved them for payment, forcing them through the usual accounting channels. She was certain that she knew a few of the places that inappropriate files got put to be forgotten. 
  Twenty minutes later she was in the archive room looking through the real archive list that did not appear on the company’s official records. The file list seemed to show one large payment for unspecified services, a physiological evaluation carried out on a member of middle management staff. Then a regular monthly payment set up for continued medical treatment as well as some further work on other middle mangers and other senior staff.
  Denise located the exact part of the archive that the payment records were kept. She got the files related to the entire batch of unusual medical payments and made her way back to her office to puzzle over them.
 The black woman looked through the pile of paperwork on her desk. What was going on? There were payments to this doctor who look like a quack who would recommend any smarmy boot licker that the managing director wanted to get onboard. He seemed to be carrying out assessments of staff though the number of staff was far less than the number of managers-it seemed to be only certain people. Denise had a suspicion that it was also people that the old boys’ network wanted to discredit. She tried to think, was it a simple con-money for useless advice, way for the managers to pay a bit of cash to one of there old mates? Denise pondered that was it just one more of the old boys’ network lining his pockets with the company cash like the useless management consultants that had no grasp on reality or the other surveyors that sucked up time and money like a sponge.
  She went and found some more paperwork in a pile of files in a storeroom off the accounts office that was used as a staging area before paperwork went to the archives. There were anomalies. She added it to the pile. It seemed to be related to the quack psychiatrist and the senior IT supervisor. What linked the two, the IT supervisor had not been one of the old boys’ network-she had actually earned her position. 
  The IT supervisor had been a friend or friendly to Denise, Fiona was her name-she had disappeared...
  Denise looked through the files there seemed to be a processing fee and a weekly care fee from the medical file. Fiona the IT supervisor seemed to be staying at a medical institute, there was a consent form but it was blank, Denise gasped she was committed!? - What had Denise got herself into?

  Denise needed to take a break. She noticed a light on. It was the Director’s office he never stayed late, in fact he normally disappeared early!
  Denise investigated. The Accounts Director was on the phone. When he saw her he jumped out of the seat and slammed the phone down. Denise looked at him;
    “Now that Diana’s in charge are you trying to set everything straight? I think she might support me.”
  He looked smug;
    “I don’t think you will have any support from ‘over-keen’ I think the stress of the job may have gotten to her already.” 
  Denise shook her head;
    “You were the one losing it! Look at the last audit report-the board will have your head!” 
  The man smiled like a snake;
    “I think you will reconsider your argument. My friends and I have just as strong a grip on the company as ever.”
  The young woman looked at him;
    “You and your friends will be out the door soon.”
  The Director shook his head;
    “You could apologise to me tomorrow, meet me in my office don’t bother to dress up, or dress at all! I think you will need something to keep you quiet and something to keep your arms out of mischief...” 
  Denise couldn’t believe what he had just said but then reporting him to HR was pointless and another one of his friends covered that angle;
    “You pig!” she growled angrily. 
    “I can just imagine you bent over my desk, helpless, getting what you deserve and unable to complain.” 
  Denise slapped him almost hard enough to break bones then she turned and left.
    “What pathetic self serving con are you trying to pull?” Denise muttered to herself as she walked away. What a disgusting pig! Denise knew that someone had found a picture of her training when she was still in line for a career in athletics they had somehow photo-shopped on a huge ball gag, a pair of ballet boots and an arm binder! It was humiliating to still find pictures sometimes. She looked back. The Accounts Director had locked up his office. He had a big red mark across his face as if he’d walked into a post! Denise turned around;
    “Your time is over!” 
  He grinned;
    “I don’t think so my dear. Soon any problems I have will disappear...”
  Denise walked away. She still had work to do.

  She checked on the computer data base using her supervisor’s authority, the codes that the Director had given her to do his job for him. There were some strange things going on between the accounts payments and the IT department. The day that the IT supervisor Fiona had checked the records related to the company take over accounts, she seemed that she was onto something with the IT manager the way Denise was onto the Accounts Director. 
  Denise also looked in the accounts files-that was the accounts files for payments made. The day that they had paid the Doctor off was the day that the report had appeared on the medical file even though it was meant to have existed for some time.   
  That was also the day that Fiona had disappeared. Denise was worried another senior colleague in her position had literally disappeared and she felt a shiver go down her spine but that was under the old regime, now that Diana was in charge things would be different right?
  The young Miss Lawson found that there was an issue, something related to the invoices... 
  There was one more piece of consultancy work that seemed to be labelled as medical contingency file. It was a locked file, a list on the medical files that she could not access the normal way. Denise however knew a different way-there was one terminal that the IT administrators left open to deal with any problems Fiona had told her about it, they were to lazy to lock it off. She simply followed the cleaner into the IT office. A few minutes later she was in the system looking at the medical consultants file. it was a list of potential referrals, all of them female staff members and most of them people who would support ‘Over keen’. Denise found her name on it. She was more worried than ever!
  The Amazon suddenly found herself in a strange position. She had the information to get rid of the Accounts Director and maybe the HR manager and the IT manager but they had something in place to get rid of her. She should warn Diana about it because they had threatened the new Managing Director!
  Denise thought. Without Diana the company had no chance! She got together a file with all the evidence she had. She knew that she needed some leverage. 
  She set up a system to automatically let people she trusted know where it was if she didn’t return. 
  Taking the opportunity to swap the incriminating file with the one on the land acquisition legal file back up-the one for the factory that they had just purchased, she booked a meeting to see Diana tomorrow and deal with the pigs.

  Denise went to her office to pack up and go home. She changed out of her trouser suit bottoms, and putting on trainers for the cycle home. She locked her office door and headed to the company car park, grabbing her trusty old bike. It was so chunky and ugly no one would ever steal it! She started to cycle home and the Security Guard let the gate open and waved her past. 
  Denise was crossing an intersection when she looked back and saw a white van. There seemed to be something about it that was menacing. She cycled-on but the van stayed behind her. At first Denise thought that it was a pervert driver staying behind her to admire her ass but the van did not seem to be the usual type. Denise got a good look at it suddenly she was cycling faster losing it at a set of traffic lights.
  She cycled up to her apartment and opened the door carrying her bike in. Her apartment was on the first floor. She jogged up one flight of stairs then into her flat. The bike soon folded down and was packed away into a cupboard. Denise was worried but she would not be intimidated by some goons in a van. She decided to keep up her routine. Her usual training for tonight was shot but she could get a quick jog through the park done to burn off a bit of stress. 
  Denise took off her business jacket and hung it up. She pulled off her shirt and put it in the laundry. Of came her trainers jeans and panty hose she was down to her bra and panties and pulled on a pair of tight Lycra shorts and a tight short crop top t shirt. She put on thick knee length socks, trainers, put her keys in a belt with a storage bag round her waist and went off for a jog in the park-just the one lap.

                                           6 

  Melanie looked about the apartment. She felt a chill go through her body like someone rubbing an ice cube down her spine. She hoped her friend was okay but she feared the worse. 
  The two of them had gone through a lot together, Sharp and Classy. They had rented this apartment together for nearly five years. Sahar had held Melanie’s hand and been a shoulder for her to cry on when her fiancé had decided to call it off. Classy had helped Sahar deal with her mother’s illness, being a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear until she got better. 
  Sahar had supported her for nearly three months when Melanie lost her job until she got a new one. Melanie had to help her friend she couldn’t sleep until she had delivered that package, until she was certain that the job was done.
  She pulled on a simple blue knee-length dress. It was thick and warm against the night air and with a little fiddling she zipped it up. She got a pair of brown calf length boots out of the cupboard-they were relatively sensible with a fairly plain flat two inch heel then she pulled a brown overcoat over her dress and buttoned it up. Getting a long blue scarf out of the dresser she wrapped it around her neck. 
  The brunette had a large brown handbag, she slipped the heavy envelope into it and put it over her right shoulder. Hopefully this was the evidence that could save her friend. Then things could go back to normal but she had to deliver it first.
  The girl took the opportunity to glance out of the back window. She couldn’t see anything. The fire escape curved away. Hopefully Sahar was halfway across town to the rental place by now. 
  Melanie had a bad feeling about it. She could not shake it. She gritted her teeth and felt a small gurgle in her stomach. She was afraid, she had to overcome it and get on with the task in hand. 
  Melanie opened the door into the corridor, she switched the light out then shut the door then Melanie dead locked the door. She looked along the corridor wither there was anyone hiding into the shadows. Melanie was looking for things that were not there she hopped. There was no one there but her imagination filled every shadow with assailants. Melanie walked down the staircase she checked the entrance lobby. She walked to the main door to the building she looked out from the door there was nothing out in the street. Sahar was certain that there was nothing out there no-one hiding in the shadows.

  Melanie noticed Sahar’s car there. Was something wrong with it? She approached it. The door was not shut properly...
  Melanie pulled the door, it came open. She looked inside. The covers had been pulled off the seats, the glove box had been forced open-it looked like someone had searched it under her nose. She looked at the back of the car, there was something lying back there. Melanie looked, she opened the boot it was empty someone had broken the lock then pulled everything out in a hurry and then pushed it under the car rather than put it back in the boot.
  The tall brunette swallowed. The person who had searched Sahar’s car must have been there literally minutes ago! They must be searching for the same documents that she had in her bag. Melanie looked around. Where was a cab or a bus when you needed one?
  Melanie looked around the street. She knew the approximate direction she should go and had a spare pair of keys for Sahar’s car. She slapped herself for being so stupid!
  She got in and tried to start it. There was nothing. The car must have been sabotaged! Melanie looked around, there was no-one hiding in the shadows-she just had to keep it together for an hour or so... 
  She started walking one step after another, she started moving faster. From out of the shadows a large white van slowly moved forwards following her from a distance... 

 Melanie, swore that she heard something the faintest vibration of an engine. She was a fool to be out at this time of night but she was also a fool to stay put! What had happened to Sahar’s car proved that there was someone very close to her, someone that she did not want to meet!
  Sahar’s desperate run to get as far away from the city, her fear, the way she was panting when she came in-Melanie was under no delusion-she did not what to have to meet these people!
  She was sure that as soon as she dropped off that envelope she would be safe. It was logical that they were only after the contents of that envelope, they didn’t want her. She didn’t know anything, even if they caught her all they would do would be to take the letter. She was sure that if she told herself that enough times she might actually believe it...

  Melanie was looking for a taxi, a bike, anything she could steal to get going a bit faster! She thought about thumbing a ride from a passing car but there were none about-she kept walking. The girl swore that she could hear the noise of an engine, she looked back. 
  Just around the corner of a street very far behind her was a white van. She was not sure but it might not have been there before;
    “I’m seeing things!” She swore to herself then ten minutes later she heard another faint noise. She casually looked back and she noticed the white van. She was sure it was the same one! Someone was following her from a distance and they were not doing a very good job of it. 
  Melanie panicked and started to run hell for leather. The van was very large it started but the lights did not come on. It started to get closer and closer. 
  She noticed a park. The gate was shut with a padlock and chain but it wasn’t very secure-she was sure that she could slip through the gap and started to sprint for it. She turned back the white van was very large It had Sunny Views written on it then something about the managed care part of society. Melanie imagined herself ‘disappeared’ off to some tiny little padded cell, forgotten about. She screamed and ran! She threw the bag over the fence then squeezed through the padlocked gap. Melanie disappeared into the park, swinging the bag. 
  Her heart was hammering in her chest she cast a look back at the van. People in bulky clothing, they almost looked like riot police jumped out of the back! Two headed in one direction along the park’s perimeter and two headed in the other direction. The van sat there. 
  She looked back at the white van and, considering her options took a deep breath and ran! Melanie had a rough idea of the direction she wanted to go and dived into the trees. Branches struck her in the face, she held her arm up and kept running. Her foot caught on a root or something and she fell. She swore, got up and ploughed back into the trees. Finally after a little while she saw a tarmac path-she must be near another exit from the park! A few minutes along the path and she saw a gate. It was low down, something she thought she could climb over with ease. 
  A figure carrying an air rifle of some sort appeared by the gate. Melanie saw her, swore and ran in the other direction. The woman with the air rifle used some sort of tool to unlock the gate then ran towards the sound of the noise. Her hair flew in the wind as the brunette started to run for all she was worth, there was a dull thud and a dart appeared lodged in a tree trunk next to her! She screamed and ran disappearing into a thick bush.

                                        7

  Far away from the company offices, the internal struggles were being scrutinised remotely. In a fairly dilapidated part of the town there was a parade of shops-some new, some old all rather battered. Cheap would be a good word. Behind them were shops even worse off and behind them there was an office at the back of a hardware shop it was quiet, unassuming. 
  An alleyway was behind the shop and a door that led in to the office. There was a buzzer and people who wanted to be discrete had a habit of finding it and its occupant. Some came to her because they had a genuine sense of right and wrong that a crime must be punished, there were the ones who were angry and just wanted a measure of revenge against the people who had trodden on them then there were the people who did it just to feel a sense of importance they would talk on and on. 
  The ones who knew something and thought that they could sell it were another story a little money and they spilled their guts. Then there were the plain crazies who wanted to tell Penny about the vampire spoons or the FBI’s conspiracy to steal their left sock. 
    “Stupid bloody cranks!” She muttered under her breath. Regrettably, Penny told herself she couldn’t screen them out before meeting them.
  The slow flow of people with information actual or imagined was the life blood of Penny’s profession. She was an investigative journalist and she was only as good as the last story that she put out. Which was only as good as the information she got and checked, so she had to nurture sources sometimes with her money sometimes with her time, some times in other ways. 
  Her office was a mess, she had a three tear filing system-the genuinely good stories like the scandal at the Sunny Views Institute that she had been trying to crack for a year got their own place in a proper filing cabinet. Taking on someone like them you had to be able to back up what you say or you didn’t risk it. The second tier stories were the ones she dealt with on a day to day basis that paid the rent, huddled together in cardboard boxes-the corporate back-dealings, the small crimes committed by small minded people, the pathetic cons and fiddles that would be a fifteen second news bite.   
  Around the rest of the office, the third tier stories lingered in piles-the woman abducted by aliens that tickled her feet. The man that swore Bigfoot ate his garbage can and all the other hundreds of cranks that Penny had heard from over the years;
    “I had a coffee machine under here somewhere, I must find it!” Penny muttered, searched for a little then gave up. 
  When Penny had opened the door to the little office she rented, she found stacks of paperwork everywhere, furniture upturned and the general appearance that some crazed individual had shuffled through the entire pile. She had sworn one day she would properly sort everything out. 
  It had not been ransacked, her office was just not very well organised apart from a few choice items that were carefully stored. Penny looked over her office and scratched her head. She swore that at one time she had three chairs, one of them had probably disappeared under the third string files;
    “One day I’m going to find you.” 
  Penny turned a good story not an excellent one into a local paper. It concerned a piece of local corruption that would never be of interest on the larger stage. One man decided not to give his staff a raise. Well, they might decide to start blabbing to everyone about their boss’s secrets. Penny was sure that the pompous windbag would get over it eventually.
  The journalist’s full name was Penny Ruse she was nicknamed Penny Dreadful by some of her colleagues. It was due to her various series of sensational and sometimes lurid stories. It sold papers, magazines and filled up the news feeds, however. She joked to herself she was ‘Dreadfully’ well-paid. 
  She had a reputation for a few really good stories that had been real scandals, real page turners but she had never had the patience for the big time or the patience to work for someone else for any length of time. She was freelance and that meant that she was not under another’s thumb. She could use the joke stories to pay the bills and fill out her commitments. 
  Penny was all legs, her torso was rather short in comparison it gave her a very sexy appearance. She often wore two or three inch heels that also helped to sculpt her legs. Her legs were smooth, sleek, sexy and very feminine. Her hips were wide and rolled when she walked. Her bottom was tight and peachy. She was lucky with her figure. She never really ate much and never had to put much exercise in. She suspected it was something to do with the hectic life of her profession. Her hair was chestnut brown. She always wore it pulled back in a pony tail that just touched the back of base of her spine. Her face was pretty and she had a sparkle, a confident flirty look that allowed people to trust her or believe her when perhaps they shouldn’t. Her waist was trim, her back arched into a pleasant curve. Her boobs were average-she never really went for showing them off much. She could squeeze herself into something to boost her assets if she needed to, but she rarely did. 
  She did an impersonation of Marilyn Monroe to an imaginary ordinance;
    “Could you help little-old-me sort these files?” She laughed at her own joke.
  Penny-Dreadful wore a pair of narrow, black rimmed glasses, a tight, blue-gray turtle neck sweater that clung to her narrow waist and three inch peep-toe shoes, light red. She had on a pair of sleek silvery pantyhose, a grey-blue skirt that went to just below her knee and beneath that she wore sensible white bra and panties’ combo.   Her brown trench-coat was tightly clinched at the waist over the top of it and she had a brown shoulder bag filled with useful accessories. She muttered to herself;
    “Lois Lane should have brought pepper spray.”
  Penny sometimes found herself going all over the country from time to time. She would plan trips so that she maximised the number of stories she could work on moving from town to town, digging out secrets and moving on before people got too upset. She liked the familiar comforts of home so she took it with her. 
  Penny Lived out of a mobile home in the back parking lot of the hardware store, she rented the space at quite a reasonable rate. It was her second office and had been around the country chasing stories at least twice. The vehicle was custom-built for her by a very grateful mechanic. The basis was a very reliable vehicle-it was converted from an old ambulance. She had 95% of all mod cons she told herself. Shower, TV etc. Everything was crammed into one corner or another of the rugged vehicle.
  Penny was a little worried about one of her current big investigations. The investigative reporter did not normally have worries. She had been doing this sort of thing from the age of fifteen to thirty two. She had almost 17 years of experience but it was not that often that a source simply disappeared from her job like that. 
  The reporter had an old source in a big local company that was fighting a really dirty corporate take over. She had gotten someone on the inside-the Deputy Manager of the IT department in the local company. They had access to everything and Penny had pushed her to dig deeper and push further. She had gotten some good leads. Penny had even got a second source but then her original contact had disappeared! 
  The reporter was not sure how exactly it had been done but the poor woman was found insane and carted off to a madhouse;
    “I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes,” she muttered to herself,”... if they allow their patients shoes...”
  According to one account she was dragged into a bathroom from her desk, stripped, searched and strapped into a straitjacket, hooded, gagged and marched out the front door of the building into a white van never to be seen again! Penny was nervous, the people involved in this seemed to play for keeps-they had the local police, the courts and the institutions in their pocket...

  It was a short journey from Denise’s apartment to the park. It was one of the reasons that she had chosen the apartment-the access to the park and the view. Denise was two minutes into her run when she decided it was a bad idea. The white van was there, again it was parked. From behind it came two large women, they were physically the size of Denise and they were well armed. 
  The duo were covered in riot gear and looked ready for a fight. Denise smiled. The goon squad might be able to frighten little girls but not her;
    “Let’s see them keep up...” 
  Denise simply started to jog in the other direction. She looked back to see the two goons starting to run after her. They were pretty fast considering the amount of equipment that they were carrying Denise kept running. A minute later she looked back, one of them was no longer following and the second was rapidly losing distance to her. She was almost out of view.
  Denise smiled. These people were obviously fit but they didn’t have anywhere near her levels of endurance. She headed off the main path and into the wooded part of the park, she was sure that in their bulky outfits they would have a great deal of trouble following her. 
  Just as she disappeared into the tree line, one of the asylum goon squad levelled her tranquilizer gun at Denise. She didn’t have a good shot but fired anyway. A dose of sedatives large enough for a bull hit a tree, completely wasting the shot. The woman swore and reloaded. Denise dashed into the thickest part of the trees without the lights that dotted the main paths. She was practically invisible, she knew this park very well and she ran here every week just to blow a bit more steam off!
  She had to get away from them but she was sure that she could run rings around them all night. This was her territory, none of the women following her seemed to be a cross country runner.
  Denise emerged from the tree line and silently chuckled to herself, that panting asylum goon had been over thirty metres off with her shot! They were not even able to touch her ass. 
  Denise slowly and invisibly moved through the bush. She looked ahead where the path wound through the park. There were two more members of the goon squad! There were some Amazonian women under all that armour but none of them had her endurance training. Out in the open they couldn’t trap her or corner her-she was pretty much home-free! 
  Denise could see them watching-out for her. She slowly skirted around them then started running. The two women heard the commotion and started to hurry after her. One stopped, she was carrying a bulky tank-she aimed and fired her weapon.
  Denise heard a sound like compressed air firing, she heard something strike the ground behind her a tree to one side and stole a glance back. The woman with the canister on her back was trying to shoot her!
  Denise looked at the material it seemed to be some sort of sticky expanding foam. The woman was basically trying to shoot her with a big industrial glue gun. Denise zipped forwards leaving the two women practically standing. She easily outran the two women especially the woman trying to carry the tank on her back. Their weapons seemed to be better suited for tight spaces where their superior numbers and protection could be brought together against an opponent they trapped and cornered but were not used to running them down.
  The girl had outmanoeuvred the van and two squads of goons-she was pretty much free, at least she thought that she was free... 
  There seemed to be nothing between her and the exit from the park. She looked behind her, no sign of pursuit. She looked closely but there was no hint of anyone or anything behind her. The van was far too large to move around the place-there was no way that it could get her. 
  Denise looked at the area around the exit there were no more goons and no-one else. The gate to the park was open, to the left there were no good hiding spots and to the right there were no good hiding spots! Denise accelerated. She would leave the goons to search the park for the rest of the night! She would see Diana tomorrow and they would pay for everything. Denise was almost victorious but she failed to notice the fishing line stretched invisibly along the path. Her ankles caught and she found herself pitching face-first into a flower bed. 
  She remembered there was a sunken area by the gate where they kept the wheelie bins out of sight! From this place two female asylum goons in riot gear emerged. One was a redhead the second was blond, tall and thin.
  Denise was halfway out of the flowerbed when they literally jumped on her! The air was knocked out of her lungs as the two women pounced. Denise used all her strength and started to push her way up but they got a better grip on her and down she went;     
    “Get of me you witches!” Denise hissed as the two women tried to wrestle her into submission. From out of the tree-line four more shapes moved swiftly towards Denise. She still struggled and struggled until there were pretty much six of the goons sitting on her. Finally sweaty and exhausted she gave up for now, she was sure she would have some chance to get away. Denise had been too cocky allowing herself to get jumped by two of them next to exit from the park. The redhead leader looked at the rest of her team;
    “Alright, the lot of us are going to be spending some time on the exercise track,” she turned to Denise, “...and you win first prize in the award for the most painfully tight straitjacket!” Denise gulped. The leader turned to one of the others, “Get me the wire jacket-she won’t be half as willing to run around in that!”
  The redhead pulled off Denise’s trainers then grabbed first her left sock and her right sock Denise was wondering what the hell was going on as the read head balled them up into a single mass of smelly socks. Suddenly the other women grabbed Denise, they clamped her nostrils shut-four pairs of hands grabbing her head and slowly forcing her jaw open!
  She resisted and resisted she knew where they planned to put her sweaty socks and she did not plan on co-operating in the slightest. Slowly the socks were forced into her mouth between her protesting lips they were vial-sweaty, cheesy and truly revolting. They were also thick and when wedged between her pretty lips a very efficient gag!  Before she could even think about trying to spit the horrible gag out a brown leather panel gag was pulled over her face. Two big heavy leather straps were done up until the leather was cutting into her cheeks and her mouth was completely sealed-her ability to protest reduced to nothing but a defiant indignant mumble. 
  One of the asylum goons grabbed Denise’s bum-bag, Denise unsuccessfully tried to grab them back, she tried to scold the woman from behind her horrible sock gag. She struggled as her top was pulled away, literally hanging onto it as the garment was dragged in shreds out of her fingers. She tried to clamp she legs together to hold onto her shorts a pair of scissors emerged from somewhere a few snips and her lycra shorts bra and panties were pulled away from her in tatters while she fought against the four asylum goons on top of her. She was naked, the only clothing she possessed now locked inside her mouth muting her protests!
  Her perfect athletic body struggled, every muscle at its peak it was not enough against five equally muscular and better practiced assailants. The sixth member of the team returned with an intimidating piece of brown leather. 
  Denise got a look at the jacket it was thick and heavy it looked like there were sections of lacing at the side it could probably be made very tight! She noticed that instead of a crotch strap there was a length of steel cable joined to a strap and buckle. She squirmed, she could almost feel that piece of metal between her legs. It took four of the women to force Denise’s arms into the jacket. They were very tight, big heavy zippers ran from the tips of the sleeves up to the top of the shoulders. In one single movement the goons pulled the zips tight and locked them in place Denise found her muscles flex and twitch trying to resist the terrible compression applied to them. Her poor arms-it was way too tight!
  There was a high, tight collar. It allowed a little flexibility but not much. The strap for the collar was done up then the two across the back of the jacket. Denise felt the leather getting tighter around her body, she struggled more and the goons laughed and tightened the back straps further. With each passing second her torso was more firmly trapped in the leather straitjacket...
  The straps at the small of her back were done up, she would never get out of the dam jacket if they kept tightening them! Denise tried to take a deep breath to give the jacket a little room when she exhaled. A short sharp blow to the stomach had Denise gasping for breath while the straps at the back of the jacket were drawn tight. The jacket tightly clung to her torso and framed her spectacular hips and ass. The goons were not finished with the back straps slowly they were drawn tighter and tighter until the jacket was as tight as a second skin. Then they set to work on the side laces. These were drawn tight, giving dense exaggerated painfully sexy curves she did not want and could not escape from.  
  The laces were knotted, the ends tucked away. Two zips were drawn-up to neatly hide them away. Denise struggled to little avail as her arms were drawn across her chest through the central loop and the side loops then buckled firmly in place. 
  The woman was still panting and struggling as best she could as the redhead-the leader of the pack of goons took great pleasure in getting the final terrifying steel crotch strap in place. The cable was thick and would be very uncomfortable. Denise tried to resist tried to clamp her legs together but it was fruitless. Her legs were dragged apart the strap was fed through between her legs it was cold and made her squirm as it started to tightly pull into her flesh between her legs. The steel cable bit down deeper and deeper then emerged between the swell of her round buttocks. A few seconds later the strap was secured. It was beyond any form of discomfort that Denise had experienced in years. She tried to pull her arms free. The crotch strap was pulled much tighter. Denise sounded like a muffled car horn her eyes turned into to big saucers; she folded up into a ball and slowly sank to the ground.
  She knew not to do that again, it had been a terrible surprise and now she was terribly tender... 
  She looked around. The asylum squad were relaxing. As far as they were concerned she was in the bag. A little longer, they would drag her over to the van and it would be a done deal. 
  Denise found a second wind, there was a single woman watching over her. She got her footing solid and got in position. Denise shoulder-barged the guard, the guard was amazed, surprised and on her ass! Denise was up and she was off running, ignoring the considerable discomfort biting down on the sock gag in her mouth working through the pain and distraction!

  Melanie dived into the shrubs deeper and deeper. She needed to find a way out! The light was terrible. She was stumbling around in the dark taking her best guess at which direction she wanted to go and where the goon from the asylum was. Melanie heard a crashing sound behind her, she could see a torch light! She screamed and ran harder-she had to get away!
  The sound of broken branches got closer and closer Melanie panicked, she was scared out of her mind being pursued like some sort of wild animal! The thing was, if anyone caught up with her they could probably claim that she was mad and be quite believable especially in her dishevelled state. There were twigs in her hair dirt on her face various bits of greenery staining smearing and ripping at her outfit. Her nickname Classy-well, she could forget it today. Suddenly she came to a fence, it was high and tipped with small spikes. Melanie swallowed, there was a noise to her left and a noise to her right.
  She picked up the bag and threw it over the fence. She pulled-off her jacket and threw it over the top of the fence to try and negate the spikes. Melanie could hear the sound of cracking branches getting closer and closer, she could see the thin beams of torchlight in the distance. She put one foot on the fence and started to awkwardly climb over it but she was exhausted, her arms didn’t want to go any further. 
  She pulled herself up, the people chasing her were getting closer and closer. The brunette finally made it to the top, panting she started to carefully move over the spikes using her thick jacket to protect her. There was a noise, a torch was shone on her but Melanie pulled herself over the jacket. She heard the shred of fabric as her dress caught on a spike but her body weight propelled her over.
  She was almost home-free! Suddenly she found herself stuck on the other side of the fence her scarf was half unravelled and was now caught on the spikes! The sound of breaking branches was getting closer. A second more and Melanie untangled herself from the scarf and dropped to the floor. She scooped up the bag and ran.
  Finally, when she was sure her body couldn’t run another yard she dashed around a corner and dropped into a little panting ball, tightly holding the bag clasped to her chest. Melanie looked at the street name she was not actually very far from where she needed to be a few streets more and she would be victorious. She continued for another hundred yards and stopped a few streets away. There was a clothing bank and she looked a real mess-she needed to look different... 
  She managed to wedge the flap for the clothes bank open with one hand and reach around inside with the other. Two minutes later she had acquired a faded red hooded top, way too large for her and a baggy pair of jogging bottoms-a dull grey colour.   
  Melanie ignored the smell and pulled the garments on. She hid the bag under the bulky top. She continued on, pulling the hood down low to hide her face. Now she was certain that there was a good chance that she could get to where she was going without being noticed again.

  After another fifteen tense minutes of seeing phantom white vans and goons hiding in every corner she was finally at the right place. She checked the scrap of paper that Sahar had given her, it was definitely the right building. There seemed to be rows and rows of post boxes inside like official mailboxes for companies that didn’t have a physical presence in the area. She checked the bit of paper and could see the post box that she was after in the entrance of the building just to the left of the doors. She looked left and right carefully. She half expected the van to pull up out of nowhere or those asylum goons to appear and grab her just as she was on the point of success.   
  Melanie took a deep breath and walked across the road. Nothing happened. She was at the door to the lobby-a big piece of stainless steel and glass. She half expected an alarm to go off or the door not to open but she put in the right code and bang, she was in the building.
  Melanie got in and closed the door behind her. She checked left and right & slowly, tentatively she walked across the lobby. She chided herself, there was nowhere for the asylum goons to hide they couldn’t pop-out from under the floor or jump out of a rubbish bin!
  She was all the way to the post boxes when the lift door opened. Classy screamed and turned around, huddling in the corner. She was so close, why did they have to get her now?
  There was a terrible rattling then a large cleaner’s trolley was pushed out of the lift. A thin old man with most of his teeth missing waved to Melanie and she breathed a deep sigh of relief. She got her bag, dug out the envelope and shoved the entire thing into the mail box! 

  Penny was glad that the second source she had found had kept a much lower profile. The reporter had not pushed her to go prodding and poking half as much, she was safer not suspected yet. Also Penny had kept quiet about her first contact inside the company, though she had passed a few passwords onto her second source. 
  Penny was certain it was a better idea that her second contact did not link what happened to her first contact and Penny. The second source had been someone in a chat room about the company. Penny had found her and set up a regular dialogue. There were a few interesting developments-she had gotten some information about the old Managing Director being exposed as a turncoat, not working for the company interests. 
  She had heard about one of the other directors-a Diana Keening getting rid of him with the support of the board of directors. Then taking-over, a fight-back made a better story; 
    “Diana, smash that glass ceiling to bits!” Penny thought to herself. Penny was more interested in S.V. industrial consortium-a wholly owned subsidiary of the Sunny Views Corporation. 
  If she could pin something against them that would sell big on any news network! She was being fed that sort of information from the company’s inside source. There was a new factory being planned and built. S.V. were doing everything that they could to slow it up. 
  Her new source was quieter, more cautious-feeding her less information and nothing that could identify her. Penny was sure that the woman was from R + D she talked about taking over the department, getting rid of a few of the old Managing Director’s cronies;
    “Keep dreaming honey. Whistle-blowers are lucky to get a decent severance package.”
  Then a spanner landed in the works again. Penny was worried. Her regular flow of tit bits had completely dried up. If they ever suspected her contact she was sure that all information would suddenly dry up. She normally got a piece of information every day or so. From internally circulated reports to bits of gossip it was all useful to build a bigger picture. Penny was fed up of the vague reports anyway. It would take her too long to build a story on it. She had discussed with her contact the more sensitive stuff that the woman would not risk sending as it could identify her. If she was in trouble she would give Penny the whole file then go to ground. 
  Penny had a prearranged place for the information. Effectively, she had one last chance-the file in the drop box but she was nervous to go there. What if it was a trap? What if her source was caught and forced to spill the beans on their pre-arranged plan:     
    “Would I be walking into a trap?” 
  Out of the blue, Penny got an email from the old email address her first contact had used. It seemed to be an automated message designed to be sent after a certain amount of time and she was not the only recipient. It contained news of a scandal at the local hospital, directors paying to be pronounced fit when they were not, and competent staff branded as unfit to hold them down and back. The email might be something that Penny’s original source had left. 
  She looked at the anonymous email. It looked like it was written by someone else;   
    “Who the heck are you?” 
  It came from the company, mentioning a file with accounting irregularities but the file was inside the local company’s head offices. It described exactly where the file was and how she was going to get in there. Penny pondered, was it a trap? Her first source had mentioned a friend in the accounts department that she had trusted and passed on this email address to. The reporter wondered, was there a third potential whistle blower inside the company?

Penny investigated further, she did not want to tip her hand or walk into a trap. She researched more. 
  Looking at the Sunny Views Institute from Google maps it just came up as an error message...
  Penny took her transportation and went for a better look at the place. Several hours later Penny was looking for a way into Sunny Views and not inside a straitjacket-that was almost certainly a one way journey! From her vantage point with a pair of binoculars the place made Fort Knox and Alcatraz look like a wooden shed with the gate open;
    “I wonder if they have shark tanks or even actual tanks?” Penny muttered under her breath. The main building looked like a castle’s bigger, older, nastier brother. The place also had basements that made a nuclear bunker look like a hole dug in a beach with a bucket and spade according to rumours. 
  There was fence after fence after fence. Electrified wire, simple blocks of towering brick. There were watch towers, guards dogs, bars and CCTV. Dozens of things that Penny had no way to identify. At one point she even thought that she saw a spider robot walking around-that must have been a trick of the light? No way was she going in there, there were even things flying about the place-they had drones patrolling the air space? She supposed it was not to far-fetched. One place apparently had an inmate escape by calling a friend with a helicopter with a phone smuggled in.
  Penny had pretty much run out of options. She didn’t fancy trying to poke around the company offices when there was perfectly good information in a drop-box that she had a key for. Information that she would not be arrested for trying to get to;
    “In theory... ” She told herself. A few hours later Penny was at the drop box location. A little twinge of dread worked its way up her spine as she turned the key in the lock. It was magnified when she opened the door. It was empty apart from one small brown envelope. Penny was expecting a large folder spilling over with incriminating documentation;
    “Is this directions?” She quickly picked up the solitary envelope and tore the top away. Inside was a brochure for Sunny View medical insurance and a note scrawled on the back, ‘See you soon...’ 
  Penny almost lost control there and then;
    “No! No! No way! They’re not putting me in a straitjacket!” They were probably watching the drop-box, Penny looked up and a camera focused in on her, it was mounted on the ceiling of the lobby. She could swear that it hadn’t been there before!   
  It moved, following her as she dropped the brochure back into the box and ran, she was sure that these were the kind of people that didn’t leave loose ends. Two of her sources had pretty much disappeared and she was worried that she would be next. She had to get that file, it would be the leverage she needed to crack the story and deal with the players behind it!

  Another hour driving and Penny was looking in on a certain local company. She would play it cool, she would cruise past the Security Guard desk she would see what she had to work with. Penny was cursing to see it was a young woman in her early twenties but then, she was relieved, off duty almost the minute that Penny passed by a real grease-ball;
    “I think I have a way in!” Penny took a good look at him he looked like he would score four out of ten on the question ‘what’s your name?’ He was a fat, lecherous looking man with greased-back hair. Perfect, Penny thought as he took the black haired woman’s place-Penny looked at the time she had some information about the company. She confirmed the time of the changeover there would be about four hours before the guard was relieved. She started thinking;
    “I am going through that door,” she had a little work to do, “...time to dress down.” She wondered where she put those awful black leather hot pants and six inch heels her ex bought for her that she never wore… They would come in handy now.

  She put on some bright red lipstick and a little blush. She took off her jacket and found the box. The leather hot pants were so small-the leather too thin;
    “What a weasel!” She pulled of her skirt and her boots. Penny exhaled then stepped one stocking clad foot into the tight leather opening then the other. Penny bent down and pulled, the leather seemed to slide up her stockings sensually. That was until it came to her knees. She found that she had to tug to get the tight things over them. 
  Penny was sure that her boyfriend had gotten her the right size hadn’t he? Soon the reporter found it was a real struggle. The hot pants were glued half way up her thighs! She tugged and tugged at the edge but they would not shift;
    “Move you damn things-move!” How was she going to get them on? A lot of tugging later and they were only another three inches up her legs. Penny found a coathanger through the button hole and a lot of tugging started them moving again. Soon she did the zip and button up with equal desperate frustration. “Okay, I am going on a diet after this!” 
  Finally it looked like her bottom was covered in black paint. They were skin-tight and gave her a really slutty look. The shoes were even worse. They were black, six inches not a bit of a platform and her poor feet were pulled into a painful arch. The shoes seemed too small the toes too pointed. They were strapped around her ankle with two tight buckling straps that were so fiddly it was almost impossible to remove them;
    “It should be a crime against the Guinevere convention to make someone wear these heels,” she thought but put them on. They were too high. “How am I going to walk in these?” She asked herself.

  Melanie breathed a sigh of relief. Her little adventure was over. She had done her bit to help Sahar she could get a taxi or a bus back to their apartment she could have a nice long sleep for the rest of the night-grab a few hours and get into work tomorrow. There was a bus stop a little distance away and she was fairly relaxed as she walked towards it. She took a short cut across the local car park. Rounding one corner she noticed the white van parked up. Melanie had the sense that no one had told her pursuers that it was over. She turned to run only to find two goons in riot gear right in front of her she turned around to run there were two more goons, one pointed an air rifle at her;
    “One move out of you and you get a tranquilizer dart in the ass!” Melanie gulped;     
    “I don’t have what you’re after...” A redhead-the leader laughed;
    “It doesn’t matter you know about it that’s enough.”
  Melanie tried to scream as the women advanced on her. Hands grabbed her, she felt her wrists pulled behind her back and a pair of handcuffs were locked over them. She saw the big blue ball, it must have been two and a half inches of hard rubber fixed to some sort of leather strap. Before she could figure out what it was for one of them grabbed her hair and pulled back. Melanie opened her mouth to scream only to have the rubber shoved deep into her mouth. They moved the hair out of the way and buckled it tight behind her head. A few moments later the hood was pulled back down to cover it up. The woman in red picked through her pockets and found the scrap of paper with the address on it. Melanie silently cursed herself for keeping it.
  The redhead took a solid hold of her arm;
    “I want to show you something-just to let you know how fruitful your little night’s labours have been.” 
  The brunette found herself being frog-marched by the redhead and the woman wearing the eye patch back to the building. The redhead entered the code and the door opened. Melanie looked around, the cleaner was gone. The goons marched her over to the post box. The red head continued;
    “Thank you for leading us here. Soon we will see who picks this up then we will know who has been trying to put a story together. They get to disappear.” 
  The girl realised that Sahar’s hope of getting this to the press and her friend Penny’s chance of publishing anything was quickly dwindling to nothing. 
  The redhead pulled out a small envelope, she kept a tight grip on her charge. The woman with the eye patch pulled some sort of hooked wire out of her armour in a utility pocket. She picked the lock with relative ease. It seemed to only take a few seconds. She retrieved the envelope and handed it to the redhead. A new envelope with nothing in it was dropped into the post box. Melanie was completely defeated as the redhead lead her back to the parking lot. The redhead smiled with an evil grin;    
    “Now you get your reward for running us all around town!”
  They were in a secluded corner of the parking lot, no one was going to help Melanie. A few seconds passed and one of the goons-a thin blond woman threw a bag to the redheaded leader. 
  She opened up the bag and put it on the floor. The redheaded woman picked up an adult diaper out of the bag. A look of horror spread across Melanie’s face. They couldn’t put her in that thing, it would be too humiliating! They could not make her wear it-she shook her head!
  The redhead smiled;
    “Oh yes, you will be wearing it in fact I think you can have one for the duration of your stay with us!”
  Melanie was utterly humiliated! She was gagged mute, restrained with handcuffs and soon she would be diapered like a baby-she started to cry. The goons spread some sort of mat on the floor and the helpless girl found herself easily wrestled to the floor by four sets of hands. Her hoody was pulled off. The handcuffs were undone and the hoody was pulled all the way off. Her boots were pulled off then her socks. The jogging bottoms then what remained of her dress. Melanie cried as the last stitch of her clothing-her classy lacy blue bra and panties were pulled of her soft body and dumped casually into a pile.
  She was held down by four of them with her legs spread as they prepared her for the Diaper. Melanie struggled with futility as they cleaned her ass and pussy with baby wipes. She started to whimper into her gag as they put extra absorbent pads between her legs to bulk up the diaper. She cried as they tightly pulled the adult diaper over her crotch it was so large and bulky! She was so humiliated as they pulled a tight pair of white rubber knickers over the bulk of the diaper. A large belt slotted through the knickers it buckled tight, keeping them in place then was locked with a small padlock. 
  Melanie acted like a small helpless child as they brought out the white canvas straitjacket. It looked so small, so tight-she didn’t want them to put it over her body, part of her wondered if she would ever be freed from restraints again! She tried to fight but it was hopeless. They easily forced the tight canvas over her hands and up her arms she found that the last half of the sleeves’ length was double lined with canvas making her hands completely useless and turning the sleeves into mittens effectively. She was soon all the way into her jacket they bucked strap after strap tightly closed until a continuous column of white held her torso, her shoulders pulled back rough canvas scratching her sensitive nipples and cushioning her large breasts.   
  She could feel the tightness of the fabric pushing into her ribs and across her flat stomach. She was humiliated as the crotch strap was done up pulling the bundle of the diaper into her body causing unusual sensations between her legs. They grabbed her arms and pulled them through the centre loop with a force seemed designed to dislocate her arms. She squealed into her gag as they were strapped in place that tightly. 
  Suitably immobilised they collected everything up and disappeared into the van.
Melanie thought that the van looked cavernous, so much space, so many things to actively or passively subjugate a woman. She noticed the heavy locked door at the back of this section of the van. She didn’t want to see what was behind it but they were keen to make sure that she did!
  The door was released, a light flickered on. There was Sahar in some sort of complex leather and rubber restraint also there was an older brunette woman that she didn’t recognise. Large ball gags muted both women. Melanie was shoved into the cell next to Sahar. She felt a strap being done up around her waist, the two friends exchanged a worried expression as the door was slammed shut. The light went off. The three women muffled incoherently into their gags trying to communicate. 
  One asylum goon turned to the other; 
    “If we keep them in the holding tank for much longer I think they’ll all need diapers…”

                                        8

  Victoria Lee considered herself in the mirror in the elevator. She was ridiculous, ridiculously good at her job, ridiculously well paid and ridiculously hot. Five foot four without her heels, five foot seven in them. Her feet were embraced by a pair of black leather Anouk stilettos from Jimmy Choo. Her stockings were silk from Yves Saint Laurent, a matching under-set, bra, panties, stockings and suspenders that slid up her legs. A Christian Dior women’s suit cut a little short on the skirt and a little tight around her middle covered her. She wore an Haute Couture long sleeved silk shirt. Her outfit was immaculate and expensive. 
  Victoria had shoulder length hair with a substantial volume. She thought to herself; ‘Not bad for the daughter of a factory worker and a cleaner!’ Her parents had scrimped and saved to send her through Law School and now she was on top of the world, she was a beautiful woman of Chinese descent and prided herself on her intellectual and physical abilities.
  The elevator stopped at the correct floor and she walked out into a tastefully decorated hallway with expensive flooring, lights, and office plants all guaranteed to convey to anyone entering the building that here were people who could afford the best and by implication were the best at what they did. 
  She worked for a prestigious law firm. They specialised in Corporate Law- companies fighting each other and the government over business and every aspect of it. Victoria’s speciality was land law-a boring but lucrative speciality. She could do things with ancient contracts and leases that would work out in her clients’ favour.   
  She had contacts, she knew which palms to grease to get something to run smoothly or which numbers to call to drown an opponent in bureaucracy. She had a meeting with one of the senior partners and she would be on time, the time being whenever she got there. The man behind the desk in front of her was behind the desk because he had married the daughter of one of the founding partners. He knew he was there because of that reason so employed highly competent people to do the actual work for him. He respected his staff and let them get on with their jobs. 
  He gestured to Victoria to sit down. There was a brief file on the table. Victoria sat down and started reading through it.
    “As you know, this local company is one of our best clients. They have spent a fortune on our services getting over issues to do with their new factory but another issue has arisen. Victoria I expect you to deal with it in your usual professional manner.”
  Victoria looked at the paperwork then at her boss;
    “Mr Marston, I believe that there are several cases which show that the grounds for this action are unsound. I can have this dismissed in a few days, a week at most before it ever gets in front of a judge.”
  The senior partner looked at her;
    “This company is one of our key accounts. You will give it your undivided attention until this matter is resolved. You are our senior expert in this field of law.”   
  Victoria smiled;
    “Mr Marston you know I always do my best.”
  The man smiled;
    “Victoria if I had a daughter I would wish she was half the woman you are. I first brought you in to consult on a legal matter then offered you a full time contract you are our top specialist in this area having won nearly 100% of cases that you have taken to court.” Victoria smiled confidently. The old lawyer continued to talk, “You have to be careful. The company had good lawyers. I know we are them but their rival SV-Sunny Views, they can throw entire law firms at there opponents. I understand that they own controlling stakes in entire law firms, at least one of their sub divisions does.” 
  Victoria looked unimpressed;
    “Sunny Views are a big medical company that won the lottery metaphorically speaking, closing the gap in areas that the public services missed-getting billions of tax payers’ money so they have a lot of money to throw around now while they diversify into other areas. They have their limits.” Victoria looked unimpressed. The senior partner shook his head;
    “I married into power and money but I learned to listen. Sunny Views has a backer. Beyond the mysterious director of the institute there is something older than governments and wealthier than nations...”   
  Victoria dismissed it as rhetoric;
    “Mr Marston you listen to too many rumours. They are just one company with one eccentric man running it.” 
  Marston shook his head;
    “Believe what you will but get this sorted out for our client.”
  Victoria nodded and left, the meeting over. She dismissed out of hand her manager’s warnings. She looked at the brief on the file. SV were managing to resurrect an ancient legal issue that the company thought that they had put to rest when acquiring the land. This could shut the entire building program down while a land rights issue was debated over a protracted period of time. Victoria needed to check certain documents about the land and the checks done prior to acquiring it.   
  With this information there were certain precedents set by the high courts that she could use to argue against this continued stalling tactic by SV industries. Victoria phoned ahead. She would get the relevant paperwork straight from the company’s files that night-she could pull an all nighter into the morning then she could, if she was lucky present her case the next morning and get the entire matter thrown out.

  At the lobby of the building, the concierge had already called a cab and a moment later Victoria was stepping inside. She would need to get this sorted as soon as possible! Every hour, every day meant a huge expense to her client. The cab made prompt progress while Victoria read through the cursory notes that she had. She formulated strategies and looked up a case history from the company data base via her tablet computer. 
  She needed to dig out the file and clear up the problems or their factory construction would stop, losing the company a lot of money and possibly losing them the factory site if SV were successful in putting a order in it. If it went on long enough then the company was in a far worse situation making it far easier for a hostile take-over bid. 

  Penny was getting used to walking in the shoes but she had to take very short steps this caused her butt to wiggle fiercely;
    “Hello boys...” She had already had a few whistles from passing cars and one older gentleman had been quite erratic in his driving after slowing down to take a look. Penny strutted her stuff over to the security office, her long sexy legs working to her advantage. She put on her most seductive voice as she approached the guard. She deliberately positioned herself so she gave the guard something to look at. His beady eyes shaped to her face. Penny started;
    “I don’t suppose you can help little old me?” The guard looked at her quizzically;    
    “What can I do for you?” His voice sounded flat and uninterested. Penny put a little more effort into it;
    “What can I do to get a tour of the place?”
  The security guard looked Penny up and down;
    “I am a happily married man. Go away, no soliciting.”
  Penny was angry. Her jaw dropped and she turned around and walked away indignantly who would marry that slob!? She had spent all this effort getting into these horrible shoes and these too tight hot pants for nothing;
    “What a bloody waste of time! I find the one committed married man!”
  Penny slowly walked back to her van. Her calves were already aching and her feet hurt a lot. She was cursing to herself. Penny suddenly noticed two things. One, that she had just walked past a side door-it looked like a goods or maintenance entrance and it seemed to be open. The second and more important thing was that the woman from earlier was looking at her;
    “This could be my lucky day...” Penny suddenly had a feeling she would have better luck with this woman. 
  She eyed Penny up with a predatory gaze she looked at her like a bar of chocolate she wanted to gobble up. A smile spread across Penny’s face;
    “Hello pretty!” She started, adding extra wiggle to her walk as she headed over to the goods entrance. The woman looked at her, staring at her legs. 
  Penny sauntered over to her. The woman was trying to look cool but she was getting hot under the collar. Penny smiled, this woman liked women-the same act would probably work with her. The reporter purred;
    “I don’t suppose you can help little old me?”
  The security guard smiled a naughty smile;
    “Of course cutie! What can I do to you?” She paused, flustered, “I mean for you!”   
  The guard looked at Penny, more at her legs than anything else. Penny dropped her bag just off her shoulder and bent down to pick it up;
    “What can I do to get a tour of the place?”
  The female guard smiled; “I can think of a few things. Come inside but I might have to frisk you thoroughly...” The guard suddenly had Penny’s arms held behind her back. 
    “You like it rough!” Penny muttered. Before she had a chance to resist, she was pulled through the gate and it was slammed shut behind her. 

  Penny didn’t struggle as she was invited inside. It was some sort of game and she would remain in character and play along;
    “This is a little tight...” 
  The security guard whispered in her ear;
    “Don’t talk or I’ll have to gag you.” The security guard kissed Penny on the lips, full-on! Penny got a brief view of the room. She was inside some sort of security office-there were monitors for various CCTV cameras, a couple of old chairs, a kettle and a poster on the wall of some whip cracking dominatrix type! Penny was then pushed down across a table relatively gently. She ended up looking at the kettle while the woman held her hands behind her back while frisking Penny’s legs and arse. Then the security guard slapped Penny on the bottom! She tried to get up but the guard held her down;
    “Naughty girl, I will have to discipline you!” Something bleeped, “Wait here for a few minutes like a good girl then I’ll get back to you...” The security guard slapped Penny on the ass then ran off to deal with something. 
    “Damn lesbian perv!” Penny could see something in one of the monitors a white van. It looked like it had Sunny Views Asylum written on the side of it. Penny’s act was starting to break, “Fuck, there is no way there getting me!” She was nervous-she had to get away from the security girl and get that file!
  Penny looked thought the desk drawer of the security office;
    “Bloody Hell!” The lovely security guard seemed to have been expecting Penny to be distracted then to jump her, Penny could only assume she was not the first victim. There were trophies-women’s underwear and pictures of them struggling. Penny found a jar of chloroform, a two inch red ball gag and a strange collection of cuffs. It seemed to be a hogtie set. Ankle cuffs, wrists and elbows all linked with hinged bar sections of metal. It would be a tight and unforgiving hogtie that each of these women was subjected to, naked. 
  Penny quickly grabbed the chloroform and hid behind the door;
    “I would use my own but I can’t be bothered to dig it out of the bag.”

  A minute later the security officer came back she was expecting to chloroform, strip and restrain Penny then have some fun;
    “Honey where are y-” Then instead she found a cloth forced over her mouth. The security guard screamed into the muffling cloth then struggled until she was limp. Penny quickly gagged her, hogtied her, cuffs on wrists elbows and ankles it was a very tight solid restraint;
    “Get out of that pretty!” She grabbed the security guards keys. She could follow the email trail, find the file and be gone! She could get out of here and work on the evidence from a nice, safe, far off place.

                                   10 

  Penny looked around the security office. There was a wall map and she was lucky it showed where everything was approximately, over all the levels where the other security posts were meant to be and which area belonged to which department;
    “That’s convenient.” Penny grinned. She found a visitors badge in the security desk draw-she could probably get around the place for a few hours before anyone noticed her she hoped. 
  It was the big white van from Sunny Views that made her nervous. They were onto her but she was so close to the files and the evidence she needed! The reporter found herself taking very slow steps-some bastard had waxed the floors and it was a practical skating ring! She had to move very carefully in the damn heels... 
  She went up a floor in the service lift. There was a reception area, large sofa’s in a waiting area, a giant art instillation that looked like a laminated Triffid, some flowers and a large reception desk;
    “Modern Art-what a load of junk!” 
  There was a bored-looking receptionist. The receptionist looked at Penny as she walked past the reception. The receptionist held up a bundle of paperwork, she had a questioning look on her face;
    “Are you here for the legal file?” 
  Penny shook her head;
    “No I have other business.” 
  The receptionist shrugged her shoulders. The woman had a visitors pass and seemed to know where she was going. She looked at the hot pants and the heels and assumed she was going to see one of the directors for a late night session. Probably some overpaid twit’s mistress!

  Penny got her bearings and slipped into a lift, ascending to the third floor. Her objective was at the other end of third and she still had a lot of walking to do in the  ghastly heels. The brunette cursed the horrible footwear as her toes and ankles protested. Slowly she travelled past the marketing department. There were still a few late night nutcases still desperately trying to sell to anyone. She worked her way past an abandoned accounts department, a quick glance told her no one was home;
    “I just need to hold it together for a little while-just keep it together...” 
  Soon Penny was at the old file room. The place was used as a store for back up paperwork-a necessary insurance policy. Finding that one of the keys from the guard’s security bunch operated the door, she hit the lights quickly and located the place that the file was meant to be. 
  Penny was practically shaking in anticipation but her world came crashing down-it was gone! She choked down a sob;
    “No, no, no! Someone else got to it, fuck! How is this possible?”
  She bit back a sob. She didn’t want to be put in a lunatic asylum! She didn’t want a straitjacket! She choked back the tears. She had one option now-run and never look back!
  Penny turned off the lights, locked the door and started running, well, strolling in these heels-strolling very fast in an effort to get the best speed without falling over and breaking her leg;
    “Bloody shoes!”
   Penny figured it was best that she get out by the same entrance she got in. that was to say the maintenance entrance-especially this time of night, it was nice and quiet. She used the goods lift and carefully scouted back through the building, checking in on the security office and dropping-off the keys. The attractive security woman had regained consciousness and was grunting into her ball gag. Penny dropped the keys off;
    “Thanks for lending me your keys.” She patted the guard on the head then tightened her gag to an indignant squeal before running off past the maintenance door, letting it shut behind her. As quick as the heels would allow her, Penny got to her transport, not even trying to change footwear. She started the engine and drove-she had to get off-site and fast!

  Penny put her foot down, the old vehicle was built to move and the engine was still in very good condition. Her ambulance/camper van zoomed away-she had to be out of the area in hours or she was going to disappear like her sources;
    “Go girl, top speed!” 
  The skimpily-clad reporter had her foot glued to the accelerator. She was in top gear and the van was starting to protest. Slowly, Penny began to calm down. The van was not behind her, she was more likely to attract a cop for speeding. She needed to be nice and quiet;
    “No tickets, not today!” Penny gently eased her foot of the accelerator. Then the big white van appeared in her rear mirror. “Fucking hell! No, I did not just see that.” It got closer, it was the one from the company car park. Penny jammed her foot down. The van protested but accelerated. The white van dropped further back. Slowly the noises coming from the engine became gurgles and grinding rattles;
    “Keep together girl. Keep together, please keep together!” Penny didn’t care, she would get a new engine just as long as she could get away from the van!

Penny breathed a sigh of relief the van was gone from her rear view mirror. She took a back road and headed back to her office, having some information there. Maybe, just maybe she could scrape together enough to make them leave her alone with a bit of digging;
    “Let’s see what I can find...” Penny opened the door to her office and her jaw dropped, it had been cleaned out! Literally everything was gone, the paperwork, the furniture, the carpet and the ceiling tiles! How, why? 
  She didn’t know but the world she knew was disappearing. They were making her disappear, all her files-they were so quick;
    “Well that’s one way to get the office cleaned...” She shook herself. She still had other options-just to run, no hope of getting them now. It was just getting away. 
  She had one more asset under another name. She owned a garage with an alternative means of transportation. She would ditch the van and then leave the city;
    “Time to run.” 

  Two blocks away was a dilapidated, grimy garage. It was under a fictitious name and still seemed to be untouched. Penny had a low powered bike, a set of false papers and some other essentials stashed in saddle bags. She would change then drive off they would never catch ‘Fran Smith’;
    “Poof and I will be gone!” The garage door was secured by three big heavy locks they were soon unlocked. The touch of a remote and the garage opened. Penny drove the van inside it scraped the ceiling but just fitted. Penny had her boots, “Goodbye you high heels from hell!” Outside of the van she would change then off she went. Bike-check, bag-check, lower-profile check, she was going to get away she told herself...

                                        11
  Victoria checked with the company receptionist on the phone. The file was ready for her, the admin and legal departments had started preparing for her and the relevant file had been taken out of the archive and was being held at the reception. 
  Victoria insisted on doing this herself with modern computing. Her office was wherever she had her phone. She would have to insist that the company scanned all there documents and contracts so that they could email the damn things to her without her having to track half way across town in an emergency. A big white van cut in front of the taxi causing it to skid to a halt. Victoria almost cursed as she just managed to catch her phone. Soon she would have the file, the back up documentation-she just had to pick it up from the reception provided that there were no accidents with mad people in vans she told herself!. 
  The taxi cab parked outside the building the security guard opened the door for her.
Victoria Lee quickly made her way into reception, a woman stood up holding out the file. The lawyer headed over to the file held out for her. She picked it up to check everything was there. 
  Her eyebrows raised in confusion. This didn’t look like the right file, it seemed to be about medical insurance there was something about the IT department. She paused, reading through it. There were accounts files for payments made-they did not relate to the land acquisition. Victoria was about to give the file back but there were notes. It was her habit to skim read anything under her nose. The day that they had paid the doctor off was the day that the report had appeared on the medical file even though it was meant to have existed for some time. Victoria looked at it for a second or two there seemed to be a large piece of corporate corruption that had just landed on her desk! Metaphorically, she was duty bound to report this to her client, to one of the directors. She groaned she did not need this on top of the land file.
  This looked funny Victoria thought, she examined it in more detail. This was something completely different, not her speciality but there was evidence here of something major wrong-not just someone fiddling the expenses on the medical insurance. 
  It took twenty seconds for Victoria to draw the conclusion that her client had been compromised by SV’s interests. They had moles in the company trying to sell it from the inside. A staff member called Fiona had found this out and disappeared. There was a list labeled as Medical Contingency File: Medical Consultants File. 
  It was a list of potential referrals, all of them female staff members. Victoria looked at it. It seemed the information led to the accounts director, HR Manager and the IT Manager; 
    “What the hell is going on?” Victoria spoke to herself. S.V. had people on the inside of the company, they were in a far worse position with three of their senior managers working for effectively a rival company. Someone had to do something about it now and she was duty bound to bring it to her client’s attention. 
  Someone had obviously swapped the incriminating file with the one on the land acquisition. Victoria thought about the rumour that Diana Keening was off ill. She thought to herself, ‘Over Keen would never let an illness take her away from work, they would roll a hospital bed into her board room!’ They must have done something to her. Victoria knew she had to report it to the share-holders as the directors were compromised. She was confident that she could deal with these dogs!

  Victoria thought about it. At least three people had been onto them before her. Whoever got the file together, the woman from IT the file mentioned and Diana Keening. She had to be subtle about this, she had to talk to the people who owned the company without getting the managers or directors involved. Victoria also had to find the real file and get this land matter sorted. Victoria got the receptionist;
    “This isn’t all the information I need. Could you please show me to the file room?” Victoria followed the receptionist to the file room. After about ten minutes of digging she found the actual file she wanted. She turned to the receptionist, “Can you get me a small meeting room and a coffee?”
  A few minutes later Victoria had the real paperwork spread out over a table. She did not consider what the receptionist brought her as coffee it was brown and it was slowly melting a Styrofoam cup. She sipped it and winced soon she would have the silly land dispute knocked out of court then she would have to call her boss and try to arrange a meeting with the some of the share holders about the other matter.
  Reluctantly Victoria called her boss. She needed his contacts and experience. She was in over her head and she was very reluctant to admit it. 
  The line diverted at the reception;
    “Mr Marston is not available. Mr Springer-the other senior partner is still in. I will put you through.”
  Mr Springer was a competent lawyer but he had all the personality of a brick. Victoria sighed. She would wash her hands of the matter. Something like this, it was up to the senior partners;
    “Victoria what is so important that it warrants my attention?” His voice was flat and dull, juries had agreed to whatever he said just to have a break from the monotone. Victoria spoke;
    "I'm afraid that during a routine case on land law for one of our large corporate clients I have come into position of documents that show a rival corporation, S.V. has several of the company’s directors and managers working against the share holders interests. They have gone as far as to falsify medical reports to remove staff that would oppose them selling the company out!”
  There was the sound of someone choking on the other end of the line;
    “What? No not them, yes..."
  The man sounded scared, shifty but then if you were taking on a large corporation like that you might be scared. Then the line cleared;
    “Sorry Victoria I have put a case to a judge against S.V. before, they got to the jury, the judge, the police-they argued against us! They have a lot of reach. It’s very hard to pin anything on them,“ he paused for a moment, “...Victoria, you need to present this info straight to the shareholders board. They are the only ones with the clout to do anything about it. They have old money and links that are as old as this land. I know a few of the majority share holders personally. It will take a few hours but I will arrange for you to meet them in the board room. Don’t lose that evidence and don’t worry-they will assemble soon.”
  Victoria held the phone for a second;
    “Thank you for your support sir.” The line went dead. Victoria was preparing herself for the emergency share holders meeting, she worked on the other legal matter for a bit-she would have to go to court with that tomorrow morning...

                                      12

  Denise didn’t look back, she ran but it hurt! The cable was buried so deep between her poor pussy lips, so tightly wedged between her poor tender flesh but her legs pumped away like her life depended on it. It chafed horribly! She screamed bloody murder into her gag but closed the distance to the trees quickly. Denise heard the sound of pursuit and dived further into the trees, dodging left, right, trying to lose her pursuers. 
  She kept her sounds down to a minimum, creeping about in the dark barefoot. She saw the tiny glimmers of torch light. She had to be as quiet as possible. A few minutes of ducking behind trees and the sounds of pursuit died down.
  She barely heard someone cry out;
    “We will come back and get you later bitch!”
  Denise smiled. She had gotten away from them a second time, now to find a safe spot and to try and get out of this jacket, if that was even possible! Denise knew this area like the back of her hand she had been cross-country running in the park for years. She remembered this spot, there was a hidden ditch that had a degree of shelter that was better than spending a night out in the open in the park. 
  She slowed down and recognised the tree with a Y shape in it. A few years ago she had not been looking where she was going and then she had almost landed in the ditch. She moved very slowly, it cut down on the chafing from the “wire” jacket she found the ditch and carefully moved down into it resting against a fairly comfortable stone she breathed a sigh of relief. Well, she was a relieved as any woman who was gagged with her own sweaty socks and strapped into a torture device could be!
  The young woman took a minute to clear her head. Deep breaths with the restrictions of the jacket made her restricted breasts bounce up and down in their tight confinement. She had to get out of this horrible confining jacket, the strap seemed to be working deeper and deeper between her legs driving her crazy! She had to get off she thought to herself. No, she corrected herself. She had to get the damn gag and jacket off. The taste was too horrible to describe! She had to get her foul socks out of her mouth. 
  She tried to reach the gag with her toes to try and undo a buckle. She could just about touch her toes to the straps but she had no fine control to un-strap the gag, and flexing in that way made the wire between her legs even worse! She tried to get the gag against something, a stone a tree a stick. 
  Nothing would make it move a millimetre. Denise came to the conclusion that the only way she was getting the gag off was with her hands free. There had to be some way to fee herself from the jacket? Denise had seen a magician get out of a straitjacket before but that looked like a wet t shirt in comparison to this confining leather monster! She started to struggle in the jacket but it did not want to budge an inch and she found the cable sinking in tight between her legs.
  It took all her effort to remain quiet, not to scream. Finally she started to panic, kicking at the dirt, struggling wildly, she let go screaming for all she was worth not that it made that much sound. Finally, she stopped and lay still. She started to sob, trapped in her confining jacket.

  Denise was exhausted completely. She would have to rely on the kindness of strangers. The jacket probably had ‘Mad woman. Please return to the asylum if found!’-printed on the back. She would have to be careful that she was not turned into the people she had escaped from by Joe or Jane public. 
  Denise needed to think. She needed some rest. Desperately, she tried to manoeuver herself into a comfortable position so that she could sleep an angle that reduced the pressure from the straps digging into her back, a place that allowed her some small comfort from the diabolical crotch strap. She was so tired from all the running and the struggling she started to dose off. 
  Despite the uncomfortable predicament she slowly got to sleep. In five minutes she was curled into a ball gently snoring into her muffling gag.

  Hours passed and Denise slept. She rolled around and tugged at the jacket in her sleep-it neither loosened nor slackened in any way. The thick, thick leather kept her warm during the night. The barest glint of light started to get through the trees in the park. Denise slowly awoke form a horrible nightmare-she dreamed that she had been stripped then packed into a tight straitjacket by a bunch of psychopaths then they had gagged her with her own socks. She thought it was funny, the covers were so heavy and wrapped around her so tightly and she seemed to have the pillow in her mouth. Her eyes snapped open to realise it was a horrible reality! Denise screamed into her gag again in frustrated defiance. She struggled to her feet, rocking forwards then staggering to a kneeling then a crouching then a standing position.
  Denise’s muscles ached. The tight restraints were doing a number on her arms.They were stiff and numb. The jacket was way too tight around her arms but she could do nothing about it. Her gag was way too tight, her jaw ached terribly, she could make no coherent sound and the mass of socks seemed to have grown in the night. Her shoulders, ribs, stomach were all protesting against the tight jacket as it dug into her hard muscular body. She could resist its crushing force but not forever. Denise put one foot in front of the other. She must have stubbed her toe at some point in the night and the distraction between her legs started to chafe again... There was a terrible sensation that Denise could not escape it was even worse after a night’s sleep! Slowly and carefully Denise walked out into the dawn’s light. 
  She knew that her main advantage from the last night had been the fact it was dark. She had easily melted into the park knowing the terrain but now she could not hide half as well now she could easily be seen! She was cautious as she looked around the park it must have been eight, nine hours since they had chased her through here.    
  There was an exit. No chain, no padlock, no goons... She slowly moved to one side and got a good look. No-one was hiding in with the trash bins. She looked around. There was a car parked but it did look occupied and there was no white van!
  Denise moved closer and closer to the exit. She noticed something in the bushes on the ground. She looked down there was a small camera it focused on her. Denise turned to run. The boot of the car opened! The red-head was in there, cramped up with a tablet computer in one hand. She threw the data pad back into the car boot and ran after Denise. Denise was nowhere near her best-tired, hungry, dehydrated and there was no way to run properly without shoes or the ability to use her arms or get a decent lung full still she managed to get a good distance before she was intercepted.
  She was tackled like a rugby player! The redheaded goon grabbed her legs and dived. Denise found herself falling without any ability to stop herself she instinctively tried to get her arms loose to break her fall but it was useless, the ground rose up and knocked the wind out of her!
  The redhead sat on her and called the rest of her team on the radio;
    “Get you asses over here and help me bundle her up!” 
  Denise struggled under the woman only to be patted on the ass! The woman spoke;    
    “From now on we add a GPS tracker sewn in the collar of every jacket!”
  Denise thought about how hard she had made it for them to catch her. She was sure that she would be regretting it very soon...
  She heard the van drive up to the gate. The doors opened and booted feet marched into the park.
  One of the women dropped a large bag next to Denise. The redheaded leader of the goon squad got off Denise and three more women held her face down with her legs spread. The red head continued to talk;
    “Poor thing! You ran away-I guess we need to accessorize. Ladies, get the bung and some Vaseline!” 
  Denise started to struggle. Now the red head was suddenly wearing a pair of rubber gloves. She held something up for Denise to see. It was a rubber bung the rough size of baseball it was shaped a little bit like a turnip and clearly made to fit with the jacket a groove across the base would fit in with the cable between her legs. A bit of Vaseline a spreader and the fat butt plug made of dark red rubber was slowly sinking between Denise’s spread buttocks. She howled into the gag and thrashed about it was all to nought. The plug was filling her up, humiliating and subjugating her. Tears rolled down her cheeks and she mumbled defiantly into her gag. The wire crotch strap was replaced and clinched a lot tighter bringing a louder stream of mumbles to slip past Denise’s gag.   
  She could feel herself almost breaking! The tight jacket, the muffling gag, the horrible plug-she was losing the will to fight them. They had almost got her inside as well as out but she had a little hope... 
  There was the file, one of her out of town friends would find it, they would get the police! The people doing this to her would pay! She had to hold onto that sliver of hope that they would not find the file. The goons grinned as they grabbed her legs and applied heavy leather ankle cuffs. The cuffs were at ninety degrees to each other, riveted together. Once Denise’s Ankles were locked in the cuffs she had nowhere to run she was forced just to sit there-baggage ready to be collected.
  Denise was picked-up like a bag of laundry. She was carried across the park then there was the van, it was far larger than she thought it was. She was swallowed into the dingy white interior, there were some seats then some lockers with equipment then there was a door. A light came on, there were three other women bundled into the back of the van. They tightened her gag then threw her inside. A strap went around her waist to hold her against the wall in the cramp cell. Denise recognised Diana and passingly recognised someone from research and development. The third woman she had never seen. Diana and the woman from R+ D recognised her just before the lights were turned off and the door slammed shut plunging the four prisoners into darkness...

                                        13

  There was a screech of tyres and suddenly the white van was blocking the exit. Penny jumped on the bike and tried to start it, footwear be dammed;
    “HELL NO!” 
  Nothing, the bike was dead, sabotaged. Penny screamed in frustration, she was cornered like a rat. Hope of escape had been turned into a trap! Penny picked up her shoulder bag, she would not go down without a fight;
    “Come and get me you bitches!”
 The doors to the van opened and the orderlies started getting out. There were soon half a dozen large women in riot gear facing Penny. She looked at her shoes, stupid shoes! Why hadn’t she changed them? She had no way of outrunning them like this, not a chance on foot! The goons started to get closer and closer.
  Penny reached into her shoulder bag. She tried to pull out a can of CS spray to try and get the nearest goons then run away or totter as best she could;
    “Come closer why don’t you?” 
  The woman with a noose on a pole was quicker, Penny found it around her wrist and her arm was dragged away from her body;
    “No, NO!” The can clattered to the floor. They were on her. Her bag was pulled off her shoulder in case she had any more surprises. They patted her down to check that she had nothing else. The noose was released from around her arm, “Ouch! My arm-I’m going to sue!” Two women held Penny while a redhead sized her up. Penny looked at them defiantly, “You can’t stop, the press the truth will get out!” The redhead laughed.
  Penny watched the redhead approach, the black rimmed glasses were pulled of her face and Penny‘s vision blurred slightly;
    “Hey, give those back!” Her brown trench coat was undone and peeled from her body. “Leave me alone!” They went through the brown shoulder bag pulling out the jemmy, the wrench and other useful tools. Her tight blue gray turtle neck sweater was pulled from her body. “Please stop!” There was a wolf whistle as her white bra was removed. “What are you going to do to me?” They brought out a black canvas jacket she could just imagine the fabric against her poor bust. The redhead looked at her;   
    “You can keep the hot pants, panty hose and those heels darling.” 
  Losing the heels was one of the things Penny was looking forward to but to be kept in them would be another dimension of torture;
    “Please, no!” Penny begged as they advanced on her.

  The redhead held a mess of rubber and straps up to Penny’s face;
    “That’s all I want to hear about freedom of the press.”
   Penny looked at the black rubber pump gag. She could see the pump and had an inkling of what it would feel like;
    “No, that won’t fit in my mouth, please no!” She managed to say before the balloon was forced into her mouth. There was a panel that went over Penny’s jaw, it was buckled behind her head by two straps which went under her hair. Another rubber strap went under her chin. The redhead began to pump at it, enthusiastically. Penny was able to vocalise her distress quite loudly;
    “MMMPH!”
  It was not coherent, though. The gag was pumped larger. Penny found that her vocal range was even further diminished, “mmph.” That was still not enough and the redhead continued to pump away, a grin spread over her face the larger the balloon grew. Penny’s eyes filled with tears, her final bit of sound came out;
    “mmm.” Still the gag was pumped larger, a noise so insubstantial that it could not be measured meaningfully was now all that could be heard. The voice of the press was compressed.
  Penny tried to struggle as the black canvas straitjacket was brought over to her. Two of the asylum goons held her arms, she was not going anywhere. They deliberately paused to allow her to get a good look at the fabric that would soon become a permanent resident over her torso, rendering her as helpless as a baby. It was tailored to be tight around the arms and the waist it had a big thick crotch strap that would be tightly pulling into the tight leather hot pants. Penny saw a front loop and side loops the jacket would be really tight when applied!
  Penny shook her head as they forced first her right arm then her left into the jacket. A few tugs and her hands were useless, sealed up in mitten compartments at the ends of the sleeves. A strap was fastened around her wrists to keep her hands in their place. Six straps were done up cruelly tight across the back of the jacket forcing it to tightly embraced Penny’s torso, the rough canvas against her nipples was already starting to have an effect. The crotch strap was pulled up tight. She whimpered as loudly as she could which was not much. Her efforts were futile as the arms of the jacket were fed through the front loop then the side loop then tightened and tightened until Penny had no room to move her arms even a fraction of an inch. 
  The reporter was picked up by the redhead and slung over her shoulder. She was carried around to the back of the van. It was far larger than she thought it was. She was disappeared from the real world into a claustrophobic hell, there were some seats and lockers, restraints and methods for subduing wayward women peaked out of every corner of the van she was being carried towards a door middle of the van. Then a light came on as the door opened Penny saw four other women bundled into the back of the van. They dropped her inside. A strap went around her waist to hold her against the wall in the cramped cell pushed up against another woman. Denise recognised Diana the M.D. and there was something familiar about one of the women, it was one from R+ D that must be her source. The woman glowered at Penny as if to say, ‘Look what you got me into!’ Just before the lights were turned off and the door slammed shut there were five prisoners crammed together a sixth might be squeezed in with a little effort...

                                      14

  One of the company staff ushered Victoria to the board room. After twenty minutes Victoria knew there was something up in the empty room. She reassured herself. Perhaps she was just going to have to wait for a minute before the board members or their representatives could arrive? There was a phone in one corner of the board room and there was a ring. Miss Lee walked over and picked it up hesitantly. It was Mr Springer, he sounded like a beaten man;
    “I am sorry Victoria. They threatened my daughter! I love her, what they were going to do to her I could not bear!” There was the sound of crying then the line went dead. Victoria knew her fate was sealed! She took a deep breath and turned around to face the empty room. The large oak doors swung open and the goon squad from the asylum came in, six against one! Each one of them armed to the teeth and wearing full riot armour-they didn’t do things by halves... They were lead by one woman.

  Victoria Lee looked at the redhead in riot gear. They had her surrounded but she wasn’t going down without a fight! She had spent ages training with kick boxing and karate she was not going to go quietly. The redhead with the pepper spray was obviously the leader-the rest deferred to her. Victoria hoped that she could give them a few broken bones or at least a few bruises before they took her in. The red-head smiled, she handed her pepper spray to the thin blond on her left and took up a fighting stance.
  Victoria eyed her up. The woman was at a clear advantage on body size, height, weight and reach. Also the riot gear was designed to be very tough. Victoria tried her best to land a solid kick on the woman. The redhead pulled back from the first kick and Victoria aimed low, trying to sweep the redhead’s feet out from under her. The redhead jumped over Victoria’s strike. Victoria found the woman’s palm on her chest and she was falling backwards. Victoria stood up and faced the woman again. She kicked off her heels and pulled off her suit jacket she was not finished. The redhead laughed, she was up to the challenge! She pulled off her helmet and her gloves-she wanted to make this sporting…
  Victoria took up a fighting stance again. She sent a roundhouse kick that the redhead avoided. She jabbed twice at the woman’s stomach but the woman counter-attacked and Lee found the woman’s booted foot travel a few inches past her face. 
  Then the woman closed in on her. Victoria was halfway to blocking when the woman’s elbow connected with her stomach. Victoria folded and rolled out of the way. She stood up again regaining her breath. She ripped the side slit in her skirt a little further giving her a small extra amount of movement. The redhead smiled, she pulled off her arm guards and her leg guards then undid the padded chest guard leaving her in a sort of boiler suit. Victoria looked the woman up and down she had far less protection but she would be faster without the suit slowing her down.
  The Asian girl went on the offensive, desperately trying to land a kick to some vital spot on the woman. She needed to deliver a good solid blow-she had no delusion of getting away but if she could give the woman something to remember her for, one good hit was all she needed. The woman blocked Victoria’s kicks and punches and the girl was starting to tire. For all her training this woman had a lot more. The redhead put her left arm behind her back. She taunted Victoria to come closer to fight her like this. Victoria obliged her. She was so close to wiping the smile off the redhead’s lips, literally a half inch away before the woman’s powerful legs swept Victoria’s footing out from under her and left her dazed and on the floor again. 
  Lee’s head felt light, her heart was pounding! She was not going to give up yet. She stood up once more and charged at the woman in a powerful flying kick only for the redhead to twist at the last minute leaving a fully committed Victoria to sail past her and hit the floor. Victoria tried to get up but the woman was on her, powerful thighs wrapped around Victoria’s neck and squeezing. She felt her exhausted body struggle, her lungs burned, she felt herself going limp then she was being dragged to her feet.
  The rest of the goons descended on Victoria. The entire concept of a fair fight was over now, she was simply a patient to be processed in the most efficient way possible!   Someone held her left arm someone held her right arm. Her poor head was still foggy from lack of oxygen-a few minutes and she would be okay, she told herself. 
  She stood there panting as they started to unbutton her blouse. She looked at them defiantly she knew if she tried to struggle then they would punish her but she could still maintain her dignity. She thought as calmly as she could, dignity was something she possessed, something that no one could take from her. Her blouse was pulled away then what was left of her skirt. They removed her stockings and garter belt then pulled down her panties and unclipped her bra. Victoria stood there without a stitch of clothing she maintained a calm demeanour and a defiant look.
  Her defiant attitude faltered when she saw the next item approach. They had a gag on a strap and some sort of brown leather hood. The gag was a massive piece of pear shaped rubber that looked like it would never fit between her lips. Victoria looked at the pear inches from her lips she managed to get as far as, “You will never mmmmpph” before the gag was jammed between her lips. A few seconds of struggling and the gag was firmly wedged between Victoria’s jaws, keeping her tongue on the bottom of her mouth, her lips and cheeks comically distended and round. 
  The gag was effective and Victoria had no way around it. They held the brown leather hood, they told her it was called a Gwen hood. They forced it over her head then started lacing it tighter and tighter. Soon her nose and eyes were all that could be seen. 
  She could not make a sound and was truly trapped. The laces were knotted, then a flap was zipped over them making it harder to undo the hood. Not that Victoria would soon be able to use her hands very soon.
  Victoria looked at the heavy, black leather jacket that the goon squad were now holding it looked so heavy, so intimidating she squealed into her very solid gag. There were straps on the sleeves, wrists and elbows to make it tighter. A single, very wide leather crotch strap that she knew was going to play havoc between her legs! There seemed to be six straps at the back of the jacket and side and front loops. There was also a high collar that would limit Victoria’s movement.
  The six asylum staff easily forced Victoria into the diabolical leather prison. Her arms were trapped in the tight sleeves with the wrist and elbow. The jacket was done up behind her, they showed no mercy and not the slightest hint of compassion as the leather was tightened until it squeaked and squealed with every movement of Victoria’s body. Then her arms were drawn tight through the front and side loops. They were soon hopelessly immobilised in the jacket. The crotch strap came next, it was too tight! Her eyes were literally watering and when she wiggled to try and release the tension it only seemed to nestle against her intimate parts more tightly. If she was subjected to this for any length of time she would go mad!

  They carried her out like a bundle of laundry it was humiliating! She was carried into a lift then bundled into a van. Victoria noted the size of the van and the fact it seemed to be split into two sections, one for the asylum staff, then behind a locked door Victoria recognised Diana-the company M.D. 
  There were four other women. She had no clue but she assumed that they were probably from that list of employees that were likely to get in S.V.’s way. She started to think about what the senior partner had said. Maybe S.V. did have some measure of clout that he’d said they had?
  They strapped her down and shut the door, turning off the light. The van started with a Six-Pack ready for delivery to the asylum, all leaks plugged, all problems accounted for. No incriminating evidence left.

                                    THE END