Heart of the Plan

Chapter 5

Victoria Bell's office, Friday afternoon

"Here is your plane ticket-you'll notice it leaves in two hours-and this is your reservation for Grant City's finest resort. It's gotten some glowing reviews," her assistant confided to Victoria as she handed over the papers. "But I'd like hear yours, too."

"Thank you. I'll give you my own on Monday. Now, if the League calls ..."

"... I've already told them where you're going and not to call them unless its a genuine, can't-wait-till-Monday, emergency," Kathy supplied. "Relax, Doctor, the last big crisis was only two weeks ago. We should be good 'til next month at least before another hits."

Victoria fell silent for a moment. 'I wonder; is there a world out there where such a statement would be seen as ludicrous? Where demonic invasions, alien landings, and, of course, supervillains trying to conquer the world aren't something to be talked about like whether it is going to rain?' The psychiatrist tried for a moment to imagine what that would look like, but gave up when she couldn't.

"And it's not like I'm the only expert at their disposal. Yes, you're right; I should stop fussing and enjoy this." She held up Kathy's gift. "Alright, then I'm off. Have a nice weekend, Kathy."

"You too, Doctor Bell," the blonde returned with an impish smile.

Doctor Bell got as far as the elevator when work reared its head again. She'd concluded Sparkler's session about fifteen minutes ago, and Victoria had expected Emily and her mentor to be out of the building by now. When the elevator opened, however, Dawnstar was in it.

"Oh, hey, Doc; was wondering if I would still catch you."

She made no motion to get out, so Victoria stood there wondering where to go now. "Ehm, did you forget something?" She couldn't see what that would be, not like there were pockets on the superheroine's costume.

"No, no; but get in. You told me you were going to Jeanville, to help the police there, so I'll ride the lift down and we can talk on the way."

"Of course." Doctor Bell joined the superheroine. Pushing the button for the garage, she turned to Dawnstar. "Talk about what? And where is Sparkler?"

"On her way home, I didn't want to ask this with her around 'cause I want it to be a surprise."

"Ah, I see. Sparkler has progressed quite nicely, hasn't she?"

"She has, and I'm thinking she might be ready to get back into the saddle again."

Mentally reviewing her notes, Doctor Bell gave a considering nod. "Has she broached the subject with you?"

Dawnstar shook her head. "Nah, but she's been sharing tales of her exploits lately. I guess that means the whole fighting crime-thing ain't a painful subject with her anymore. Right?" She gave Victoria a questioning look.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors glided open. "It can be an indicator. I know she's also started training," Doctor Bell noted as she turned into the direction her car was parked. "How is that going? Sparkler herself seems to think she'll need a couple of months to get back into her old form."

"More like a week, she's already there. It's just the confidence issue, and that's not really going to go away until she's faced down a mugger or two."

'And if I "independently" decide that she's ready for active duty, it should help her on that front,' Victoria added mentally as she fished her car keys out of her pocket. "Very well, I'll think about it over the weekend." With a whoop, her car disengaged its alarm and unlocked.

"That's all I ask. Have a nice trip, doc!" Giving her a wave, Dawnstar walked away.

Returning the wave, Victoria turned the car key and her car coughed. Frowning, she tried again with the same result. 'Oh, no.' The raven-haired psychiatrist tried to start her car a third time, only to get the same result.

Looking over the hood, pondering whether to call her assistant or a cab, Victoria noticed Dawnstar coming back.

"Car trouble?"

Nodding, Victoria stepped out. "Yes. Not a big emergency; I have more than enough time to call a cab and have it take me to the airport."

"Or, you could ask your friend, who happens to be able to fly, to take you there and spare yourself the expense."

"Ah, thank you for the offer, but I also have luggage, and you only have two hands."

Dawnstar simply rolled her eyes. "Then I make two trips: First you, then your stuff. It's no big deal. I fly people all the time."

Biting her lip, Victoria considered. The cab fair wasn't an issue. The opportunity to experience flight like that, though, that was very rare. In truth, it was too good an opportunity to turn down. "How can I say no now?" she chuckled ruefully.

"Okay then, here we go!" Dawnstar announced before gently picking her up and lifting off.

"Whoa," escaped her as they drifted more than flew out of the underground garage and into the open air. But as the first rays of sunlight reached them, Dawnstar sped up, pressing Victoria close to her to shield her from the wind.

Buildings streaked past, and the wind nipped at her clothes. Victoria tried to look ahead but gave it up quickly as her eyes teared up. "Ah, could you slow down a bit?" she asked into Dawnstar's chest.

But the brunette didn't seem to hear her, because she said nothing nor did she slow down. At least Victoria thought the superheroine hadn't heard her, because not long after, she could feel them decelerate. She looked up again just in time to have a building fill her vision.

Dawnstar flew them straight through an open window, then came to an abrupt stop. "What-?" Her question was cut off by the superheroine, who planted her in a metal chair whose restraints clicked into place the moment they registered her presence followed by a helmet, complete with thick goggles and headphones, sliding down to hold her head in place.

"What, what is the meaning of this?" Victoria reflexively tried to yank her arms out of the metal cuffs. This should have been easy, since there was more than enough room between them and her skin, but they wouldn't budge. Glancing at her right wrist, the Doctor noticed the distorted air. 'Ah, a force field. The helmet is blocking the hum.' It also meant she wouldn't escape out of this contraption using brute strength.

Looking back up, she noted Dawnstar still hadn't answered her. Not that she expected her to; what was going on was quite clear to the psychiatrist now that she'd had a moment to recover her wits. A door opened to the side and Victoria's eyes darted in that direction to see which supervillain had managed to get to Dawnstar.

But the woman padding into what Victoria now realized was a bedroom-the bed in front of her was a dead giveaway-wasn't wearing any sort of costume. She wasn't wearing anything at all!

'Another victim,' Victoria supposed as her mind began analyzing this new arrival. 'Hispanic, in her twenties, average height, fairly athletic build, looks healthy, attractive ... and familiar, I've seen her somewhere before. Eyes are dilated, cheeks flushed, nipples fully erect,' her eyes lowered a bit, 'fully aroused. Mind control with a prominent sexual component; that narrows down the list of who could have done this considerably.' Doctor Bell's attention returned to the woman's face, and her mind froze as she finally recognized who it was. "Carmen Artiles," she whispered. Kathy's roommate.

Kathy Leverine's apartment, Friday afternoon

There was no way to tell how much time had passed, but Victoria was getting slightly bored waiting for something to happen. Both Dawnstar and Carmen

had left the bedroom, closing the door behind them, leaving the psychiatrist alone. The only thing that had changed in all that time was the chair, which had molded itself into a more comfortable seat.

'Smart metal. Force fields restraints. This contraption must have cost a fortune.' Yet it had not been activated. Victoria ran through her exercises regardless, just in case. She visualized her defenses once more. Doctor Bell stood on the castle walls and looked out over the maze of thorn-bushes and the misty forests beyond. Within armored giants stood, guarding a pedestal with a book on it. Any intruder would think it a fitting symbol for the mind of a scholar; and dismiss the two simple doors beyond it. One of those lead to her mind, walking through the other would deposit you back in the forest. These visualizations were, of course, only metaphors for what Victoria had built up in years of study and training, but imaging this way made it easy to check them over and spot any attempts to subvert her mind.

Seeing that everything was in order, Doctor Bell returned to the topic of her captor's tactics. It made no sense to give Victoria this much time; they had to know she would be missed eventually. Of course, eventually might not be as fast as she had thought, certainly not before Carmen walked in.

Doctor Bell realized that, if this was Kathy's apartment, then her own assistant might be compromised. It shouldn't have been possible; Victoria had trained her to resist mind control. Yet if it was, rescue might be days away. She took a deep breath. 'Settle down. This might actually be a tactic to soften me up. Letting me worry and think myself into defeat before whoever did this even starts. And it's not going to be days. They'll need to use drugs to break me fast enough not to be missed. And the moment they enter my bloodstream, I'm safe.'

The identity of her abductor was an interesting distraction for all of five minutes. It could be Mindcracker, Professor Hypnos, or perhaps Mesmeri. Then again, Hypnos sold as many inventions as he used himself, and the list of people that would want a mole in the League was as tall as the Statue of Freedom. 'But I'm not going to let that happen. I will get out of this!'

The bedroom door she could barely see on her left swung open again, and in filed Carmen, Dawnstar, and Kathy. Of the three, only Dawnstar was wearing something. Doctor Bell refused to give voice to her dismay, and watched silently as Carmen and the superheroine got onto the bed while her assistant moved out of sight.

Kathy's roommate maneuvered Dawnstar to sit on the bed, her back leaning against the headboard, and lifted her breasts out of her costume. All of it in full view of Victoria, who, in turn, was barely paying attention to the show in front of her.

'I've got my answer as to why my kidnapper wanted to wait now. He was waiting for Kathy to get here so they could rub it in by having her start the device.' The lines of code rapidly scrolling down the goggles a few moments later, accompanied by white noise, confirmed her suspicion.

Her assistant padded back into view, crawled onto the bed and began licking and sucking on the breast that didn't have Carmen's lips fastened to it. 'Like that is going to distract me,' Victoria scoffed. Her attention was firmly fixed on dissecting whatever subliminals they must be pumping in.

She was poised for everything. Doctor Bell had encountered numerous techniques working for the League. And while it was impossible for even a trained mind like hers to stop them from filtering in, she could actually notice the process and resist. So her ears listened for snatches of speech in the buzz the earphones produced. Her eyes looked for patterns, yet never focused on one place too long, precisely to break any such pattern.

What Victoria hadn't expected was for a woman clad only in a white silken robe to appear out of thin air. She bestowed a small smile on Victoria. "Doctor Bell, I presume?"

--------------------------------------------------

"I have always wanted to say that," the woman joked. Her face was ... not familiar, exactly ... but the psychiatrist was certain she'd seen it somewhere before. Ignoring the woman's mirth, Victoria dug into her memories to put a name with the face, at last coming up with it: "Mesmeri."

"In the flesh," the supervillainess admitted with a little bow. Both the move and her words seemed to be designed to call attention to the fact that there was a lot of her on display. The black belt around her waist was only tied loosely, leaving her cleavage and most of her leg visible. The outfit was highly unusual, not so much because of what it was, but because of what it wasn't. The supervillainess shook her head ruefully. "Okay, not really. This is simply a sophisticated teleconference call."

"Augmented reality glasses," Victoria deduced.

"Exactly. It was not cheap, but as you must have noticed by now, I have not spared any expense for this meeting. I am an admirer of yours."

"An admirer?"

"Yes. I have read all of your articles, and I watched your performance in front of the congressional judicial committee live. I must admit, I was rather worried that you would succeed in getting the AMCA passed after hearing your testimony. It almost convinced me to support it!"

Victoria's lips pressed together as she was reminded of that failure. The Anti Mind Controller Act would have made the methods supervillains like Mesmeri used illegal. Because, oddly enough, right now, turning a woman into a sex-slave wasn't against the law. The best the justice system could do was charge Mesmeri for kidnapping, and that charge wasn't applicable in every case.

That was why Doctor Bell had championed the ACMA, only to see it defeated after better monied interests voiced their "concerns" about the "worryingly vague definitions in the act".

Her anger didn't go unnoticed. "I did not expect to have allies in Congress, either," Mesmeri admitted. "But while advertisement agencies try to sway people for money instead of fun, our methods really only differ in effectiveness. A good thing they recognized that fact as well, would you not agree?"

Doctor Bell really didn't want to talk about it, but she needed information and time. Which meant she had to keep the supervillainess talking, that shouldn't be too hard. "Is this display for my comfort as well?"

The other woman tilted her head, then looked in the direction of the bed. Victoria realized Mesmeri had eyes in the room. "Ah, those three. I suppose that is one of the reasons. But this is mainly to keep Dawnstar occupied while I focus on you. I have only had the chance to do some rudimentary work on her and I do not want to risk her saving the day. After this, however, I have plans for her. Those big tits would look even better with golden rings through her nipples, would you not agree?"

The psychiatrist's eyes were drawn back to the bed for a moment. 'I suppose that would have a certain aesthetic appeal; a contrast, given how conservative she is sexually.' Suspicious, Victoria checked her defenses. Had Mesmeri tried misdirection? But the woods were quiet, the maze of thorn-bushes empty. "So it was Carmen you got to first," she concluded.

Mesmeri, however, merely chuckled. "She was last, actually. I used her to check your chair was functioning properly. No, it was your assistant Kathy that made our meeting possible."

"Impossible." She'd trained Kathy herself. There was no way, no time, for the blonde to become compromised without Victoria noticing. And yet ... hadn't she thought something was off yesterday?

"Working for you exposed her to our world, and along the way she became intrigued by it," the supervillainess revealed. "Her search for material led her to one of my videos. Imagine my surprise when I found out the assistant of the renowned expert on mind control had walked straight into one of my old traps!"

Her eyes darted to the threesome on the bed again, focusing on the blond who was wiggling her butt in the air like some happy puppy. 'That bitch.' Victoria knew better than to voice that thought in present company. 'But she's getting an earful once this over,' the psychiatrist vowed. 'Such unprofessional, undisciplined, foolish behavior.'

"At first, I was focused on retrieving Sparkler so I used Kathy to get Dawnstar to watch one of my training videos. She thought it came from you," Mesmeri added. "But then, as we talked about the security arrangements you made, I realized what a golden opportunity this presented. The chance to best my nemesis."

Victoria was thrown. "Nemesis? I thought Metatron was your arch-enemy?" Nemesis was a very precise term in the study of supervillains, and referred to their near universal tendency to single out a single superhero as their main enemy. Often, that superhero had something in common with the supervillain, but the main criteria were a perceived equality and some sort of opposite trait. 'Mesmeri's as well-versed in psychology as I; she knows what the term means, and that I'm no superhero.'

Mesmeri shook her head. "I do enjoy thumbing my nose at that flaming bigot, but he is in no way my equal. The man is a fool, and why the League tolerates his intolerant ass I do not understand."

Once again, Victoria had to bite her tongue so as not to agree with Mesmeri. She hadn't expected that, but, when it came to the subject of the superhero Metatron, Doctor Bell had her own opinions. Metatron believed his powers came from God, and used his acts of heroism as a platform to advocate for a decidedly Old Testament view of the world. The League tolerated his shenanigans because he never broke the law, and he was not actually a member; he was merely an affiliate. The reasoning was that it was better to have an odd superhero than face a zealot supervillain. He operated out of the twin cities of Median City and Vanillaville-or Sodom and Gomorrah as Metatron called them-two places that saw the most of Mesmeri, as well. Given the superhero's views on gays, it was only natural for the two to clash a lot, and, up until now, Victoria had thought the supervillainess had returned the hostility with equal fervor.

"Freedom of speech is one of the rights the League defends," Victoria stated instead of her real feelings on the subject, "and Metatron has never broken the law." "Unlike some people," was left unsaid.

"And I am all in favor of freedom. I became Mesmeri precisely because I wanted to be free, something you have sought to put an end to. Metatron might have stopped my plans, captured my lovers, but he was not the one to take them away from me. That was you." All traces of mirth had disappeared.

"I healed them. Those women weren't your lovers, they were your victims." Attacking Mesmeri like this was a risk, but given how the conversation had gone so far, Victoria bet that the supervillainess would feel obliged to defend herself.

There was no anger in Mesmeri's expression, however. Instead, she relaxed and appeared to take a seat on the bed. Once more Doctor Bell's attention was drawn to the trio, where her assistant was still devouring Dawn's tit. "And that is why you are my nemesis."

Her check on her mental defenses was routine by now, but, still, nothing had changed. The mist in the forests was still thick; the maze of tall boxwood-hedges empty of anything but the nude statues she'd put there for decoration. Victoria's eyes lingered for a moment on one of those marble beauties, its body twisted in lust, her face raised up to the air in an expression of passion. 'Everything's in order.'

Mesmeri hadn't noticed what she'd done, naturally, and went on: "We both have a fascination for the human mind, a desire to know its secrets. Where we differ is in how we chose to express this."

"But you didn't really chose this life. It was the result of an accident when you were testing out an experimental mind-machine interface," Victoria countered.

"I am afraid I falsified those records," Mesmeri confessed.

"What?"

The supervillainess rolled her eyes. "I have never been stupid enough to use myself as a test-subject. Even if you ignore the obvious risks, the scientific validity of any data gathered in that way is dubious. Especially when it comes to such a subjective topic as the mind."