She knew there wasn't a lot of time.
It had been decades since she'd seen patients, as she'd moved on to research almost with the first opportunity, but she had a pretty good idea of the damage the bullet in her left side had done. She was certainly keenly aware that it was allowing the life to seep from her.
She could feel it in the stickiness of the blood on her once green blouse. She could smell it in the tinge of iron in the air in the car. She could feel it in the painful stitch that seemed to squeeze her chest from the inside out if she tried to breathe too deeply. It was in how her vision greyed at the edges when that stitch throbbed.
Amanda looked at herself in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were still sharp and a clear blue. She knew that she should be dead. She would have been had the men in dark suits had brought more friends, but what was a middle-aged research scientist going to do? Well, the result was a combination of her having a little warning that they were coming, having something to survive for, and being more than a little bit lucky.
She gave herself a sarcastic glare.
Yeah, really lucky, honey.
She winced as the metal inside her bit her again.
Just lucky enough, and sometimes that's all you get.
It'd be enough because she'd make sure it was. Amanda guessed that maybe she had a little bit of extra time to work with, it all depended on how long it would be before the dead suits were expected to report to their bosses. Others would come and then spend time trying to find something useful out her auxiliary lab. Good luck.
In an added bit of good news, driving around her main lab, she saw no hint of anything in a suit. If they'd known about the place they'd have hit it too by now. She parked the car two blocks away and down a side street in the industrial park. It was out of sight just enough to where anyone looking there would have to search a little bit. It was all about whatever time she could scrounge together now.
Fresh pain wracked her as she forced herself out of the car. She white-knuckled the car door and willed herself to not pass out. She scrunched her eyes shut and hissed through the pain, happy for it in a way because it meant that her body wasn't ready to shut down just yet.
She looked off in the distance, the warehouse in which she'd done her most important work and now all but lived seemed light years away. She pressed her hand into the pressure bandage that now covered her wound and, after a quick ramp up of the pain it dulled to something slightly more manageable.
One step at a time, honey.
And that's what her life became, an exercise in putting one foot in front of the other through the pain and the fear. She didn't want to die. All things being equal, who did? She knew that even now she could probably be rescued by a decent surgeon, but that wasn't something in her future.
But her work could go on and her work could be cared for, she just had to get to the lab. Amanda sort of shuffled forward on the asphalt, finding a rhythm between the pace and the pain that she could deal with. Indeed, that momentum was something her mind could embrace.
Amanda walked the left curve of the road to the small line of warehouses. She could make out hers by the fact that the third of the overhead lights was burned out. This was the perfect place to be. Illegal designer drug makers used the buildings. The mob did, too, for everything from gambling to 'interrogation.' For that alone it was ideal as the various groups kept everyone else out and keeping the majority of turf issues out of that part of town to keep the police away.
She knew some of those eyes were on her even now, and she hoped that maybe some of them would shoot first and ask questions later if more of the damn suits showed up. Seeing that would actually be something else to live for if she needed one more thing.
Finally. Finally, she was at the door. Now, not simply having to walk, she paused to reset her mind and start thinking again of what needed to be done. She fished through her once white coat to pull out the gray keycard for the door. Slipping it in the slot, she was met with a harsh buzz. "Fuck." Flipping the card the other way, it slid in with a soft beep.
Leaning into the door and fighting fresh pain pulsing through her side, she entered the expansive warehouse, seemingly empty, save the old bus parked parallel to the opposite wall. She'd never expected to have to make such a hasty getaway, but she'd planned for it anyway. Glad now to be able to use the walls to brace herself, Amanda made her way around the to the dummy fuse box in the corner. Flipping the correct switch a set of panels indistinguishable from the rest of the floor parted.
She smiled.
Sometimes the whole mad scientist thing is just fun.
She smiled wistfully.
I'm gonna miss it.
Amanda was supremely grateful for the railings for the stairs that she never remembered as quite so steep before this night. They took her well underground to the next door and, once she slipped her card into that slot another beep preceded the soft click of the lock as well as the metal-on-metal sound of the floor above her sliding back into place.
She stepped through the door and walked the six paces through the entryway to see her masterpieces.
A dozen young women were scattered around the living room in various stages of undress and play and it renewed the doctor more than a little to see them. She created for herself a harem with women of almost every body type and shade on the color palette. They all had their charms, from chocolate-hued Bambi who was lapping voraciously, nose buried in the dark brown fur of big, beautiful Candi who moaned and grunted to each flick of Bambi's tongue as Candi had her white, silk nightie bunched under her breasts.
Amanda lost herself for a moment in memories of Candi. She was so full and soft and she could drive a strap-on with such skill and power she could make a straight woman forget her need for a man. Amanda smiled remembering that she'd used that skill to help her skewer several of the minds in the room.
Her eyes then drifted to her right to see Tiffany with her black hair in a page boy cut and her brown eyes rolled so far back in her head that the pupils were almost invisible as the flesh of her ass on that tight dancer's body rippled as she rammed her half of a double-ended dildo into Crystal, a redhead with hair well down her back and a penchant for fitness that Mistress gave her that left her with a supremely toned, cream-skinned body.
All were perfect now. None of them still had the names they were born with, of course. Those were lost when the doctor had plucked them from their old lives because they had caught her eye in one way or another. All had been pared down to their essence; almost thoughtless, obedient and driven to fuck as they were driven to breathe.
Ordinarily she would have just snapped them to heel or joined the pile, but that was not to be today. She knew what had to be done, but she couldn't bring herself to ruin their moments.
Chloe, naked, biting her lip hard as she pumped a red jelly in and out of herself while thrashing through another orgasm, her mop of sandy blonde hair a sweaty mess, nipples proudly erect finally noticed. "Mistress! Oh my God, Mistress!" She could have burst into tears at just that moment and the shriek was enough to snap the others from their play. A couple of the girls did indeed burst into tears at the sight of Mistress.
