The helicopter landed and everyone got out. The women looked around and found they were in what appeared to be a makeshift camp. In the middle of the camp Tony, Janice, and Dwight were waiting for them.
Janice did the talking. "Welcome ladies to your home for the next week. I know the ambience leaves something to be desired, but we only had a couple of weeks to put this together. Let me give you a tour."
"Over here are your rooms." Janice was pointing to a line of tents over to the side. "Each of you has your own tent, and they are fairly nice. Each one has a nice sized bed and plenty of storage space. You have lighting and even a small TV."
As she continued speaking, Janice was walking past their quarters. "Out here are the bathrooms. As you can see there are showers here as well. Over this way, "Janice continued to both speak and walk, "is the mess area. Three meals will be served each day, although today we will start with lunch. The food is actually quite good, the chef from the casino is cooking."
"Please understand, the only places on this island where you are allowed privacy is in this area and only in those places that have doors. You will notice the mess area, your tents, and the bathrooms have doors. The showers do not."
"The competition area is about a mile over that hill." Janice was pointing towards a small hill that was obviously due east, given where the sun was. "It is now a bit after 9 in the morning. You ladies have the next few hours to get settled. Lunch is served at noon and a car will be here to pick you up about 1:00. Be ready and be in uniform."
"Where are we?" Ruth couldn't help asking.
Janice started to answer, but Tony spoke up first.
"Ruth, you are on a small island my family owns. We've never really done anything with it, we just use it for fishing and camping and to get away."
"Everything you see here was just build in the last two weeks. Dwight here was nice enough to instruct my people in how to quickly create a military style camp. Although I am guessing that the facilities here are a bit nicer than standard military issue."
"So, as Janice said, take the next couple of hours to settle in. Then get something to eat and we will see you this afternoon." With that, Janice, Tony, and Dwight got into a car and drove off.
"What now?" Lee was the one asking. "What if we just left?"
"How would we do that, exactly?" Ruth asked with a sneer. "We're on an island, Colonel. Do you see a road leaving it? For that matter, which direction is the mainland? I don't know about you, but I haven't a clue where this island is."
Lee and others just stood there silently.
"Look we said we would do this, and we will. So let's do as she said and settle in. Personally, I'd like to unpack." Ruth started walking over to the closest tent as she finished talking. She opened the door, went inside, and didn't look back to see what any of the others were doing. She just didn't care."
Ruth had been pretty sure Janice was being sarcastic when she had said the tents were nice, but it turned out she was telling the truth. They were quite large, with a full-sized bed. There were dressers and night stands, and even a closet to hang clothes in. Sure enough, there even was a TV. Ruth did wonder what type of reception they got out in the middle of nowhere.
For the rest of the morning, the ladies unpacked. They hung up their clothes and stored their personal items. They would have loved to change out of their uniforms into something more comfortable, but that wasn't allowed.
At noon, they made their way to the mess tent. They had half expected Janice and the others to be there, but apparently they ate somewhere else. Inside the tent was one large table that easily sat five people.
When they sat down, a middle-aged Asian man made his way over to the table. He was carrying a tray of food and he served a plate to each woman. Ruth tried talking to him, but it quickly became obvious that he did not speak any English. Well, they certainly wouldn't be getting any information from him.
The other thing Janice had told the truth about was the food. This was hardly military rations. Lunch consisted of beef in some type of aromatic wine sauce with mashed potatoes. There were also some mixed roasted vegetables that smelled delightfully of garlic. Ruth had expected to be too nervous to eat, but the aroma quickly changed her mind.
After lunch, reality set in. It was already a quarter to one. The only thing the girls could think about was what was coming. So, they just sat at the table waiting for their ride.
Right on time, a car pulled into camp. Actually, it was a limo. The five women easily fit inside and the car took off east.
They hadn't been able to see it earlier when they were looking into the sun, but there was a road going over the hill. It was just made of gravel, but the car went over it without any trouble. In less than 5 minutes the car stopped again.
When they got out of the car, the women found themselves in the middle of a clearing. It was square, and it was surrounded by bleachers. Nothing fancy, they looked more like the kind of seats you might see at a high school football game. There were four sets of seats, one on each side, with large open spaces at the corners. The car had obviously driven through one of those spaces.
In the center of the area stood a large platform stage. On top of the platform, Janice was waiting for them and waving them over.
As she walked through the area, Ruth took a closer look. The square was probably 50 yards or so on a side, and the bleachers were quite large. Each set probably sat at least 1000 people, probably considerably more. Aside from that, the area was totally empty. Ruth was surprised by that. Given what they had been through before, she had been expecting all sorts of unpleasant gadgets.
When they reached the stage, the women could see a set of stairs inset into the platform. They made their way up, and found the stage was also pretty bare. There were a few seats, and a couple of metal bars set at about waist height. Ruth figured a woman could easily be bent over one of those bars. A closer look revealed the bars to be set into some type of round platform. It was barely raised off the stage, but it appeared that it could spin.
"Good afternoon ladies, welcome to our little arena. I'm sorry we couldn't arrange anything fancier, but we only had a couple of weeks. Now let me explain how this will work."
"These Olympics, as we are calling them, will consist of 7 events and a finale. Each day, starting tomorrow, there will be 2 events. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. As you can see, given the limited amount of time we had, there are no lights here. So, we have to finish up before dark."
"Friday, the last regular event will be in the morning with the finale that afternoon. Each morning's event will start at 9:30, with the afternoon event beginning at 2:30."
"The winner of each event gets 10 points. Second place gets 5 points, 3rd place 2 points, and 4th place gets nothing but the joy of competing."
"The finale will be an amazing obstacle course. I'm sure you ladies can only imagine what we will have set up. The winner of the finale is the winner of the Olympics."
