Vesta - Painworld (2 page)

‘So why would a half sister, who Marlon has never seen, be a lever?' Naylor demanded.

‘I never said he hadn't seen her,' Christina retorted. ‘Actually, when he was eighteen, Marlon started tracing his family tree, or what little there was of it, and he made contact with the girl through some agency. His parents had left him well provided for, financially at least, so he took off down under to meet the sister he never had. By all accounts, they hit it off really well.

‘The slightly mad genius streak must come from the father's side, because the sister is about as crazy as Marlon. She's made quite a name for herself as a sculptor, though it's not what I'd call art. She welds just about anything and everything together and gives her pieces titles like “Fall of Woman” and “Checkpoint Infinity”. Idiots with more money than taste pay hundreds of thousands for her work.' Naylor's jaw dropped even lower than it had upon learning of the existence of a relative in the first place.

‘You're talking about Clarissa Beaumont!' he exclaimed, a note of awe tingeing his voice. ‘She's the cookie Aussie bird...'

‘With the bloody great exhibition in Birmingham at the moment,' Christina finished the sentence for him. ‘Which is where she's staying at present. I have the hotel and the room number.'

‘But we can't kidnap someone as famous as Clarissa Beaumont,' Naylor almost shouted. ‘There'd be a fucking uproar they'd hear all the way back to Australia!' Christina was shaking her head.

‘I doubt it,' she said. ‘And so would you, if you knew as much about dear Clarissa as I've found out. She has a history of just taking off into the blue and then resurfacing in places like Nepal or Peru weeks, sometimes months later.'

‘But not in the middle of an exhibition,' Naylor persisted.

‘No? She disappeared for three months halfway through an exhibition in Los Angeles only last year, and halfway through a reception being given in her honour by her home town, she just upped and walked out. Everyone assumed she'd gone to the ladies, but the next they heard of her was when she appeared in New York with a load of scrap iron she called “The Feast of the Vampire King”. She said she'd been inspired halfway through the main course and just had to follow her muse.'

‘I seem to remember reading something along those lines,' Naylor admitted, thoughtfully. ‘The press call her the Iron Butterfly.'

‘Something to do with bats would be more appropriate,' Christina snapped back. ‘But at least it would work to our advantage. If Miss Scrap Iron melted away overnight, everyone would assume she was off communing with her arc welding kit and just sit back and wait for her to show up again in Outer Mongolia.'

‘I reckon you could be right,' Naylor said. He was smiling broadly now. ‘Perhaps it might be an idea if you had a couple of the team scout around Clarissa's hotel and see what can be worked out.'

‘Already done,' Christina smirked. ‘The hotel's not such a hot idea, but I've already set another plan in motion. We'll have ourselves a sculptress-in-residence in about forty-eight hours from now, unless I'm much mistaken.'

 

‘That was unbelievable!' Nadia gasped, opening her eyes and struggling to focus on the figure leaning over her. Marlon Vincent grinned, his balding pate reddening with pleasure as he began carefully detaching the tiny electrodes from the depths of Nadia's luxuriant mane of hair. The headband that ran around her forehead felt heavy when she tried to move her head and Marlon tut-tutted his disapproval.

‘Don't be so impatient,' he said. ‘These little filaments are extremely delicate and it takes forever to solder them back if they break. I'm working on an improved model, but it isn't finished yet.

‘Just lie back and relax. Apart from anything else, you'll feel a bit weak and dizzy for the next five minutes.' Nadia willed her muscles to go limp and lay, staring up at the ceiling, while Marlon fussed over her. Finally, he seemed satisfied and lifted the electronic coronet clear of her.

‘You can sit up now,' he said, placing the web of gadgetry carefully on the wheeled trolley beside the narrow bed upon which Nadia was lying. ‘But do it slowly, and don't panic if you suddenly feel nauseous.'

Gingerly, Nadia eased herself up onto her elbows and immediately retched. Her ears buzzed and the room wobbled before her eyes, but she refused to give in to it. She screwed her eyes shut again and shook her head, immediately regretting the action, for her stomach lurched violently and, for several seconds, she was certain she was going to be sick.

‘Steady now.' She felt Marlon's hands under her shoulders, supporting her and lifting her into a proper sitting position. Slowly, the nausea subsided and Nadia risked opening her eyes again. In front of her, the banks of myriad little lights danced their crazy patterns across the various screens and panels.

‘Bloody amazing!' she breathed. ‘Absolutely bloody amazing! I didn't think it would be at all like that. It was so realistic, it was just as though I was really there and it was really happening to me.'

‘In a way, you were - and it was,' Marlon said, the pride in his voice impossible to mistake. ‘After all, in the real world your body sends the impulses and the data your brain translates to enable you to experience the physical reality of your situation. VESTIBULE merely replaces the real world stimuli with the equivalent that she generates to order.

‘Therefore, my dear Nadia, you experience events in VESTIBULE's world exactly as you would experience events in your - and dare I use the word - normal world.' Nadia took in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds and then exhaled in a long sigh.

‘But I still can't quite believe how I felt,' she said. ‘I mean, not only was he so real, but so were the cuffs and chains, the rubber catsuit, and as for the whip...' She did not complete the sentence, simply shaking her head slowly. Marlon chuckled.

‘I know,' he said. ‘And I'll bet you can't wait to check in the mirror to make sure you aren't marked. Well, I can assure you you're not. You can't even feel the pain any more, can you?'

‘No, you're right,' Nadia said. The fact had not occurred to her, but it was true. One minute she had been there, bound and pilloried, her whole being a mass of pain, the hooded man's lashes cutting her back to ribbons and then - wham! Apart from the initial dizziness and sickness, nothing.

Tentatively, she swung her long legs over the side of the bed and lowered her stiletto heeled feet to the carpeted floor. She half expected her knees to buckle when she transferred her weight onto them, but surprisingly they held firm and she stood upright with no difficulty. She turned and looked back at the machine.

‘Why do you call this box of tricks VESTIBULE?' she asked. ‘Today is the first time I've heard you use that name.' Marlon looked slightly abashed.

‘Well, I only just thought it up,' he admitted. ‘It stands for Virtual Experience of Sexuality Targeted into Bondage Unusual Longings and Erotica. It's not that good, I know, but it was the best I could come up with.' He grinned. ‘Actually, I usually just call her VESTA for short.'

‘VESTA?' Nadia pursed her lips. ‘And why her? Why is she female?'

Marlon let out a little snort and turned to place a fatherly hand on his invention's gleaming stainless superstructure. ‘You don't think a male mind could handle all the things VESTA does, do you?' he chuckled. Nadia laughed herself. Marlon, she had to admit, probably had a good point there. But now came the serious part.

‘How many people did you say could use VESTA at the same time?' she asked.

Marlon turned back to face her and gave a shrug. ‘How long's a piece of string?' he countered. ‘She's got four passive terminals and two active ones at the moment, but that's just limited through financial pressures. As far as I know, theoretically there's no limit, although the physical factor of available space for the terminals themselves would come into it. But, if you had a large enough place, you could have a couple of dozen of both types of terminal.'

Nadia looked thoughtful. ‘Tell me again,' she said, slowly, ‘what's the difference between active and passive terminals?' She settled herself back to perch on the edge of the bed as Marlon explained.

‘Well, you were hooked up to a passive terminal, which means you have no control over the scenarios you experience, other than to react how you would in real life. Those scenarios are largely created and controlled by VESTA herself, but, if someone wants to hook into an active terminal, they can introduce elements at will. They can either participate in the events actively, or else they can just view everything, as though through a monitor.

‘As you know, my tests so far have been confined to the two young ladies you so generously assigned to me, plus my own semi-active participation. I daren't experience the passive side personally, at least not yet, just in case something were to go wrong and I couldn't retrieve myself, but it's safe enough on the active terminals. There's a failsafe password I can use and it shuts everything down immediately.'

‘Interesting.' Lydia stroked her chin with one elegantly manicured fingernail. ‘So, on a passive port you're at the mercy of the machine or someone on an active port, but on an active port you either just observe and tinker with things, or actually take part, but with the ability to change any developments which don't immediately take your fancy?'

Marlon nodded enthusiastically. ‘That about sums it up,' he agreed. ‘So, what do you think?'

Lydia wrinkled her nose. ‘I'll tell you what I think,' she said. ‘I think you're a genius.' Marlon's face and head were turning an even deeper hue now.

‘Thank you, fair lady,' he said. Lydia slowly stood up again and walked over to stand in front of VESTA.

‘Very Exciting Set of Toys for All,' she whispered, stroking the gleaming metal. ‘That's what you are, VESTA.' She looked over her shoulder at Marlon, and smiled.

‘Tell me,' she asked, ‘how long before you could have VESTA kitted out with a dozen of each terminal?'

‘It depends on how much money is available,' Marlon said.

‘How much would twelve of each cost?' Marlon thought for a few seconds and gave her a figure. Nadia nodded. ‘So, how long?'

Marlon grinned. ‘Six weeks?'

‘Four.'

‘Okay, you got it.'

 

Clarissa Beaumont may have inherited her genius and streak of occasional near insanity from the late father she shared in common with Marlon Vincent, but her looks had come, most definitely, from her maternal side.

Of above average height, she was slim, but with a sensational figure that would have ensured her a career in a completely different walk of life had she not been such a success in her chosen field. A wild mane of deep red hair framed her soft oval features, and her large green eyes and wide mouth had featured in the dreams of thousands of men the world over. Not that Clarissa had even considered the possibility of this, for, although she had lost her virginity in her teens and had not exactly starved herself of sexual activity, sex to her was just something to be enjoyed when the mood took her, in much the same way as she might enjoy a game of tennis when she fancied some fresh air and exercise. Had anyone intimated that Clarissa Beaumont might be the object of carnal desire, she would have stared at them wide-eyed and then giggled with disbelief.

Clarissa was an incurable giggler, though her laughter had a sort of musical beauty about it that ensured no one ever found her habit at all grating. In fact, everything about her endeared her to everybody she met, apart, that was, from her propensity to drop off the planet for weeks at a time, which caused her agent, George Mallory, to consider whether his best course might not be to chain her down somewhere and keep her on a leash whenever she ventured outdoors. He had ventured such an opinion to Clarissa herself, who had found the idea most amusing. In fact, her next piece featured a giant pair of handcuffs and a scold's bridle and was entitled “Fixed Point in a Changing World”.

Quite what the significance was of the three bicycle wheels, the two pram handles and the supermarket trolley cut in half along its length, no one was ever quite sure, but the Austrian merchant banker who handed over a cheque for ninety thousand pounds to George kept assuring everyone that he had acquired an absolute bargain.

He did not mention that he would have paid ten times that amount to possess the sculptress herself, possibly aware of her reputation for mixing bar-room language with bar-room physicality if she took exception to certain people and circumstances.

The Asian girl now sitting across the restaurant table from Clarissa was a little overdressed for the Australian girl's taste, preferring herself to spend most of her days in baggy jeans and ex-navy work-shirt, and usually wearing more formal blouses and pleated skirts only when she had to, or when good manners and a certain degree of lip service to convention dictated the polite alternative.

Her dusky dinner companion looked as if she had been poured into the tight satin sheath dress, and as if certain parts of her were trying to pour themselves back out again. About her throat she wore a wide choker of glittering rubies, and her fingers were laden with expensive rings. When she had first entered the room Clarissa found it hard to believe that anyone could stand, let alone walk, in the steepling, needle sharp heels she wore, but the woman had moved with an effortless grace, every male eye in the place riveted to the expanse of nylon clad thigh that the brief hem of her dress left on display.