" Future Identity" by Nepenthe

[esercito sconfitto]

Future Identity

by Nepenthe
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The tall, statuesque blonde sat on the CitiTram, her personal messenger balanced on the palm of her hand, oblivious to her surroundings. She stared into space, as if in a trance. However, in her mind’s eye, images and information flowed across her vision, courtesy of the neural uplink trode that was attached to her right temple. She was receiving instructions from her handler, who was relaying the information to her from an office thousands of miles away.
Her career with Wesson-St John, One of the larger corporations on the East coast of the US had been stellar, and very eventful. Not that she, or the company she worked for, would ever have admitted to her employment with them. She was a new class of employee, a deniable asset, travelling the globe to carry out some of the less morally upright, but nonetheless necessary work that keeps a twenty-first century corporation at the top of its field. Her work was risky, but extremely well rewarded, and her employers had given her some surprising and extremely useful little tools of the trade in order for her to do her job.
She had arrived in London twenty-four hours ago, with her handler sending the final details of the job in hand closer to the right moment. Those details were now flowing across her vision, imprinting themselves into her memory for instant recall. She was to infiltrate the offices of Altmann International, an investment banking firm, known in the murkier circles of the corporate world for its rogue business practices. Altmann International had been handling accounts for some rather unscrupulous customers, some of whom had been using Altmann as a front to launch some sustained stock market raids against her employers. Her job was to gain the information that would lead to the identification of an employee within Wesson-St John who had been supplying confidential information to Altmann, enabling them to keep up the pressure on her employers on the world Stock Exchange.
Her first port of call was to an apartment in London’s docklands, the home of one Melissa Welsh, an employee of Altmann International who had access to their entire company data network, which was otherwise kept inaccessible to the net. She was to “persuade” Miss Welsh to take some unauthorised leave from work, and take her place in order to access the data network. And this was the first day of her assignment. She had prepared herself well for the day’s work, packing a shoulder bag with all the required tools of her trade.
She blinked as the transmission ended, reached up, and removed the trode from her temple, and closed the personal messenger, the trode cable retracting back into its housing with a soft click. She rose from her seat as the Cititram arrived at her destination, smoothing down her dark red skirt. The heels of her black patent leather (an expensive rarity these days) pumps clicked on the vinyl flooring of the tram as she walked to the door, and pressed the door control. The door slid open, and she stepped out into the crisp autumn air, drawing her long black coat around her. She walked through the station, flashing her travel pass at the automated ticket control, and walked out into the street. She walked the few blocks to the apartment building where her currently oblivious host resided, walked into the lobby, and caught an elevator up to the sixth floor. As the elevator came to a halt, and the doors slid open, she opened her shoulder bag, and reached into it, readying herself for her first meeting with Melissa Welsh.

Melissa was getting ready for work, fixing her makeup in front of her dresser mirror. She was a tall, attractive brunette in her mid-twenties, and her own career had been almost as mercurial as that of the woman she was about to encounter. Her acquired expertise with Altmann Internationals’ systems, along with a morally neutral stance, and an ambitious streak a mile wide, had seen her rise far in her relatively short time with the investment banking firm. She was in the middle of pulling her hair back into a high, tight ponytail, when her doorbell chimed. She rose from the dresser table, picked up her grey suit jacket, and walked to the door. Another signed delivery from the postal service. She would collect it on her way out.
She opened the door to her apartment, and paused, looking slightly surprised. The woman in front of her certainly was not a postal courier – too well dressed for a start. The woman had blonde hair, and a pair of piercing, steely blue eyes, and a figure that could only have come from an extensive exercise regime, or a lot of expensive body sculpt clinic work. She wore a long black coat, under which she wore a red blouse, a dark red skirt, glossy tan pantyhose, and black high heeled shoes. Melissa smiled politely, tilting her head to one side as she eyed the woman. “Hello...can I help you? I’m afraid that I’m just about to go out...”
The blonde nodded, not returning the smile. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Miss Welsh. Or can I call you Melissa?”
Melissa frowned. Did she know this woman? She couldn’t recall her. She was about to reply, when the woman withdrew her right hand from her shoulder bag. She was holding an object – one with a worrying resemblance to a gun! Melissa reacted, trying to slam the door closed, but not quickly enough. A sudden jolt hit her, and she immediately felt all of her muscles tense up, locking rigid with a painful sensation, like the worst cramp she had ever experienced. She tried to cry out, but all that left her lips was a strangled mewling sound. The woman in front of her dropped the object back into her bag, and shoved the door open, looking around to ensure that no-one had seen her. Melissa, unable to move more than a tiny amount, and caught off balance in her own strappy high heels, toppled over backward with a soft thud, landing on her back on the thick carpeting of her apartment floor.
The blonde woman stepped over the paralysed Melissa, and closed the door quickly but quietly behind her. She took a brisk look around, and then leaned forward, looking down at the helpless woman with an expression bordering on amusement.
“Melissa it is, then. My name isn’t important to you, but if you like, you can call me Samantha. It isn’t really my name, but one name is as good as another, isn’t it? Now then, let’s get you more comfortable, shall we?”
Without waiting for any attempt at a reply, she reached down, took hold of Melissa’s trembling ankles, and dragged her across the floor. Looking around to get her bearings, she pulled the still-immobilised woman into the bedroom. Dropping her legs, she walked around, hauled Melissa to her feet, and dumped her without any ceremony onto the bed, so that her legs and waist were left, dangling slightly over the edge, and then rolled her onto her stomach. She reached into her bag, and withdrew the gun-like object once more...

“I am going to release you now, Melissa. If you try anything silly, I will use this on you again, on a much higher setting. If I turn it up too high, it will cause irreparable nerve damage, possibly with fatal effects. Make a sound if you understand.” Melissa, fighting the painful, almost dizzying cramp in her body, grunted weakly. “Good.” Samantha responded. She pointed the device at the prone woman, and pressed a stud. Melissa felt the cramp fade almost immediately, flooding her with a sense of relief that did nothing to lessen her shock and fear.
Samantha nodded, apparently satisfied. “Now then, stand up. Don’t say a word. There’s nothing you can possibly say that will help you right now anyway.” Melissa reluctantly got to her feet, Samantha stepping back to put a little space between the two women, the device in her hand still trained on the pretty brunette. “Right, now I want you to do exactly as I tell you. Any deviating from my instructions and you will get another dose of this.” She waggled the device pointedly. “Nod if you understand.” Melissa nodded, fighting her panic. Was this woman here to rob her? Kill her? She had no idea.
Samantha gave a tight, humourless little smile. “I’m glad to find you so cooperative, Melissa. Firstly, I want you to undress. You will do so neatly, and without a word. Do it now.”
Melissa complied, removing her grey jacket, and laying it on the bed next to her. Dazed and definitely confused, she unzipped her matching skirt, and wriggled out of it, before stepping out of her heels. She slowly unbuttoned her crisp, white silk blouse with trembling fingers, and then removed the garment, laying it on top of the skirt. She stood in front of Samantha, bewildered and afraid, clad in her cream-coloured white lace body and glossy neutral tone pantyhose. She was about to remove the body, when Samantha shook her head. “Leave those on. I won’t need them. Now, I want you to turn around, and kneel on the bed, placing your hands behind your back, with the backs of your hands touching each other.” Melissa climbed onto the bed, balancing on her knees, with her back to her assailant, putting her hands behind her back as instructed. Samantha reached into her bag, and produced a blue strap, made of some kind of shiny, rubberised material, with a locking stud at each end. She stepped forward, wrapped the strap around her wrists, and locked the two ends together. Producing another strap, she repeated the process with Melissa’s nylon-sheathed ankles. She stepped back once more, and produced a small device that looked for all the world like the infra-red car lock control. “This is the fun part, she informed the frightened and confused brunette, as she activated the control. The two straps vibrated slightly, and then suddenly expanded, seemingly flowing up Melissa’s arms and legs, encasing her arms to just below her armpits, and her legs to mid-thigh. As the material settled, it contracted slightly, tightening its grip until Melissa’s limbs were completely immobilised in its unyielding grasp. The young woman gasped aloud at the constrictive sensation, losing her balance, and collapsing forward onto her stomach on the bed.
Samantha stepped forward, grasping Melissa by her hips, and rolled her onto her back, her encased arms trapped beneath her. “Gotta love the New York fetish scene,” She smirked down at the helpless woman. “Always keeping up with the latest technology.” Melissa stared up at her, far from amused herself. She was now faced with a third possibility – that instead of being robbed or killed, she had been targeted by some kind of insane lesbian pervert, not that the theory made any more sense to her bewildered mind.
Samantha sat Melissa up, tugging her to the edge of the bed, and stood in front of her. “Now then, I want you to look at me, and don’t move. When I say so, you will recite the words on the card that I will hold up for you.” She reached into her bag, and pulled out a piece of white laminated card, and held it up for Melissa to see. “Recite them now, clearly and calmly.”
To Melissa, the words on the card were meaningless, a collection of random sentences, followed by the English alphabet, and a series of numbers. As she recited them, trying to keep calm as instructed, Samantha stared at her intently, watching her face, looking into her eyes, listening as if entranced to every word the woman spoke. Unbeknownst to Melissa, Samantha was scanning her facial features, her retinal pattern, and her vocal patterns and style of speech. As Melissa finally fell silent, she looked on in concern as Samantha closed her eyes, seemingly in pain, an intense frown on her otherwise flawless and attractive face. When she opened her eyes again, Melissa was shocked beyond words to see that the woman’s eyes were now a perfect replica of her own!

Samantha shook her head slightly, working her mouth silently for a few seconds. Whatever opportunity Melissa might have had to scream for help was lost in the sheer surprise and fear at the recognition of her own eyes, staring out of another woman’s face. She got another terrifying shock when Samantha grinned, and said “Well done Melissa. That seems to have done the trick...” The American accent had disappeared, and Melissa was hearing her own voice, her own modulated “home-counties” accent. Samantha gave a soft chuckle at the look on the woman’s face. “Well now, since I have learned to speak for you, I won’t need to hear your voice again for a while. Open your mouth...”
Melissa, still reeling in shock at the inexplicable events that were overtaking her life this morning, opened her mouth meekly. Samantha put her bag down on the bed, and reached into it once more, retrieving something that looked like a perverse version of a baby’s dummy, made of the same blue rubberised material as the straps that had encased her arms and legs. Before the woman could change her mind, Samantha pushed the “Dummy” into her mouth, and pressed two recessed studs that sat on either side of its base with her thumb and forefinger. As she did so, the object in Melissa’s mouth expanded, flowing around her teeth, pressing her tongue down, and filling her mouth almost completely, sealing in any noises she might attempt to make, and rendering her mouth immobilised. Melissa uttered a futile squeal of fear and outrage, and Samantha grinned. The “Dummy” reduced the squeal to a near-inaudible mewling, impossible to hear unless someone was standing very close to her. Melissa’s eyes widened with terror at the realisation of just how helpless she was. Unable to do anything other than squirm in her bonds, and unable to make herself heard, she was now completely at the woman’s mercy.
Samantha decided to spare Melissa the final shock. Reaching into her bag, she withdrew a medical-grade compressed air syringe. Placing it tightly against the top of Melissa’s right arm, she triggered it. The syringe pumped its payload into the helpless woman, without leaving anything more than a slight red mark that faded rapidly. Melissa blinked a few times, a near-silenced moan in her throat at her predicament, and then she fell back, the fast-acting sedative quickly putting the young executive into a deep sleep. Samantha rolled her onto the bed, and tugged her bedclothes over to cover her. As she turned away, she began the final process of assimilation. Wincing at the slight pain caused by the implanted facial moulding system that had replaced much of the musculature in her face, she began stripping out of her own clothing, and re-dressing in Melissa’s discarded outfit. By the time she had finished dressing herself, the transformation was complete. Melissa Welsh, a perfect replica of the drugged woman lying in the bed, smiled, putting her hair up into a tight ponytail, before walking into the living room to call for a taxi to work. She had a full day at the office ahead of her...

The woman who now wore the face and identity of Melissa Welsh checked herself in her compact mirror as the cab pulled up at the offices of Altmann International. She slotted her payment card through the automated payment transactor in the cab, the amount instantly debited from the unfortunate Miss Welsh’s account. She wondered for a moment if Melissa would be able to claim this one back as expenses; probably not, she thought to herself with a tight smile. She picked up the handbag that she had taken from the apartment, now filled with a few of her own little tools of the trade, as well as a few more mundane items, and got out of the cab, thanking the driver politely.
Melissa had her own office, up on the fifth floor, small, but nonetheless a little symbol of the young executives’ worth in a firm where most of the staff worked in an open plan office. She nodded a few greetings to Melissa’s co-workers as she walked into the office, and sat down. She pressed the terminal activation stud on the smooth desk top, and the monitor screen, a thin rectangle of touch-sensitive black material slid up from its housing, flush with the surface of the desk. She began by checking emails, and the daily appointments list. To her satisfaction, Melissa had been planning a quiet day, with an early finish, the afternoon being marked for an afternoon at an exclusive spa-gym that the woman patronised. This suited Samantha just fine – she had no intention of hanging around for long. Although her stolen look and identity was practically perfect, she wasn’t going to risk her luck by making this a matinee performance.
So she whiled away the time by going through the open and ongoing work in Melissa’s project list, and had to admit that despite herself, she had to admit that this girl was worth a lot to Altmann. She made a mental note to suggest the acquisition of Miss Welsh as a personnel asset to Wesson-St John in the future, especially if this little debacle led to the young woman losing her job here. Never let it be said that she didn’t take care of her subjects, one way or another, she smiled to herself. She decided that it was time to get to work, and began to access the files she required. A list of Altmann International’s accounts with the suspect companies in question, and their list of contacts in respect of their work. She compared the list with another, a list of suspected employees within her own sponsor company, which she had uploaded to her memory that morning from her handler. Her eyes lit up as she hit pay dirt. A junior member of Wesson St John’s executive board had been listed. Following the data trail, she uploaded the information by visual record, storing the data in her memory. It wasn’t as perfect as a direct upload, and she would have to provide copies of the documents as verification, before her sponsors would be able to act upon the evidence she was providing. Finally, she found the goldmine she was seeking; a list of payments to the suspect employee, listed as “Payments for independent freelance consultations”, a nice little euphemism for industrial espionage. She reached down into her handbag, and withdrew a small data-storage key, which she slotted into the desktop. She began copying the files across, using a series of access codes that she had been provided with. Using this information, the rogue executive within Wesson St John would soon be out of his office, and depending on how vengeful her sponsors were feeling, might be finding himself fleeing a long way to escape their wrath.
She was shaken from her thoughts as a window opened on the monitor screen. The face of a woman, dark-haired, with somewhat severe but classically beautiful features, looked at her from out of the screen. Samantha recognised her immediately, from the information her handler had provided. This was Angela Prince, one of Altmann’s executive managers, about as high up the company ladder as Melissa Prince was liable to encounter. In her early forties, she had carved a career for herself in Altmann International, largely by way of a trail of destroyed careers, and had a reputation as a hard-nosed ***** that had spread well beyond her own personal professional realm. Samantha imagined that Melissa, if she had been here in person, would have been extremely worried by this sudden appearance.
“Melissa, can you come up to my office please? You have copied some files that are of interest to me, and I’d like to see the project that you are working on that would require you accessing them.”
Samantha realised that ignoring or refusing the request would lead to some difficult repercussions, possibly involving company security. So she simply nodded deferentially. “I’ll be right up, Ms Prince.”
She closed down the terminal, ejecting the data-storage key from the desktop, and slipping it back into her bag, before picking it up, slipping Melissa’s jacket back on, and left the office, walking across to the elevator. A quick check of her stored memory, told her where to go, and she composed herself in the elevator as it rose. She already had a plan of action in her mind. Angela Prince might be a ***** in the corporate office world, but she was about to find out that there were bigger *****es than herself out there...

The elevator arrived on the tenth floor with a soft chime. Samantha walked out of the elevator, finding herself in a small ante-room office, where a secretary sat at a desk. “Ms Prince asked me to come up?” She asked. The secretary nodded, smiled, and pressed the button on her intercom. “Melissa Welsh is here to see you.” There was a short pause, and then the voice at the other end responded. “Send her in, Janine.”
The secretary nodded, switched off the intercom, and gestured to the door. “She’s expecting you. Go on in.” Melissa gave the woman a tight smile, and opened the door, walking into Angela’s office. As she opened the door, an imperious, but well-modulated voice rang out. “Janine, I want privacy for this meeting. Divert all my calls, and take an early lunch, will you?” Out of the corner of her eye, Samantha saw the secretary press some keys on her keyboard, and get up from her desk, as she closed the office door behind her. “Come and sit down, Melissa.” The voice chimed again, with an accent that brought cut crystal to mind.
Angela rose from her desk as Melissa walked across the carpeted floor, glancing around. The office was spacious, dominated by a huge floor to ceiling window down one side, giving a panoramic view across the city skyline. The remaining walls were covered with paintings, from the current cutting edge artists, each one worth more than an executive like Melissa would earn in a decade. Angela’s desk, a crafted slab of mottled grey marble and dark wood, sat on one side, and a suite of leather armchairs and two couches sat opposite, set around a low black table, on which was currently displayed a Japanese imported holographic sculpture. Behind the suite of chairs was a small bar, and in the corner, facing toward the huge window, was an exercise bike.
Samantha walked toward Angela, who gestured toward the suite of leather furniture. “Over here, my dear. Let’s keep this informal.” Samantha nodded, smiled, and walked to one of the armchairs, sitting down slowly and smoothing out her skirt as she did so. Angela walked up alongside her, and looked down at her, a slight smile on her face. “I see you have an early day today, so I won’t keep you long. I noted that you accessed files relating to our handling the accounts regarding clients with an interest in Wesson St John. I have a direct interest in those accounts, so they flagged up for me as soon as you opened them. I’m curious as to why you are looking at them. Care to enlighten me, dear?”
Samantha looked up at the older woman, head tilted slightly to one side, appearing to pay great attention to the executive manager’s words. In fact, she was paying full attention to every syllable, every nuance of speech, and her eyes were scanning the woman’s face. She smiled in response, and nodded.
“It came to my attention that you had an interest in those files a little while back. I was cross-referencing the files as a result of a few names on the contact list cropping up on a project of my own, involving Nakamura Financial Services’ London branch...”
Angela Prince raised an eyebrow, and smiled a little more. She leaned forward, and gently placed her hands on Samantha’s shoulders, giving them a little squeeze. There was something in the touch that suggested that Melissa Welsh hadn’t simply got where she was by efficiency and hard work. Samantha kept her expression the same, not letting any hint of surprise or confusion show.
“Melissa dear... I know that you have a great deal of ambition and drive. I know that you desire a much higher place within the company than you currently occupy. That’s why I took such an interest in you. But you must understand that I cannot have you simply darting off on your own to chase pet projects, without clearing them with me first. Nakamura Financial Services? You’ve been keeping that one very quiet, I must say...” Angela leaned in closer, Samantha could feel the brush of her coppery tinged brunette hair, and smell Angela’s perfume. There was doubt at all in her mind now that Melissa had been a pet project of Prince’s own, in more ways than one. The intimacy also gave her another shot of positive information – there was no way that Angela Prince was having this office watched or listened into, not if she was prepared to behave like this.
She allowed her smile to soften somewhat, and let her cheek brush against Angela’s. “I didn’t want to tell you about it until I was sure that it was going to go somewhere...” She murmured softly. “But now that you have found me out... would it be okay to have a little drink? Then I will fill you in on all the gory details...”

Angela smiled, and straightened up. “But of course, my dear... I want to hear all about it. I want to see how my favourite rising star has been using her well-learned skills.” She walked across to the bar, and bent over to open the cupboard beneath it. As she did so, Samantha drew her neural inhibitor from the handbag. It looked enough like a gun to do the job, she thought as she rose from the couch, adjusting the setting on the weapon.
Angela straightened up, holding two glasses, and turned, to see the young woman standing close behind her, and pointing a weapon of some sort at her. She frowned, and raised an eyebrow.
“Very funny, I don’t think. Put that down Melissa, and stop ...”
She got no further than that. Samantha activated the weapon, and Angela gasped aloud, feeling the appalling cramp seizing her muscles. Her fingers spasmed, and the two glasses landed on the soft carpet with a thump. Her pose was balanced enough that she didn’t fall herself, as Melissa had done. She remained standing, locked rigid, with an expression of pained surprise on her face, her body on fire from the cramping pains in her muscles. Samantha walked over to her, carefully nudging the glasses away with her foot. She circled the paralysed woman, inspecting her from every angle. “Not bad, I must say. And we are a good match for build and figure...maybe even shoe size...” She deliberately let her accent change, enjoying the shocked look in Angela’s eyes. She picked the woman up, wrapping her arms around her waist, and walked her back to one of the couches, dumping her down upon it. Angela uttered a pained, surprised gurgle as she landed on her back, staring up at the woman in front of her.
Samantha wasted little time. She began methodically stripping Angela, starting with her jewellery, a matching set of understated gold earrings and a simple gold chain necklace. Then her white silk blouse, moving the motionless woman’s arms, each move causing Angela to groan with discomfort. Her pale leather, high heeled shoes came next, followed by her light grey skirt, and white satin slip. Beneath, she wore a matching ivory satin and lace bra and matching panties, with smoke-grey, seamed stockings. Samantha eyed the woman with a cynical grin. “Very nice... plans for Melissa, after her spa appointment? I’m afraid she’ll have to pass on that. She’s not going to be available for a day or two.”
Angela answered with a pained and rather angry growl as she stared up at her captress, her pale blue eyes flashing with helpless rage. She had no idea who this arrogant woman truly was, but she was adamant that she was going to pay for laying hands on her like this. To add to her indignation, Samantha simply smirked, leaned forward, and made a great play of squeezing the older woman’s breasts. “Now these can’t be real...nice sculpt job though. I can see why Melissa was happy to get between the sheets with you to work her way up the ladder.” She picked the woman up once more, grasping her under her arms, and looked around the room. She grinned to herself, and then dragged Angela across to the exercise bike. She propped the helpless and groaning woman against it, retrieved her handbag, and withdrew a roll of bright red tape. Angela Prince’s eyes widened as she watched Samantha approach. “Uhnnn...nrggghh...” She gurgled angrily as she was moved again, her muscles aching terribly, as Samantha, with a mischievous smirk, undid her bra and removed it, before tugging off her matching panties, before positioning the helpless woman so that she straddled the saddle of the fitness machine. Then, in front of her paralysed prey, she stripped out of her stolen clothing, down to her own lingerie, and walked across to try one of Angela’s high heels on for size. “Perfect match...” She commented, taking the shoe off again, and crossing back to the immobilised executive. She picked up Angela’s discarded panties, balled them up, and stuffed them into the crotch of her own recently vacated pantyhose. Forcing Angela’s mouth open, she stuffed the bundled fabric into the older woman’s mouth, winding the legs of the hose around her face, and tying them behind her head. Angela could only moan in extreme discomfort as her mouth was forced open and well filled, her cheeks now bulging.

Samantha pulled Angela’s hands behind her, taping her wrists tightly together in a reverse prayer position. She finally relented, and deactivated the neural inhibitor. Angela sagged forward with a groan of relief, her head leaning against the control panel of the bike. Before she could recover, Samantha rolled down her stockings and removed them, leaving the gagged and bound woman completely naked. She then bullied the older woman into placing her feet into the pedal stirrups of the exercise bike, and taped them tightly in place. Then, she used another length of tape to tightly secure the executives’ upper arms. Another length of tape secured her bound wrists to the back of the saddle, forcing Angela into a strict, upright position.
Leaving the helpless woman to squirm and struggle, she walked across to Angela’s desk, and picked her jacket up from where it hung over the back of her chair. As she did so, she noticed her personal messenger on the desk. She grinned picked it up, and tested it. Yes, it possessed a silent mode, buzzing in her hand. She set the alarm on it, so that it would buzz and vibrate for a minute at a time, with a five second interval. Walking back across to the exercise bike, she slowly and deliberately pushed the messenger between the bound woman’s thighs, so that it was trapped between her sex, and the saddle of the bike. She then used several turns of the roll of tape, winding it over the tops of Angela’s thighs, and beneath the saddle, ensuring that Angela would have no way of lessening her contact with the buzzing messenger. Angela responded to the first buzz with an unladylike yelp of surprise, squirming her hips helplessly on the saddle. Samantha grinned at her. “Just so you don’t get bored...” She whispered in the helpless woman’s ear, reaching over to turn on the exercise bike, putting it on a brisk pace. Angela’s legs, secured to the pedals began to bicycle, the arrogant woman reduced to a muffled whimpering as the messenger continued its programmed task of vibrating furiously against her sex.
Samantha now busied herself with dressing in Angela’s clothing and jewellery, taking great care with the details. She then transferred her own possessions into Angela’s own shoulder bag. Finally, she walked across to the large desk again, activated the terminal, and fired a short, clipped message to her secretary; Early day, forward my calls and emails. I have my messenger, so buzz me when you forward anything. That should add a little extra surprise for the *****, she thought to herself.
Finally, she walked back across to the pedalling, groaning, and furious woman. “Word of advice for you...Never **** with Wesson St john again. They have sharper teeth than you realise...” And with that, in front of the shocked woman, she activated her assimilation system. Within a few moments, Angela Prince was staring at herself, a near-perfect duplicate, right down to eye and hair colour. Samantha leaned forward, with a far from friendly smile on her face. “I wouldn’t make long term plans, if I were you. Your little personal project is going to make you a deniable asset to Altmann, and you will be very lucky to avoid some serious jail time. Maybe Melissa will take you in... Assuming she still wants a piece of you when you aren’t controlling her career...”
The sound of her own voice coming from this woman’s lips was too much. Angela Prince, grade A corporate *****, fainted, her legs still pedalling away for all they were worth.
If she had still been conscious, she would have seen the lights turned off in her office, and heard the click of the office door being locked, leaving her alone.
Samantha emerged from the elevator, pulling Angela’s car keys from her bag. She looked up to see the secretary, Janine walking toward her from the direction of the sub-level car park. She gave the young woman a magnanimous smile. “Janine. I have a spa appointment this afternoon. Take the rest of the day. I did leave a message for you, but it will keep. Before you go, make sure that my office is not to be disturbed.” The secretary beamed and nodded. “Yes, Ms Prince. I’ll see to it”
Samantha gave her another smile, and a little nod, as she headed for the car park. “This job isn’t without its perks, you know.”
Whether she meant Angelas’ job, or her own, was anyone’s guess...


THE END.