Vindication, Pt. 5 of 11.

         A short time later, Miranda and Jack Bradford were gazing at their acquired prize.  They were in another secluded room in the basement of their mansion looking at Jolene, whom they now had in one of two juxtaposed cylindrical glass tanks that were initially intended for use to time travel before their spacious pool was built.  The captive African-American woman was no longer in the latex body suit and bag Miranda abducted her with, but rather, only in her own attractive brightly colored clothes as before then.  She beat her fists against the inside of the confinement and shouted at them to release her but was totally unheard.  

         Miranda gave her a sly smile and said, "I have just finished setting the alarm mechanism of this container to the security system above here.  If the rings are found and disturbed from their position, water will fill both cylinders and drown her soon afterward.  Isn't my handiwork simply genius?"

         "Of coarse, dear.  Very creative and devious too," he complemented.  "I admire your sense of foresight.  However, being that you mention water, are you ready to go into it again?"

         He turned to him as Jolene helplessly observed on.  "Again, I am ahead of you, Jack.  I am wearing my sexy dive suit under this dress already, and I have re-breather SCUBA gear setting beside the pool outside.  I suspect some attempt to infiltrate this place will come through there, and although I won't need the stuff underwater with this ring on, I want the other person to just think I do."

         "Great idea, Miranda.  This one here won't be able to warn anyone about your strategy either."

         "Right, and I will take a couple more of our smuggled items there for a truly surprise underwater attack.  You just make sure to hold down the 'fort' and maintain the system here.  When this is over, we will be unstoppable in conducting our vindication upon our . . . past world."  

         "Indeed," he replied and took her in his arms, with a tear emerging from his eye.  "Be careful out there too.  It's going to be a stormy night in more than one way."

         She virtually jumped up against him and delivered a long very passionate kiss.  Afterward, he gazed at her and said, "We have worked so hard and come so far together in this primitive more interesting time, Sweetheart.  There can be no margin for mistakes now more than ever.  Go now.  Show no mercy and be thorough."  

         "I will, Jack.  This one will make for a fine decoy to bring them here."

         Jolene watched Miranda depart the small room first.  After the opposite door shut, he turned and faced her again, giving forth a cold hateful expression, as delivering a curse for her interference in their nefarious business.  She stepped backward a bit before putting her hands against the glass and pleading "silently" for mercy and for him not to hurt Mark.  When a grin formed across his face next, she felt only more frightened and began to cry.  He left the room also but just after she slid down the side of her cell and sat on the smooth floor of it.  Then, she slammed her fist against the glass once and whimpered, "Dear Lord, don't let him win."

         Paige Everhart had always enjoyed the water for its relaxing soothing effects it had on her, but when she dove into Mark Bennett's pool with "Sarah" later, she was not concentrating on the gentle caresses it delivered with each downward stroke.  As her and the other taller shapely woman came toward the center of the pool along the bottom, shimmering glowing concentric rings of energy, yellowish in color, emanated from the center of it.  She, like Sarah, felt tingling over their skin and vibrations from the activated ambulite rings pulsate through their fingers and up their arms.  Each of them seemed to innately know what to do as a team, and the bottom of the pool appeared to fade away from dim gray to all dark.  The transference to the other place was incredible, magical to her, and both swam deeper through the larger thicker outward-moving rings as they came toward each other.  "Are we actually shrinking or what?" Paige pondered.  

         In the deeper dark water, all was silent and colder to portend the danger to come.  After the last glowing energy ring faded from sight some unknown distance away from and above them, they saw the faintly shimmering surface of the new body of water -- the large Bradford pool, overhead.  Sarah smiled and gave a thumbs-up sign before her, and they ascended while slowly expelling air through their noses.  Paige never felt any pressure in her chest either and felt more like flying as she buoyed up.  

         None of the surrounding underwater lights of the Bradford pool were on, but both were watched in their progress and attire.  Paige wore one of Jolene's one-piece lycra-spandex swimsuits, tighter with a short skirt and light-green in color, while Sarah had a shiny skintight silvery one on that was under her previously shed contemporary clothing.  Sexy.  Both were ideal for comfort and any necessary action.  Both wore no goggles or swim caps, but Sarah kept on her oval-rimmed glasses she had when they earlier met.  Paige still thought that they each should have brought another weapon but was well-informed about the abilities of the rings, seeing them work again firsthand.  

         The two women broke the surface of the water together, to be greeted by wind and thunder.  They treaded water and looked about briefly, before Sarah loudly said, "The lights in the residence are all off from here.  You get out first and look for a place to get inside.  I will follow from a distance.  It is best that we are not always together from now on, as Xavier and Minerva are probably expecting us."

         Paige sputtered, blew the remaining water out of her nose, and nodded as she knew the place better.  She took another breath and swam quickly to the side and got out of the pool.  She still looked back, and Sarah just pointed at her to move on, and she did, moving to and around rustling wind-blown bushes surrounding the area.  The slender dark-haired woman sidestroked toward the side of the pool over the deep end next, but before she reached the cement, the underwater pool lights suddenly came on.  She inhaled deep in surprise and was quickly pulled back under the surface.  Miranda made her initial attack.

         Sarah was taken toward the bottom of the pool by her crafty opponent by an ankle fast.  She could not shout a warning to her companion but did shake her leg free of her grip before it became a stronger embrace.  In doing so, she twisted in a semicircle and confronted her face-to-face.  Miranda was wearing an oval, vintage wide-vision swim mask, the rim of which gleamed in the new ambient light through the aqua-colored water, and the rapid hissing of her breathing through the SCUBA was heard close up.  Sarah reached for her regulator hose and mouthpiece, but her hand was intercepted first, followed by her other.  Miranda predicted her action correctly, her appearance making her believe she was the more vulnerable.  

         Both of the women rolled about side-to side as they tugged on each other's forearms and hands.  Miranda's face showed concentration during the struggle, while Sarah squinted through her large glasses in response to the chlorination in the water.  It was something she was not accustomed to in her time, perhaps another ploy of her enemy.  She pushed her down once and again, but she clung to her hands with great persistence as both buoyed up.  Miranda would not let her kick off the bottom and acted as a heavy aquatic spider in keeping her below the surface.  Also, she seized a greater opportunity when Sarah yanked her hands free too fast -- slipping off her ambulite power ring.  

         The priceless trinket was off Sarah'a finger in an instant but could not be held by Miranda.  The much taller woman brought her knee up into her lower abdomen fast, and she further kicked hard and away off of her, to send it free and sinking into oblivion.  Miranda coughed out the SCUBA regulator with a cloud of bubbles, and upon re-inserting it in her mouth, decided it was proper time to seal her fleeing opponent's fate.  

         Sarah did not immediately swim back up to the surface.  That was what she believed Miranda would expect.  Instead, she moved cautiously toward the opposite side of the pool.  When she was not promptly attacked again, she became suspicious that something was amiss and more.  When her lungs began to feel a little tight, she had an adrenalin rush upon realizing the power ring missing from her hand.  She was vulnerable now and immediately turned about horizontally to retrieve the item, where she thought it was lost.  New feelings also underscored her vulnerability too -- greater buoyancy, less coordination, and the squeezing pain of the water pressure against her eardrums and sinuses, not to mention confusion.  Was she four meters below the surface now or eight?  The lost ring appeared to distort the underwater reality.  

         The tightness increased in Sarah's chest, but she retained all her air.  She decided to ascend with no sign of Miranda ahead and to the sides.  It was during that process when she attacked from above and behind, employing previously positioned tactical devices.  Sarah heard only a couple of hisses of close breathing behind her before Miranda brought a large invisible clear bag down over her lovely rising body.  She bolted in surprise only after she was all inside it, while reaching up and contacting the thin strong plastic.  Then, she heard one pop, then another a few seconds later, followed by rapid fizzing.  When she looked down, Miranda was already sealing the flexible prison shut behind a growing milky white cloud that swiftly surrounded and engulfed her.  

         In almost as much time, the white cloud absorbed and displaced the water in the big bag and puffed it out rigid.  Before visibility was lost, Sarah saw Miranda wave, remove the regulator from her mouth, and smile in a sly manner at her, teasing her with bubbles closeup.  The fizzing continued, and Sarah thought the enclosure she hovered in would burst soon anyway.  From the outside, she looked invisible and enclosed in a large, inflated grayish pillow, and after she tested the side of it with a sharp kick, Miranda slapped the thing in response and brought the slimy colloidal substance of the cloud into action.  It abruptly became a firm, binding rubbery matrix to bring forth almost complete immobilization of her.

         Miranda inserted the regulator back into her mouth and thought, "Try to get out of THAT, bitch."  

         The fizzing stopped, and the bloated silvery-colored confinement sank to the smooth cement bottom fast, where it gently, almost gracefully, bounced and bobbed about.  No sounds came from the exotic trap, but its victim still stretched and pushed outward from within it.  Miranda watched the thing slip and slide down the smooth sloping bottom and finally come to rest near the drain.  It bent and swayed a few times there, as if it was breathing on its own, and Miranda thought, "Wow!  Such a fighter.  She either has the lungs of a harp seal or is re-breathing her own air.  Amazing what a few billion nannites and the proper chemistry can do."  

         Kicking with fins over the turgid rectangular structure, Miranda peered down at the illuminated side of it and saw Sarah's hands protruding some through the much denser medium, with all fingers frantically moving yet in vain attempts to tear at the surrounding external membrane.  By now, the substance had the consistency of thick silicone rubber and rendered even them useless.  The tight clinging film just stretched outward a little and retracted with each effort.  She easily pushed the imperiled woman's jiggling encasement aside and mentally said, "Now, the ring.  Where did that precious gem go to?  With two of them, our success at victory this night will be guaranteed."  

         Miranda moved along the bottom in a slow spiral from the outer surrounding vertical walls in her search, and she was surprised and disappointed within the next minute when it was found.  "Blast it," she thought and exhaled hard.  "The ambulite stone is gone!  That ring must have been host-specific or disintegrated on contact with the cement down here."

         What remained of the ring was only a much cheaper piece of gold alloy, which she inserted inside a small frontal pocket. Then, she slowly ascended to the surface of the pool.  She noticed the shiny pillow-shaped structure suddenly twitch, gently rock, and bulge some more on the way up and thought, "That's right, honey!  Just keep trying to escape down there and use all of your oxygen.  That special polymer will keep you contained well enough."  

         Miranda broke the surface of the water quietly in accordance with the circumstances and faintly heard Paige over the wind calling Sarah's name from somewhere quite nearby.  She pressed another button on her utility belt, close to where the nannite foam capsules were, and the underwater lights of the pool went back off.  Seconds later, Paige appeared in view from between the bushes off the adjacent side of the pool.  Lightning flashed in the oncoming shelf cloud, and while she was frightened by it, Miranda slipped her mask back on and went below the surface again, into more reliable darkness to await a second deadly opportunity.  Out of her sight even underwater, she heard her calls for Sarah and assumed she was much closer and would soon jump into the pool.  There was no second capture bag, but she clenched another oval-shaped canister on her belt that contained another futuristic offensive item.  When almost another minute passed without her entry into the pool, she went up and looked over the edge of the cement wall to see -- nothing.  Another plan of attack would have to be devised for her, and she climbed out of the pool to do what was eventually necessary.  


Continued to Pt. 6.