Buying the Virgin

CHARLOTTE

Out on the street, amid the stream of traffic, again, still following my general trajectory, I take all the most visible routes. I want to appear to be heading out to my university, but I choose routes that are heavily watched and be-camera’d.

My phone rings, flashing up with my Master’s avatar. I don’t answer, letting it ring off, then when a few seconds later there is the bing of a left message, I tap it onto speakerphone.

As I imagined, my Master is not happy with me. He is containing his temper, but I can hear the suppressed fury in his voice. I smile to myself as he says that, if I am uncomfortable speaking with him, I should phone Michael back.

Think I’ll pass on that… We can talk when this is over….

Guess I’ll not be sitting down for a while….

Outside the City, I join the main highway traffic, watching carefully in my mirrors for any sign of pursuit.

My phone rings again, and again. Repeated bleeps of messages arriving become irritating. I would turn the phone off, but right now, it is fulfilling a valuable function: tracking me, reporting back as to where I am.

I finger the locket I am wearing, another tracer now inserted inside. Perhaps it will be discovered, perhaps not. I have others…

In the rear-view mirror, I see the anticipated ‘action’. A car is gaining on the queue of traffic behind me, weaving between lanes as it draws closer. A series of cars are overtaking me on the outer lane, but two flank me, slightly to the fore and aft, and then slow down, matching my speed, blocking my exit to that lane.

On the inner lane, another car is hanging behind me, blocking the passage of any other vehicles that try to ‘undertake’ me.

I swallow hard. I did this entirely of my own choosing, and now the reality is upon me.

Go for broke.

I must make this look realistic. Slamming my foot down on the gas, I pull away with all the acceleration my little car can muster. She’s sweet and small, and not intended for this treatment. Foot hard to the floor, I swerve to the inside to undertake the car ahead of me, only to find myself blocked by another, slower car, immediately before me. The blocker car behind me immediately pulls up close, tail-gating me; another exit blocked.

Horns blare around me, as ‘normal’ traffic is bullied out of the way. Drivers speed up, pulling away from this obvious trouble spot, doubtless happy to be on a journey elsewhere. In under a minute I am blocked front, back and outside by vehicles. Another pulls up on my inside, blocking my possible exit as we pass a junction.

As the next junction draws close, the inside vehicle withdraws, and I am herded onto the exit.

We’re on a wild route here. In all directions, the roads lead deep into the wilderness. Very few people use this road.

Still being forced along at an uncomfortable speed, we are now some miles off the main highway. The car ahead of me abruptly slows, forcing me to stop.

won’t last more than a few seconds. Nonetheless, I start violently when a gunshot blows apart my driver’s side door

along with the tracker they carry. One of my captors gets in and speeds

her bag. Dump it.

to the ground, stamped on, repeatedly,

by men who clearly do not mean me well, I can only hope that the plans I laid in preparation are working as

*****

MICHAEL

Will. Yes?” His face falls. “Right, thanks for letting me

signal is. They’ve found her bag, simply tossed into the scrub. It had one of the tracers in there, stitched into the lining.

“The car?”

two sets of diverging trails. I think we

tracers work

cheeks. “GPS, in theory, should work everywhere there’s an open sky, but it can be blocked. The question is, will it occur to them that she’s wearing tracers. If they get

what blocks

a computer. Tinfoil will do it, physically blocking the signal. A metal-roofed garage… sometimes even a tinted windscreen; metal incorporated into the glass…. At a push, wet leaves under tree

dots

Ah, Will. Any more? Yes? Okay. I’ll pass it along.” He clicks his phone off. “They’ve found the car. It was parked up in a scrap dealer’s lot, queued to go through the crusher. One of the tracers

watching three dots crawl over screens when, suddenly, with no warning, they blink

We have lost Charlotte.

*****

CHARLOTTE

conspicuous about it. I am inside, in effect, a tin box.

signal

Almost certainly, no….

cars twice, and now I am locked in the back of a truck. I still have three tracers with me, all

Michael, where are you? Are you looking for

be taken from the truck to.... who-knows-where? Perhaps

may be brief. Will someone

and done, despite my anxiety, I need

give them trouble. Don’t make them tie you up. Keep your hands

guarded. A man with a gun and an unfriendly expression sits by the tailgate, blocking my exit. However, since the entire point of the exercise is that I be taken to Beth, I have