At the Academy 5: Fierce Competition

continues from part 4

Part 5: Fierce Competition

Roger surveyed the hotel lobby from the mezzanine above. He knew what he was looking for, but needed to be sure that he didn't appear to actually be looking. If his information was right, Amy and one of her partners in crime would be making their way across the lobby towards the West entrance at any moment now. He checked his watch, wondering if he had the timeline wrong in his head. As he did so, he allowed himself a moment to replay the events of the past week.

Andrea had taken full advantage of the predicament she's managed to put him in the holosuite. She had freed his head and removed the gag after they'd made love, but it left him firmly attached to the board otherwise. Although he had tried to ask her why she was there, she'd stopped him with a long and passionate kiss. Then she started talking without waiting for him to actually ask.

"I felt really bad about leaving you behind when you were sick," she said as she put her bra and panties back on, "but the medical staff told me that there was no real way to know when you would recover from that silly virus. The instructors told me I should take advantage of my leave while I had it, so that's what I did."

Apparently the rocks underneath Roger were the right height for her to sit on the ground and lean against his chest comfortably. So she had done so while she had continued talking. "But as soon as I got home I started looking to see if there was a way for me to get back early. Six weeks is a long time to be stuck on this station with nobody but the maintenance crew and the remainder of the medical staff around to keep you company. And even though I had to cut my leave short by three weeks, I decided you were worth that effort and inconvenience."

She smiled devilishly as she finished her sentence and haphazardly ran a hand over Roger's body. He smiled in return, and the two of them drifted off into the idle chatter of lovers reunited.

The week that followed had been a welcome change. Even though Andrea was the only other cadet to have returned, the two of them began falling in to something like their regular routine at the Academy. Up early (even though there were no classes), a good workout (even though their first physical wouldn't happen for three weeks), some study to go over last semester's critical courses (which they wouldn't need for at least another week), and then… That's where the routine had ended – without coursework, tests, simulated missions, or any other formal activities the two had the luxury of a time alone together. The availability of the holosuites hadn't hurt either. Andrea had selected some places that they had talked about visiting and found simulations of them in the computer's inventory. So they'd taken a simulated leave to pass the time with occasional twists and turns that put one or the other of them in a predicament.

Both had been surprised when Amy and Ken arrived with a few other classmates on the next transport 5 days after Andrea. With a bit more than two weeks to go before classes resumed, they had expected the two of them to arrive at the last possible moment since their friends had planned to visit both sets of relatives over the extended leave. But since Ken's parents live in a particularly remote portion of the Confederation, the schedule for transportation didn't make that possible. They either returned now or got here late.

With the four of them together, the daily routine changed a bit. Although each couple maintained some private time themselves, they altered their schedules to spend some time together before the new semester started as well. Roger listened to the descriptions of home, family, and friends with some jealousy but really couldn't hide his enjoyment at no longer being the only cadet left on the station. It was also good to have the others around for workouts and sparring sessions.

It was at the end of one of those sparring sessions that the challenge Roger currently faced arose. He and Amy had just finished five rounds of martial arts sparring with each other and were catching their breath when she had started the ball rolling. He’d won by a hair according to the computer, so that may have made him more confident than he should have.

"You know, when we spar I can't help but think about how I got you Andrea together."

Roger grinned. "That was quite a piece of work. But I don't think you could pull that off today. I've gotten just a bit smarter and better than I was then."

Amy laughed and threw a towel at him, which he batted aside. "Oh, you may have gotten better but you're not quite the field operative that I am, bucko. You're more the hacker analyst type: better suited to computer keyboards than covert operations."

Roger frowned. Although there was no question he was among the most gifted recruits the Academy had where computers were concerned, he considered his field skills to be nearly equivalent.

"Hang on, I think that the last time that I checked our evaluations for field operations were about the same. What are you talking about?"

Amy finished a long drink from a water bottle before she answered. She looked surprised at his reaction. "Don't get huffy. Not talking about grades, I'm talking about comments from the simulated missions. The last time we shared those with each other, mine were just about perfectly positive and yours were littered with concerns about situational awareness and reactions under actual field conditions. Remember when the missions were against instructors and not simulated opponents or other cadets?"

Roger probably grimaced, though he tried not to. The three times that he had faced the instructors in training missions had not gone well. The first time was an absolute disaster, the other two mediocre successes at best.

"I seem to recall that your grades for those exercises were significantly lower than the simulations as well," he said.

Amy turned away to start rummaging through her gym bag. As she did she said, "Well that's true for everyone, Roger. But I'm pretty sure I've never compromised the mission as completely as you did, and I know I've gotten higher marks than you each and every time we've gone through those."

Roger's competitive side took over. "Well, why don't we find out? We've got time and holosuites available. We'll let the computer picked the scenario and go head-to-head."

Amy looked momentarily confused as she turned to face him, then a grin spread across her face. "I've pissed you off, haven't I? Are you sure you want to do this? We won't know until the end of the year, but I'm pretty sure I'm head of the class for field operations right now."

Roger nodded while he tried not to look angry. Amy had quickly agreed, and they had stopped talking while they cleaned up and headed back to their rooms.

Andrea had been in his room when he returned, and as he told her what had happened he wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. Amy was a very good covert operative, and almost certain to end up working many undercover or espionage assignments after graduation. Roger thought he was capable enough, but was beginning to doubt when Andrea chimed in.

"Do you mean to tell me that the two of you are going to hog the holosuite for hours while you settle some grudge over an offhand comment? Leaving me alone? And Ken, too?"

That particular thought hadn't occurred to Roger, but he quickly offered to find a way to include both of them in the contest. Then he'd gone to track down Amy to do just that.

His view of the hotel lobby was the result. The computer had decided that Andrea and Amy would be spies operating on a foreign world under deep cover. Roger and Ken were the counterintelligence agents tasked with disrupting their mission and figuring out what their target was. Although these pairings were random, the fact that the couples had been split this way made it inevitable that a bet would be forthcoming.

"Well, isn't that interesting," Amy said. "How about we make it even more interesting? There's plenty of time before classes start, so how about the winners own the losers for 24 hours?"

Ken had started to say something, and probably object, but before he could Roger agreed. Now they were hours into the simulation, which the computer had constructed to follow accelerated timeline. Amy and Andrea were provided with detailed information as though they had been on the ground for weeks, while Roger and Ken were given clues that they could use to try and discover what their target was and affect their capture. Ken was a few miles away, tracking Andrea as she visited a number of businesses, parks and shopping areas. Although Roger hadn't seen Amy, an informant he and Ken had teased out of the file they had been provided had tipped him off that she would be here just a few minutes from now.

Roger shook his head and scanned the lobby below him again. "I can't let myself get distracted like that, even for a moment" he thought. As he did, he spied Amy entering the lobby from the street and heading towards the front desk. She was looking around as she did, but Roger was certain he had managed to get out of sight before she had turned her gaze his way. She paused at the desk and spoke to one of the clerks working there for a moment. Roger was certain that the clerk had handed her something, but he wasn't sure what.

When she left the desk, Amy headed for the elevators. Roger's informant had told him that he thought Amy was staying at this hotel under an assumed name, and this seemed to confirm that. Once the elevator lobby blocked her view, Roger headed for the stairs, went down to the lobby, and left through the doors opposite the ones Amy had entered. He quickly circled around on the street to the doors she had used and produced a woman's wallet from his pocket. He could just see her entering the elevator as he started to pull open the door to the lobby.

He hurried over to the desk and went to the clerk that she had spoken to. "Excuse me, but did you just help a woman? I think I have her wallet." He showed the wallet he was holding to the clerk as he spoke.

"I was just helping a woman," said the clerk, "if you'd care to leave the wallet with me and I'll make sure that she gets it."

Roger smiled and reached into his hip pocket to retrieve the badge that he and Ken both carried as part of the simulation. He showed it to the clerk as he said, "I hope you don't mind, but it would be better for me if I made sure that she received it myself. There's quite a bit of cash more than a few credit cards in here, and I'd hate for them to be misdirected."

The computer managed to make the clerk look appropriately annoyed at the suggestion that he couldn't be trusted, but Roger was finally able to convince him to provide him with Amy's room number so that he could return the wallet himself. He thanked clerk for his assistance, and headed over to the elevators trying not to look like he was rushing.

Roger wasn't particularly surprised with where Amy's room was located. It was in a corner of the building on the fourth floor, close to one of the emergency exits. Her windows had a good view of the street and she had easy access to both the elevators and stairs. He approached carefully, his hands on the stunner he carried in a shoulder holster although he kept his pace at normal walking gait so that anyone hearing him move down the hallway wouldn't find his footsteps unusual. The hall was deserted. He went quietly to her door.

He listened at the door to her room and faintly heard the shower running through it. He retrieved one of the miniature video bugs that he was carrying in a pocket and quickly installed it in the hallway corner so that it would only be visible upon careful inspection. Then he returned to the elevator and headed out of the hotel to his car. As he walked, he confirmed that the camera was transmitting a picture of Amy's door to his mobile before he called Ken.

"I think Andrea's just leading me around on a wild goose chase, Roger." Ken told him the moment he answered his mobile. "Either they built a spy ring around store clerks in posh shopping areas, or she's just trying to throw us off the scent."

"I've managed to track down Amy's hotel room, and I have a camera in position so that I'll know when she comes and goes. As soon as she leaves, I'll take a look around and see what I can find there."

"Should I come back you up? She's unlikely to leave that room completely unprotected."

Roger thought about it for a moment before he answered. Ken was right - there was bound to be some bug or trap that he would have to worry about.

"No, I don't think she'll install anything that housekeeping might accidentally set off, Ken. Having a maid or a waiter or somebody from maintenance go missing would draw a lot of attention. I'll keep a close eye out for monitoring devices. I'll bet money that one or two of them are around."

"All right. I'll stick with Andrea. We have to run out of shopping centers and clothing stores soon."

Roger ended the connection and returned his attention to the images that is camera was transmitting. After about twenty minutes, the screen clearly showed Amy closing the door, putting the do not disturb sign on the handle, and heading down the hallway towards the elevators. She didn’t even glance at the camera he’d planted. Roger waited another five minutes before you left his car and headed back into the hotel.

Picking the lock to get into the room was relatively straightforward. It was a standard model, which made it easy to defeat. Once he heard the latch trip, he carefully and slowly opened the door. Amy had left the lights on, which convinced him that there was some monitoring device somewhere. But at this point there was nothing to do but proceed with the search - if it could see the door, it could already see him.

He closed the door behind him and headed over to the closet. There were two suitcases there, neither of which contained anything interesting. A relatively nondescript collection of clothes that wouldn't draw attention to the person wearing them and other personal items were all they contained. He left them as close to the condition that they were in when he started to search as he possibly could, and headed for the desk and the two bags that sat atop it.

Because the closet was opposite the bathroom, he had to pass that door on his way. Just as he did so, he thought he heard a noise. His hand went inside his jacket as he turned his head and tried to jump away from the door. And he managed to get far enough away that the contact stunner Andrea held in her palm struck his hand instead of his back or head. Still, that was enough of a shock to his system that he fell to the floor with only limited control over the left side of his body. His own stunner dropped from his hand as he fell.

As he tried to stand, tried to get to his weapon, Andrea quickly closed the gap between them and reached out with the stunner. He tried to swat it away, but he had to support himself on his right arm and his left was little more than a limp noodle. As she touched his head and he lost consciousness, he could hear her say "Nighty-night, handsome."

o0o

Roger woke up slowly, but went on alert quickly once he had recovered enough. Something was terribly wrong - his body simply didn't seem to respond to his commands and he couldn't see. He managed to thrash a little, only to encounter resistance from his elbows down to his toes. It was as though he was locked in place by something that gently forced him back to the same position after allowing him only millimeters of movement.

He forced himself to calm down. He remembered the hotel room, Andrea, and a stunner. He was coming out of it and needed to get his wits about him. If he was going to have any chance at all of beating Amy and Andrea, he'd have to do some quick thinking very soon. He tried moving his feet, but they were clearly locked in place by something. There was a small amount of give, but both quickly returned to the position they had started in. As his senses returned, he could feel that his mouth was filled with something – something held in place with firmly by bands that circled his head. And his eyes were clearly open, but either covered or yet to recover from the stunner. No, it had to be the former – if his vision hadn't returned then there had probably been real damage done and the simulation would be over.

He pulled on his right arm, then his left. His left was still less responsive due to the first contact Andrea had made, but he could feel that the result for both was the same. Like his feet, there was a small amount of give, but both were forced back to their position at his side. He began to feel a consistent pressure from his elbows down, and finally realized that he was lying on his back.

"Andrea? He's awake. I'm not sure he's trying to hide it, but he's definitely figured out that there's a problem."

Amy's voice seemed to be coming from his right and behind his head. But it was muffled slightly as though some obstruction was in between his ears and her mouth.

"Wow," he heard Andrea say. "He came around quicker than I thought. Lift his torso a bit for me? I want to get this a bit higher to make sure he's not going anywhere."

Roger felt hands under his shoulders and realized he was no longer wearing clothes when skin met skin. He grunted in protest as his shoulders were moved up, then grunted louder as he felt something cool against his back just above his elbows.

"1…2…3…4…5…" Roger heard Amy counting quietly as the coolness faded and became warm, rising to just below "hot" and uncomfortable. As she did, he thought he felt something moving up his back slightly – a gentle, even pressure that accompanied the warmth that grew all the way to his shoulders. When she got to 20, she let him down gently onto something that gave just a bit and then supported him.  His shoulders had been raised several inches. Something cold touched his skin in a thin line just above where the pressure at his elbows ended, feeling a bit like it was being sprayed on him.  The feeling vanished, then reappeared just about an inch higher but going from right to left this time instead of left to right.  This was repeated, the coolness quickly turning to warmth, until a line was drawn across his nipples.

"Idiot," he thought. He started pulling for all he could since they were obviously in the process of restraining him when he'd woken up. He needed to break free now, or he wasn't going to get free at all. He couldn't tell if he was still weak from the stunner, if the work that they had already done had really been enough to hold him fast, or if he'd just let it go too long, but he made no progress. The warmth lasted for perhaps a minute, and he thought he heard whispering during that period. As the warmth grew and then faded, the sense of gentle pressure against his skin spread, growing from his elbows all the way to his nipples.  As the warmth faded, he felt a hand at the back of his head. He moved away from it the best that he could.

"Lie still!" Andrea said. Her voice was quiet, but unmistakably firm. "I've got a scissors in my other hand, you're not going anywhere, and if you can't hold still you can remain blind."

Roger hummed somewhat angrily into his gag, but held still. He could feel the scissors move from the crown of his head to the top of neck. As his vision cleared, he could see Andrea remove gauze pads that had been held in place by a vinyl strip. He tried to look down towards his feet, but she put a hand on his forehead and kept him from doing so.

"Look right at me and don't move a bit so I can gloat or you might not enjoy the next 24 hours." She grinned and pushed softly against his head to emphasize her point. Roger willed himself to relax in spite of himself, and she removed her hand once she felt him do so.  He decided to comply and left it where it was, focusing on her.

He could see that he was obviously in a large box and Andrea was kneeling beside it. He could only see her from the armpits up due to the side. Unlike the last time she'd "discovered" him, she was fully clothed.

"You're too competitive, you know that?" She toyed with the hair on his forehead as she spoke, just loud enough that he could hear. "You're smart enough to know that even if you test as well as Amy, she's got way more street smarts than you. Take an individual test and you're just as good as she is. Run an operation and she'll put the pieces together much better than you."

Roger harrumphed into his gag. More because she was right than wrong, but she didn't take the meaning that way.

"You still don't believe that? Well, your current predicament ought to be proof enough that you should." Her other hand emerged from behind the side of the box and held up a large canister. Roger was confused by what he saw – ShipSafe.

There were lots of ways to protect stuff during shipping, but for really delicate items, this was the product to use. It was a non-toxic expanding rubber that anyone could use (at least, as long as you weren't dumb enough to discharge the can into your mouth). It was expensive as hell, but surrounded whatever you sprayed it on in a firm, but slightly giving layer of rubber as thick as you cared to make it. He finally started putting it together and looked down before Andrea could stop him. It’s yellowish brown color filled the box that contained him. He'd been encased in the stuff. He groaned and began to pull futilely against it.

Andrea laughed, shook the canister vigorously and awkwardly lifted his head a few inches away from the back of the box with one hand. He could hear the soft hissing as she sprayed the ShipSafe behind him.

"You see, we figured that if we were going to win this thing, we should do it like we might actually want to on a real mission. Not just succeed, but maybe get an important captive or two we could smuggle off to a remote location. Maybe even get them off planet." As she spoke, Roger could feel the stuff expanding behind him as it made contact with the back of his head and neck. His senses had recovered enough to feel the slight tackiness of the stuff against his skin. Andrea felt the same on her hand, and carefully, but quickly extracted it. It expanded just a bit more as she spoke, the warmth leaving no doubt that it was there.

"So the very first thing we did was come up with this plan and visit a moving store. Lots of big boxes and this stuff. We kept all this in the room across the hall." As she spoke, she began liberally applying the ShipSafe from the point where it ended just below his nipples up towards his head. She carefully moved the canister from one side of the box to the other, creating a layer that started about one inch thick, then slowly grew until it was around three inches deep.

She paused and watched it expand around his body. "With this stuff, we could certainly pack you in a truck and haul you off to a cabin in the middle of nowhere for interrogation, right? And with the right bribes to the right people, we might even sneak you past customs and on to a starship. Wouldn't that be neat?"

Roger mewled a bit, his struggles producing no measurable progress towards getting him free. Knowing he had lost and was at his lover's mercy made him both play the part of the captured officer and start to respond to what would probably be coming. He could feel pressure building at his crotch.

Andrea bent into the box and kissed his gagged mouth, then his forehead. "I'm sorry, honey. It might have been fun for you to win, but then that would have meant you did better than us. You didn't look at the informant that told you where to find Amy very hard, did you? You just took the information and put a plan together."

The ShipSafe had stopped growing, but hadn't reached the top of the box, so Andrea started applying another layer. With about three more inches to go, Roger watched another inch come out of the can and grow.

"Of course, Amy had thought about that. She'd planted that bit of information with your informant. Our briefing pointed him out, but said he wasn't always reliable so we decided not to trust him."

Roger remembered seeing that in the file, but he and Ken had both decided that the informant hadn't been reliable for spies like Amy and Andrea. They never really considered whether or not the women knew that. And they had turned that fact against them.

"You shouldn't feel too bad, though." Andrea said as she produced another can of the stuff and began shaking. "Ken's better at this than you and he missed it too. He also missed that the third stop I made included a talent agency. He's been chasing an actress that looks a lot like me for hours now."

She started spraying the foam on the sides of the box around his head, but this time didn't seem to apply quite as much.

"You really want to hold still now. As it is, this is going to get all over you. But you really don't want it accidentally going in your nose, right?"

Roger was about to protest, but she started coating his neck and chin with the stuff. A bit surprised, he made noises but didn't move.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm just going to make sure you're locked in place. There's going to be at least an inch between your nose & this stuff."

She didn't give him many options as she continued to layer the ShipSafe on. "Anyway, Amy gave the hotel clerk a huge tip and told him that she was being stalked by two guys that matched you & Ken's description. The wallet trick was good, but he called when you pulled it anyway. Didn’t seem to believe the badge was real. I've been here for hours, but you didn't know that and when Amy left, we figured you would make a visit."

"So now Amy's going to prepare for Ken. It was very nice of you to provide us with something other than contact stunners – your stunner will make handling him easier. He tried calling you about two minutes before you woke up. We replied with a text message that said you'd get back to him in a few."

The rubber creeping towards his head had stopped about one and a half inches away. Andrea leaned over him as she inspected it and the small wall of foamy rubber that now coated his lower jaw.

"It'll take me a minute or two to finish getting you ready, and then I'll be sending him a message with an address and a warning that you're close enough that you might be overheard. You'll be telling Ken to go to the back door, go in and turn right and if he moves carefully, he'll find you. Of course, he won’t."

She started spraying more of the stuff around the sides and top of his head, but only a short application so she could watch its expansion. Roger struggled as with all of his strength, but all that happened was his limbs moving slightly in the embrace of the firm, but giving rubber foam before it pushed him back to his original position. Andreas looked at him a little quizzically.

"Are you struggling against this stuff? Honey, this may not be as nifty as that rubber Amy got from the lab a year ago, but I guarantee you you're not going anywhere." She sprayed more around his head again – Roger noticed that it was now becoming thick enough that he was looking out of a tunnel that just fit his head from the jawline up. Though that was shrinking slightly as what she had just sprayed expanded. He felt the warm, expanding material make contact against the top of his head, then the left side, and then the right. It expanded enough to lock him firmly in place, but didn't exert any significant pressure.

Andrea leaned into the tunnel around his head to make sure he could hear her. "Grunt three times if that's not too much pressure. And don't even think of lying to me, buster. I may free your head to be safe, but I don't need to free your dick until I want to."

Roger grunted three times quickly, but the mention of his penis triggered a thought.  Why wasn’t he feeling it stiffen? Secured by his lover and due to be her toy for the next day, that should be getting him going quite nicely.

Apparently, the way the stunner had dulled his senses and his concentration on Andrea or escape had made him miss it until now, when he concentrated on it.  He felt his member struggling to grow stiff, which gentle, firm pressure of the rubber that trapped him should have assisted.  Except Andrea had pointed it down towards his feet . He wasn’t likely to get much in the way of a response from it like that. He groaned loudly and suspected that she could see pleading in his eyes.

Andrea smiled. "Ahhh, you finally figured out how I'd positioned you, hmmm? You're mine, boy. I'm going to box you all up since I know the computer will keep anything bad from happening to you. Then we're going to do the same to Ken. Then it's a two, two and a half hour drive to the cabin we've rented."

She reached in and played with a stray strand of hair. "By that time, you should be more than ready to please me."

As she closed the lid of the box and Roger struggled madly. The rubber that trapped him almost seemed to turn the motion into a mocking laugh where it made contact with his head, absorbing his efforts completely.

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