Part 2: Investigation
They were all gathered around a table in a modest sized meeting room. Some wore suits and ties, some wore military uniforms, and some were dressed in white lab coats. A large plasma screen on one wall of the room displayed an image of one of the now infamous Arachno-Bots, sprawled like a broken puppet on a warehouse floor with technicians and scientists scrupulously examining it. The unit's "head" had a large caliber bullet hole through the front of it. A man in an Army general's dress uniform sat at the head of the table and addressed the others.
"Three of these… enemy units were recently brought to us by a group of civilians," he said, and turned to a bald man in a lab coat. "Dr. Winston, have you and your team confirmed that they are no longer operational?"
"Yes General," Dr. Winston replied. "One of the aforementioned civilians shot the unit pictured on screen with a .50 caliber rifle. The bullet hit just the right spot to utterly destroy the unit's central processor and its cooling fans. You could say he blew it's brains out."
The General nodded. "At least we now know they're not completely invincible."
He turned and looked at a dark haired woman in a lab coat seated next to Dr. Winston. "Dr. Andrews, what's the status of the three women those robots tried to abduct?"
Dr. Andrews said, "The medical teams cut them free from their cocoons and have been examining them since their arrival. Aside from some minor lingering effects of the paralytic drug they were injected with before being cocooned, they look like they're going to be fine."
"Good, I guess we'll take our wins where we can get them." The General said. "What about the other twenty seven of those buggers that attacked that neighborhood? Does anyone know where they went?"
A woman in fatigues spoke up. "They were heading west right up until our choppers lost sight of them. We have teams searching the region right now; if those things are operating out of a hidden base somewhere in the area, we'll do everything we can to find it."
The General nodded and then turned back to Dr. Winston. "How's your team's analysis going? Any clues to where these 'Arachno-Bots' came from?"
"Most of the parts and materials they're made of are commercially available, that may at least partially account for how someone was able to build them without sending up a bunch of red flags." Dr. Winston said. "The hydraulic systems can be purchased from a number of retailers, both traditional brick-and-mortar and online. The metal the legs, chassis, and outer shell are fabricated out of would be easy enough to procure from a wide range of suppliers. Even the batteries that power them are commonly used in electric vehicles these days. Some of the onboard electronics are clearly custom made, though nothing too exotic."
"Any onboard weaponry? Any guns?"
Dr. Winston shook his head. "None on any of the three brought in, though I wouldn't discount the possibility of encountering others that are armed."
The General rubbed his chin. "Any idea who might've been able to build them?"
Dr. Winston shrugged. "It would have to be someone with lots of technical skills and a metric ton of money. Just building one would be challenging and expensive enough. Mass-producing these machines without someone finding out what you're up to would be the real trick, and there's only a limited number of individuals out there with both the resources and the intellect to pull that off."
"So, we're looking for some filthy rich asshole who thinks he's a comic book villain?" The General furrowed his brow. "Okay, well, compile the best possible list of suspects you can think of and pass it along to our field investigators."
Dr. Winston nodded. "Right away."
It was a couple of hours after the meeting. Dr. Jill Andrews entered the warehouse where the three captured Arachno-Bots were being kept. Dr. Fredrick Winston and his team were busy examining the now inoperable mechanical monsters. They had opened some kind of maintenance hatch in the rear of one of the robots. Inside she could see a mechanical arm holding what looked like a partially used roll of white palette wrap. Above the arm on a rack were seven more rolls of the wrap.
She approached Dr. Winston and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey Fred, how's things going?"
Fred replied, "Not bad, we've been taking a closer look at the mechanism these things use to cocoon their victims. This wrapping material they use is…interesting."
"How so?" Jill asked. "It just looks like palette wrap to me." Fred took the roll off the arm and held it out to her. She rolled out a sheet of it and tugged it experimentally with her fingers, raising an eyebrow at how surprisingly stretchy it was.
"It may look like palette wrap," Fred said. "But it's much stronger, more elastic, and it's even self-adhering. We cut a small square of it earlier and had a look at it under the electron microscope. I don't know who made this, but they're a genius with polymers. The closest thing to this material in our database is the bondage wrap that's popular in the BDSM community."
"So, whoever is behind all this is into bondage and other kinky stuff?" Jill smirked. "I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. It might also explain why they felt the need to build a legion of giant, robot spiders."
"Speaking of bondage, how are our three damsels doing?" Fred asked.
"They've all signed their non-disclosure agreements and left." Jill said. "The last to leave was the redhead, Sylvia. She called her husband and he and his brother came by to pick her up shortly after lunch."
"Wasn't one of them the girlfriend of Mr. Fifty Caliber?" Fred asked. "I think Mark was his name."
"She was his ex, though after all this I imagine she's probably going to give him another chance."
"I guess all's well that ends well there."
Jill smiled. She then tugged at the wrap again. "I wonder what it would be like…"
"What what would be like?"
'You know…being cocooned in this super plastic wrap."
"Jill…"
"Oh come on," Jill said, "I say we load a roll of this 'wonder material' in the palette wrapping machine and take it for a spin. Pun intentional."
Fred shook his head. "Jill, this is hardly the appropriate time or place to indulge in some newly acquired fetish…"
"Hey, if anyone asks you can just tell them I volunteered to help you with your research or something. Besides, the wrapping machine's way in the back of the warehouse. I doubt anyone will even notice what we're doing."
Fred rolled his eyes and sighed. "Okay, fine. Just don't over do it, I'd rather not have to use the laser cutter to get you out."
Jill kissed Fred on the cheek. Fred blushed.
Fred and Jill approached the palette wrapping machine in the back of the warehouse. Fred was carrying a roll of the white plastic. He loaded it into the machine and powered it on. Jill took off her lab coat and started unbuttoning her blouse. Fred gave her an odd look.
"Why are you stripping down?" Fred asked, confused.
"I want to know what it feels like on bare skin," Jill replied, kicking off her shoes and unzipping her skirt, "like you haven't dreamed of seeing me naked."
"You're not going to be rubbing one out while you're in there, are you?"
Jill smiled mischievously. "Maybe."
Fred sighed. "Just don't do anything reckless with this equipment. I'll be right outside having a smoke if you need me."
Fred went out a nearby door with a pack of cigarettes in hand. Jill tossed her bra and panties into the pile of her clothes on the floor. She pressed buttons on the wrapping machine's control box and then stood naked on the platform. She put a drinking straw in her mouth and then put her hands near her crotch.
As the machine slowly turned her, the wrap was beginning to wind around her. Its embrace was pleasantly cool and smooth, like silk bed sheets. She closed her eyes as she was wrapped from the ankles to her waist, and then over her stomach and chest. The sensation was absolutely heavenly, she moved her right hand to her vagina before her wrappings became too tight and fingered her clitoris. As the wrap covered her head, the whole world faded to a milky white. She moaned in pleasure as the machine started wrapping her in another layer.
She had lost all sense of time, Jill had no idea how long she had been in her cocoon when Fred cut the wrappings away from her head with a pair of EMT Scissors, a look of concern on his face.
"We need to get you out of there and get you dressed," Fred said with urgency, "it's all over the radio and the TV, there's been another attack!"