Helen laughed incredulously. "I'm supposed to take your word for it," she remarked.

Silence.

Whoever her instructor was, he was waiting.

She rolled the pill again, her thoughts going a hundred miles an hour. Test, that stupid voice in her head had said. He was testing her for something entirely different from her previous trainers. She chewed on her lower lip for a second, then, before she changed her mind, she popped it into her mouth and swallowed.

"Count from ten backwards when I tell you to."

Helen noted that he didn't seem to have any problems seeing her in this darkness. Special glasses with image-intensifier? But if so, he still wouldn't be able to tell whether she had taken the pill. Her eyes searched the darkness. Where was he?

After a few minutes, he ordered, "Start counting."

She turned around as she counted. "Ten, nine, eight..." There was just nothing to see, not even a hint of light anywhere. "Seven, six..." She had to stop moving. Could darkness spin? It felt like the darkness was swirling all around her. "Five, four..." She couldn't feel her feet. "Shit..." She fell forward. So that was what the mattress was for, was her last thought.

Her eyes flew open. It was still that darkness but she felt strange. She tried moving but she couldn't feel her body and she couldn't see. She didn't like this one bit. No reason to panic yet. He told her that she wasn't going to be able to move, but she could feel a warm body against her. A very warm male body.

"What's happening?" she asked. At least she could talk. "I feel funny."

No answer. She could feel her vision swaying, like something was moving really fast around her. It suddenly occurred to her that she was being carried. And that she was upside down because her hair kept getting in her mouth when she tried to talk.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, spitting her hair out. "Answer me, dammit."

Whoever it was seemed to be going faster and faster, until she grew dizzy. He couldn't possibly go that long. Where the hell was she? No longer in the room, for sure, but why couldn't she see anything? She could make out shadows now-light and dark shades of blackness. There were strange smells, like foliage and the outdoors, then the scent of clean laundry, then of burning wood, then of salty air. She frowned, totally confused, because she couldn't see any forest or fire or anything that could give her any clues to her location.

She felt that floating sensation again and from the change of shadows, she could tell that her body was sliding off his as he swung her around. She stared up, trying to see who this stranger was, but it was that odd shadowy shape again.

He should be panting from that long run but she couldn't hear him breathe at all. Suddenly, he jerked around and there were armed men all around him.

She could only watch in horror as they shot him and his body slid away from her view. She couldn't help him! She gritted her teeth and tried to move but it was no use. She was totally at their mercy.

They surrounded her. She could hear them now-male grunts and cursing. She gulped in air as they pulled at her body. She could feel them pulling her legs apart....

She bit down on her lower lip. She wouldn't scream. She wouldn't panic. She was going to find a way out of this. If she could only see- The noise around her was jumbled, as if she was standing in a very crowded room. She breathed in as someone started a fight and everyone around her, including her attackers, became involved. The shadows made everything even more confusing since she couldn't tell who was hitting whom. But she smelt the blood, heard screams of pain, saw bodies falling around her.

And there was nothing she could do.

There're too many bodies. Just too many people. Those screams.

"Shut up!" she yelled out.

All of a sudden, there was silence. A lone figure climbed on top of her. It was him. She recognized the shape of his body. For some reason she recognized his scent.

"I thought you died," she whispered. Where did everyone go? And why couldn't she feel the danger?

She felt his hands on her useless body, felt his hands on her thighs as he slowly parted her numb legs.

Helen squeezed her eyes shut. She must be mistaken. She'd thought-wait, maybe something happened in the dark room and someone took her while she was unconscious. Maybe her kidnapper was a hostile, too.

She let out a hiss of outrage as his hands intimately slid up her inner thigh, then up her rib cage, across her breasts. She was going to kill him when this drug wore off. She was going to tear his hands off first. A thumb caressed her lower lip for a second.

He kissed her on the mouth, his lips moving over hers lazily, as if he had all the time he wanted. She gave an outraged gurgle at the back of her throat when he nudged her lips apart and swept his tongue inside, engaging her in intimate play. She could feel his tongue exploring hers, not like a rapist, but like a lover, coaxing and playful. Blinding fury welled up as she tried her damnedest to turn her head but it was useless. Her mouth was his toy, muffling her curses.

It was the longest kiss she'd ever shared and it was sharing. There wasn't much she could do when she still couldn't shake her head free and her mouth was open for him to taste. Their tongues tangled silkily, seductively, as he controlled the pace, opening her wider, till she found herself growing breathless from trying to speak and move at the same time.

He likes your mouth.

Oh great. Now her warning voice was also analyzing kissing techniques. And why was her heart beating so erratically? She was shocked to find that her eyes had closed...She forced them open, blinking rapidly. She was not getting turned on by this man. No matter how good his kissing technique was!

He finally released her and she heard herself gasping for breath. His shadow moved over her, his hand deliberately cupping her breast.

"I'll kill you if you touch me," Helen managed to say through what felt like swollen lips.

She heard the front zipper sliding. She felt the coolness of the air on her bare flesh. He pulled the front halves of her shirt apart and she could feel his knuckles grazing her naked breasts. Her heart galloped like she was having a heart attack.

Wait a minute, wait a minute! Something's not right. I was wearing a leotard with no front zipper. I was wearing a bra.

Test. Suddenly everything fell together like a well-designed puzzle.

Test. No sense of danger. The drug. All the different smells and sounds. Nothing solid...just tactile. They weren't testing her physically. Everything was a mental test.

"This isn't real," she declared firmly and loudly. "I was wearing a bra in a tight leotard with no zipper. I'm not half-naked. Game over! Now let me see you, you fucking bastard!"

The next time she was faced with a tiny pill, she was ready.

"You know what to do with it."

Helen shook her head. "I'm not taking it."

"Why not?" His voice, even electronically enhanced, was soft, persuasive. "Are you afraid?"

"Of course not." She wasn't. She just didn't like the feeling of being helpless. "I already know what you're trying to achieve. You want me totally in your control. You want me afraid, or are trying to make me afraid. Am I right or wrong?"

"Somewhat, Elena. If I ask you to take off your clothes now, would you?"

She cocked her head in the dark. "No."

"Why not? It's totally dark in the CAVE and I promise it won't hurt."

"Look, I know what you're trying to do," Helen said, exasperated now. "It isn't working. You're trying to find chinks in my psyche and I've been trained to resist. You aren't going to win."

"But why are you resisting your trainer? Wouldn't it be simpler to go along with it, knowing what I'm going to do, and then following through with today's training lesson? Why the need to tell me that you aren't going to lose? Or, are you just afraid, Elena, that you will lose?"

Oh, he was good. Whoever her new trainer was, he definitely wasn't just some Special Forces guy or CIA shrink trying to beat her into shape mentally or physically. This man was trying to figure her out by pushing her sexual buttons. The thing was, she couldn't figure out why he was doing it...yet. It'd only been a couple of weeks, but already he'd challenged her more than any of her other trainers, both physically and mentally.

"Okay, fine." She popped the pill into her mouth, crushed it between her teeth because she was that pissed off. She wanted to taste its bitterness. "I'm not going to be very happy if you start taking my clothes off again when I wake up. I'm tired of it. That's a warning."

"Then I'll make sure they're already off before you wake up."

"You..." She didn't even have time to finish cursing him, falling forward as the world spun into darkness.

When Helen came to, she didn't say anything, using the time to figure out what he was trying to do. Again, she couldn't see the person carrying her. This time, she was in his arms, the way a man carried a lover, and he was walking slowly. She heard the lapping of water. Splashing at his feet. He kept walking.

She knew it was useless but she still tried to move. She really, really hated this feeling. She felt the water touching her bare buttocks. She gasped-both from the cold water and her outrage that she was indeed "naked"-as he took both of them deeper into the water.

"I'm so going to kill you," she said between her teeth. "I told you not..."

She gasped again as he let go of her. She sank, water getting into her mouth. She couldn't move; she was going to drown.

This isn't real. This isn't real! You got to keep your head! She realized now that he'd purposely done the one thing he knew would distract her-making her think he undressed her. She needed to remember that virtual reality was all in the mind. He was pushing her to accept this, getting her ready for the next phase.

Willing her panic and anger away, Helen relaxed, allowing her body to float. He was her trainer; he wasn't going to let her drown. Just as she reasoned this to herself, she felt his arms gather around her, pulling her upward to the surface. Her face burst through the water and she took deep breaths of air into her lungs as she felt him lifting her higher, till her chin rested on his shoulder. She coughed, very aware of his arms around her nude body.

"Total immersive virtual reality between two people is going to be different from going solo, Elena," he said softly in her ear. "I give you the reality that you have to accept in your mind. Just as I have to accept what you see when you remote view because if my mind rejects it, then this experiment will fail. You have to get very comfortable with whatever reality I provide here, just as I have to do the same with the reality you say you see when you remote view. Am I making sense to you?"

"Yes." But that didn't mean she had to like it.

"The nudity is just a little quarrel between us. I know you don't feel comfortable when you aren't in control, I totally understand that, and that's why you are naked now, in the water, in my control because you have to get comfortable with this notion."

"Only in virtual reality," she assured him sharply.

"That's fine."

They were still in the water. She shivered. How deep was the water? Not real, Helen, it's not real. She breathed slowly, steadily. Fine, she got the lesson, so she would shut up and just let the drug do its thing until she was able to move again.

His hand came behind her neck, gently turning her head up. Looking at his shadowy form was the most frustrating thing after the fact that she was in someone's control.

"Do you know what made you even madder than being stripped naked by someone?"

"I'm not stripped naked. It's all in my head," she said, and tried to smile nonchalantly, "so I'm not mad at all since none of this is real."

"Then you aren't allowed to lose your temper if I kiss you again," he whispered, his head coming down on hers.

And there was nothing she could do as she floated in his arms, nothing at all, as the hand behind her neck firmly forced her head back. He explored her mouth intimately, his tongue tangling with hers.

He was enjoying this too much, she thought dazedly, even as she fought against her own response. He liked being in control of her and the more she fought him, the more ways he would find to get at her. It was all standard operating procedure in the book of mind manipulation. But, besides what he was claiming to be doing, what else was he trying to manipulate her to do?

Later, back in the changing room, she stared at her lips, which looked redder than normal. He was diabolical. He hadn't undressed her. It had been all in her mind because he'd made her think he was going to do it while she was out. Again, playing with her fears.

She traced the outline of her lips with her fingers. Sensitive. As if she had been kissed thoroughly.

"But it's not real," she whispered to her reflection.

Two.

Internal focus wasn't Helen's strongest point. She much preferred action; thinking too much only muddled up one's life. However, these new games were designed to make her work mentally as well as physically, and she couldn't help but feel a little pissed off. She hated being manipulated and these days, someone was doing a whole lot of manipulating of her mind and body.

Helen scowled, then quickly schooled her features. The last time she had betrayed herself like that, someone had pushed her through a series of exercises that he knew she would dislike, even though she now knew how everything worked, that nothing was actually real.

She looked around the room. She had learned much about it in the last couple of months. The CAVE Ultimate-Cave Automatic Virtual Environment-was a ten-by-ten-by-ten room that was the newest in virtual reality immersion. Since its invention at the University of Illinois in Chicago, certain government agencies had further developed and enhanced the unique features of this new technology.

One of the unique features of the CAVE was that it allowed multiple participants to experience the illusion that was virtual reality, with one participant controlling the environment. That first experience from two months ago-that had all been done with her alone in this room, with her invisible instructor in charge somewhere in the COMCEN complex. She now knew that he was in a similar CAVE somewhere, wearing the same type of special bodysuit that she was wearing but with the controls all on his side.

That part of it was tough for her. She hadn't liked what had happened that first time, even though she now knew they were testing her. No, he was testing her. She'd had this feeling all along that that dream-world into which she'd been thrown was entirely his creation.

He'd had her put in darkness so she would feel unbalanced. That had solved the problem about the special glasses, too. If she had been able to see, she would have seen the VR goggles that covered half her face floating a few inches above. He had given her that stupid paralytic drug so that she couldn't feel the rotating mechanical VR chair on which they'd placed her. All those feelings of being carried, being upside down, and the dizzying rush of movement were created by that equipment.

Even after watching it in action without her on it, she was still amazed at how everything coordinated with those goggles. Wireless tracker-tabs that looked like sticky markers were placed on certain points on a person's body, and these tabs corresponded to the chair, letting it know exactly how to move the person. That was how she was manipulated physically. It was interactive virtual reality at its finest.

This was probably the most expensive playroom she'd ever had the privilege to romp in. Not bad for a dirty Russian orphan who only wanted a new Barbie doll, eh?

Helen grinned at the thought. Oh well, let him be diabolical. She was tired of controlling her emotions when he was around.

He was silent today. Not a word. It made her want to rile him to get some reaction, but that would only betray her irritation. Today they'd used the wireless trackers and a new pair of gloves. She'd stood on a glorified treadmill that created the illusion of motion while she got used to "spatial control of nonspace," as her scientist-tutor Dr. Cunningham had explained to her.

She was being prepared for the final frontier, so to speak. TIVRRV, appropriately pronounced TERROR, stood for Total Immersion Virtual Reality Remote Viewing, the top-secret project that required body and brain immersion and stimulation. Anyone who volunteered for this crazy experiment ought to be terrified.

He was so damn quiet-why didn't he say something? Or was that the new test?

"You know, I've never had my brain waves synchronized with a man's before," she drawled, touching the lever to the right of the chair. The goggles raised slowly above her head. She peered up into them. Nothing, of course. "What exactly does that do, in your words? These scientists haven't been able to explain it to me satisfactorily enough. I can't get excited at terms like Immersive Visualization and Interactive Mind Flow."

She waited for ten seconds. The remote viewing training had been the toughest of everything she had been through, for her, because it was all about letting go mentally. But this new trainer, with his secretive ways, was taking it even further. He was ruthless with his need to control her and he didn't care if he made her furious while doing it. In fact, she was sure he was somewhat amused by her rage. She was waiting for the day she'd see him in the flesh; she was going to wallop him.

When she'd told him that, he'd replied, in that odd quiet way that always made her nerves sing, "I look forward to it." And then he'd kissed her.

Who was he? What was he? She wanted to know everything about him like she was sure he did about her. Not everything, she corrected fiercely. He couldn't read her mind. If he could, he'd know just what she'd thought of him after what he'd put her through the first time in the CAVE. And all the torture she was going to put him through. It still pissed her off to think that somehow he managed to turn her on with his kisses. She had been celibate way too long.

After two months, he still managed to rattle her when he ordered her to walk into a dark room. Not fear. Anticipation. His body felt so real and hard when she was crushed against him. He'd slowly tip her head back and then bend his down toward hers, taking his time, until every nerve in her body screamed silently for that kiss. He was toying with her. Bastard.

"Hello?" she called out softly. Fine. She didn't want to be polite anymore. The memory of those first sessions with him still ticked her off. "Just so you know, I didn't think that last kiss was that fucking great interactively. Next time, don't freeze my body up and I might show you exactly how to kiss a woman, asshole."

She turned at the sound of a cough. It was Derek the boy wonder computer wiz. A very embarrassed computer wiz, his face flushed as he looked at everywhere but her.

"Ahem, umm, Miss Roston, can you follow me to the programming room?"

Helen cocked her head. "Cutting short my training today?"

Derek shook his head. "Actually, we're ready to go to Test Bravo. We've finished the program that will enable you to choose an avatar for yourself as well as your monitor. Now we'll test it after we've connected the brain wave simulation program."

More techie terms to learn. Test Bravo. That meant she'd passed Test Alpha. "Okay, let's go," she said, then stopped short. "Wait a minute...did you say for my monitor? Is that the same as my trainer?"

"Yes, ma'am. It's the same person."