Ten minutes later Zoe and Xara were leaned over a security monitor, the guard having been asked to leave momentarily.

"This is the corridor outside our room." Zoe explained, deftly manipulating the controls. "This is us leaving. And this," she fast forwarded, "is the next time our door was opened.”

"A cleaner? He stole Amanda? I'm gonna kill him, what's his name?" Xara growled.

"Calm down." Zoe skipped forward a few minutes. "This is the next time the door was opened.

Xara watched as Amanda pulled the stranger out of the room by the wrist, heading for the elevators before doubling back, running down the hall and slipping into a side door moments before the girls returned. "Are you shitting me? We just missed her!" Xara exclaimed, almost sobbing again.

"But see how she was pulling him? I don't think he realises what he's done," Zoe theorised. "I think he just walked into the wrong place at the wrong time and Amanda's the one controlling the situation."

"What? So she's just joking around?" Xara relaxed slightly.

"Well... No. She did take Ananke tech and leave with a stranger. I think she's playing a role."

"You mean brainwashed."

"If so, who's fault would it be?"

"That asshole's," Xara jabbed a finger unconvincingly at the cleaner.

"You know that's not entirely accurate."

Xara grimaced and sat on the desk, staring into space. "If we can get close enough, I can use her kill switch to get her back."

"It looks like she's trying to avoid us, though." Zoe nodded at the monitor, now switched to a smaller corridor. "Looks like she cut her hair and dyed it."

"Not her hair!" Xara gasped, leaning over the monitor. "I guess she looks kinda hot, but I like long hair."

Zoe smiled slightly. “And then it looks like they took our hired transport and fucked off."

"Don't say it like that," Xara grimaced. "Can you track it?"

"I'd need access to the city's traffic database, and that would take me hours."

"Fuck," Xara groaned. "Let's go back to our place, then."

They re-entered the common area to find Irene slowly packing her bags, staring but not comprehending as she worked.

"Irene?" Xara asked. The girl turned and stared in her direction for a moment, but didn't reply, then went back to packing. "Um, are you okay? I'm sorry for... all that."

"I'll be fine. Just dissociating." Irene closed her suitcase and locked it.

"Huh?"

"Got too much to do. Can't waste time working through this now. Do you have a plan?"

Xara frowned at Irene's emotionless tone and looked to Zoe. "Mom thinks we should stay here and leave it to the investigators they're sending. I want to go after Amanda as soon as possible. I know you'll take Mom's side, but..."

"There are a lot of things I thought I knew," Irene mumbled. "Maybe she's right, maybe you're right. Who am I to decide."

"You're our friend," Zoe offered.

"That's kind of you."

Xara and Zoe shared an uncomfortable look. "Anyway," Xara ventured. "We can't follow them without knowing where the car went, and -"

Xara’s (newly acquired) wristcom beeped and the screen slid out, a map of the city opening and displaying a red dot moving casually through the streets.

"Zoe?" Xara looked at her childhood friend, receiving a shrug in reply.

"Not me."

"Maybe Nyna managed to help after all?" Xara bit her lip, then grabbed her own suitcase, shoving her possessions into it. "Let's get ready, girls. We need to go after them." She paused and sighed. "But how can a self-driving transport catch up with another so long after it left?"

Zoe shifted uncomfortably. "It'd break a lot of Ananke rules, but I could hack the transport's nav system to break the speed limit. But we'll need to be subtle."

Xara stared at her for a moment and nodded. "You're the best, Zoe."

"I've just got a bad feeling about this..." Zoe muttered.

"Fuck," Bryce whispered, tired and limp.

Amanda giggled. "Again, already?"

"No, just... That was amazing," he grinned weakly. The gentle vibration of the transport as it drove down the unseen street had only made the sex feel more... public, despite the tinted windows. Even now, as the transport bumped over something, his eyes watched Amanda's chest lurch in response.

"Mmm, I'm glad you approve," she smiled and demurely pulled her hair back, allowing him to see her chest unimpeded. She was apparently very comfortable with being seen naked, not that Bryce was complaining.

"Well, it's been fun, but I guess I should get back to work," he started, but Amanda's darkening face cut him off.

"We can't go back. I told you, you're marked now. We need to get away from Genecorp."

"I mean, it's a nice story, but..."

"Does this look like a story to you? Or natural?" She stood and gestured at her hips, succeeding in arousing his interest again.

"Uh, no, but..."

Amanda huffed. "I don't know what I need to show you to prove what I'm telling you. Luckily," she grinned, sitting in his lap and leaning in to whisper in his ear, "I've always been good at getting what I want."

"Fuck," Bryce whispered; he couldn't deny the girl's statement. She might have been a little crazy but right now, as she held his shoulders and started to gyrate an inch above his lap, he'd follow her to the ends of the earth.

Irene sat quietly in the back, staring out the window but not really seeing anything. Xara and Zoe were in the front of the transport as it drove casually out of the terminal, directed by the map on Xara's wristcom.

"Come on, Zoe, we're so far behind."

"This tech is old," Zoe grumbled, crouched under the console and messing with wires. "And I've still got issues with this plan. But... there, we should be going above the speed limit now."

The transport sped up imperceptibly.

"Seriously? How's that gonna help?" Xara cried, exasperated. "What is this, five percent faster?"

"Any faster and we'll get noticed. This is overtake speed, I just had to trick the system into thinking we're trying overtake permanently."

"How long will it take to catch up?"

"About forty minutes?" Zoe shrugged. "I don't know when they left or the traffic conditions, it's a crapshoot. But we'll catch up eventually."

"Damn it," Xara swore and glared at the map, watching the icons glide over the city streets. "We're coming, Amanda."

Zoe sighed. She had been enjoying the holiday, and her friends, but now Xara was focused on her wristcom and Irene didn't seem to be with them either. She sat on the far side of the transport and watched the streets and people whiz by.

The gentle motion of the transport eventually lulled her into a rested state and she let her eyes close. She was lost in one of her usual dreams of her security training when a sudden lurch woke her up.

"Whoa! What the fuck?" She looked around the transport, bleary-eyed. Irene was still staring out the window, but Xara had half disappeared under the console and the transport was speeding up. "Hey! Hey, Xara! Stop!"

"Get fucked," Xara growled, kicking out with a leg to keep Zoe from approaching. "We were going too slow, she got on a highway and she's getting away!"

"Shit," Zoe ran her fingers through her hair, then hurried over to Irene. "Hey, Irene! Help me out here!"

Irene turned her gaze on Zoe for a moment, then wordlessly turned back to the window. "Let her do what she wants. She's the Heiress."

"Goddamn it," Zoe groaned as the transport light s turned a soft red.

"Warning: system malfunction. Speed limiter breached. Please relax and await Traffic Control assistance."

Other transports on the road around them began to move out of the way, clearing a path. Xara grinned. "Oh, that makes this easier," she fiddled with the console and the transport sped up and onto the highway.

Amanda was enjoying her lover's attention when the transport suddenly glided to one side - not a lurch, but enough of a deviation that it caught her attention like a neon light. She immediately pulled herself out of Bryce's lap pulled her pants back over her hips as he protested. "Windows, clear."

The tint in the windows disappeared and Amanda looked out the back screen to see the rest of the transports on the road also moving out of the centre lane, and a small transport in the distance quickly closing in.

"Shit." She grabbed Xara's bag on her way to the console and fished out Xara's laser knife, switching it on and slicing the panel open.

"The fuck is that?" Bryce gasped, arousal suddenly taking a back seat.

"Not now, sweetie. Gotta keep the people trying to break us up away." Amanda's own Ananke training was coming in handy once again; she could see how the transport's systems were connected and organised, and it only took her thirty seconds to figure out how to disable the speed limiter and command the car to speed up. By this point, though, the Heiress's transport was right behind her own.

"Are they seriously chasing us," Bryce mumbled to himself, eyes wide. Amanda rolled hers.

"Now you believe me. You're sexy but you're a bit naive sometimes. Luckily one of us has her head together." Amanda smiled and commanded the console to bring up a control screen, then started exploring it with her fingertips. "Let's see... Peer to peer connection. Transport, can I control another transport from here?"

"Negative," a masculine voice resounded. "That feature is not a part of domestic level transport units."

"Figures. Can you boost a wireless signal from here to another nearby transport, then?"

"Affirmative."

Amanda grinned and reached into the stolen bag. "Then please do that for..." She checked the map screen. "Transport number CV5290. Duplicate all wireless signals inside this transport in the cabin of that transport.

"Instructions confirmed." The voice calmly acknowledged.

Bryce blinked as Amanda drew something from the bag and eyed it thoughtfully, turning it over in her hands. "What... is that?" He asked in a tired, confused voice.

Amanda grinned wider and flicked a switch hidden in the base of the thick, silvery rod. "It's the last time I ever pleasure that spoiled princess," she answered, almost to herself. "Synthdick, activate, 100% sensitivity."

She made eye contact with Bryce, lowered her eyelids and suggestively kissed the tip of the toy.

The transport behind them jerked to the left, almost hitting the guard railing.

"Fuck!" Xara cried, gasping as a spasm erupted out of nowhere between her legs.

"Xara, the hell are you doing?!" Zoe rushed over to her side to help steady the transport. The younger girl groaned and bucked her hips instinctively, cheeks quickly flushing.

"Whoever has Manda, or Manda, has my... um..."

"Your what?"

Xara's eyes rolled back in her head and a low, needy groan escaped her lips as her thighs rubbed together, soon joined by her free hand. As soon as Zoe grabbed the controls away from her, Xara's second hand snapped to join the first, desperately groping at a spot just in front of her pussy.

"Oh, Xara," Zoe sighed. She didn't know whether to laugh or be mad right now.

"That bought us a little time," Amanda remarked, taking a seat next to Bryce, close enough her left thigh rested on his. She noticed his staring. "What?"

He wordlessly nodded at her hands. Amanda looked down at them; holding the synthdick in her left hand and expertly stroking, teasing and stimulating it with her right. She looked back at her lover with a smirk. "You jealous, sweetie? I can do it for you, too."

Bryce couldn’t deny it was an attractive proposition. She made it look so lewd, yet so natural... Fuck, maybe I should let her...

Amanda leaned in closer to him, making a show of sliding her lips around the toy and moaning, eyes fluttering as she gave it a lurid lick from base to tip.

Bryce shivered and almost came just from watching it.

Xara did. She screamed in pleasure, ass leaving the floor of the transport as she braced her feet against it and thrust up into the imaginary mouth she was feeling around her phantom cock, feeling herself drench the jeans she had chosen to wore today. So ecstatic was her orgasm that Irene turned to stare at her, almost thoughtfully.

Zoe could only spare a brief glance, though, as alarms blared inside the cabin, and outside. "And here are the cops, fantastic," she grumbled.

Patterned transports with the Clairview Peacekeeper logo caught up behind their transport, and Zoe could see another set further down the highway in front of Amanda's.

"Well, fuck," she said laconically.

"Shit," Amanda agreed as she noticed the problem a few hundred metres down the road. They had just entered an overpass and there was no chance of escaping to either side.

"Emergency override initiated. Reclaiming manual control." The transport slowed itself, quickly returning to normal speed, then approaching a standstill.

"God damn fucking Anankians!" Amanda screamed, smacking the synthdick against the side door in frustration. "Come on," she ordered, grabbing Bryce's hand and forcing the other door open. No sooner had she left the transport than a group of Peacekeepers surrounded her.

"Hands up!" They yelled, stunners trained on her and Bryce. She didn't care if they took her, but she didn't want them hurting her lover. She scowled and put her hands on her head. No lap dancing my way out of this one.

The other transport had also come to a stop. Zoe kicked the door open and was halfway outside before realising Irene was behind her. "Irene? Is Xara..."

Irene glanced back into the transport. The Heiress was curled up on the floor, knees against her belly and hands clutched to her pussy, eyes squeezed shut and pained tears escaping. "I don't think she's coming."

The Peacekeepers behind their own transport were just slowing to a stop now, so they only had a few moments. Zoe and Irene jogged over towards the front transport just in time to see Amanda twist herself free of several holding her, ducking under one's arms and jumping up onto the ledge of the bridge. Zoe heard Irene gasp, and the Peacekeepers all stopped what they were doing.

"Let him go," Amanda growled. She stood on the overpass railing barefoot, short hair blowing in the wind. "I caused the trouble, not him."

"Amanda," Zoe called, approaching slowly. She hesitated when the girl looked at her with withering scorn.

"And you, Anankian, don't come any closer. I'd do just about anything to avoid being that bitch's plaything again. You might like being her lapdog but I don't."

"Okay, ouch," Zoe said, putting her hands up. "I know you're just playing a part right now, but you need to calm down. Xara's got your..." she glanced at the Peacekeepers, who were looking between the girls in confusion, stunners raised. "...comfort phrase, but she's indisposed right now."

A cruel smirk broke on Amanda's lips. "She deserves it. I hope it hurts."

"I think it did," Zoe mumbled.

"Enough of this," the Peacekeeper captain grunted. "Ma'am, come down from there and come into custody. We can sort this out somewhere safer."

"Counterpoint, fuck you," Amanda spat. "There's nothing to sort out." She leaned back slightly, half a dozen people instinctively leaning forward as if they could hope to reach her in time. "Hey, lapdog, when Xara's up and about, tell her what I did, yeah? It'd make me happy," she grinned. She looked back at Bryce and her expression softened. "I'm sorry I couldn’t protect you, sweetie. I guess it was never meant to be. It was fun, though." Amanda took a deep breath.

Everyone tensed up for a moment, but she never let it out. She swayed in the wind for a few moments before a couple of Peacekeepers rushed forward to pull her back to the road, pulling her arms behind her and cuffing her. She jerked and yelled. "Fucking... Get off me!"

Zoe jumped as Irene touched her shoulder, passing her Xara's remote. "Think anyone noticed the pause?"

"I do, but they don't have a way to explain it," Zoe frowned. She and Irene backed up against their own transport as their group of Peacekeepers caught up to and surrounded them. "This isn't what I'd call a perfect holiday."