Forest Nightmare (Patreon)

This NSFW (PG-13 / R) story is free for all visitors and is nine thousand words long with 45 pictures.

"Forest Nightmare" is the premier Pic-Story on Ailana Geven Imagines and also the first account in the Secrets Of The World storyline.

In this pic-story, Laylana has quite an interesting experience! I'll try to relay what happened… ~Ailana

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: 

Readers who look closely at the images will find subtle differences in what should be the same clothes and gear. Similarly, the generated faces may have minor variation (due partly to lighting and other effects). The slight variations should not detract from the story. 

The villa image was a photo-manipulation of an image from a travel site: HERE

~ ~ ~

"Well, that's interesting…" Laylana spoke aloud to the empty room as she looked at the email a second time.

Something about the message struck her as being off; it came from a spoofed IP address with a meaningless return address. It had nothing in at all to ID the sender—no codes, no initials…nothing. No swap codes for the contact she was to meet, but that sometimes happened. But, it had her correct control code in it and an authentic validation string, so she accepted it was authentic.

Indonesia… That's not on my radar… Must be something big. Her thoughts filtered through recent assignments, but none of her most recent missions came to mind as being potentially related. 

Laylana, a former Army Ranger, had transitioned into the United States CIA Special Activities Group where she performed covert missions around the world. Her most recent assignment had been in a South American jungle where she had gathered intel on a particularly nasty drug cartel.

She looked a second time at the email and shook her head. Indonesia… Guess I better pack and get going.

Her orders had stipulated she would travel light leaving her main kit behind, promising she would be adequately supplied when she got to the operation theater. This was not unusual, but Laylana generally preferred access to her own gear. But time did not always allow for that, and she assumed this was such a case.

As quickly as she could, she arrived at the airport carrying only her go-bag, a relatively small backpack, and a cheap little stuff bag with a shoulder strap in which were a few changes of clothes. Her plan was to get to the mission theater, change into camos, then when she got the rest of her kit, shove everything inside whatever made sense. She expected a decent field pack would be available at some point.

Thirty-eight hours later, the last leg of her journey ended when the Cessna C208 set down. Laylana didn't think the runway could be more than a few meters longer than the 426 needed for take off, but that would not be her concern for a few more days, if the mission brief was accurate.

Sometimes they are…

After quickly getting her gear from where it had been unloaded from the airplane, she set off to meet her contact. Her RMD—that's what her main handler called Revealed-to-date Mission Details—said she would find a trail leading away from the landing strip and small nearby village. She did.

According to the RMD, she was to follow that trail a little more than half a klick. There would be a smaller path that veered off the main one. She was supposed to wait for the contact at that junction.

She picked up her go-bag and the carry-on and headed off. As soon as the landing strip was out of sight, she stopped to change into her camos.

After she had her pants and boots on, she stood up and looked around. She wanted to make sure there were no threats before she continued dressing. She saw nothing she wouldn't expect to see.

It was far from the first time she had been naked outside. Although that time, she was in the middle of nowhere, there had been other times when such was not the case. If she had paused to think about it, she could have named more than one occasion when she had, in some little shop, stood behind a clothes rack and tried on a bikini top or tee shirt to make sure it fit as nicely as it looked. Laylana just wasn't shy about that kind of thing, even if on a joint mission and even in mixed company.

Laylana finished changing clothes, crammed the stuff-sack into the go-bag, then hefted it to its place on her back. It was at that point that she came to a conclusion.

 It's hot…

She immediately decided the shirt might be excessive. The protection the sleeves gave did not seem to outweigh the discomfort they caused. She decided to try pushing up the sleeves and unbutton it to see how that worked.

It was just then that a woman dressed very similarly to Laylana approached. Laylana looked back as she approached."Agent Laylana Vals," she said, "you are right on time."

Laylana quickly assessed the situation and perceived minimal threat from the woman. She waited for her to approach, but said nothing.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but the hardest part of this operation for you will be getting to the target. You'll be hoofing it. A couple nights at least…"

Laylana understood what she said, but tried to turn the conversation. "You are who?"

The woman shook her head. "Not in the scope of your need-to-know…"

Laylana raced thoughts through her mind. The woman knew who she was in a place no one else should. She knew Laylana was there for a mission and had reasonable information she claimed was related to it. Laylana made a quick preliminary decision that she was the expected contact.

The woman pointed further down the path. "I've got your gear stashed just over that rise. You can get it, then double back and hear down this path, here."

Laylana looked in the direction the woman was pointing.

"This trail is crude, but not unused. It's fairly obvious… You'll be able to follow it easily enough. A few streams to cross, but you should be fine. At the end of the trail is a villa… chalet… Whatever you want to call it, it will be obvious. It doesn't really fit the region. Once there, you'll make a connection and be told the rest of the mission details."

"Follow the trail… Easy enough," Laylana replied. "Twenty klicks?"

"Maybe a bit more," the woman replied.

The current day was all but over, so Laylana didn't include it in her figuring. Two nights seemed like too much time for twenty kilometers. If the trail was easy and the pack light, she thought two days of rucking would be far more than needed.

"I could make that day if I pushed it."

"Don't," the woman replied. "There is a timing issue. Get up the trail somewhere reasonable, then call it a day. Knock off eight Klicks the next day, then camp. Finish the hike to the villa the next day."

Laylana nodded, then said, "So, I take it I'm going in by some back-way. If there's a villa, then there must be a road of some sort to it."

The woman nodded. "A road of some sort. Helipad. Solar power and backup generator. Nice enough. Especially compared to the villages around here."

"Okay, two nights, it is," Laylana replied.

"What's in the go-bag?" The woman pointed at Laylana's small backpack.

"MREs… First-aid kit… A few survival tools."

The woman nodded. "It was assumed you'd bring some MREs. But there's food for four meals in the gear I brought. Not exactly MREs, but the same concept. Pre-packaged stuff… You should be in good shape. Pitch everything you don't want to carry after the second night… make it easy on yourself."

"What do I do when I get to the villa thing?"

"It will be obvious. You'll be contacted before you need to do anything else. Just get there. It will be accessible."

"How about a helicopter lift?" Laylana looked over at the trail that would begin the trek to the destination.

"We don't want anyone to know you have arrived there." The woman replied.

Laylana looked toward where her gear was supposed to be, then back at the little path she was supposed to follow, the back at the woman. "I'd ask more questions, but you'd just tell me I'll get answers when I get to the villa-chalet place."

"Good luck, agent." The woman slightly turned back the way she had come, then looked at Laylana. "A bit of advice, if you don't mind… This is beautiful country and you won't face dangers from the enemy on your way to the villa. Indulge your eyes with the beauty. A bit of wilderness pampering is always nice, right? Don't worry about things… just make your way to the destination."

Laylana nodded and watched the woman go back toward the landing strip, then she went to where the gear was supposed to be and located it. There was nothing surprising at first look. A good-sized field pack, a ground mat, light-weight sleeping bag, basic camping gear, and the prepackaged food. No weapons. 

Laylana laughed out loud. She congratulated herself on having decided to go through the ordeal needed to transport a firearm and a few magazines of ammo through commercial air travel. The MP 2.0 9mm Shield on her ankle would have to do.

After putting her go-bag inside the field pack, it was full, and Laylana was ready to start hiking.

She had hardly gone a hundred meters when she decided that, even unbuttoned and with the sleeves pushed up, the camo shirt was too much. She took it off all together and packed it away.

That done, she set out once more.

Despite the instructions to take it easy, Laylana decided to knock off a few kilometers before finding a place to camp. When she came to a stream, crossed it, and came to a place that looked promising for a campsite. She looked back at the stream, reassessed the promise of the campsite and decided to call it a day. She thought she may have traveled a little more than two kilometers.

The contact's words replayed in there thoughts: "wilderness pampering… no dangers from the enemy…"

She decided she would camp out like a hiker, not a CIA agent. She pitched her tent and built a campfire.

After consuming one of the pre-packaged meals, she looked at the sky and guessed she'd have an hour or so more light. She looked back at the stream and decided another wilderness pamper was in order. Washing up with the cool water would be nice.

Situational awareness, over the course of her career, had been spliced into every strand of DNA in Laylana's body. It had become like an autonomic process, always active, but like breathing, something she could intentionally do.

Laylana took in a deep situational breath to assess her surroundings. She surveyed all directions with her eyes and ears quickly. Nothing gave her any reason to be uneasy about anything.

She took off her boots, and socks, and headed the short distance back to where she had crossed the stream.

Reaching the bank of the stream, she stripped off her pants and tank top and waded in.

The water was colder than she had expected, but it felt good. She sat on the gravel bottom of the stream and splashed water on herself and washed away the sweat and trail dust with her hands.

When she was done, she stood up and looked back where she had left her clothes, then let her eyes follow the path back to her camp. She figured it would be dark within half an hour, but there was nothing more she needed to do before going to bed.

When sleeping in the wilderness, Laylana had two normal practices. If danger was imminent, she'd sleep in as much gear as she could. If the weather was good, she'd just sleep on top of her bedroll, boots on her feet.

But danger, that night, was not eminent, so she would do what was far more comfortable; she would sleep nude. Camping and survival experts differed on what to wear to be most comfortable on a cold night while sleeping outdoors. One opinion was that less is better, that the body heat can warm up the inside of the sleeping bag. Further, any clothes being worn before time to sleep would be damp to some degree, if by nothing more than perspiration from the body. Few would argue sleeping in damp clothes was a bad idea.

When staying warm was not a concern, sleeping clean still can be. Dirty trail clothes have no place in a sleeping bag. Aside from setting aside a few pieces to reserve for the sleeping bag, sleeping nude made sense.

Staying warm was far from a concern for Lalana that night. She would reapply insect repellent lotion and sleep, at least to start with, on top of her sleeping bag. That was, in her view, comfortable, and it fit the circumstance—no threat from the enemy.

She returned to camp and made ready for bed. She put all of her food into her go-bag, took out the survival tools she had in it, then lobbed a strand of 550 cord over a sturdy, low branch. She then tied the 550 cord to the pack and hoisted it into the air.

That should keep the animals out of my supplies…

At that, Laylana was ready to settle down onto the sleeping bag for the night.

Laylana situated herself on her sleeping bag inside the tent. She situated the 9mm Shield by her boots, staged her clothes so she could dress quickly in the chance she was alerted to something, then she stretched out.

The faltering campfire still flickered enough to dance shadows on the tent flap, but the light of the day was fading fast. Laylana let herself submerge into the night sounds and the darkness.

The next morning, Laylana awoke with the rise of the sun. She dressed, lowered her supplies down from where they had safely hung, downed one of her MREs, and headed out.

The day's march was rather unremarkable aside from the beauty of the region through which she walked. She marked off the kilometers, estimating her progress based more on the passing of hours than anything else.

It had been while she was eating her first meal of the day that she realized she had no map. That concerned her. A map would afford her contingencies. Combined with persistent niggling the odd email had left in her mind, she felt, for the first time, a slight elevation in concern.

But, the contact had given good direction and promised nothing eventful. So far, there had been nothing to cause any worries, and the trail was anything but hard to follow.

It occurred to Laylana that, perhaps, her normal handler had loaned her out, and the new mission lead was less than thorough. Perhaps a newbie… That would account for the sketchy orders she had received and the lacking map. Surely, she told herself, the next contact will have things together better.

In the meantime, it seemed all she had to do—and all she could do—was keep hiking. So that's what she did.

The day was just beginning to concede to the night when Laylana crossed a stream—probably the same stream—near a waterfall. She assumed that there would be a deep pool under the waterfall, and decided another cool dip would suit her before another night in the tent.

This time, after she set up camp and ate, she stripped down to nothing by the tent and took with her to the pool only the 9mm. She had no reason to believe she would need it, but she thought it would be foolish to not take it with her.

She found a safe, dry, but accessible place to lay the gun, then made her way into the water and toward the deep pool. It was as refreshing as she had hoped. When she was done, she made her way back to the shallow water, then waded back to where she had left the gun.

Retrieving her weapon, she started back to camp.

She expected another night like the one before, hoping though for a few less biting insects. She did not know how long she had been asleep when her reality departed from her expectations.

"Help me!" A woman's voice called out, waking Laylana with a startle.

It was English being spoken, though a slight accent was barely discernible. The source of the voice was close.

"Help me! Please help!" She screamed again.

Laylana's mind raced. She turned on the LED lantern, grabbed the M2.0 Shield and got out of the tent. She let her ears search the area as she moved out of the light and that she wanted to use to see—not to be seen.

She could hear the woman whimpering just up the trail away from where Laylana had bathed. She could hear all of the standard night sounds. But nothing else.

She scanned the area with her eyes. Nothing revealed itself to her other than all the things she had seen before making camp.

Fleet soft steps moved Laylana toward the sound of the woman's voice. She stopped a few strides away, camp to her back, trying to pierce her vision through the darkness. Still, she saw nothing, but the trees before her and the moon above them.

Looking around the horizon, Laylana guessed it was getting close to dawn. They gray, dim, horizon would give her a little light by which to see.

Laylana raised the Shield to a low-ready position and started moving toward the whimpering sounds. As she moved, she considered the possibilities quickly. Either the woman on the trail was in trouble… or Laylana was.

That she was on a recon mission that she assumed would eventually lead to danger opened the door to the possibility that the woman she had met by the landing strip had underestimated the danger. Perhaps whatever it was that she was eventually going to be reconning had gotten closer.

Screaming woman… kidnapping… assassination… but she escaped to some degree… 

Laylana kept moving.

Or, it's a trap and I have nine 9mm rounds to get myself out of it.

Then, Laylana saw a figure move from the side of the trail and toward her. It could have been a woman. The figure moved five meters… maybe ten at most, then it dropped down in the middle of the trail on hands and knees. Laylana could hear the whimpering again.

Then, the voice called out once more. "Please… help… I… I know you are out here… You are supposed to be coming to the villa… to… to… I know you are out here somewhere!

Same voice. Laylana played through the possibilities again. She's in trouble or I am.

She checked to make sure the thumb safety was off on the Shield, then proceeded toward the woman. As she moved along she thought back to the extra magazines she had left with her boots and wished she had thought to grab a couple. Nowhere to carry them, though…

Laylana had reduced the distance to the woman to less than ten meters when she realized the other woman was naked. An intrusive thought raced through Laylana's mind: What are the chances of two naked women meeting here, at this remote spot?

Laylana ignored her own question and looked at the girl on the ground. "What's your name?"

"Nat… Na… Natasha… Thank you for coming!"

Screaming naked woman… sex trafficking… but she escaped somehow…

 Laylana was well aware of the growing rate of sex trafficking in the far east. That, she thought, could be cause for the CIA to send her to do recon. A remote villa accessible by helicopter… A pickup location… Or…

Just then the crack of a firearm shattered the night sounds. Natasha screamed as bark exploded from a nearby tree.

Laylana rushed to take cover behind a different tree. "Get up! Natasha! Get to cover!"

Two more rounds cracked in the night. The muzzle flash lit up the area around the shooter. Laylana took aim, watching Natasha out of the corner of her eye.

She looked terrified. She crawled toward a tree near her as two more shots cracked.

From exactly the same place… Laylana squeezed off two rounds of her own right toward the muzzle flash.

Natasha screamed again.

Two more shots from up the hill. The sound all but convinced Laylana someone was firing 5.56 NATO rounds at her. AR15… M4 maybe… 

She knew she would waste time counting their shots. Thirty rounds in a standard magazine… Seconds to change mags out… They could pin her down all night.

"Get to cover and stay there!" Laylana replied as she estimated the distance to the muzzle flashes.

Thirty meters max. Can't let them get any closer… Too far to be confident I'll hit anything.

Just then, Natasha stood up. Terrible! They'll pick her off!

Sure enough, a shot fired from uphill. Laylana had to return cover fire.

Two rounds spent.

"Get to cover! Now!"

The shooter fired again, from five meters away from the first spot. Laylana sent two more precious rounds up the hill.

To her utter surprise a man's voice growled out an indication that he had been injured.

Then a second voice called out but Laylana did not understand what was said. Laylana thought it might have been Chinese. She was sure the voice came from a direction between the shooter and her camp.

"Flesh wound!" A voice from the location of the first shooter answered.

Then, a barrage of shots blasted toward her from the second location. Natasha was screaming again, still standing in the open. Bark splinters were exploding from the trees and saplings were being snapped off by the rounds.

No choice… Laylana turned her M2.0 toward the second shooter and tried to give Natasha cover.

Finally, Natasha was moving out of the middle of the road. She was, by then only a step or two away from Laylana.

The fist shooter opened fire, then. Bark once again exploded from above Laylana's head.

Laylana turned her weapon toward him and fired once more.

At that, Natasha stopped moving and looked up the trail. She began jogging away, yelling to the hillside as she put distance between her and Laylana.

"That's nine rounds! Slide locked open!"

A standard shield magazine held seven rounds and the extended magazine held eight. Add one in the chamber for a total of nine shots.

She counted my rounds for them…

Laylana could only watch as Natasha disappeared up the dark path. She could only stay hidden and listen as what seemed to be at least four people moved off after Natasha through the trees up the hill.

Laylana waited until only the sounds of the forest could be heard once more, then waited a few more minutes. She looked through the canopy of the trees and took note of the growing grayness on horizon to the east.

As she thought of a light, she looked back toward her camp, where she had left a light on in the tent. She saw nothing but dark forest.

I would've cut the light off, too, if I was trying to snipe someone from up the hill. Wouldn't want to give them a silhouette.

She waited a while longer to see what was going to happen, but nothing did. She tried to make sense of what happened, but her thoughts spun. All she could decide for sure was that Natasha was in on it.

And… that they weren't trying to kill anyone. Two shooters with AR15's against a naked girl and a 9mm… If they couldn't put a red dot on me from range, they could have moved in and done whatever they wanted.

For a moment she considered if the whole scenario had just been a field test of some sort. That would fit how the contact at the airstrip acted. Am I getting tested by the Agency?

She shook her head, and looked around once more, but saw nothing but forest. Finally, she looked up and down the trail as far as she could see. Then, she carefully moved just a little bit away from the tree.

Nothing happened, so she moved further. Still nothing. She decided she needed to get back to camp, grab her gear and get going as soon as possible. She set out quickly.

Apparently, the timetable has changed. As she made her way back, she decided she'd leave the tent and sleeping gear. She'd not set up a camp of that sort any time soon. She'd be back to sleeping with her boots on and her gun easily in reach.

A minute or so later, Laylana reached the location of her camp. She stopped and stared.

The camp was gone. She paused and looked back toward where the woman had been—Laylana doubted that her name really was Natasha—then she looked back at where her gear should have been.

On second look, she saw her go-bag was still suspended from the branch where she had left it just like the night before. That was it.

She paused again to try and make sense of the situation. Her thoughts raced, spiraled and doubled back on each other. One idea formed a few times before she decided to reject it.

No way all this was just to steal my gear…

She took a few tentative steps toward the go-bag, then edged closer to a tree. It occurred that there was a very good chance that she was being watched. In fact, she decided it would be foolish to think of anything else, and she also knew it would be futile to go off looking for someone in a ghillie suit. All the same, she looked long and hard in all directions around the camp. Nothing…

Laylana moved forward and quickly released the knot holding up the go-bag. It still had three MREs in for that day. But everything else, she had taken out and kept in the tent for the night. The night…

Looking around once more, she could tell sunrise was soon forthcoming. Night was almost over.

She wound up the 550 cord and put it in with the pack. She looked at her gun. It was empty, so she put it into the pack, too.

She counted my shots for the shooters… When I was out… When I was out, they disengaged…

Laylana left the go-bag on the ground and made a quick look around her perimeter. She didn't expect to find anything.

Looking at the horizon, she decided that sunrise would be soon. Her survey of the perimeter had, as she expected, turned up nothing. But she assumed. Ghillie suit…

She decided to eat one of the MREs then and there, then start out. As she ate she looked at the sky as it grew more and more light.. Bet it's going to be one of those ever-changing weather days. By the time she was finished eating, there was ample light for her to pick her way along the path. She picked up the go-bag and looked ahead toward the trail.

Her plan was to continue on to the villa. It was the only operational objective she had, and unless she was to spend days hiking around Indonesia naked, it seemed like the thing to do—assuming that the woman at the airstrip was on Laylana's side and the attackers were the enemy. That the woman was part of the plot was possible.

Laylana shouldered her pack and headed out..

Laylana was a dozen steps down the path when a thought occurred to her. What if this is all just a nightmare? If it was, she wondered when it started. Back at the hotel? The first night camping? The second?

She kept walking, looking back one last time.

In a way, Laylana thought, if it were a nightmare—or just a bizarre dream—a lot of things would make sense. The missing details for one. And the fact that she felt no panic. To be sure, when the bullets were flying, the adrenaline was pumping, but aside from that, the whole mission had been rather… chill.

Laylana dismissed the dream idea—for the time being, at least—and turned her attention to the trek ahead for her. She figured she'd carefully make her way to the villa, then do a deep, hard assessment before the nightmare got any worse.

Despite the fact that the go-bag was relatively light, carrying it while nude was less comfortable than Laylana expected. She alternated between carrying it in her hand and wearing it properly.

When her feet had carried her to within the sound of running water, she decided the paths of the trail and the stream had found each other once more. She paused to look ahead.

From where she paused to the stream wasn't very far. Laylana thought that the stream might be a place she would encounter someone—a choke-point of sorts. Or even possibly, it could be an opportunity see the unseen enemy she believed had to be just out of sight stalking her. Scouting out the stream for a few minutes seemed like a good idea. When she got to a place she could watch the stream, she sat down and thought through her situation.

The reason she could so easily hear the stream was that, where the path crossed it, there was another little waterfall. It was not as big as the one where she had bathed the night before, but it was plenty big enough to make itself heard for a good distance.

Her estimation of her travel progress put her reaching the villa—if it actually existed and if it were actually twenty kilometers from the airstrip—within a few hours. The closer she would get to the villa, the more likely she'd run into trouble. Or, if the woman at the air-strip was on her side, the likelihood that she'd find her next Agency contact. I'll have some explaining to do!

With the idea that she was close to her destination in mind she made a decision. She would eat another MRE, then ditch the backpack. And her gun. Neither would do her any good in a crisis, rather they would be something she would have to keep up with. Sacrificing one MRE, given what she thought would be a few hours more of hiking, was not really concerning. She struggled with the idea of leaving the Shield, but if she took it, it would have to be in her hand the whole time, and she thought, in the case she had to make a run for it, the gun would just make things a little harder without there being any good reason to keep it.

She looked around yet again. The weather was, indeed, being indecisive. At that moment, it was fogging in one direction she looked, but sunny in another. But, the weather was only a concern to Laylana with regard to how it affected her safety and progress.

Her decision to ditch the gear made, she stood up, moved closer to the stream, and stood behind a little tree. From there, she scouted the stream one more time. Nothing revealed any reason for her to not proceed, so she moved away from the tree and started for the waterfall.

The descent of the trail into the stream was a little tricky, but not bad. She stopped on the near back to plan her path, looking across to where the trail picked up on the other side, but there was nothing obvious.

Whatever… Laylana pushed forward into the stream then looked for where the trail picked up. The path out of the stream was not obvious, and Laylana shook her head and wondered if it just didn’t go past the stream.

She took a deep breath and relaxed. It has to go somewhere. She let the sounds of the waterfall surround her and took a second deep breath.

Okay, let’s find it…

After turning one way, and then the other, then backtracking to where she entered the stream and staring over, she finally found it.

She made her way across the gravel bottom of the stream to pick up the trail. Looks like someone tried to hide it… Laylana looked at where the trail made it way up from the stream and shook her head. It had to be them… whoever they are… trying to slow me down.

She had hardly gone twenty paces when she second guessed her decision to leave the gun behind. Looking back, she paused to rethink the decision

It occurred to her that she might find ammo. She decided that if she did, it would probably be from her next contact, and if that was the case, he or she should also provision her with a weapon. Eventually, the idea of needing to make a run for it, perhaps needing to scramble up a rough pitch of trail or—essentially, the gun would do nothing for her and could be a slight hindrance in some situations.

She decided to carry on without it.

It was only a few paces further that Laylana noticed tire track on the trail. The took them to be some sort of cycle and assumed they belonged to Natasha—or whatever her real name was. Looking closer, Laylana decided there were at least two sets of tracks.

She's not out here alone…

As Laylana put more and more steps behind her, her thoughts again turned inward. Clearly she was in the middle of some at-least-moderately-well orchestrated operation that created an extremely inconvenient situation for Laylana. That the didn't kill her there on the trail in the middle of nowhere suggested death was not the intended outcome. In the same way, they could have pinned her down with 5.56 rounds while a grab team advanced to abduct her. The attack at the campsite left her agitated and confused. And unarmed. And naked.

But, for reasons Laylana couldn't fully articulate, there was a strange serenity to her situation. Indeed, there was a dreamlike feel; striding naked through a forest with nothing evoked something of a surreal mood.

Laylana had to check herself. She was on her way to, she hoped, meet an Agency contact. If that was not true, then she was walking into some place some unidentified woman told her to find.

Laylana revisited the mission from the beginning. Assuming the email was authentic—and having all the right codes and identifiers in it made a strong case for that—then she was to meet a contact. If the woman she met was not the contact, then Laylana missed a connection and was off on an errand for the enemy. If the woman at the airstrip was the contact, then the information she was given was flawed. Incomplete at least.

Enemy errand or flawed information, Laylana had to keep in mind that she was walking on uncertain ground.

Hardly any time passed when Laylana got the first glimpse of the villa. She stopped, and craned her head to see it.

Laylana saw no signs that anyone was there. Though everything looked well-kept, no one was visible anywhere outside. Flowing under the villa and over a small waterfall was a stream. She assumed it would join the stream she had been encountering at some point.

She decided to get out of sight to think about what to do. She found a tree she could get behind and pressed her back to it. She let her ears search for any signs of occupation, but she heard nothing. Keeping the tree close, she moved enough to get a good look at the villa once more.

Nothing…

That the place seemed vacant favored the idea that the woman at the landing strip had sent her to actually meet someone at the villa. How Natalia and company fit in was still uncertain. Almost certainly, they would know about the villa, even if they were not part of the Agency.

Laylana moved back out of sight and scouted the terrain for some way to get closer without walking straight down the path. Though she had not once found any reason to believe she was still being followed, she could not dismiss the idea that someone from Natalia's attack still lurked somewhere out of sight.

I'll have to stay alert…

She circled away from the main path to the villa looking for some alternate means of access. After a little while, she found a smaller, though still obvious, path angling toward the villa from what she guessed was some part of the stream higher up and behind the villa. She decided she would give it a try to see if it took her in while affording some, albeit slight, better cover.

The path grew every more open the closer it got to the villa. Laylana was not surprised, but she wished for more cover.

She was getting close to the point that she would have to decide if she were going in or not when she had another intrusive thought. What if this is the wrong villa? She laughed out loud at what might happen if she arrived naked at the wrong place. She dismissed the idea, no matter how much it amused her. How many villas could there be in this place?

She had drawn so close to the villa that she had to decide; should she go in or turn back. Wandering back to the airstrip and its village would be doable, and there, she could find some way to check in with the Agency. And maybe get a dress. Or a kebaya. Or a towel…

She stopped one more time to decide.

Whatever… I'm going in…

Laylana stepped away from the tree and started toward the villa. It will be locked, and I'll be stuck outside…

It wasn't locked.

Laylana went in and made a quick sweep of the whole place. She found no one. She went around and locked all the doors, assuming she was in the right place and keeping in mind that Natasha's people could try to come in. Then, she made a second sweep more slowly. Again she found nothing of concern.

As she was checking one of the bathrooms, she decided a quick shower would be okay. It was then that she realized she had seen no towels. I can drip dry… She locked the door.

As she showered, she replayed her sweep of the villa. It was then that she realized all of the closets were empty. I'll check the dressers…

It might have been one of the fastest showers Laylana ever took that involved soap and hot water, but she felt better for the effort. She padded out of the shower and bathroom marking her passing with dripped water.

Nothing in any of the dressers. Nothing in any closet.

Laylana tried to make sense of what she was experiencing. A luxury villa in the middle of the Indonesia jungle with not a single item of clothes anywhere… She decided it had to be some sort of place dedicated to brief private meetings.

She started another sweep of the villa, this time looking for two things. any means of getting contact outside the villa… and anything she could use as a weapon, need be. Aside from a few odd nicknacks in the living room, she found neither.

Knife in the kitchen… 

Laylana made her way in that direction.

Laylana stood at the sink and shook her head. Wooden spoons, tongs, and wooden forks… She could not believe that there was a kitchen bereft of cutlery. There was not even any flatware to eat with. This can't be real! I really must be in one of those crazy dreams!

Laylana didn't know if people could feel hungry while dreaming, but if not, then she was fully awake. Checking the refrigerator, she found it adequately stocked. She took a bottled water, then turned back to the counter by the sink. From a fruit bowl, she selected a banana and a papaya and went back to the living room to eat them.

Now what?

Laylana thought about ripping the covers from the bed and making a toga or something, then heading back to the village near the airstrip. But she told herself not to be hasty. Except for the attack—far from insignificant, but short in duration—everything had transpired more or less like the contact at the airstrip had said it would. Guess she didn't know about the part where I got all my gear and clothes stolen.

Or was it an Agency test?

Or…

Laylana knew she could speculate a thousand times and not know if she was right until she could get more information. Instead of ripping the bed apart, she decided to just go use one for what it was meant.

She entered the room, locked the door, then went to the bed. She crawled on and laughed. There was a towel folded up at its foot. How did I miss this?

She used the towel to help dry her hair, then pulled it up on top of her head. She spread out the towel and laid down on it, but quickly decided that was not as comfortable as the smooth bed topper would be; she was hesitant about getting under the covers thinking it would slow her down if she needed to get up quickly. She sat up and scrunched the towel to one side. She decided to just stay in the bedroom and wait. She could use the connected bathroom as needed and keep at least one more locked door between her and the forest outside.

She had no idea how long the wait would be, but she hoped not long. Though she had grown comfortable with being nude and had, in a sort of dreamy way, enjoyed the trip from the airstrip, she had to keep in mind that someone had shot 5.56 rounds at her and stolen all her gear to put her in the situation to start with. Dreamy or not, she had been attacked.

If the mission contact showed up, she hoped things could be straightened out and she could get on to whatever came next. If someone else showed up…

I'll not sleep very well, if I sleep at all. 

True to her prediction, Laylana only dozed off a little bit, then woke up. She let down her hair, finger-combed it to something like a part, then looked out a window to pass the time.

Laylana estimated that two hours had passed when she heard someone entering the villa. She reminded herself that if it were the people from the campsite attack, they didn't want her dead or abducted, unless cleaning up blood from the bedsheets was part of their plan. She took a deep breath and mustered up as much of an in-control attitude as she could.

A minute or so passed, then someone was operating the door. It was a simple, regular door like in any home, so picking the lock was child's play. She reminded herself again that the could have killed her on the trail in the dark, but still, she felt the adrenaline start kicking in. She took a deep breath and waited.

The lock quickly yielded and the door opened quickly. Looking into the room was the woman who called herself Natasha.

Show time…

Laylana faked a smile. "You look better than you did last time I saw you."

The woman seemed surprised. "Well… You… You seem no worse for your little naked frolic in the woods."

Laylana thought it was a good retort, but didn't want to let her gain any ground, even it if was only verbal repartee. "I can assure you, there was no frolicking going on. Turns out, I quite enjoyed the freedom and simplicity."

Laylana wasn't sure that was a lie, but it did seem to set the woman back a tick in whatever it was she had come to say or do. "Enjoyed… Is that so?"

Laylana thought she had captured enough of the conversation's momentum, so she took a shot at getting to the point. "What do you want? You clearly have no intention to kill me or I would be dead. What do you want?"

A look came into the eyes of the other woman and a wry smile formed in the corners of her mouth. "We got what we wanted. The mission objective has been achieved."

Laylana did not like how that sounded. Still, she was not ready to concede to the helplessness of her situation. She turned and looked out the window for a calculated delay, then looking back over her other shoulder, she fired another verbal salvo, just to see what would happen.

"Do you think we look like sisters?"

Laylana didn't know what the other woman heard, but the smile faded from her mouth and she was clearly startled. But, she mastered the moment quickly, and forced a laugh.

"Funny you should say that, you know. Actually, very funny."

It didn't seem funny to Laylana, but she decided to let that point go and think about it later. Instead she decided it was time to just dump a load of her thoughts on the floor and see what stuck.

"So, let's go with this, and move on. Somehow, you got my codes and IDs and sent me here. Your woman at the airfield sent me on my little hike with promises that it would be easy and relaxing to lull me into false security. For some reason, most likely to slow me down, you staged an attack, so you could get me to be weaponless… I'd wager that detail was so you could come through that door worried only that I might have a tchotchke ready to hurl at you. Maybe getting me naked was just a windfall for your boys in the ghillie suits who probably have had a red dot pointed at me since that night. I end up here, more or less on schedule… Nice place, by the way…"

Laylana paused for a breath as she let all the thoughts that had been swirling around in her head for a day fall into place.

"Thank you," the woman replied. "Wish it were mine…"

“Tell me something,” Laylana said looking back at the women claiming to be Natasha, “why were you naked? I was naked because I was in my sleeping bag. But, why were you?”

The woman smiled and shrugged. “Shock factor? We wanted you off guard and confused. Maybe to drum up some sympathy? Get your rescuer vibe going? Spice things up a bit? Hopefully, to get you a little off balance.”

Laylana got up from where she sat and stood by the window, then went on with her ideas about what was going on.

"So, what has been accomplished? I wasted a few grand of the Agency's money getting here and burnt a lot of time. Is that what you wanted? Just to put me out of touch with my handlers and let time pass?"

The woman shrugged. "Well, they said you are keen. I guess they were right. Your little ordeal is over. We… went out of our way not to hurt you.”

Laylana furrowed her brow. “You shot bullets at me!”

“Almost everything we shot at you was blanks… Just a few live rounds to shoot into the trees.”

“It only takes one live round to do bad things,” Laylana replied.

The woman nodded. “Granted… But we had the best marksmen in the… in… in our… organization doing the shooting. At that range, you were in essentially no danger.”

Laylana shook her head but said nothing more.

“And you were shooting back,” the woman added. “You actually clipped one of the shooters in the arm.”

Laylana nodded and looked down.

“He’s fine, but the truth is, they were in far more danger than you were.” 

Laylana was, a surprise to herself, actually relieved to learn that.

The woman went on. “We just needed to get you off the grid for a while. You… missed an assignment while you were pampering yourself in the wilderness. And… you might have been seen somewhere you shouldn't have been seen. By the time you get all this mess sorted out, we'll be done. Now, it's time for you to get some sleep."

"Sleep?" Laylana turned to face the woman. "I have no intention of going to sleep."

At that moment the woman backed quickly away and a man in camos moved in. He drew a pistol, aimed, and shot Laylana with a dart.

"That's gonna leave a bad bruise," the man said.

Drugged…

Laylana managed to get back to the bed before she passed out.

~~~

Laylana rolled from her side to her back and stretched. As she drifted from sleep to consciousness, she felt like she had just had a great night's sleep. She blinked her eyes open as she became more and more awake.

Then memories of her most recent days began to form. She started to feel panic well up inside her as the events of her recent past flashed through her mind. The first question that formed in her mind was the quintessential waking up cliche.

Where am I?

The next ones were no less trite.

What day is it? What time is it? 

The "where" question was easy on face value. She was in some nice, small hotel room. She'd need to clear her head to figure out more.

Laylana coaxed herself to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. There, she found an opened suitcase full of clothes. Not her clothes, but clothes.

Details from Indonesia started to surface as she became more and more awake.

She picked out some panties and a tank top and put them on—both black. Then, she noticed her own go-bag on the floor beside the suitcase. And on the floor beside the go-bag was her M2.0 Shield.

Thoughtful of them… Laylana laughed and shook her head.

The hotel was nice enough to have a laptop in the room. That was a surprise. Laylana hurried to it.

She booted it up and looked at the date. She stared and blinked. She replayed the mission she had been on—the escapades in Indonesia—counting all of the nights. Compared to the date on the computer, two more nights were unaccounted for.

The one after I got drugged and another one… That can't be right!

Google… She checked the date there and found that it matched the computer.

So from getting darted in the villa to now… two nights… Laylana could hardly believe it.

She managed to connect to the hotel Internet, then she accessed and logged into her Agency VPN. From there, she went through a cascade of logins and authentication before finally getting to her communications portal.

Fancy version of email… Let's see what I missed. In-box…

There were several messages from her handler; the gist of them was "Where are you?" He was far from cordial about it.

The message that set her off on the trip to the far east was missing. That stunned Laylana. She could think of only one way a message from the woman calling herself Natasha could arrive in her inbox and then be deleted. Someone inside the Agency is working with her.

Laylana went to an area of the portal that listed mission and had notes. She found her mission to South America, and all the notes seemed intact. Contacted on a particular date. Deployed… Extracted.

There was nothing from around the day she left for Indonesia. But there was a mission that was instantiated on the day she landed there. She opened and scanned the timeline.

Agent Vals contacted: Status fail

Not good… She went to the next entry and kept reading.

Agent Vals contacted: Status fail

Mission voided: Status reassign

Agent missing: Status com fail

Agent Vals off script: Status unauthorized action suspected

Laylana opened that one and read the notes thinking it would describe her in Indonesia. Nothing could have prepared her for what it said.

Agent Laylana Vals alleged to be in Jakarta. Details:

• Contacted US Embassy there requesting access to recent SatCam and fly-over data.
• Presented good CSS (contact security string) to access secure area; NOTE: string was not this agent. CSS pointing: NULL ID.
• Embassy security cameras matched facial recognition for this agent at 90%.
• ALERT: CSS system failed cross-check with facial rec, access granted per facial rec.
• Aerial recon images from central China obtained.
• ALERT CLEARED: cross-check behaved per ops in testing.

I was not in Jakarta… That incident makes no sense… Cross-check just bugging out? No way… Laylana closed that entry and went back to log.

Case Open | Rogue agent: Status ongoing.

At that point, the women's words replayed in Laylana's mind:

"We just needed to get you off the grid for a while. You… missed an assignment while you were pampering yourself in the wilderness. And… you might have been seen somewhere you shouldn't have been seen. By the time you get all this mess sorted out, we'll be long gone."

The missed mission… Whatever they were dong had to be connected to that… and… they didn't want me involved. At least not as the one on it. Maybe… Nothing about this adds up…

Laylana sighed and shook her head. She went back to the com portal and opened communications to her handler. Gotta start somewhere…