Violet And The Muscle Factory
By the Captain
What Is The Special Prize?


[ACT I]

Violet Beauregarde, born in December of 1993, had been competing in gymnastics
since she was five and in later years had added karate, kendo, running, shot
put, skating, skiing, swimming, tennis and several other sports. Her shelves
were lined with over two hundred trophies. She had traveled to both the 2004
and 2008 Olympics, wining a total of six gold and two silver medals. The
green-eyed blonde had the looks of a young model with the healthy glow of a
natural athlete. She considered herself in winner in every way. The yard
outside was filled with gold and red leaves as the first hints of winter
sniffed around the window, looking for a way to sneak in. But Violet was blue.

She stared at the dark computer monitor and cursed her weakness. Over the
years she had developed an incredible drive and the ability to push herself to
higher levels of performance. Unfortunately, this ability had also driven all
of her friends away until she was left with only her coaches and her
ever-attendant mother. By accident she had discovered a new option, and since
she was now a horny nineteen-year-old girl she found it hopeless to resist. A
soft knock came from her closed bedroom door. Her heart pounded as she heard a
stammering male voice say "Galactic Nerd Patrol! Your mom told me to come on
up!"

Violet jumped to her door and slowly opened it. Yes! It was the same guy who
had come to the house last time. He was slim and slightly taller than she was,
but she could tell that the most athletic thing that he did was carry his tool
bag. From their last conversation Violet knew that he was only two years older
than she was, but he was more mature than most of the older adults in her
life. "Oh! Thank you for coming! I don't knows what's wrong, the computer
comes on but there's no picture! I feel so stupid around computers."

David looked around the room, taking in the massive array of trophies and
medals, "Oh, I'd say that you're one incredible girl! I know this sounds
crazy, but I couldn't stop thinking about all of the contests you've won. It's
amazing. It's like over here are all the other girls in the world and over
there there's you! You're the only famous person I've ever met, so when your
call came in I made sure to grab it! I hope that doesn't sound too freaky, I
mean now that I'm saying it, it sound freaky to me." He stood there for a
moment, waiting for her rejection.

Suddenly Violet smiled and patted the bed. "Hey David, could we just talk for
a minute? I never get to just talk. Please? And no, I don't think it's freaky
that you react that way to me. Everybody does!"

"That's a problem, isn't it? Everyone treats you the same? OK, what do you
want to talk about?"

"So, what do you look for in a girlfriend? Tell me something that you've
always wanted but could never get. I don't care, tell me anything you want
to." She looked down at her hands, "Please?"

David looked her in the eyes and felt her intensity, "Well, you'll laugh, but
I've always felt a strange attraction toward girls with visible muscles. You
know, really strong girls. Weird, right?"

"I don't know if that's weird," Violet answered, "Am I weird? I'm a strong
girl with some muscle, see?" She stood up and pulled off her pink warm-up
jacket. Underneath she wore only a pure-white sports-bra. Violet faced David
and flexed her muscles like she had seen the body-builders do on ESPN. Under
her smooth pale skin great cords and knots of muscles flexed and swelled as
she moved. Years of hard training had given her broad, strong shoulders and a
wide, muscular back that tapered to a small waist which was crowned with a
perfect set of six-pack abs. She took a step forward and held her hard right
bicep inches from his face, "Is this what you want?" she whispered.

He reached out and ran his hand along her cool hard muscles, ripples of
muscular tension flowed from his fingertips to every part of her body. The
room lights gave her skin a very faint blue tint. "None of the photos I found
on the internet hinted that your muscles were this fantastic. You are sexier
than any bodybuilder, you're like a sports car compared to a bulldozer. I've
seen women with pretty massive arms, but you've got power hidden under those
curves!" David pulled his hands back, "What am I saying? Now you know I'm a
freak!"

Violet pulled her warm-up jacket back on and pointed out her window to the
backyard, "See that bucket by the stairs? My dad put that there when I was
nine. My skating coach had told him that I didn't have the stamina to be a
winner. Most of our backyard is down that hill and those stairs go down to the
bottom. There are three hundred and twenty-four steps from the top to the
bottom. My dad put that bucket at the top and connected it to a forty-gallon
tub at the bottom with a pipe that runs next to the stairs. You can't see it
from here, but there's a meter on the pipe that counts how many gallons of
water goes by. My dad made a pole with a five gallon bucket on each end. All I
had to do was go down to the bottom and bring water up to the top bucket."

"The first time I did it my legs felt like they were on fire and I couldn't
walk the next day. After three months I could move over a hundred gallons in
an hour. My skating coach was amazed, though we never told him how I trained.
None of the other girls could match my stamina. I knew I was a winner!"

David stood next to her by the window and said, "Your dad sounds like a cool
guy, will I get to meet him?"

"No. He died in 2003. They said he was killed by some militia in Iraq. He was
there trying to help the Iraqis rebuild their oil fields. They called him a
greedy American stealing Iraqi oil, but he was working for free and at the
time most of the Iraqi oil was going to countries who were doing nothing to
help that country. I lost my dad because some asshole wanted to be on TV!"
Violet punched the window frame, leaving tiny cracks in the thick decorative
tile. "It took me years to get over it. It screwed me up in the 2004
Olympics."

Remembering the display of female muscle Violet had just given him, David
said, "I know a sport you haven't tried. It requires power, stamina, strategy
and a drive to win. At the higher ranks technique counts more than brute
strength. I've tried to read up on it, but it was too complicated for me."

Violet laughed, "Too complicated for a guy from the Galactic Nerd Patrol? What
is this magical sport?"

"Armwrestling. Your mom looks like she's in good shape. I bet you could do a
mother-daughter team."

From the doorway came an older female voice, "Thank you for the complement.
But what sport could I join my daughter in? Oh, I'd love to compete again, I
won awards in baton you know. But I'm not as young as I used to be!"

"He's talking about armwrestling, mother. He thinks that we could train
together and win contests."

Angelica Beauregarde looked at David, her face revealing both surprise and
amusement. "Oh dear! That brings me back to time when I first met your dad.
There was a charity fund-raiser at the junior college I was going to. We were
doing all kinds of wild things to raise money. Some of the girls wanted to do
an old- fashioned kissing booth, but I suggested we do an armwrestling booth.
You paid five dollars to armwrestle one of the girls and if you won you'd get
a dollar back."

Violet sat down on the bed next to David, "You never told me this story
mother!"

Angelica smiled, "It never seemed the right time. Well, I ended up being the
favorite because I was the tall perky blonde! But I surprised a lot of the
guys by winning nearly every match. I guess I finally noticed this one short
guy watching us. He was cute and real smart looking. It was almost closing
time when he gets up the courage to walk up to the booth. He pulls out a
hundred dollar bill and puts it down in front of me. I just stare at him for a
moment then he says that it was all he had but he was willing to spend every
penny because I was the best."

"What did you do mother?" Violet asked.

"Well, I beat him at armwrestling twenty times in a row! Even after beating
all of those other guys I was still a lot stronger than he was. Oh yeah, two
years later we got married." Angelica smiled, "Your father was a genius in
many ways, but his work kept him away. But I knew that he would always be
happy to come home, because I knew exactly what he wanted. Your father made me
very happy. And even though he's been gone for so many years I keep it up in
his memory." Mrs. Beauregarde removed her pink warm-up jacket revealing a
larger pure-white bra. Kevin saw that Angelica was an older version of Violet,
but in her case all of her muscular development was focused on biceps that
ballooned up to over sixteen inches.

She walked up to David and held her biceps inches from his face, "Go ahead, I
recognize that look. You're just like Edgar was, aren't you? Wrap your hands
around my arm, feel what a real muscle is like!"

Violet stood up, "Mother! What are you doing?"

"Sit down Violet, this is one competition that you can't win! I've been
working these biceps since before you were born! When you were a baby I would
hold you with one hand and do concentration curls with the other!" Angelica
stepped close to David, he could feel the heat coming from her body.

In a flash Violet had whipped off her pink warm-up jacket and marched next to
her mother, matching her flex for flex. Though the mother was clearly several
inches larger than the daughter, Violet's biceps were more defined. "You don't
have to choose David! Feel us both! We are the best mother-daughter muscle
team in the world!"

Angelica smiled, "Yes! Oh how I wish your father could see this! Squeeze as
hard as you can!"

David did as he was commanded. The mother's biceps were large, smooth and hard
as a rock. The daughter's biceps were smaller but were very defined and hard
as steel. This continued for several minutes until they were interrupted by a
faint buzzing sound coming from downstairs. "Oh! My apple pie is done! You are
staying for dinner aren't you? Violet! Convince this fine young man he should
stay a while!" Mrs. Beauregarde picked up her pink jacket and walked out of
the room.

Violet walked over to the door, closed and locked it. As she walked back to
David she said, "You may have noticed that there was something else my mother
has which are larger than mine but," Her pure-white bra dropped to the ground,
revealing perfect c-cup sized breasts, "You'll find that once again, mine are
harder!"

[ACT II]

Over the next several weeks David became a regular visitor at the Beauregarde
home. While the mother and daughter did not repeat their head-to-head flexing
contest, it was clear that a friendly muscle contest was underway every time
he walked in. And then Sandra Beauregarde returned home from survival camp.
David was warned that Violet's thirteen-year-old sister was just as focused on
military and combat training as Violet was on sports competition. While Sandra
had wandered through life as a fairly normal girl, the death of her father had
started her on an intensive training program. Four years later she could
almost beat her older sister in some martial arts and had greater lower-body
strength.

Kevin was sprawled out on a low couch reading a vintage Byte magazine when he
felt someone standing behind him. Since he knew that Angelica was out shopping
and Violet was sparring with her karate partners, there was only one person
this could be, "Hello Sandra, my name is David. You know, you were perfectly
silent, if I hadn't seen the reflection of your movement on this glossy paper
I would have been totally surprised!" He turned to smile at the stocky young
girl in a dark-green muscle shirt and gray sweat-pants.

For a moment Sandra stared at David, her face revealing no emotions, "If you
had to choose between a M- 16 and an AK-47, which one would you pick?" she
asked, her voice deep and husky.

"Well, the later versions of the M-16 are great weapons in a lot of ways, but
if I have to arm a bunch of troops that can't read or write and who are going
to be dragging their rifles through mud and sand, than I'd have to go with the
AK-47. It's hard to say which is the best weapon because they're all just
different tools. It's like picking the best hammer or screwdriver, you pick
what's best for the job. Right?"

Sandra stepped close to David, "You know a lot for a nerd. Why?" He thought he
could smell machine oil.

David glanced down and noticed that her thighs seemed thicker than his own,
"My dad was a Sergeant- Major in the Marine Corps. When he died I got all of
his military books, he had hundreds of them. Most of them are from WWII and
Korea, but there are a bunch he got when Northrop closed down, he was a
security guard there and they let him go though the library as they were
dumping it. And I like to read! Your sister told me that you were really into
military stuff, so I bought this in case you might want to borrow it" He held
up a thick datk-green hard-back book. A Marine Corps globe-and-anchor insignia
was printed in black on the spine.

For several moments she just stood there. He could tell that she was straining
to hide all emotions, but there were small flickers of muscle on her face and
arms. "This is not what I expected when my sister described you to me. You
thought of doing this? She didn't give you any hints?" Sandra suddenly leaned
forward and wrapped her muscular arms around David and gave him a hard
squeeze, "Thanks! And welcome to the family!"

Sandra stepped back and looked David in the eye, "I have to warn you that
Violet and I like to share fun things, though her idea of fun is a lot
different from mine." She held up her arm and pumped up her biceps, "They're
only twelve inches now, but Violet's were smaller when she was my age. Go
ahead, I know you've felt both Violet's and my mom's. Tell me who's harder!"

David reached out and squeezed Sandra's biceps. While they did not have the
refined structure of her sister's biceps, they had an unusual hardness to them
and felt like large smooth stones. Sandra saw his eyes light up and smiled, "I
haven't been training as long as my sister has, but all that I focus on is
building up pure brute strength. Oh, I want flexibility and speed for martial
arts, but my main goal is power and endurance. Go ahead, test me! Give me
something to do!"

"OK, let's see you do say - twenty pushups!"

"Twenty!", Sandra laughed, "I know five-year-old girls who can do more than
twenty pushups!"

David smiled, "What if they are twenty pushups with me standing on your back?"

In a flash Sandra had thrown herself face down onto the floor. David took off
his shoes and gently placed his feet near the middle of Sandra's surprisingly
wide back. After a moment Sandra began to crank out twenty pushups, her form
perfect despite the fact that she was also lifting David's nearly two hundred
pound weight. He could feel her struggle through the last three, but Sandra
seemed quite happy after her got off of her and she stood back up. "That's
weird," she commented, "I know that I can bench press more than you weigh, but
that was harder than I expected. Wait! I was also lifting my own weight and
right now I'm one- ten. I gotta run, but we can play some more later! Bye!"

Moments after Sandra had run off Violet entered the room. David could tell
that something had come up which was making her very excited. "Look David!
I've been invited to a private by-invitation-only extreme sports contest!
There will only eight contestants and they picked me to represent north
America! First prize is a million dollars plus some secret special award!"

David looked at the letter Violet had thrown at him. "What are the other
prizes?" He asked.

Violet laughed, "That doesn't really matter because I can only win one of
them! Now tell me, what were you doing with Sandra? I passed her and she
smiled like it was her birthday. What's your secret?"

"Nothing much I guess. I loaned her an old military book to read and then made
her do some pushups."

Violet moved closer to David and in a low husky voice asked, "Is that all?"

David gave a shy smile and answered, "Well, I did stand on her back. She's a
lot stronger than she looks! She managed to do twenty pushups, that's like
moving a full ton of weight!

"She's not the only one who's stronger then she looks! Why don't you lay on my
back and grab hold of something firm. We'll see who has real endurance!"
Violet got down on the floor and waited until David was on top of her and had
a firm grip of her breasts. After twenty pushups Violet asked, "Could you take
that big flashlight out of your pocket, it's pushing between my butt cheeks!"

"Sorry, but I don't have anything in my pocket," David muttered.

Violet was silent and after a moment continued doing pushups. However, now
overtime she pushed all of the way up, she also flexed all of the muscles in
her butt. David was taken totally by surprise and could barely hold on. Even
though he was on top of her, Violet was in complete control.

[ACT III]

David had been surprised to learn that the Beauregardes had chosen him as the
forth member of their team to travel to the extreme sports competition. Each
of the family members had explained their reasons for wanting him to join
them. Two weeks later and David found himself looking out the window of a
helicopter flying to the artificial island called New Atlantis. The helicopter
was owned by the resort and had picked them up from the Paris airport. He
thought it odd that none of the Beauregarde women had shown any desire to
visit Paris itself. This was more family history that he felt better to leave
alone.

The theme of the New Atlantis resort was that explorers had discovered the
lost island of Atlantis and were bringing visitors to help explore the many
hidden wonders. David wondered how a totally artificial island had been
constructed just within international waters off the coast of France. The
colorful flyers were thick on attractions and events but thin on real
information. Thankfully the Beauregardes had given him enough warning that he
had been able to run a few searches on the internet. What he found had been
frustrating. While he learned that the resort was a joint project of several
Saudi Arabia businessmen and a large Russian company, the actual names of the
real owners remained a secret.

The floating island had started out as a collection of old ships welded
together. Their tops had been cut off and several feet of soil had been laid
down to make the surface of the island. Every tree required a special bed to
be constructed to allow natural growth. Each phase of construction had
increased the surface area of the island starting from one acre up to the
current nine acres. David had learned that the next phase, which would
increase the island surface to sixteen acre, was already partially completed.
The master plan called for a complete floating city covering twenty-five acres
of carefully planned multi-level construction.

Eight teams had been invited to the competition, with each competitor assigned
the top floor suite in one of the eight hotels which ringed the island. David
had learned that each of the five-story buildings contained sixty-four rooms
and that the island could currently support over a thousand guests. Each of
the top floors contained two four-room suites which could be isolated from the
rest of the hotel. As the helicopter swung down to land at the islands tiny
airport David noticed that each of the eight hotels was flying the flags from
the eight countries the competitors came from. He recognized the flags from
Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, India, Russia, and the United States.
David wondered who had picked the competitors.

As he pulled himself out of the heavily padded seat, David noticed that the
three Beauregarde women seemed just as perky and alert as they had been at the
start of the long trip. Ground transportation, in the form of a covered
electric shuttle, was waiting for them a few feet from the helicopter. David
realized that all the vehicles, including the three helicopters in the
airport, were painted in a orange-and-black jungle explorer design. And then
he looked up at the island itself. From the surface there was little evidence
that this was an artificial environment. And even though he was looking at the
result of three separate phases of construction the total view was as
perfectly unified as a Japanese Zen garden.

The trip to the hotel and up to their rooms became a blur of unconnected
details as David tried and failed to fight off the extreme weariness he felt.
This had been the longest trip in his life and he felt dead tired and ready
for shower and a nap. His room was on the ocean side of the hotel, for some
reason both Sandra and Violet had wanted to rooms that looked out into the
island. He was surprised to discover that the shower itself had a large window
that he could watch the ocean from while he washed. For a moment he thought he
saw something large moving under the surface of the water. Was that a
submarine? David remembered something about underwater tours, but he expected
something like the original sub rides in Disneyland. For some reason the view
through the triple-pane glass made him feel very isolated and cold despite the
hot water.

Several minutes later he had dressed and was laying on the queen-sized bed
when some one knocked on the door. Before he could answer the unlocked door
opened and Sandra Beauregarde walked in with several sets of blue-and-white
jump-suits. "Hi David! We have to wear these outfits while we're here, I've
got three sets for you. I guess they only know extra-large so I could be
packing heat and you'd never see it."

"Are you?" David asked as he looked at Sandra. The loose jump-suit hid all of
her muscular development.

Sandra flashed him an evil smile, "Would you care to frisk me?"

"Sorry, but you're just a little too young for that. Notice that I didn't say
small!"

"Yes, I did notice that. Give me a couple of years to build up my - pectoral -
development and we'll see who's your favorite." Sandra remarked as she tried
to push her chest out in the overly loose jacket.

"These things look silly, if you were any shorter you'd look like an
Ompa-Lumpa! So, what's the plan? When does the competition start and when do
we get to see the other teams?" David asked.

Sandra stepped into the room, closed the door, tossed the jump-suits on a
chair and jumped onto the bed next to David, "Well, Violet and mom are fully
into competition mode. So don't expect to see much of them. Violet's like a
shark with blood in the water when she sees the other side. Since they'll be
busy with the actual competition I've been assigned to watch over you. That's
not exactly how mom said it, but I understood what she meant. I'll warn you,
if Violet loses the competition she won't talk to anyone for a week. But if
she wins you might not be able to walk for a week. But if you don't mind
fresh-off-the-vine I could give you a little warm up."

David laughed, "I don't know who's hornier, you or your sister!"

"I'd watch your back! You haven't see how mom stares at your ass!" Sandra
whispered.

He groaned as he rolled face-down on the bed, "Great! I'm stuck on an island
with three horny amazons!'

Sandra leaned close to him, "We've got three hours before the official
welcoming dinner. There's more than enough time to play around! But you still
look dead from the trip, so why don't I work on your back?" As she began to
press her small hands deep into her back, Sandra brought her lips within an
inch of his ear and whispered, "There's something odd about this place, have
you spotted the poorly hidden SAM sites? And there's way too much not even
shown on the maps. Some of the people on the newsgroups have hinted that
there's a lot of Russian mob money pouring into here. Did you know that this
place has their own navy? They say it acts like a coast guard, but you don't
need Exocet missiles to enforce boating safety rules!"

"We should look around a little. Did you bring your toys? I brought mine!"
Sandra wrapped her arms and legs around him and increased the pressure until
David could barely breath.

David managed to say, "Bet you can't keep this up for an hour!"

She licked his ear and whispered, "You always have the most wonderful ideas!"

An hour later he felt as weak and helpless as a puppet on a string. Sandra
helped him clean up and put on his blue-and-white jump-suit. They met Angelica
and Violet in the hall. Team America was on the move.

[ACT IV]

David was very interested in the design of the dining hall where the opening
ceremony was held. He cold recognize design elements from France, Italy,
India, Japan and even ancient Egypt. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to
make it feel as if you had traveled to a new civilization and were not just
sitting in a cruise- ship that never went anywhere. He had already picked out
the Disneyland forced perspective trick where blocks of stone became smaller
as the height increased. New Atlantis tried, and for the most part succeeded,
to present the best parts of a convention center and a theme park.

He looked around the room, feeling a little uncomfortable being seating in the
middle of a group of world- class athletes. Most of the contestants has one or
both parents with them in addition to someone who was acting as a couch. There
were a few exceptions, such as the little girl sitting with the group from
China. David must have looked a little disappointed because Violet had
whispered to him that during the actual contests the competitors would be
wearing much more revealing outfits. This brightened his mood as all of the
women promised to have amazing physical development.

The master of ceremonies, a six-foot blonde who had clearly not be selected
due to her athletic abilities, introduced the eight female competitors. From
Brazil came small and fiery Octavia dos Santos. From China came the stocky
Huang Guangming. From England came the tall and graceful Carolyn Gablehouse.
From France came the exotic looking Helene Michelland. From Germany came the
massive Hildegard Frederick. From India came the dark-skinned beauty Karnam
Soundarajan. From Russia came the very tall Ekaterina Reutovich. And from the
United States came the sparkling Violet Beauregarde.

The speeches were both short and carefully pre-planned, with printed
translations in eight languages. David was surprised by the number of athletic
women sitting the audience. Later he learned that a large number of former
gold-medal winners had been invited as guests. He smiled when he remembered
the camera outfit he had bought. It had taken one paycheck for the
twelve-mega-pixel camera and a second one for the sixty-four gigabyte memory
card. He had so much free memory for pictures that he had left the camera
setup to take a picture every ten seconds just so he could capture the sunset
though the window.

The meal was surprising good. One of the waiters mentioned that there were
several small green-houses that supplied fresh herbs and vegetables. Sandra
had been right, both Violet and her mother Angelica appeared as focused and
down-right bloody-thirsty as all of the other competitors. Most of the teams
turned in early, leaving only a handful to listen to the live string quartet.
David thought that several women might have wanted to ask him questions, but
Sandra was perfecting her act as a stern and deadly watch-dog so he was left
alone. eventually he grew tired of the babble and returned with Sandra to
their rooms.

[ACT V]

David jumped out of bed, ran through the shower and shaved. Sandra had laid
out a slightly different blue- and-white for him to wear. When he came out of
his room he was greeted by Sandra and led down to breakfast. He was
disappointed to learn that Violet and Angelica had been up and out hours
earlier, "Get used to it David!" she said, "When there's a contest going on
Violet has only eyes for the prize! And while I think mom has the hoots for
you, if she sees you distract Violet she'll tear you apart! On the other hand,
I'm all yours! The first event doesn't start until noon, so we've got five
hours to kill." She grabbed David by the hand and pulled he to the elevator.

He was intrigued by all of the hidden complexity used in New Atlantis. For
example, he was certain that the options available on the elevator control
actually changed depending on which room card you held near it. he wanted to
test that as soon as he could. Breakfast consisted of fairly routine hotel
food, scrambled eggs, waffles and lots of fruit. For some reason they didn't
have bacon but they did have all-beef sausage. As they ate Sandra explained
what the contest was all about, "This Extreme Sports Competition is basically
a strongwoman contest. They had stuff like this centuries ago in Scotland and
Iceland, but then it was just for men! It is a test of strength, endurance,
ingenuity and willpower. If you like watching girls lift heavy things then
you're in for a treat!"

David looked Sandra in the eye and explained, "As you well know I suffer from
Sthenolagnia. That's a mental condition which causes sexual arousal from the
visible demonstration of physical strength or muscles. That weird name was
coined by the German psychologist Magnus Hirschfeld way back in the late
1800s. Whoever set up this contest know exactly what they want to see and have
the financial resources to pull it off. But normally, promoters that put
together contest have some way to make money. Even if they sell DVD's for a
hundred bucks a pop, there's aren't enough muscle lovers to break even. I've
been keeping a rough track, not counting the prize money, they've spent two to
three million just setting this up."

"Sthe-no-lag-nia? That must have been what dad had! Violet told me about how
you got mom to open up and tell us some of her dark secrets. You know, ever
since she had that session with you she's been a lot more relaxed. Now I know
why you went broke buying that camera! This must be like being given the keys
to a candy factory! So show me, what have you taken so far?"

David laughed, "No muscle shots yet, but I did leave it on auto-shot so I
could get a picture of the sunset. This has got adaptive setting that change
depending on the environment. Let me pop it into thumbnail view and scan for
the shot I wanted. Since I didn't know when sunset was I just had it take a
picture every ten seconds. Most of these will be junk but - wait a minute -
who the hell is this?" David held out the camera so that Sandra could see the
main display. Though the image was slightly blurred as if she was moving
quickly, the view screen showed a slim blonde woman in a business suit. She
looked like she was in her late twenties to early thirties.

Sandra forwarded to the next dozen photos, the woman had been in front of the
camera for over two minutes. The last photo was a close-up of her chest and a
barely readable hotel name tag, "That's weird, the camera took a dozen
pictures of her and she didn't even react. Starke is an odd name, wasn't he
Iron Man?"

David pulled the camera back and cleared the view screen, "She didn't react
because I've modified the camera to operate in stealth mode. It's totally
silent and there's no flashing strobes or LEDs. The last thing I wanted was to
distract someone while they are straining to lift hundreds of pounds. Plus you
can get great candid shot if they don't know you're taking pictures. Starke
means strong in German. And I wonder what she was doing in my room? I bet she
paid a visit to all of our rooms. Well, we can't go running back up there,
that might look a little odd. I wish I had more tools that a pocket-PC repair
kit."

"Well, now that you mention it, I did bring a bag with some special video
equipment. I know that you consider me off-limits, but there's nothing to say
I can't pose for you." Sandra remarked, "We've got a couple of hours, come up
to my room and check out my equipment!" As her head slammed on the table David
became very interested in his last glass of tomato juice.

[ACT VI]

David read the description of the first event again. The Atlas Stones as they
were called, were five round stones that came in a range of weights from one
hundred pounds up to two hundred pounds. Each woman had a seventy-five second
time limit to lift the stones off the ground and place it onto wooden stands
that were roughly four feet tall. If they rolled off the stand the contestants
had to pick them back off. In order to receive a partial score the women would
have to load at least three of the stones.

"This is one of the oldest strength tests," remarked Sandra, "Ancient tribes
had something called manhood stones which were used to test young boys. I
doubt that many modern day boys could do this!"

All of the women were now wearing outfits which revealed their arms, legs and
shoulders. David felt a little uncomfortable since Sandra was wearing a
matching outfit and doing her best to make him notice her muscles. He focused
on taking pictures, glad that he had wisely bought a decent telephoto lens. He
noticed that there over thirty people were using large camera to record the
event. What was more interesting to him was the number of video and movie
cameras. In some ways this was looking less like a sporting event and more
like a press conference. To keep up with the New Atlantis theme the background
music were provided by a small live band and each of the five stones had been
brought in by a group of women dressed like ancient temple priestesses.
Unfortunately for David, they had worn long pale green robes which had hidden
everything but their faces.

The entire event took nearly an hour for each of the eight women to complete.
A few of the women, Octavia dos Santos from Brazil and Huang Guangming from
China, had difficulty with the event because of their height. Ekaterina
Reutovich of Russia and Hildegard Frederick of Germany ran through the event
with ease, both had massive muscular development which made most of the men
look small. Violet came up third, but only by a few seconds. Carolyn
Gablehouse from England would have done better but two of her stones rolled
off the platforms ad she wasted precious time picking them back up.

As the athletes disappeared Sandra grabbed David's hand and pulled him towards
a food stand, "I don't know why, but watching all of that rock-hard bulging
muscle makes me hungry!" she remarked, "Don't you feel like having something
with a little beef?" Her grip on his hand became almost painfully tight.

David laughed, "Will you stop that! I'd like to see you try lifting those
stones!"

Sandra stopped, "Really? OK! Get your camera ready!"

Before he could stop her, thirteen-year-old Sandra Beauregarde marked over to
the five stones. They had been rolled back onto the ground where they waited
to be collected. "You'll notice that I am the same height as that girl from
China. I don't know what sports she's an expert in, but I don't think she has
a martial arts background. In some of the classes that after school I take I
pickup and toss guys who are a lot taller than me and weigh as much as these
rocks. Watch!" Instead of starting with the lightest stone as all of the other
women had done, Sandra picked up the largest and worked her way down to the
lightest. While not as muscular as any of the competitors, Sandra's body
looked as if it had nearly doubled in size as she tore each rock from the
ground and slammed it against the platform.

A small crowd had gathered to watch Sandra lift the stones and as she finished
several cheered. By David's watch she would have beaten at least three of the
competitors. As the crowd faded away he noted that several members of the
other teams had been watching. And for a moment David was certain that he had
caught a glimpse of the mystery woman who had been in his room.

[ACT VII]

When they returned to the stage David noticed that a standard arm-wrestling
table had been set up. Sandra explained, "This should go pretty quick. The
first round everybody competes. The four winners go to the second round and
the two winners of the second round go to a final round. Points are awarded to
the winners. Violet thinks she could do well because you got her started on
training for armwrestling. I don't know, some of those girl are pretty strong
and this is the first time they've really gone head-to-head!"

It took almost a half hour for the first four matches. Ekaterina Reutovich
easily defeated the much smaller Octavia dos Santos. Huang Guangming slowly
forced Karnam Soundarajan's arm down for a surpass win. Violet Beauregarde
easily out-muscled the much taller Carolyn Gablehouse. And Hildegard Frederick
nearly injured Helene Michelland. There was a twenty minute break and then the
second round began.

The massive Hildegard Frederick made a show of slowly forcing the much smaller
Huang Guangming down to the table. Huang's biceps looked as if they were going
to explode from the pressure, but the big German girl was just too strong.
Violet Beauregarde, in a show of surprising strength and stamina, took nearly
two minutes to defeat the much larger Ekaterina Reutovich. After her victory
Violet turned to face David and flexed her biceps. He was so stunned by the
look on her face that he almost forgot to take a picture.

Twenty minutes later the third and final round pitted Violet Beauregarde
against the massive German girl Hildegard Frederick. The match dragged on for
several minutes. Hildegard's nearly twenty-inch bicep looked twice the size of
Violets bicep. Several times it looked as if Violet would be forced down, but
each time she managed to drag her arm back. David could see that both girls
were going all out to defeat the other. Suddenly the big Russian girl screamed
and with a burst of strength began to push Violet down. Inches from defeat,
Violet stopped the Russian and slowly forced her hack. Hildegrard's face
showed surprise as the smaller American girl slowly pushed her down to the
table.

Both athletes simply sat at the table while the crowd screamed. Both of the
favorites had been defeated by Violet Beauregarde. The competition wasn't half
over but she was being treated as a winner. David didn't see her look at him
and smile. She owed him this victory and she would thank him, later.

[ACT VIII]

Two hours later Sandra and David had returned to their seats in front of the
stage. The next event was called the Whirlwind of Destruction. In front of the
stage were eight large tables, one for each contestant. On the tables were a
large pile of common objects. These included a thick phone-book, a football, a
six-pack of beer, a deck of playing cards, a wooden baseball bat, an old-style
water bottle, a basketball, an iron horseshoe, an unopened can of tennis
balls, a metal license plate and a three-foot bar of steel.

Sandra turned to David and said, "This looks like fun! It's like a greatest
hits from all of old-time and modern strongman acts! Notice that each table
gets two judges? This event runs until one of the women breaks everything on
her table. Scoring is based on how much stuff is left undamaged. The
contestants can do anything they want except stand on things. I want one of
these for my next birthday party!"

When the gun fired to start the event it became clear to David that each of
the women had incredible physical strength, though each was different in the
way that this showed. Since many of the tasks required great grip strength
several of the smaller women were able to score higher. Tall Carolyn
Gablehouse from England became an instant crowd favorite when the beer cans
she popped soaked her top, which made her large breasts stand out even more.
Huang Guangming from China was the first to bust the football, which she did
by squeezing it between her muscular thighs. Karnam Soundarajan from India,
who was the least muscular looking of all of the women, was the surprise
winner. David noticed that Violet seemed to be staring in his direction as she
bent the steel rod. Her rapid pace and powerful arms allowed her to once again
pick up third place.

David noticed that while the other athletes had left the stage area both
Carolyn Gablehouse and Helene Michelland had stayed behind to pose for the
crowd. Though the two had done poorly in the event they seemed popular with
the crowd. Perhaps it was the fact that both were equally tall and seemed to
have equally large breasts and were wearing very tight beer-soaked tops.
Carolyn shouted something to Helene and they started to clear off two table.
Moments later they had gathered up two piles of left-overs from the contest.
Each table held three cans of beer and a water bottle. Each started out with
one can of beer placed firmly between their large breasts. The two women faced
the crowd and lifted their arms to show that the beer remained in place.

They slowly moved their hands down to their breasts and pushed in, totally
hiding the beer cans. Carolyn shouted "GO!" and they pushed against their
breasts will all their strength. The crowd grew silent at the sight of
suddenly muscular arms. Helene tossed her head back and screamed. Suddenly
both cans exploded under the pressure, spewing beer nearly ten feet into the
air. The women tossed the empty beer cans down on the grass and picked up the
hot-water bottles. As the women strained to over-inflate the hot-water-bottles
they turned to face each other, making it look as if the women were actually
inflating their own breasts. Two sharp pops and bits of pink rubber filled the
air.

Carolyn picked off the ground the only remaining undamaged basketball and
winked at Helene. Moments later the two women had stepped close to each other
so that the basketball was supported by their breasts. They warped their arms
around each other in a two-way bear-hug. David could see the pressure slowly
build up as the two women combined their strength. Their arms grew larger and
more powerful looking. It seemed like they were holding the pressure, making
the show last longer. Suddenly the two women tossed their heads back and
screamed as if in a mutual orgasm. The sound of the basketball popping was too
soft to be heard.

[ACT IX]

Dinner had been interesting, with a mixture of foods both French and Japanese.
Since this was not a formal event all of the teams were back in their
over-sized jump-suits. David kept watching but he never say the mystery woman.
After he had finished his fruit and sherbet dessert David leaned close to
Sandra and said, "I'm going to take a after-dinner walk around the park. As
much as I love your company I'd like to wander around solo for a while. OK?"

Sandra smiled, "Good idea! If we split up we can recon a bigger area. I met
these women who have access to some special training facility not open to the
normal visitors. They won't tell me what it is, but I guess I impressed them
enough today to earn a guest pass. But I warn you, if I come back all pumped
up and you tell me that I've got a hard body, I will hold it against you!"

"Were you practicing that line in the mirror? Sounds like fun for you, but be
careful! Somethings a little odd about this place!"

Twenty minutes later David was starting to feel lost. The artful placement of
trees, walls, statues, fountains and alien-looking lamp posts had blended
together to hide the fact that he was on a perfectly square artificial island.
He had passed dozens of rest areas that come complete with carved stone
benches and decorative trash cans. Hundreds of wind-chimes provided a musical
wash that gently covered all casual conversation. However, they were not loud
enough to hide the angry shouts David was hearing now. He was drawn to the
argument like a moth to fire.

He had to move several hundred feet closed towards the large central building
until he could see that one of the women from the China team was trying to
explain something to several security guards who clearly could only speak
French. Then David realized that the angry woman was Huang Guangming, the
actual contestant from China. As he moved closer he could hear that she was
trying desperately to be understood, even resorting to use what few English
words she knew. Even close up David could not understand what she was
shouting. He could six more security guards moving up to her. Suddenly he
heard her say the word "sister" and David began to understand.

David spun around, scanning for anyone wearing the red-and-gold Team China
uniform. It took him a moment to spot a tiny flash of color on the side of the
central building. It was the little girl, and she was climbing the tower! All
around the large tower was a large rock-garden with tons of artfully placed
rocks. These were rocks with many decorative sharp points and hard edges. The
little girl, who was now over thirty feet up, suddenly slipped, but managed to
barely hold on with one hand. David reacted without thought. He sprinted past
the guards, splashed through a small artificial pond, jumped over a short wall
and threw himself onto the rocks just as the little girl fell. He knew that he
had somehow caught her, but the solid wave of pain smashed him down into
unconsciousness.

Minutes later David came to and found himself being tended by
professional-looking paramedics. Sitting next to him was Huang Guangming and
her little sister. When she saw him open his eyes Huang leaned close and said,
"Save sister! You hurt bad! Not forget! You family now!" She wrapped her short
but massively muscular arms around him and gently squeezed. David could feel
her well-rounded and hard as steel muscles that were hidden under the thin
cotton sleeves. Huang noticed his interest in her muscles. "After contest you
will see!" she whispered. Huang gently kissed him on the cheek and marched her
younger sister back to the tower that Team China now called home.

One of the paramedics tapped David on the shoulder and said, "You did a man's
work today sir! A fall from that distance onto the rocks would have killed the
child. Thankfully nothing seems broken, but you'll be feeling this for some
time. Mind you, soft tissue takes forever to heal, but you're around athletes
enough to already know that. I have taken the liberty to slip a little
something into you front pocket. Don't look at it until you're away from the
crowds. Don't take more than four per day. OK? But if you feel like you need
something stronger then call the emergency number and we'll send the good
doctor up to see you!"

David was placed on a large metal stretcher which was lifted and locked onto
the back of a six-wheeled electric vehicle. By the time they reached the
north-east tower which housed Team America a small crowd, which included over
a dozen members of the other teams, had gathered by the main entrance. As the
paramedics began to roll the stretcher into the hotel Violet sprinted up to
him. Dozens of emotions fought for control of her face as she said, "David! I
am so proud of you!" Members from the other teams stepped up, gave a greeting
and melted back into the crowd. The Beauregarde women pushed the crowd back as
the paramedics rolled the stretcher into the elevator. Minutes later David was
flat on his back in the middle of his bed.

For the moment he was alone, so he pulled out the pill bottle the paramedic
had given him. The name on the label was unfamiliar to him, but a quick search
on the net would answer his questions. For some strange reason the drug
warning sheet had been stuffed under all of the pills. It took him a moment to
dump the pills out and pull out the sheet. To his surprise David discovered
that instead of the standard drug warning sheet, it was actually a small piece
of paper that had been wrapped around a micro-SD memory card. On the paper was
a sixteen digit number which reminded David of a credit card number. He
carefully refilled the bottle with the pain pills. He knew that that would be
worth their weight in gold in a few minutes.

David tried to get off of the bed by realized that there was just too much
pain for him to deal with. "Hello?" he called out, hoping that he hadn't been
forgotten, "I need a little help here!" Seconds later Angelica Beauregarde
walked into his room and smiled, "Hello David. You really surprised everyone
tonight. Who would have thought that on an island filled with amazon women
that the computer nerd would turn out to be a hero. Before you say anything,
watch this. They keep playing it over and over again on one of the hotel
channels." Angelica picked up the remote and turned on the wall-mounted LCD
TV.

It had the look of a really high-end security camera and it had caught his
entire sprint. The camera moved to follow him as he ran and zoomed in just as
he reached up to catch the falling child. Angelica turned it off after the
third repetition. "Don't be surprised if you are dragged up on stage to
receive a special award. The only man to win an award at a all-female contest.
Oh, the hotel sent up a note, your room key has been upgraded and now gives
you access to some private clubs in the main building. They want you to take
as many massage sessions as you want. Now, Mr. Hero, what can I do for you?"

[ACT X]

David had a troubled sleep between the extreme soreness and the strange
dreams. In one of his dreams there had been a girl standing at the foot of
this bed crying, but when he blinked she had vanished. A long hot shower had
helped, but he now actually looked forward to a hour-long massage session.
Angelica and Violet had left early to get in a pre-contest training session so
he ate breakfast with Sandra Beauregarde. She looked as if she had gone
through a bad night as well. "So, what was so special about that training
facility you went to last night? Did you see any secrets?" he asked.

Sandra put down her fork and stared at the plate, "Why do I feel so bad David?
I feel so guilty about not being there to keep you safe, but if I had kept you
safe than that little girl would have died!"

"No, she wouldn't have died," David answered.

"How do you know that?" demanded Sandra.

"Because, my teen-age muscle goddess, you can run much faster than I can!"

For several minutes Sandra was silent, and then David saw her smile slowly
grow, "You bet I'm a lot faster than you! Thanks, I needed to hear you say
something like that. Teen-age muscle goddess? I like the sound of that. OK,
where they took me turned out to be a hard-core gym that the employees can go
to. Guests are not really welcome. It's not half-bad, there was a ton of free
weight, some Universal and even a regulation ring to do martial arts in. The
two women who invited me met their boyfriends there and I took them both on at
the same time in a free-style match and kicked their ass! Right after the
match several people stopped and started to stare at me, so I figured I must
have broken some rule. And then I saw that video clip on one of the monitors.
I screamed out you name and ran out of the gym and back to the hotel. You know
the rest."

"What about last night," David whispered.

"You saw me? I didn't know you were awake. I just had to see that you were OK.
I feel so dumb."

"Oh, I don't know about that. You understand tactics and strategy better than
most ex-military I've met. Besides, it takes more than just pure brute
strength to beat two guys who are bigger than you." he remarked.

"How did you know they were bigger than me?" Sandra looked up at David, "Oh
wait! Everybody is bigger than me! Except for the little girl from China.
Yeah, they were a lot bigger than me, but they were whimps! Damm, I didn't get
a chance to work out. All of the tourist gyms are strictly for light weights.
I don't know why, must be something about the salt air, but I feel like moving
a couple tons of weight."

David smiled, "Let me see what I can do before this whole hero thing fades
away. I'm scheduled for a massage session in twenty minutes. Let me ask around
about getting you an upgrade, OK? Now, I have an assignment for you, if you
wish to accept it."

Sandra sat back in her chair, her mood totally changed. While he had seen
other girls her age with much greater muscular development, none had the
stone-cold stare he was seeing now. The death of her father at the hands of
terrorists had given her a form of madness. And she was waiting for David's
command.

He leaned close to her and whispered, "The paramedic slipped me a memory card
and a some kind of account number. The card had six pictures on them, the
first one was a hand-written sign for something called Beyond Hell, the next
was a crude map of some kind of complex. The next showed a security door was a
key pad. The last three were shots of different rooms, an industrial looking
place with lots of pipes and hanging chains, then some kind of medical center
and then a large workout room with some weights and lots of wrestling mats.
There no people in any of the pictures, but this might be some kind of secret
sex club. We are in international waters, so a lot of rules might be ignored.
I want you to ask around about off- limits gyms and stuff. You've already seen
one that normal tourists don't get to see, so it would be natural for you to
ask if there are others. Just don't ask about sex clubs or mention the name.
Are you good?"

After a moment Sandra smiled, "This might explain all of the Russian mob
money. Drugs you can do anywhere, but there are some things not allowed in
most countries. I've wandered through a lot of really dark web sites looking
for information. It's amazing what you can do with a pre-paid VISA card. I
hope you hid that memory card really good, because it sounds like you found an
underage S&M club. Be really careful David, people who run the clubs like this
won't blink if they have to make you vanish, and it's a long swim back to
civilization!"

[ACT XI]

David walked into the reception area, thankful for the cool air. The woman
behind the counter had a polished exotic look, almost as if she had been
carved out of some dark wood. "Good morning, Mr. Larson! New Atlantis is very
grateful for your actions last night and has opened to you several of our most
popular private clubs. While each a based around a different theme, you will
find that all offer similar services. Now, if you will enter either of the
elevators behind me, you may select any of the clubs!"

He smiled at the woman, but paused and asked, "If this isn't too much to ask
for, but could you arrange for Sandra Beauregarde to get access to some
hard-core exercise rooms? She lost her father a few years ago, sad story
really, and lifting heavy weights seems to help her alot. it would mean a lot
to me." The receptionist blinked and said, "Of course Mr. Larson, I'll make
the request right away!"

He walked into the elevator on the left and held his room card up to the
control panel. Instantly three names appeared. David decided to look into each
one before selecting any and pressed the top name. Sea Mist looked extremely
relaxing, it was all done in pale green and blue. The attendants were all tall
women wearing flowing robes of green and blue which were nearly, but not
quite, see-through. There were many large fish tanks and the sound of flowing
water filled the air. They had a small exercise area with a few machines, but
there were no free weights.

Team Spirit was designed to look like a fantasy sport team training facility.
The walls were painted in bright solid colors and were covered with sports
related decorations. All of the attendants were dressed like perky
cheerleaders. The exercise area was double the size of the one in Sea Mist and
was nearly half free-weights and half machines. It looked like the ultimate
fantasy sports bar. Despite the name, Jungle Heat turned out to be a cool
tropical-jungle themed health club. The bar area looked like an explorers
club, complete with one of those giant bamboo fans. The attendants were
dressed in a range of outfits that included everything from Laura Croft clones
to jungle babes in leopard bikines. The exercise area seemed similar to the
one in the Team Spirit club. David noticed that there seemed to be a number of
small private rooms that were available for one-on-one sessions.

David returned to the lobby and walked over to the receptionist, "Those look
fantastic! But, are there just these three? Or are there more in a different
building?" he asked. For a moment the tall woman looked at him and smiled as
if she were thinking about the proper answer. Suddenly the phone on her desk
rang. She spoke too softly for David to hear, but she must have recieved new
instructions because when she hung up the phone she looked almost relieved.
"We're so sorry, Mr. Larson! I've just been informed that there had been a
processing error. If you return to the elevator you'll find that all of the
cubs are now available! Oh, and your request for the younger Miss Beauregarde
was also approved. She will be informed as soon as possible. If you need
anything else, please ask any of the staff!"

When David returned to the elevator he discovered that two new names had
appeared, one at the top of the list and one at the bottom. He smiled and
selected the top name. Heaven was a peaceful blue and white. Every attendant
was at least six feet tall and wore soft white gowns. Hidden lighting made it
look as if the club was inside of a cloud. There was no music, only soft
chimes. The only exercise David could find were small yoga classes. He noticed
a large number of small rooms. Hell, on the other hand, was loud and colored
in blood red and black. The staff varied in height from five to six feet and
were all very developed in one way pr another. Black or red leather seemed to
be the uniform of the day. The exercise area was large and contained enough
free weights to equip three normal commercial gyms. Even many of the smaller
session rooms seemed to contain at least a barbell. Suddenly David realized he
had passed several landmarks from the map. Moments later he found the gap in
the thick black curtain which led to the security door.

David glanced around and could spot no cameras. He quickly entered in the long
code he had memorized. A soft click was his only reward. He slowly opened the
heavy metal door and stepped inside. Softly closing the door behind him, David
turned to find himself inside of a dimly lit metal stairwell with narrow steps
leading down. the stairs led to a large machinery room that reminded David of
an old engine room. While the hulks of the engines were silent, several pumps
were operating. He felt the urge to look for a shotgun or pipe wrench to arm
himself against the zombies.

Clearly he was within one of the ships on which New Atlantis had been
constructed. David moved through the engine room and into a long passageway.
Rusty light fixtures made the all-metal hallway look like it had been ripped
from a dozed video games he could think of. The door at the end of the passage
opened with out the scream of metal he had expected. The medical section
looked modern and well stocked. There were several files left out on tables
and counter, but they were in either Russian or German and David couldn't read
either. Many of them had picture of women performing different exercises.

Normally he would have found pictures like these very interesting, but none of
the women showed any sign of muscular development. Because the weights were
unmarked and there were no clues to scale, David couldn't guess how strong the
women actually were. One of the women, who reminded David of a teacher he had
in junior high school, was shown lifting a large barbell over her head.
Because of the lack of visible muscle it looked more like a fake Hollywood
prop than a test of real strength. None of the photographs had revealed the
faces of the women, which made David a little uneasy. Had he passed by any of
them?

The next passageway was much better maintained and many of the fixtures
revealed highly polished brass. As David opened the door he saw a thick
curtain, so he closed the door first and then pulled the curtain aside. Behind
the curtain was a small observation room complete was a small desk and two
chairs. On the other side of the desk was a thick window which was high on a
wall of a large exercise room. David recognized several of the weights that
the women in the files had used. Also in the room were four very large, very
muscular men who seemed to be waiting for something. They didn't have long to
wait because a door in the wall opposite from the observation window opened up
and a nearly naked woman walked in.

Using the door as a guide, David figured that the woman was nearly six feet
tall. She was slim with large firm breasts. she looked more like a swim-suit
model than any kind of athlete, but the men reacted as if that were afraid of
her. The black ninja-style hid her face, which made her look inhuman. She
walked up to the men and stoped. Without warning the men threw themselves at
her, David could see several direct blows to her chest and stomach. Anything
covered by the hood seemed to be off limits. Within moment the woman had been
knocked off her feet and the men had pinned her to the ground. David stood up,
he had to do something, those men were going to kill or rape that helpless
woman!

As he was turning away from the window David caught a sudden flash of
movement. One of the men had been thrown nearly half-way across the room. The
other three men were straining to hold onto the woman, but she was forcing her
way off the ground. She snapped her arms out, throwing the other men off of
her. They jumped back up and attacked her, but this time she fought back. The
men had looked well trained in martial arts but the woman ignored their blows
as if they were small children. On the other hand, her punches were wild and
untrained. But when she landed a blow the men dropped. After a few minutes the
tall woman was the only one standing. Her body was wet from the effort, but
showed no signs of the many blows she had recieved. Even now David could see
no hint of muscle. She removed the hood, threw it down on the floor, and
walked out of the room. David gasped, it had been the mystery woman!

David nearly panicked but forced himself to carefully retrace his steps. As he
slowly opened the security door he though he heard several women talking, but
by the time he reached the curtain that hid the door they had moved on. The
room on the other side of the curtain contained several large chairs. David
moved through the curtain and slumped down on the nearest. his heart-rate was
almost normal when he heard a female voice say, "There you are Mr. Larson! We
thought we had lost you. It's nearly ten thirty, there's just enough time for
a full massage session before the first event of the day."

The attendant turned out to be a very short, very muscular dwarf woman with
impressive breasts, "The girls are very happy that you picked us! Most of our
visitors tend to enjoy a little physical roughness, so you see that we're
stronger and tougher than the women in the other clubs. But we know you got
messed up when you saved that little girl's life, so we'll be extra gentile
with you. We like to say that it takes a really strong woman to really be
gentile with a man."

"Sorry, I must have dozed off, They gave me some pills for the pain. Could I
pick you? You've got great looking muscles, and I've got a thing for strong
women." David explained.

"Of course you can pick me! Come on, I'll show you the way to the room I use.
It'll make the other girls jealous! My name is Debbie and I've only been here
six months, so I'm not quite as strong as the other girls, but I'm a lot
stronger than I was when I got here. I used to work as a stunt-double in
Hollywood so I was always pretty strong. But they've got this old Russian guy,
I think he used to train some of their Olympic athletes, and he's our training
instructor. Look at these biceps! Feel how hard they are! Since I've been here
I've gained half an inch! That's a big increase for a girl my size! For some
reason I'm really popular with Japanese businessmen. I dress up like the
school-girl from hell. They give us a ton of clothes to wear and a lot of
freedom to be creative!"

Debbie's non-stop monologue was as almost as soothing as her small strong
fingers.

[ACT XII]

David sat down, still weak from his massage session with Debbie the muscular
dwarf. Sandra looked up and gave him an evil grin, "About time you showed up!
Violet kept throwing out hints that I should go look for you, but I knew what
you were doing. So, did anything interesting come up?"

"Will you stop that! I will say one thing, New Atlantis has spent a small
fortune, they have five different clubs in the main building, each has a
totally different theme. And I found the security door and took a look around
backstage. There's some kind of research facility in the lower levels. And I
found another mystery. Sandra, is it possible for a women to get really strong
but not develop big muscles?"

"Well, an untrained woman can show a pretty good increase in strength without
adding muscle mass just because she learns how to use all of the strength she
already has. And then there's those urban legends where a housewife picks up a
car to save her son. But there no real evidence where a woman just got
stronger without training. It takes muscle to get strong. What brought this
up?"

He leaned closer to her and said, "I caught our mystery woman working out. She
took out four guys who were more than three times her weight like she was
fighting children. No martial arts, just pure brute strength. But even when
she was tossing them across the room she never showed the slightest hint of
having big muscles. Then the girl who gave me the massage said some things
which now seem strange. She's only been here six months but she's almost twice
as strong. Debbie is smaller than you in some ways but might be a lot stronger
than. We'll talk about this later, OK? Now tell me, what's with that giant
tire?"

Sandra gave David an odd look, "Stronger than me? We'll see! OK, that tire
weighs nearly five hundred pounds. I think it's used on big construction
equipment. They have ninety seconds to do three full flips. It's a total
strength event, you need strong legs, a strong back and strong arms. The
shorter girls will have it easier in the first part of the lift and the taller
girls will have the advantage in the second part. They get points for how many
flips they get done before time runs out."

David watched in awe as the eight women took their turn with the giant tire.
All managed at least one flip, though he was certain that he wasn't strong
enough to lift the tire off the ground, let along flip it. Six of the women
managed to flip the tire two times and four managed three flips. Violet
managed to complete her third flip mere seconds before the buzzer.

The competitors were given an hour to rest. The second event of the day was
called the Farmer's Walk. Sandra Beauregarde leaned close to David and
explained, "In this event you've got to pick up these two heavy weights,
they're around one hundred and fifty pounds each, and walk fifty feet to that
line in the grass and back to the start. They can put them down as often as
they want but they only have a minute to complete the walk. They get points
for crossing the lines. You've got to be really tough to finish this one!"

Some of the girls had a real hard time holding the weights up and lost
valuable time picking them back up. For once the shorter girls seemed to hold
the advantage. Two of the women, Helene Michelland and Karnam Soundarajan,
failed to cross the first line. Two of the women, Octavia dos Santos and
Ekaterina Reutovich didn't cross both lines before the time ran out. The
remaining women struggled through the complete event. David was frustrated, he
knew that the event took a massive amount of effort, but very little muscle
had been on display.

After an hour break the third and last event was literally rolled out. David
laughed, "OK, even I can figure this one out. That's a regulation beer keg,
which I think weighs around forty pounds. They pick it up and press it above
their head as many times as they can within sixty seconds. Right?"

Sandra smiled, "You almost nailed it, except that the keg they are using
weighs nearly seventy pounds. What makes it hard is that a beer keg is not
designed to be pocked up plus the beer moves aroud. Everyone gets to use
gloves to get a better grip, but it all comes down to balance and power. Its
not enough to lift the keg, you have to control it!"

Octavia dos Santos strained to do two reps. Huang Guangming forced out three.
Carolyn Gablehouse pumped out six reps. Helene Michelland managed to do four.
Hildegard Frederick cranked out seven reps. Karnam Soundarajan barely managed
two. Ekaterina Reutovich forced out six reps. Violet Beauregarde pumped out
eight. At the end of two days of competition only four women would continue,
Carolyn Gablehouse, Hildegard Frederick, Ekaterina Reutovich and Violet
Beauregarde. During the night Octavia dos Santos and Helene Michelland left
the island.

[ACT XIII]

The next morning David left early to get in another massage session, and
perhaps a second peek at the secret facility. When he arrived at the Hell Club
level he found Debbie waiting for him. She wore very little clothing and her
body looked as if she had be oiled and polished., "Do you like what you see? I
worked out extra hard so I would still be pumped up when you came in!"

David's smile was the only answer she needed.

"Come on! I got us a better room today, it has a hot tub, a shower and a
massage table. We can take our time too, the room is ours until noon. Here we
go! I left you a robe in the shower. All of the girls kept asking me what you
were like. I told them you were sweet and really smart. Oh, I hope you don't
mind, but I let a few know that you're really into muscle. Don't be surprised
if you see more than the average guest."

David took off his clothes and put on the blood-red robe. The pain had gone
done alot since yesterday but certain movements still made him want to scream.
He knew that sneaking off through the security door was no longer an option
now that the manic muscle dwarf Debbie was at his side. Her nonstop
conversation gave David an idea. As he stepped out of the show he asked,
"Could we do something a little different to start? I'm sure you get asked
this all the time. How about if we start with me giving you a massage?"

For the first time since David had known her, Debbie was silent for a moment.
"Wow! You are the first guest to ever ask that! Some of the other girls get
that a lot, but that's because they have really big tits. Oh, I see! Even
though you're around some pretty strong athletes, you don't get to see muscle
like this!"

Suddenly all of her clothing dropped to the ground. A moment later her leather
mask followed. As Debbie stood there totally naked David was struck by the
difference between her muscular body and her short curly blond hair, dark blue
eyes and sweet lush lips. For a moment he pictured a young Shirley Temple on
steroids. Without a word she climbed up on the massage table, "There's a
switch there that can dim the lights and one that can select whatever music
you want. The drawer under the table has all kinds of massage toys and stuff.
I don't think I need any more oil! If your back weren't bad I'd show you whats
it like to wrestle a short girl who's a lot stronger than you!"

David started at the top of her back and worked his way down. In the years
before he had met Violet Beauregarde he had tried everything he could think of
to make himself more interesting to women. The last thing he had imagined was
that he would finally use his basic massage skills on what was becoming
fantasy muscle island. "Wow Debbie! I don't think there are any women your
size with bigger, stronger muscles! I know I can't bring my camera into the
clubs, but do you have photos for sale I could buy?"

Suddenly he felt Debbie begin to spasm and shake. A moment later he realized
that she was laughing, "Oh no! Oh no! You didn't just ask me for a souvenir
photo? Did you want that autographed? Oh David, I can't keep doing this! I
know I'm to keep my distance, but you are so different from the other guests!
Look, if it's OK with you, when we're alone we can just act like friends. Oh,
you'll still get all the muscle show you want. Trust me! Come on, help me wash
off all this oil! It looks great but it feels terrible once it gets cool."

They barely fit inside the tiny shower, which made washing the oil off of
Debbie's muscular body a real amazon adventure. After she was satisfied,
Debbie led David into the waiting hot tub. He slowly sat down on the bench,
feeling the bubble jets work the pain out of his back. Because Debbie was
standing her face was on the same level as his. "Now this is nice!" she
remarked, "But you said something about me that isn't quite true. I never told
anyone about this, but a couple of months ago a got a visitor. At first I
thought it was a lost girl. She was even shorter than me and had long black
hair. From the back I figured she was eight maybe ten years old. She was
walking around one of the back rooms, just looking at stuff."

"And then she turned around and walked up to me. From the front I could tell
that she was a lot older, nearly my age at least. I think she had bigger tits
than me, but I couldn't stop looking at her muscles. They were almost
obscenely big, she was grotesque, like a monster movie! But she was graceful,
like a dancer. I remember that she just stared at me, and then she asked me to
take off my boots, after that I realized that we were exactly the same height.
She smiled and called me her little sister. I was too stunned to say anything
as she walked away, but a week later I started to get email from someone named
Ludmilla. I think that's her name!"

"So what do you two write about? What are the odds on two muscular dwarfs
working at the same place?"

"Oh, she's not a dwarf, at least not like I am. I don't know what she is, some
genetic thing I've never heard about. She looked like a really muscular
body-builder had been shrunk down. We write about everything! She's really
smart, but I get the feeling that she doesn't get out much. I don't think that
she's ever been out on a date. But I know she's been with men because, well,
we both have the same problem. Parts of us may be small, but we're really
strong and have to be careful or we can put a guy in the hospital. I don't
like to talk about it."

"Ludmilla sounds like an interesting woman. Is there any chance I could meet
her?" David asked.

"Funny you should say that! Last night she wrote me and asked if I could
arrange a meeting with you. Funny thing, she seemed to know all about you even
before I wrote to her. I guess you're a local hero! Now, if you'll wrap your
arms and legs around me, I'll show you a snake trick this girl from India
taught me!"

[ACT XIV]

David eased himself down into the seat next to Sandra. She smiled, leaned
close to him and said, "I think these massage sessions are working, you look a
lot more relaxed. While you were having your body squeezed I managed to do a
little digging. Did you know that there are almost a dozen business facilities
inside New Atlantis? There's an English internet service provider, a French
military research company, a German pharmaceutical company and a Russian firm
that sells surplus military equipment. All of this is hidden from the guests,
but there are fairly good sized cargo ships coming in and out of here every
week."

"That's a lot of effort for a floating theme park, even if they do have an
adults-only section."

"Well, you know how big companies will tell their investors things they'd
never tell the employees or general public? Well, it took a while to get to
what I was hunting for, I even had to use the Argot browser to get past the
New Atlantis firewall. But here's the prize! New Atlantis is just a prototype
for a much larger project that they're calling simply Atlantis. They've found
an island, actually just a really big rock, that was charted but never really
claimed. The French first found it back in the 1600's but couldn't find any
use for it because there is no water of even vegetation."

"Here's the interesting thing. New Atlantis has been acting as a support base
for construction that's been going for over two years! They already have a
small but pretty modern port as well as a couple of desalt plants to make
fresh water. But the numbers don't add up. To work on all of the projects they
talk about they'd need a work force of over a thousand. But the listed
facilities would have a hard time supporting half that. Either all the workers
are on strict rationing or they're further along than they're telling people."

David looked up at the stage, "Maybe the cargo ships are bringing in supplies.
Or maybe the crews are smaller than you think. But it sounds like it is the
next big thing, so why aren't they letting people know about it? Just think,
an entire island turned into a vacation theme park! I wonder what they'll do
with this place?" He pointed towards the stage, "And what are they going to do
with that Humm-Vee? It looks like they had to put down some metal plates so
that it wouldn't sink into the grass."

Sandra laughed, "You're going to see some muscle today! In the first event the
women have to pull the Humm-Vee as far as they can in sixty seconds. They get
one point for every ten feet up to a maximum of eighty feet. That's a military
surplus vehicle, not the civilian look-a-like, and it weighs almost three
tons!"

All of the women seemed to have a hard time getting the Humm-Vee to start
rolling, but after that it was simply a matter of brute strength and stamina.
Carolyn Gablehouse, who had the lest muscular legs of the remaining women,
managed to pull thirty feet. Hildegard Frederick moved the Humm-Vee a
respectable sixty feet. Ekaterina Reutovich's massive legs towed the heavy
vehicle seventy feet. Violet Beauregarde surprised everyone by pulled past
sixty feet and nearly making it to seventy before the buzzer went off.

"How the hell is she doing that?" asked David, "She's a lot smaller than those
big women and yet she's right up there with them! Is there something about you
Beauregarde women I should know about?"

Before Sandra could answer they were interrupted by a messenger. "Excuse me,
Mr. Larson, I have a priority message for you." said the tall woman, "I do not
know the contents of the message as it has been flagged as private and
confidential." she handed a small green envelope to him and walked away.

David tore open the envelope and read the small card, "It looks like I have a
lunch date. There's no signature, so it could be your mother for all I know.
We'll catch up later, but I think they need to change the name of this place
to Mystery Island!"

[ACT XV]

The letter had said simply, "I want to meet you. Go to the club elevator. You
will know what to do." And sure enough, when David entered the elevator and
waved his room card by the control panel a new selection appeared. "So," he
thought out loud, "Should I be worried that this is under Hell and is called
Ninth Gate?"

The elevator opened into a small waiting room. There were several chairs and
tables covered with old French magazines. No one was sitting at the
receptionist station, but the cup of coffee was still hot. The short hallway
behind the desk led to a dark green security door with a key pad. On a hunch
David punched in the same sixteen digit number he had used at the other door.
It worked. The room beyond the green door was large and filled with an eerie
mix of medical devices and bondage equipment. Again, there were no signs of
other people.

In the back of the room was a narrow door which led to a long hallway. David
had no choice but to continue. Part way down the hallway he heard a steel door
slide closed. As he turned to look he saw all of the lights in the large
medical room go out. Then he heard the growling. David slowly moved down the
hallway and discovered that there were several cages, cells really with thick
steel bars. In the dim light he could see that one of the cells was occupied
by something that was chained to the wall. Suddenly the thing screamed and
lunged towards him. In the dim light David could only make out that it was
tearing free from the chains. It leaped at the bars and began to rip them
apart. Close up, he could see only that the creature was human-like and
grotesquely muscular.

Free of the cell, the creature moved towards David and pinned him against the
wall. He was trapped by an inhuman strength. The creature looked up at him and
growled. Suddenly David laughed and gently removed the thick rubber face mask.
The girl had large dark eyes and long black hair. Though she was a foot
shorter than he was she had much thicker arms. "Hello Ludmilla, you are
everything I hoped you be!"

Ludmilla stepped back and took off the rest of the creature costume, "Hello
David, what was your first clue that I was playing a prank on you? Wait! I
forgot my coffee on the desk, didn't I? That was silly of me! Well, come on, I
have lunch all made. I hope you like tuna salad. I don't get to cook for
anyone." She walked over to one of the solid metal walls and moved a thick
section to one side. This revealed a small kitchen and dining room. "I don't
work out as much as I used to, only four hours a so a day, so I have more free
time to read or do what research that I can. That's how I taught myself to be
a hacker. If you want, I can give your room key god mode access, you'd be able
to go anywhere you want."

"OK, I'm very impressed, and I don't mean just because of your incredible
muscles! There's some brains hiding behind that pretty face. And you also make
a great tuna-salad sandwich. But what do you do here?"

She sat back for a moment and smiled, "Debbie was right, you are sweet! I live
here. I've been here since he very first construction phase when they started
with the first three submarines. My father brought me here. well, he's not my
real father, but he is the man who raised me and trained me. For years he told
me that I would give him the key to open a new stage for people. But I guess I
didn't work out like he had hoped and he started a new line of research and I
became a little less important. Oh he still loved me, but stopped testing me
for increase in strength and size."

"Your father, he's working on something to make women stronger, isn't he? I
saw this woman take on four big guys and toss them around like they were
school kids. He made some kind of - chemical - hormone - I don't know what
that increases the efficiency of female muscles. It makes them put out a lot
more energy without needing to get bigger. But it doesn't work on every woman
does it? It doesn't work on you?"

Ludmilla walked to the refrigerator and brought back a soda, his favorite
brand he noticed. "I knew you would figure it out! He pumps the compound, he
calls it Arm Spirits, into the water supply. Not every woman gets a reaction,
only around one on ten. But the ones that do get a permanent increase in
strength and toughness. Father has been driving himself crazy trying to unlock
the secret for the last ten years."

"Sorry, the only two women I know who seem to be effected are Debbie and
Violet and they're both a little - crazy! Say, Ludmilla, are there any
restraints that you can't break out of?" David said with an odd smile.

She tilted her head to one side, "For once I have no idea what you're
thinking. But I like that, I think. Father created a special set of clamps to
test my overall power. They're not too far from here. Come on!"

Ludmilla led David through several hallways and down one set of stairs into a
large room. In the center of the room was a metal chair and several massive
restraints. Each was the size of a small engine block and were wired with a
number of sensors. "Here, turn this on. That will read the total amount of
pressure I am putting out. Good, that number is the maximum pressure I ever
did. It's my personal best, though that was nearly five years ago. I haven't
gotten any stronger. Push that button to lock the clamps and the green one to
open them. And yes, I really can't break free."

David waited until Ludmilla was in position and then pushed the locking
button. Four thuds later and she was trapped. Now to test his theory. "You are
so sexy Ludmilla! I want you! Please come to me, I want your sexy body!" David
moved up to the metal chair and began to stroke her breasts and between her
thighs. He pulled down her bright pink top and began to lick her small firm
nipples.

"What are you doing!" Ludmilla screamed as she twisted in the chair, her
muscles grew to obscene size as she strained against the thick metal
restraints. "I didn't think you would - oh yes - that you would do - oh yes -
what are you doing? Oh David! Let me out and I'll show you what a strong woman
can do! Oh yes!"

"If you really want me then break free! I know you can do that! Just look at
those muscles! You can do it Ludmilla, just make up your mind! I want you so
much, please show me your power!" David continued to stroke Ludmilla with what
little skill he had. Thankfully she had years of pent-up passion to release.

Ludmilla's body became slick with sweat as she poured all of her strength into
breaking free, Large throbbing veins rose into view as the pressure built up.
Her eyes became wild, like an animal. Minutes passed as David tried to force
Ludmilla into a higher state of passion. suddenly she screamed and her body
began to spasm. The machine measuring her power beeped several times. And them
Ludmilla went limp as her passion faded, her strength spent.

David was surprised by the sound of someone clapping behind him. He spun
around to see a tall elderly man wearing an old lab-coat and thick glasses.
"Excellent work Mr. Larson! Look at the readings! Your procedure allowed
Ludmilla to display a six hundred pound increase in total strength! Her first
recorded increase in nearly five years. Most impressive for a first effort.
Yes. You understand that normally I would feel required to have security make
you - no longer a problem. But under the circumstances that is not an option I
wish to take."

The old man walked over to the machine and pushed the green button. The four
thick clamps opened and Ludmilla nearly fell out of the chair. David leaped
forward and caught her, discovering that she was three times as heavy as he
thought she would be. Behind him, the old man laughed.

"So, you have a habit of saving falling girls, do you? Only this time you have
also saved over twenty years of research. Yes. So you believe that it is a
change in the balance of neural-receptors that allows the strength compound to
operate? Oh, you didn't state it is such a manner, but your experiment was
clearly designed to stimulate the brain in ways it normally would not be. We
know that the compound works on the nervous system as well as the subject's
muscles, but I never thought to test this relationship."

Ludmilla opened her eyes, "Daddy? I'm so sorry! I know I'm not to have
visitors, but he was so interesting! Please don't blame him! It's not his
fault! Please Daddy!"

"Not to worry my dear! I'm not angry with you at all! This young man has
helped me make a breakthrough which will help me complete my work! No. You
were correct in selecting him as a friend. I approve totally! Now, I must
isolate the compound that is produced by the brain. While Mr. Larson's
procedure is effective it would not be suitable for mass production. No.
Thankfully there is much research already completed on this subject. I believe
our Russian investors have access to Soviet biological weapons procedures that
I can quickly modify. With a modified delivery system provided to them they
will allow us to proceed with our other projects. I have much work to do! Mr.
Larson, please return Ludmilla to her apartment."

As the tall scientist marched out, Ludmilla pulled David close to her and
said, "I don't remember what you did, but I haven't felt this tired in years!
Oh David! I made father happy! And you made me very happy! Let's go back to my
place, OK? I need to rest and you'll be late for the next event."

[ACT XVI]

David was already waiting in their reserved seats when Sandra ran up and sat
down, "So, how was lunch? Was it mostly salad or did you get plenty of meat? I
grabbed a quick workout. Do I look bigger to you? I don't know why, but I've
been going up in all of my lifts. Not a lot, but I am getting a little
stronger."

"Do you know if your mother has been getting stronger?" David asked.

"With the way mom stares at you, if you wanted her I think she'd bust down a
door to get to you. But we haven't had a lot of time to talk since both her
and Violet go into their competition trance. You never want to get between mom
and a trophy or a medal!" Sandra laughed.

David smiled, "I'll explain everything later. But first, what the hell is
that?"

"This event is called the Axle Clean and Jerk. You take a thick bar, about the
size of an axle, and mount two weighted tires on it. The whole thing weighs
around one hundred and fifty pounds. They get sixty seconds to see how many
times they can take it from the ground and press it over their heads. In order
to get a point for the lift they have to lock it out like in a regular
weightlifting contest. They also can't just drop the weight, it has to be put
down under control or they lose a point. There are two judges to watch for
that. Wow! I've never seen Violet so pumped, what has mom been having her do?"

The four remaining athletes were waiting for the event to start. David zoomed
in with his camera. Sandra was right, Violet did look as if she had just
finished a heavy workout, all of her muscles looked full and pumped hard. And
yet she didn't show any hint of being tired. Was it the strength compound he
wondered?

Carolyn Gablehouse went all out and managed to do eleven reps with the
oversize bar. Hildegard Frederick lost several points by dropping the bar and
only scored nine reps. Ekaterina Reutovich again showed her massive strength
by doing fifteen reps. Violet Beauregarde powered through twelve reps but
didn't have the control to do more. Only three points now separated the top
three contestants. But for the moment, Violet held a one point lead.

[ACT XVII]

David decided to go back to his room and shower. He needed time alone to think
and the steam was working like magic to wash away his stress. He closed his
eyes and let the hot water flow down his back. It took him several minutes to
realize That he was not alone. On the other side of the shower door, the tall
woman who had easily demolished four men waited for David to dry off. As he
stepped out of the shower he found himself within inches of her. One look into
her eyes and he understood the source of her strength. She was totally insane.

"Mr. Larson," she purred as he effortlessly slammed him into the wall, "Or can
I call you David? You have been a naughty boy, looking around in places you
should not be in. And somehow, David, you also have a talent of turning off
the tracer built into your room card. There are several hours where I can't
see where you are. I don't like it when people hide from me. That means that I
have to find them. And no one can stop me from finding them."

She tilted her head and smiled, "No one can stop me at all! Many have tried,
but my body is too strong. Do you like my body, David? Would you like to feel
it?" She moved closer until her could feel her large breasts pushing against
him. "If you tell me what I want to know we can play. Would you like to play
with me?"

"Sure, I'd like to play with you," David whispered, "In fact, I just bought
something I bet you can't break!"

She stepped back, her smile became evil, "So, you want to test me! What do you
want to do? Do you want to hit me? Do you want to wrestle with me? Perhaps you
have some rope to tie me up? I will make you a deal, if you defeat me I will
be your slave, but if I win you will tell me all of your secrets. Perhaps I
will let you live if you amuse me. Now, bring me your test!"

David walked into the bedroom and picked up a small bag from the table. After
a moment of tearing paper he pulled out a single white shoe-string. "This is
the test. All you have to do is snap this. I know several women who would be
able to do this easily, but I don't think you can!"

The woman laughed, "I like you! You make a joke in the face of death! I can
break chains with my bare hands! I can bend steel bars and crush bricks
between my legs! This string is nothing!"

"Well yes, it would be if you got to use your hands." David walked up to her
and wrapped the shoe-lace around her upper right arm. "But you get to snap
this by flexing your biceps! Let's see your power now!"

"You will not defeat me!" she said as she raised her arm and flexed. David
watched as she strained harder and harder. Wire-like tendons raised into view,
thin blood-vessels became visible along her arms and shoulders. "You will not
defeat me!" she growled. he body trembled with the strain. David could
literally hear her muscles pop from the power flowing through them. David ran
his hand along her tensed arm, feeling the steel hard muscles spasm. "You will
not defeat me!" she whispered. Slowly she went down to her knees and began to
cry. "You defeated me!" she moaned. "That's not fair! No body ever wanted to
see my muscles before. How could you know?"

"OK, so for now you're my slave?" The woman looked up at him, her eyes still
wet with tears, and nodded. "What would you do if I taught you how to break
the string? Would you stay my friend? Forever?"

She stood up and reached out to David with her left hand. As her fingers
wandered across his bare chest she said, "Slave for one night or friend
forever? You let me choose? No body lets me choose! They recruited me for the
service, but if I didn't agree they would hurt my family. Then they asked me
to join special project. But I didn't really have a choice. They gave many
women special drug, but didn't tell us what it was. Only a few of us became
strong. I was the strongest one. They trained me, and gave me assignments. I
killed many men with my bare hands! But I didn't have a choice."

She moved closer to David, he could feel the heat from her body. She leaned
close and liked his ear. "I think it drove me mad!" she whispered. "I remember
my first assignment. The target had several bodyguards. All were big men with
muscles on their muscles. I was dressed like a prostitute. They didn't have a
chance, they were like weak little children. With every snap of a breaking
bone I could feel my mind going away, hiding from what I had become. The
target begged for mercy, but I crushed his head in my hands like it was a
melon. I became an unstoppable killing machine. But I didn't have a choice."

"That was many years ago, my family is gone. I don't even remember my real
name. Many times I thought about leaving them, but I didn't know what to do. I
didn't have a choice." She pulled David to her and gave him a long passionate
kiss. She whispered in her ear, "Until now! If I become your friend, can you
help me disappear? I know there are two other agents on New Atlantis, but I
don't know who they are. We were sent here to watch over things. A lot of
money has been invested here and some people are worried."

David ran his hands through her long blond hair, "I think that a few of my new
friends might be able to help. But I need to figure out more of the puzzle.
What do you know about the three subs they build New Atlantis on top of?"

She pulled him tighter, but with only a tiny fraction of her true strength,
"On paper they are de- commissioned submarines that were used as the central
floats for the first phase of construction. But what we keep secret is that
they are fully operational Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Most of the
Russian security guards are actually crew. They split their time between
maintaining the submarines and working on the surface. They are paid very well
and have access to perks that were never available in the original Soviet
Navy. But this is only temporary. New base is under construction even now!"

"Things get stranger by the minute. OK, I know you name tag says your name is
Starke, but what do you want me to call you?" he asked.

"Another choice! OK, I've always liked the name Georgia, it was name of my
favortie grandmother. My father owned a grain house. So you can call me
Georgia Miller! I know it's not a common name from my country, but that is no
longer my home. So, my friend who gives me many choices, each of us must be
somewhere else soon. But we have at least twenty minutes to play. Let me prove
to you that you are too weak to hurt your strong woman friend!"

Georgia stepped back and went into a double bicep pose. Her eyes still held
the taint of madness, but her mind felt free for the first time in years.
David slammed his fist as hard as he could into her left breast. He knew
better than to break his hand on her steel-hard abs. She smiled and purred,
"Weak American, your puny muscles are no match for real woman!" Neither one
noticed that her biceps had started to slowly swell in size until the
shoe-string snapped and fell to the ground.

[ACT XVIII]

David studied the program, his body still recovering form the incredible
pressures generated by Georgia Miller's powerful arms. The last event of the
day, and the event which would close the second round of the contest, was
called the Husafell Stone. The object was to pick up a four hundred pound
stone up in a bear hug and walk carry it to a stand that was twenty five feet
away. Like many of the earlier events there was a ninety second time limit and
one point would be awarded for every five feet the stone was carried. If the
stone was dropped it couldn't be picked up. the women were given only one shot
at moving the stone.

"This is going to be a tough one for Violet," remarked Sandra. She's strong
enough to pick up that much weight. Heck, I could do that, or even mom! The
real test is going to be keeping a grip. Now I know why some people call this
event the Tombstone! Look at the size of that thing!"

All of the women had difficulty in maintaining a grip on the large stone. In
fact only Hildegard Frederick managed to carry the stone the entire twenty
five feet without dropping it. Carolyn Gablehouse surprised everyone by moving
the weight forty feet, she looked like she had been getting stronger every
day. The massive Ekaterina Reutovich carried the stone only thirty feet before
dropping it. And because Violet Beauregarde had the shortest arms of the four,
was only able to carry the stone twenty feet. While Carolyn Gablehouse had
been cut from the competition, the remaining three were locked in a three-way
tie. The judges announced that a tie-breaker event would occur in one hour.

Despite the long delay the crowd remained. The judges acted as if they had a
ready back-up plan. The athletes sat and rested behind the stage. Even the
tall blond from England waited to see the three-way show- down. Soon three
tables had been set up in front of the stage. On top of each table was placed
a collection of short leather straps. Many in the audience were puzzled, but
David knew exactly what was coming.

Sandra returned was a pair of hot-dogs, "They're all beef, just like you want
them! Have you figured out what the bonus event will be? What are they going
to do, muscle bondage? Better get your camera!"

David smiled and patted his trusted digital Nikon, "I think these are
left-overs they didn't use the other day."

At the end of the hour one of the judges explained the details of the event.
Each woman would be given ninety seconds to break as many of the leather
straps as she could. One member of her team would be allowed to help her put
on the straps, but they must be broken by flexing their arm muscles. The
athlete was allowed to use either arm and they could switch between arms as
often as they liked. Instantly David realized that he would not be able to
take all of the pictures he wanted.

The three women approached the tables. Angelica Beauregarde, as expected,
would assist Violet in this event. This was the first time that David had seen
Angelica's uncovered arms next to the other athletes. He was amazed at their
size and roundness. Only the large Russian girl had bigger biceps. The
starting buzzer went off. the next minute-and-a-half was a blur as David tried
to capture all of the bicep-flexing strap- bursting action. Because he had
watched the entire event through his telephoto lens he was forced to ask
Sandra who the winners had been.

In the final count Hildegard Frederick from Germany had broken twelve straps,
Ekaterina Reutovich from Russia had only broken six, and Violet Beauregarde
from the United Stated had broken a total of nine straps. The massive Russian
woman had great difficulty in making her already bulging muscles increase in
size enough to pull the straps apart. Though Violet was no longer in the lead,
she would move on to the final round of the contest.

[ACT XIX]

The Jungle Heat club had been transformed into a night club. Extra tables and
chairs had been brought in and the exercise floor had become a dance floor.
Attendants from all of the clubs mingled with the guests. David was able to
pick out a large number of Soviet sailors who looked awkward in their
out-dated civilian dress. All of the remaining athletes were present and
working hard at having fun, except that both Violet and Hildegard were
drinking only juice or soda. As he wandered through the club David suddenly
realized that the two women dancing who were dancing on a raised platform were
actually Debbie and Ludmilla. They were wearing marching fantasy barbarian
costumes and clearly having a great time.

Suddenly he felt powerful hands grip his shoulders. "So, does weak American
wish to try his puny muscles against a real women?" Georgia purred, "Then this
is you last chance, for tonight I die! Or I should say, Frauline Starke has a
most regrettable accident. On fact, I understand there will be no body. Your
friends appear to be most willing to assist me. Please come with me, I have
surprise to show you!" David turned to look at the newly renamed Georgia
Miller. The wore low-cut black dress that made her look more like a Playboy
bunny than a half-insane killer who would smile as she crushed your body to
lifeless pulp.

David followed Georgia out of the Jungle Heat club and into an employee
elevator. They went down several levels and came out into a storage area. He
followed her through several rooms until they came to the large exercise room
that he had seen her out fight four large men. "I'll miss this place. I had a
lot of fun. But you taught me new ways to have fun. There's a cargo ship
leaving tonight bound for Mexico. From there I can swim around the border to a
tourist beach in Texas. I have a hundred times the endurance of a normal woman
my size, plus as you recall I am extremely strong! For a while I'll relax on
the beach and then I'll do a little shopping. eventually I'll have the clothes
that I need and a buss ticket to your home town."

"My town? You can go anywhere in the world, why would you come to my town?"
David asked.

"Because, weak American, how else could I become you room mate? I think you
need strong woman and Miss Violet may not always available. She is very strong
and could win contest. Now, dearest David, observe what you have created!"
Georgia reached down into a box and pulled out a heavy-duty pipe-clamp, "This
is used to make emergency repairs to high pressure pipes. Please mount attach
this to my arm and make it as tight as you can. You will not be able to cause
me pain! Make it very tight!"

David took the twenty pound clamp from her and snapped it around her upper
right arm. It took him several minutes to tighten the four large wing-nuts as
hard as he could. Though the thick metal seemed to cut deeply into the flesh
of her arm, she gave no hint that she was in distress. "Very good! You see
that small box on the other side of the room? Good! Please run to their and
find good pair of binoculars. What I am about to due could be a danger to you
if you were close! Please hurry, we will be missed from the party!"

It took a minute or so for David to reach the box on the other side of the
large room and pull out the binoculars. The moment Georgia could see that he
was watching she brought up her right arm and made a tight fist. For several
minutes nothing happened, and then suddenly the thick metal clamp exploded
into a dozen fragments as it burst apart, unable to contain Georgia's growing
bicep. She had been right, the shrapnel from the clamp could have injured him
or worse. for a moment she simply flexed, her bicep formed into an hard sharp
peak. She put her arm down and started to walk towards him when suddenly the
door to the exercise room was ripped open.

He noticed that he was near the large unmarked bar-bells and dove down towards
them for cover. The tall woman who marched in failed to see him as she seemed
totally focused on Georgia. David could not understand the shouted words from
across the room. Was that Russian? he couldn't tell. She was dressed like one
of the attendants from the Heaven Club, and was very tall, very slim, and have
extremely large breasts that were barely contained the thin flowing gown she
wore. The fight was short as it was brutal. The tall woman jumped on Georgia
and knocked her down to the ground. David watched helpless as she pummeled his
new friend with a rain of hammer-like blows. Each blow sounded like a
explosion of meat that David felt more than heard. Slowly, Georgia managed to
muscle her way free and stood up.

The tall woman slammed her fist into Georgia's stomach so hard that she flew
back ten feet and crashed against the wall. David could see a spider-web
cracks form in the surface of the wall. The second it took the tall woman to
close the gap between them was enough for Georgia to recover. She sprang from
the wall and met the woman half-way. Georgia dropped the tall woman with a
blow to the head that would have killed the strongest man alive. As David
walked up, Georgia turned to him and said, "This is one of the other agents.
There may be one more, so you must be careful as I will not be here to protect
you! We must find a location to secure her for at least twenty-four hours.
After that, it will no longer matter!"

David smiled, "Bring her along, I have just the place!"

Several minutes later they had reached the secret testing room that Ludmilla
had shown him. David kicked the chair aside, the tall blonde was nearly two
feet taller than Ludmilla was. Just as the clamps had closed the woman woke up
and tried to throw herself at David, "Look at that reading! She's much
stronger than Ludmilla but without any sign of visible muscle. She's just like
you were, before you improved."

Georgia stepped close to David and purred, "When I see you next I will be much
improved!"

David heard someone clapping behind him, "Excellent work David! It is almost
as if you were reading my notes! For the next step of my experiment I require
a subject who is compatible with the strength compound and yet has little
muscular development. She is perfect! Yes, I can see that she is quite strong
now, but when I am done she will be like a goddess!"

"Excuse me sir, did you say you were going to turn me into a goddess?" asked
the tall woman.

The professor stepped up to her and looked up, "Why yes my dear! I developed
the original strength compound which gives you the increased strength and
vitality you have now. But thanks to this man I can now reach the next level.
If you wish, I can proceed with you. But first I will have to ask my inventive
daughter to arrange a second disappearance. it wouldn't do to have your former
employers interrupt our work. Quickly now young lady, have you decided?"

The tall woman looked at the professor, then David, and finally Georgia. "When
I was a little girl all I wanted to be was a nurse. Then they came and turned
me into this! If I agree to take part in this research then I can recover some
small part of my dream. I think I understand. Yes! I accept! But I must warn
you that there is another sleeper agent. It is one of the athletes in the
contest, but I don't know who!"

Several minutes later David had returned to the party. He made several orbits
around the time, watching those athletes who were still visible. Huang
Guangming had joined the two muscle dwarfs and was enjoying her status as the
"tall" woman. Carolyn Gablehouse was surrounded by men who were watching her
bend coins with her fingers. And Karnam Soundarajan was playing a drinking
game that included beating men at armwrestling. David didn't see any of the
others. None of the athletes matched the agent profile, all had extreme
muscular development. Two hours later David left the club and returned home.

[ACT XX]

The cold salt-water nearly choked him, but David woke up and tried to roll off
his bed. Suddenly he realized that he was not on his bed at all. Looking
around he realized that he was now in a small metal room was a small round
window in one wall. Huang Guangming threw the empty wooden bucket down so hard
that it shattered into dozens of fragments. "Why do you have to make things so
hard David?" She picked him up with one hand and slammed him into the wall.
"You make things so complicated! I don't like complicated!" she screamed as
she tossed him against the ether wall. "Hit me! HIT ME!" She screamed as she
flexed all of the muscles in her arms and chest. "If you don't start hitting
me I swear I will reach down and crush something!" David forced himself to
stand and punched Huang hard in the chest.

"Aaargh!" she screamed. "You are too weak to even cause me pain!" David
punched Huang over and over as hard as he could. "Hit me harder! Damm you! My
family is already half-way to China and they want you dead!" She moved closer
to him, pushing him back against the wall. "You saved my sister! Now I can not
kill you!" Huang grabbed him and tossed him hard against the other wall. As he
hit he felt several bones break. "Fine! If you are too weak to fight me then I
will kill someone else! I am sorry I must do this, but they hold my family!"
Before Huang closed the metal door she stopped and whispered, "I really am
sorry David. More than you will know!" She slammed the door closed and he
heard something bending. The door was sealed shut.

David stood up and tried to force open the door, but Huang bent the latch from
the outside. He was trapped, helpless to stop a killer agent. Nearly an hour
later David started to hear strange noises coming from the other side of the
door. It almost sounded like some one singing. Badly. He pounded on the door
and yelled for help. Something began to bend on the outside of the door. David
heard a loud "snap" as the latch was ripped off of the door. He moved back
just in time to see the door kicked in. Carolyn Gablehouse had to duck down to
walk into the room.

She giggled as she faced him, clearly drunk beyond caring. As she strutted
towards him David noticed that Carolyn was wearing only a long pink tee-shirt
that had a picture of a muscular woman swinging a big sword. "There you are. I
missed you at the party. The door was stuck and I think I broke it. Sometimes
I don't know my strength. But I heard that you like strong girls?" she leaned
close to him and whispered, "I'm big and strong, don't you think? You like big
girls, don't you?"

David tried to push her away, but she was much too strong and her large firm
breasts began to press against hard enough to be painful. "Carolyn, you're a
big sexy woman and I really like watching you do strong stuff. But I need you
to help me get back to the hotel. I'm really hurt, I think I have a couple of
broken ribs. Please, will you help me?"

Carolyn's eyes went wide, "What's going on tonight? So many people getting
hurt or worse! Then there was that fight in the club! Don't tell anyone, but I
was getting really turned on wrestling with all of those men!" She reached out
to him and gently picked David up as if he was a small child.

"What a minute, who got hurt? Was it - was it any of the Beauregardes?" David
asked.

Carolyn's long legs were making quick work of the maze-like passages that led
to the surface. she seemed to enjoy flaunting her power as she effortlessly
carried him up at least six levels of stairs, 'Oh, you haven't heard! Around
the same time that the fight was going on a small boat went out on a
moon-light cruise. Something went terribly wrong and it caught fire and sank!
The nearest ship was a cargo ship, but by the time they were able to stop and
turn around there were no survivors. They couldn't even find the bodies!"

David almost missed the quick pulse of muscle as she kicked open another metal
door, "Did they say who was on the boat? And that cargo ship - where was it
heading to?"

"It was so sad, it was the entire family of the girl from China and two
workers from one of the clubs. They said that she went crazy and was tearing
up the place! That big Russian woman tried to stop her and ended up in the
hospital with two broken legs. It was weird, nothing could stop her and then
she just vanished. One minute she was there and the next - gone! They said she
nearly killed over twenty guards. Oh, they said that the cargo ship was going
to the United States, it had stopped here to unload a shipping container."

David remained silent, his body spasm from his many sharp pains. Despite
Carolym's best efforts he was losing the battle to stay focused. He barely
noticed when she kicked the last metal door open and it flew twenty feet out
on the grass. Carolyn stepped out into the cool night air, for a moment she
couldn't tell where she was. Off in the distance David could see what looked
like the remains of a large riot. Huang had left a clear trail of destruction
which was clearly aimed at the hotel that he, and the Beauregardes, now lived.
He sighed and asked Carolyn to take him home.

[ACT XXI]

David was pleased to note that last night's combat had left the stage
undamaged. From where he sat, taped up and heavily drugged to kill the pain,
there was little sign that anything unusual had happen. The crowd, however,
was clearly uneasy. There was an element of fear, people were looking at the
strong women and wondered who would become the next monster. That the girl
from China was still missing made matters worse. Even Sandra seemed to lack
her normal manic sparkle. Every time he looked at her she turned away unable
to look him in the eyes.

"Look Sandra, I don't blame you! Really! Who could have guessed that she was
an enemy agent?"

Sandra whispered, "But she kidnapped you right out of your room! I was
sleeping across the hall and she broke the locks and walked right in! Oh
David, I've never felt this bad before. When mom and Violet saw you getting
worked on by the paramedics again they almost went bezerk. It is a very good
thing the girl vanished. Maybe I'm not as strong as she is, but she would have
felt me hit her!"

"I hope this doesn't distract Violet, she's so close to winning the contest,"
remarked David. He only answer was an odd laugh from Sandra as she pointed
toward the stage. The two remaining contestants had marched out and were ready
for the final event. Hildegard Frederick from Germany looked massive, muscular
and very powerful just standing still. Violet Beauregarde from the United
Stated couldn't stand still, it was if she could barely contaned the energy
that flowed inside of her. She looked at David and smiled, her body seemed to
grow as she flexed her muscles for him to see.

The Humm-Vee had been returned to the front of the stage. But this time David
could see that a lifting bar had been fixed to the back. The front wheels had
been locked in place and a thick rubber pad had been placed behind the
vehicle. Both of the contestants were suiting up in heavy-duty lifting gear.
This was going to be a contest of brute strength, endurance and willpower. The
judges flipped a coin and Hildegard went first. She walked up to the bar, her
and in an amazing display of power smoothly lifted the Humm-Vee nineteen times
before she stopped. David could tell that she was in great pain during the
last few three reps, but she pushed on as long as she could.

Violet walked up to the Humm-Vee, waved at David, and attacked the bar. The
first seven reps looked easy, but David could tell Violet was in trouble. he
could see she was straining with each lift. After fourteen reps she paused and
glanced at David. He could see that her intensity now bordered on the insane.
Slowly, fighting every inch, she forced out seven more reps. Violet glanced at
David again and screamed. It was if every muscle in her body exploded at the
same time. Violet's lifting suit was torn to shreds and fell to the ground.
The crowd went wild as the Violet powered her way through four more reps. This
was more than enough to beat Hildegard and win the contest. She lowered the
vehicle and faced the crowd, and David, and flexed her massively pumped
biceps. The top of her light-weight team uniform joined the lifting suit on
the ground. she gave a victory roar and flexed even harder. Her pure-white
sports-bra was torn apart by the pressure.

Suddenly David felt a tap on his shoulder. Ludmilla whispered in his ear,
"Come quick! Daddy needs you!"

[ACT XXII]

David looked the reading in disbelief, "She keeps getting strong, is that
possible?"

"In this case, it is!" explained the professor, "Her mind is stuck in a
feed-back loop where she feels that her only escape is to become as strong as
possible. Between her natural abilities, her training and the strength
compound she has been ingesting since she arrived in New Atlantis, she has
accidentally created the perfect muscle building system. Once she breaks free
from these restraints she will be unstoppable. I'm afraid the guards would
have to kill her. They will be required to use anti-tank weapons, but then
that's why we purchased them. You are her only hope to save her!"

He thought for a moment and then shouted, "Everybody out! Seal that door when
you're clear. Get those weapons ready. If she comes out first then I'm already
dead. Move it!"

Ludmilla stepped up to David, "What are you doing! She'll turn you into
paste!"

David waved her away and said, "Maybe she will."

After he heard the metal door slam shut behind him, David walked up to Huang
and yelled, "It's me David, I'm here to rescue you! Please Huang, you've got
to come back to me! Your sister and your parents are on their way to America!
You are strong enough, you don't need to fight anymore! You won! You saved
your family! Please, let me know you're in there! Huang! Look at me! What do
you see?"

Huang's eyes flickered for a moment and then seemed to focus on his face,
"Damm you David! You are too weak! If I can't fight you I must KILL SOMEBODY!"
Her muscles grew larger and harder as she became stronger. Soon the super
restraints would fail.

David picked up a twenty-pound sledge hammer and swung it at Huang's chest as
heard as he could. "LISTEN TO ME!" The hammer bounced off her muscular chest.
"YOUR PARENTS ARE SAFE!" The hammer bounced off again. "YOUR LITTLE SISTER IS
SAFE!" He slammed the hammer into her chest a third time. "KILL ME IF YOU HAVE
TO, BUT STOP!" David raised the sledge hammer again but before he could bring
it down Huang ripped free from the restrains and grabbed the handle with her
left hand. With a quick squeeze she snapped the hammer in two. David fell to
the floor, ready to die.

Huang shook the remains of the restrains free from her wrists and walked up to
David. He closed his eyes, waiting for the final blow. The moments dragged
into minutes, and still Huang just stood there. David opened his eyes and
looked up. Huang's eyes were filled with tears and her muscular body trembled,
"You saved my family? They are going to America?" she whispered. He couldn't
talk but simply nodded.

She fell to her knees and began to weep. When David moved closer she screamed,
"NO! Stay away from me! I am a monster! Just look at me. David. Tell me what
you see?"

"I - I see a woman who loves her family and would do anything to keep them
safe. You're also a woman with very sexy muscles. Please forgive me Huang. I
didn't save your family. I had them sent to America! And they are going to
need you to keep them safe. Can I ask you to do that?"

For a moment she was silent and then Huang laughed and said, "You think my
muscles are sexy do you? Then the rumors are true. I see that you have your
camera. Though I now longer feel the madness within me, my muscles remain."
She tore off what little remained of her uniform, "This does not pay you back
for what you have done for me, or what I have done to you, but it is all that
I have now." Huang began to pose.

[ACT XXIII]

Several hours later David stumbled into his room moved towards the shower,
leaving a trail of clothing and camera accessories. Steam filled the air and
then he realized that Violet had joined him. He noticed that her body had
almost returned to normal, though it was still much more muscular than he was.
"Oh David! You'll never guess what the special prize for winning the contest
was! It's too amazing!"

David turned to face her and kneeled down, "What is your command, my queen!"

She slapped his shoulder hard enough to slam him into the wall and make him
grunt with pain, "You knew! You knew and you didn't tell me! Wait, you didn't
tell any body. David, that award that they gave you, it had SEVEN stars on it.
You saved seven people, didn't you? While I was pumping my heart out, you were
doing - something? Nobody is talking, but the staff treats you different. They
made me Queen of Atlantis, what did they make you?"

David glanced at the two chromed pistols that lay on the floor half-covered by
his shirt, "Warlord."

[THE END]