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rest of the way to the elevator in silence. Jim mused that there was an excellent chance, a truly excellent chance, that Matt wouldn’t get out of the Botany Bay Hotel alive.

Chapter 4
The Cage

    Meanwhile, in a distant level of the hotel far, far away, Princess Leia Organa lay handcuffed by the wrists to the headboard of a queen-size bed.
    The man holding the key to her freedom was named Donnie Trill. He was a self-styled Web entrepreneur, videographer, and the closest thing she had to a confidant. They’d known each other for about a year. Whenever Trill needed a female model for one of his oddball Internet video projects—and had cash in hand—he gave her a call.
    She watched as Donnie messed with the settings on his digital camera. He wore an ill-fitting gold uniform from the original
Star Trek
series. It stretched in a profoundly unflattering way over his gut.
    But that wasn’t what troubled her now. She was mulling over the larger issue of how she’d reached such a crossroads in her life. How a perfectly normal—well,
reasonably
normal—person such as herself wound up doing such patently abnormal things.
    She’d been pondering that question a lot lately.
    “Tell me again what this is for,” she asked.
    “Some fan site,” Donnie said, not bothering to look up from his camera. “For people who despise the Star Wars franchise. Actually, it’s for Trekkies who despise Star Wars.”
    “Does it have much of a following?”
    “Just fifty thousand paying subscribers.”
    “Good Lord.”
    “You know what’s really impressive? Their creative director pays cash up front. I’ll send him the video tonight and it’ll go live almost immediately.”
    “What do I have to do?”
    “Just lie there. The premise is that you’re a Star Wars groupie dressed as Princess Leia, and that I’m an obsessed Star Trek fan who’s kidnapped you, handcuffed you to a bed and then . . .”
    “Nothing sexual.”
    “Honey, have you forgotten who you’re with?” Donnie said. “I’m gayer than George Takei. All I’m going to do is stand around and berate you about how much the Star Wars universe sucks and how Star Trek is superior in every way.”
    “And then what?”
    “And then the Death Star explodes and the rebel base is saved. What do you think? I shut off the camera, unlock the cuffs, give you a thousand bucks, and we’re done.”
    She sighed and rolled her eyes.
    “How long will this take?”
    “Maybe fifteen minutes. The guy gave me a script. You don’t have any lines. Just look annoyed. Kind of like you do now.”
    “Well, hurry up. I’ve got another job right after this one.”
    “Booth babe?”
    “What else? They’ve got this ridiculous outfit for me—a silver-blue bathing suit—and they want me to carry a spear. I’m playing Shahna from ‘The Gamesters of Triskelion.’”
    “I have no idea what that means.”
    “It’s a classic Season Two episode. Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are captured by disembodied brains who use them as gladiators—”
    “Do you wear a wig?”
    “A nice one,” she said. “Platinum blonde. Very Lady Gaga.”
    “The fanboys are going to love that. Maybe you’ll make a new friend this weekend.”
    “I’m just here for the money,” she assured him.
    She never had the interest nor the ambition to pursue conventional modeling—and at a healthy six foot one, she didn’t exactly have a clothes-rack body. But at a small-scale event like GulfCon, she was invariably a belle of the ball. And when the fanboys discovered that she genuinely loved science fiction—that she could quote chapter and verse from
Deep Space Nine
, they’d plead to have their pictures taken with her. She usually worked two or three gigs a month and every dime went right into the bank.
    She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Okay
, she thought.
Character. Get into character. If I’m going to spend the weekend as bikini eye candy for pervy fanboys, no one has to know who I am. As long as I’m