This is my tribute to Doc Nebula and his Dream Research Project, pulp role-playing... sci-fi... thing. And because I'm bored. So very, very bored...

Monaco - 1964

Fighting off her tears of shame and torment, the Princess struggled against the taunt nylon cords binding her to the doorknob of the ornate liquor cabinet.

Suddenly, the door to the inner suite burst open and von Taffelring staggered in, waving a grim machine pistol; he was sweating heavily and his face was torn with wild desperation. The Princess felt her terror chill into sadistic revulsion as she quietly enjoyed the odd panic of this criminal mastermind. Von Taffelring opened his mouth to speak, but was jarringly cut short when the television set behind him sparked to black and white life, corkscrewing an image into view - Lloyd Bridges, in diving gear - as the badly subtitled soundtrack boomed:

"In the depths dead ahead - SHAHKS!"

Taken by surprise, Von Taffelring squealed and fired off a burst from his weapon as he spun on the brave little appliance. Bridges' submerged agitations disappeared into darkness, shredded by a crescent of a half-dozen rounds that shattered the television screen.

At that moment, across the room, the leaded glass of the balcony doors blew out in a bubble of shards and drapery. From the center of this chaotic demi-cosmos of atomized crystal dove, feet-first, a wiry black blur. Von Taffelring swiveled again, firing a clean stitch of slugs over the uninvited blur, now crouching low in the middle of the room. The Princess could see the phantasm had configured itself into the shape of a lissome marksman, grasping a pistol tipped with a long tube. Two clean, orange cones of fire blinked from it's muzzle in rough thumps like a fat man's coughs. Looking quite shocked and then strangely relieved, Von Taffelring was thrust violently backward and crashed open the bathroom door, tripping on the floor trim and flipping headfirst into the toilet.

"Make yourself at home, Emil," said the blur in clear feminine tone as it rose to standing position. Without looking at the Princess, the new arrival tossed onto the daybed a TV remote.

"Thank you, Mike Nelson," she said, fiddling with her handgun, then added, "Your highness, let's rescue the evening."

Viki Delene quickly unscrewed the pistol silencer and dropped it into a flower pot; efficient at muffling a .380, it had a nasty habit of becoming hot as a steam iron after just a couple of rounds, and Viki didn't want to set any fires. Yet.

She slipped off her black driving gloves and flapped them over her thick leather belt as she approached the Princess, whose fascination had subdued her fear - although she started a bit when Viki lightly held her bare upper arms. Gazing deeply in her eyes, she noted soothingly, "You don't look too chipped."

As she deftly freed her bound wrists, Viki continued: "I can get you through his crew in the ballroom downstairs more easily if you're a little more... formal," with a nod to the elegant but brief peach chemise down to which von Taffelring and his mistress, Favela Nostrum, had stripped her highness.

"His girlfriend's bedroom is over there," the Princess said, surprised at her own calm.

"Excellent," Viki said. "See if she has anything in the closet."

While the Princess busied herself in the next room, Viki searched momentarily for the briefcase, and, finding it behind the door, unfastened the richly upholstered lid. Neatly bound bundles of dollars were there alright, but something was wrong. Viki picked up one of the packed bills and pushed aside the top greenback. It was as she suspected: The bulk of the briefcase treasure was mere stacks of worthless newspaper. That meant Borghese had switched cases when they tangled at the train station.

Viki flung the bundle across the room as the Princess re-entered, startled at the sudden burst of anger. They stared at each other a moment, then Viki spoke.

"I must've been asleep."

"When?" asked the princess.

"Whenever the wicked witch's spell changed you into bad marshmallow dessert. What in GOD'S NAME are you wearing?"

The Princess looked down at her dowdy dress... Perhaps a little too much pink chiffon.

Disregarding her with intent, Viki brushed past and into the bedroom, spitting over her shoulder, "I'll find you something worth dying in."

She ignored her highness' shocked gasp fading behind her as she strode to the closet and began roughly tossing through the neatly hung clothes. Big, blocky patterns. Eye-popping prints. Off-the-rack nonsense! For crying out loud, doesn't anyone in these international criminal syndicates KNOW HOW TO DRESS?

Finally, Viki settled on a straight-cut aquamarine suit and cotton blouse with Pierrot collar. With no matching shoes evident, she put the package together with standard black pumps and handed it off to the Princess.

Viki sank into the dressing-table chair, and stared a moment in the mirror. A little tired, maybe. First crinkling of tiny crow's feet at her eyes. She closed them and bowed her head. She was exhausted by these endless assignments. She was sick of Michael's vagabond compulsion to turn their home into the Winchester Mystery House of constantly evolving construction projects - pool, gazebo, playhouse, detached office with deck, another sun deck on the roof... and on and on. She looked up finally and rested her chin on her knuckles. Far away, she heard the booming chop of helicopters approaching. Pushing her hair back in a quick motion, she stood and shook it all off. Few women her age, after all, look as good in tight, black jumpsuits.

"Girl... let's spill some blood," she said to her reflection in the mirror, and made a quick mental note to pick up a pet carrier for Scoobie's vet visit back home.

Striding briskly to the outer door, she opened it a crack and scoped the hallway. In muffled shouts from downstairs, Viki could tell the monstrous Manius and his henchmen had finally been alarmed, and were headed toward her end of the townhouse.

"Well, the ballroom's out," she said, turning back into the suite. She picked up von Taffelring's weapon and checked the clip; less than half-lethal now. She slung the piece over her shoulder and turned her attention to the Princess, reaching out and straightening the blouse collar.

"I remember you now," the Princess exclaimed, as if a new planet had popped up in a telescope Santa had left. "You're one of the bikini models from Capri."

"Leopard-skin does stick in the mind, doesn't it?"

"And I know why you looked so familiar then" the Princess babbled on. "You're Miss America!"

"Was," Viki said, now at the balcony door she'd so casually demolished earlier. The rain had cleared and fading light broke through charcoal storm clouds. The room was pitched in long shadows and drenching red sundown as the day played out. Evening would be pleasant - clear and washed by the drizzle, with fresh, cool fragrance in its wake. But the helicopter motors were much louder now.

"Mary-Ann Mobley!"

"No," Viki said, managing a smile as she flung open what was left of the shattered doors. "But I'm told we could be twins. She won the year after me - I crowned her."

The loud voices were now at the door, which had begun to buckle against a booming assault. Panic seeped back into the Princess. To cool the temperature - and herself - Viki lingered on memory lane.

"She and I were roommates a few years before, in the Miss Galveston pre-pageants. Wonderful woman."

A wood splinter big as a ball bat ricocheted through the room in diagonal vectors, spinning end over end, as the edge of an ax-head punched through the door's paneling. Through the crack, the threatening voices were much clearer, their upset much more... immediate. The Princess was now sobbing and hyperventilating.

"...But, my lands," Viki said, shaking her head. "The poor gal snored like a pig farmer."

At that, barely lifting the machine pistol, Viki dumped the rest of the clip through the door in a tight, almost-perfect circle. At about a dozen rounds fired, the burst was very loud, like dry canvas a foot thick ripping apart very close to the ear, and the room's contours leaped in startling relief as a bright, fat spurt of flame flashed from the gun barrel. Taken completely by surprise, the Princess covered her ears and screamed. Then more screams and shouts answered from the hallway.

Viki knew she'd bought a few moments while the wounded and dying wheedled for attention.

Behind them, the balcony disappeared in sparks and dust cloud as heavy slugs gnawed away at the masonry. Viki shoved the squealing Princess to the floor and, drawing her automatic from her waistband, kneeled in the doorway and chased the helicopter gunship behind the rooftop with a few well-aimed shots.

She reached to the small of her back, pulled from her utility belt an eight-inch tube, unscrewed the cap and replaced it over the primer on the other end. Aiming for one of the few darkened windows in the Pensione Orientale across the square, she hammered the cap with the heel of her hand. The Princess yelled again as a loud "bang" from the far end of the tube sent a piano-wire lanyard spinning its way into the evening.

Viki pulled the Princess to her feet and yanked at the wire to draw the grappling hook tight in whatever anchorage it had found. In her window target, the room-light flashed on, and then a naked couple appeared - their mouths wide in that "O" shape characteristic of irritated shock and coital interruption.

"Oh... shit." Viki said, then immediately added. "Sorry."

Hearing the helicopter motors returning, and realizing it was now or never, she jumped on the balcony railing and held her hand out to the Princess, who, in full panic now, shook her head in frightened refusal. Viki suddenly glanced to the neighboring balcony.

"Oh, my lord! It's Jean-Paul Belmondo!"

The Princess instantly spun her head to look, and Viki delivered a subtle but effective chop to the vagus nerve in her lower neck. As the Princess dropped, Viki grabbed her and hauled her up roughly, looping the wire around both of them.

"Excuse me, your majesty," she said, and they swung out in a swift, pendulous arc, into the sheltering night.