Blindfold Quinn

Quinn was excited by her next bit in the magic show. As an assistant she had taken part in the modern art, expressing a suitable amount of disbelief at having her upper half displaced sideways from her lower half, and she had been floated above the low-lying smoke that blanketed the stage for the levitation part of the performance. The main thing that excited her was that she was in control for the next section of the show; her magician, Marco, kept things safe, but she could do what she fancied, once the set-up was complete.

She was in her costume, which was a kimono and a black wig, underneath she was in her costume for the next part of the act, but that was to facilitate a quick change between this act and the next. She waited in the wings while Marco persuaded her selection of volunteers to come onto the stage; she had been down in the lobby and taken pictures of the people see felt were right for this act; the only proviso that Marco had made was that there should be three men and three women.

It turned out that her selection were named Bernard, Tiffany, Bianca, John, George and Marion. Quinn found their names out as she watched Marco do the introductory small talk that also included some hypnotic suggestions to do what they were told and go with the flow; he could not be more specific, because he was as poorly informed about what Quinn would do, specifically, as the volunteers.

At the end of the hypnotic introduction, Quinn shuffled on stage pushing a trolley with various things on it; the most obvious of which was a wooden stand that cradled a sheathed katana. From the other side of the stage a stagehand pushed a stand from which hung a suit of Japanese-style armour and made ready to help Marco on with it.

"I have performed some wonders this evening, perhaps you would like to see what my assistant, Quinn, can do instead?"

While the audience seemed to be all behind the idea, the volunteers seemed a little more nervous about the prospect.

Marco came to the trolley and picked up a black felt bag that lay on top, and distributed items from the bag to his volunteers. Discovering the bag to be empty when he reached the last volunteer, he shrugged and hand him the bag, then he instructed them to check out what they had just been handed. Each volunteer looked at what they had in their hands and wondered how it would be involved in the act; and, given the presence of the sword, hoping that their part did not involve that sword.

Marco turned to face the audience. "Now is the time to choose who will be the performer for the next segment of our show. I shall count to three and then you will shout the name of the person you want to perform. One, two, three, NOW!"

Everyone in the auditorium shouted, "Quinn!" in near unison and this surprised most of them, but not Marco and Quinn, because the hypnosis in the introductions was not only to make the volunteers compliant, but to ensure that Quinn would be chosen to perform the act.

"Well, that seemed nearly unanimous. So, Quinn you're the performer this time," said Marco, waving the stage hand with the armour away. This implied to the audience that sometimes Marco performed this section of the show; which he never did. "Please come forward so that we can prepare you."

Quinn shuffled forward to centre stage, the volunteers separated into two groups to allow her to get through. She knew her spot and stopped on it without any looking or uncertainty. She stood proud and ready for what was to come.

The audience was getting the impression that Quinn was being stoical in the face of unexpected circumstances, but internally she was wondering why she allowed herself to be put through the preparations. She also knew the answer; partly because the feelings while she performed were exceptional and partly because the audience and the volunteers would react positively and these would be the only applause this evening for her and her alone.                                                    

Marco stepped towards the trolley that Quinn had pushed on and lifted the sword from the rack. In a swift move he slipped the sword from its sheath and replaced the sheath on the stand.

Marco walked forward and stood beside Quinn. He lowered the sword's tip until it touched the floor and inch in front of the kimono's hem. Marco moved the sword to the vertical and turned it so that the blade edge was facing Quinn. She reached her right hand to a point above where the sword touched the floor and lowered it the rest of the way onto the end of the hilt.

As her hand came into contact with the sword everything became clearer as if her vision had suddenly switched from analogue TV to HD Blu-ray. She slightly turned her head and experienced ghosting in her perception of the stage as the sight from her eyes lagged behind the perception supplied by the sword; Quinn found it slightly unsettling, but did her best to convey that she was nervous of the sword and its, sharper than a razor, edge. She was relieved when Marco announced that it was time to blindfold her.

He first had Bernard, a tall well-muscled man, tell the audience that the two smallish gauze pads he held were nothing more than that and difficult to detect more than light levels through. He asked Quinn to shut her eyes and then had Bernard hold the pads over her eyes while Marion applied black PVC tape from Quinn's forehead to her cheek over both eyes to hold them in place.

The second stage was to get Tiffany, a woman in her mid-twenties dressed to go on to a club, to say what she had been given; a pair of Chinese coins each with a square hole in the middle. These she was asked to apply to Quinn's eye-sockets and hold in place while Marion stuck then down; this time with a diagonal stripe of tape over each eye from the centre of Quinn's forehead, anchored to her cheekbones.

Quinn felt less vulnerable, now that her eyes were protected by the metal disks. She was also relieved to be rid of her vision marring the perception that the sword gave her. While the world she could see was colourless it made up for this in detail and the ability to see round things and through fabric. She was aware that the stagehand was bringing on three chairs each with a demonstration item on the seat, despite this happening very quietly behind her.

The next volunteer was Bianca who had a pair of round self-adhesive labels and a fine marker. She was asked to write or draw something on each label and stick them over the coins so that it would be obvious if Quinn should try to remove her eye covers. Quinn could not tell what was drawn on the labels, but it did not matter to her, because she had no intention of messing with her blindfolding until it was time to end this part of the act.

When John applied the sleep mask even the slight glimmer that penetrated the sticker, the hole in the coin, the gauze pad and Quinn's closed eyelids was eliminated. George adding the black bag over her head was merely icing on the cake; everyone was convinced that Quinn was totally unable to use her eyes for anything, other than futile rolling if Marco made a particularly bad pun.

Quinn's voice came over the speakers, via a radio-microphone concealed in her wig, because without this aid, it would have been too muffled by the bag to be heard more than half way to the back of the auditorium. "Marion gets the middle chair, John the one on that side and George the other one. The others, could you please stand in the corner over there, where it will be relatively safe. Marco, please help the volunteers to position their items." Quinn stood totally still, only flicking her hands when an indication of direction was required, at all other times she now had both hands on the sword's hilt.

On Marion's seat were two steel bowls containing uncooked rice and a pair of paper bags. Marco opened each bag and had Marion confirm that they were empty, before tipping the loose rice into the bags and folding the tops over. He then asked Marion to sit on her chair and hold the tops of the bags ready for when the gentlemen had been prepared. On the command, she was to extend her arms from her body so that the bags hung below her hands

George's chair had a pineapple and stand for it, like the stand for a coconut at a coconut shy. Marco had George hold the stand so that the ring was a low halo with pineapple resting there. George cowered with the base of the pineapple mere millimetres from the top of his head.

John was probably most frightened when he saw, on his allocated seat, three cucumbers. Marco had him sit and place the cucumbers in his lap, then he instructed John that when he was told to, he should hold one of the green sticks in his mouth, biting into it slightly to hold it steady and then pick up the other two and hold them in a vertical orientation with his arms outstretched.

Quinn was totally aware of the readying of her volunteers; she could detect the expressions of apprehension on their faces and heard the worry as they confirmed that they understood the instructions. Volunteers prepared, Marco came to Quinn and placed a hand on each upper arm; Quinn made a show of flinching to sell her blindness and lack of awareness to the audience; it did nothing to comfort her volunteers.

Marco had Quinn raise the sword and then, standing back to hold Quinn at arm's length, he turned her three full turns. Normally this would have made Quinn dizzy enough that she would have stumbled, but with the sword in hand she had to pretend, by taking a single step sideways as soon as her rotation stopped.

Marco retreated to the edge of the stage and said, "Quinn, you know what you need to do; please be careful of the volunteers. Volunteers, please take up the positions you have be asked to adopt and try to maintain them until your part is done." Marco paused to allow John to bite onto a cucumber and him and Marion to spread their arms. Marco prompted George to sit up straighter under his pineapple.

"The volunteers are ready; please commence when you are ready." The magician said this despite being aware that Quinn could tell how ready her first trio of volunteers were better than he could; to maintain the fiction that Quinn was being handicapped by the blindfold.

Quinn's first action was to kick off her Japanese style sandals allowing a glimpse of white sock under the edge of her kimono. Then she stepped towards George's seat; feeling forward with one foot and then bringing the other foot up next to it, while swinging the sword tentatively in front of her, being careful that if anything did get in the way it would be touched by the flat of the blade.

She stood directly in front of George and swayed the sword inches from the end of his nose. Quinn detected the flinch and decided that further delay would risk George making some sudden movement that might endanger him. She stepped forward half a step and turned to place the tip of the sword about a foot from his ear.

The next three seconds stretched into bullet-time. Quinn angled her blade upwards and swiped it toward the perched pineapple, passing through at angle of about thirty degrees to the horizontal. As the top third of the pineapple went spinning towards the back of the stage, Quinn turned the sword over and reversed its path and inch lower, plus a little more to compensate for the George's downward motion. A split second later and a disk of pineapple was flying towards the audience and would have landed in the lap of someone in the first two rows had Quinn not tapped it with the flat of the blade, changing its trajectory so that Marco could catch it and raise like a trophy to the audience.

Quinn stood back and raised the sword to point straight up. She stood in a rigid stance waited for her heart to stop thudding so strongly that her pulse caused the perception granted by the sword to shake. As the applause faded, Quinn turned to face Marion; she could detect the galloping of the volunteer's speeding heart by the tremors that caused the paper bags she was holding to swing fractionally.

A hush settled over the audience as Quinn lined herself up. This hush was emphasised the sudden drawing of breath by everyone as Quinn acted out a stumble taking a chip out of the chair. She made a show of recovering her balance before lowering the sword to point it at Marion once more. Marion was caught between the desires to hyperventilate and to not breathe at all; she was taking ragged deep breaths.

Quinn pointed the sword tip to the side where the bag swayed most and in a sudden movement, too quick for Marion to react to, she stabbed the blade through the bag and followed up with a quick downwards motion. The bag split and allowed a cascade of rice to fall from it. Quinn was tempted to flicker the sword through the falling rice, cutting each grain into two; she resisted. She knew that she would require the concentration needed later and nobody, except Marco, would notice.

In the time it took for the clapping to rise and fall, Quinn once more lined herself up with Marion and whispered to her, "You may lower that arm."

As Marion was lowering her arm, Quinn stabbed the tip of the sword under her other arm and skimmed under the arm until it encountered the bag. There was a moment of adjustment as Quinn bobbed back half an inch allowing the edge to cut the base of the bag like scissors. The weight of the rice caused the bottom of the bag to drop open allowing more rice to fall to the floor.

The crowd cheered. They cheered again when Marco pointed out that Quinn had cut only the front and sides of the bag without touching the back, so that the base was still hinged to the rest of the bag.

While the ovation lasted Quinn concentrated on combining her joy at being the recipient of the applause with calming herself for the next demonstration. As the noise went down, she stood facing John, who was trembling. Quinn assessed the resolve she could perceive via the sword and turned to do a step-carefully-and-bring-the-other-foot-up shuffle until she was behind him. She could tell that his eyes followed her until she was lost to his peripheral vision.

Once behind John, Quinn lowered her sword to the horizontal and stepped forward one pace so that the gleam of the polished steel could be seen out of the corner of John's eye. He froze. In the space of the next four seconds, she traced the blade from under his arm, round his hand and back above his arm towards his neck, round John's head and out above and back below his other arm; each time the blade met a cucumber there was a wet snick and the section not held by John began its fall to the floor. Almost before the sword had finished outlining his arms and head John dropped the cucumbers in his hands and spat out the one in his mouth.

Quinn stepped back and took up the sword tip on the floor stance.

Marco brought his assistant to the centre of the stage where the volunteers were told to remove the bag and the sleep mask to verify that blindfolding was still in place and not interfered with. They confirmed that the blindfold layers were still in place and undisturbed before reapplying the sleep mask and the bag.

Marion, John and George were thanked and returned to the audience; leaving Bernard, Tiffany and Bianca still on stage and evidently concerned where the act was going next.

While the volunteers were checking Quinn's blindfolding, the stagehand removed the chairs and picked up the chunks of fruit. Then, while the number of volunteers was being reduced, he swept up the spilt rice.

"You may have thought that facing a blindfolded swordswoman was brave, the next stunt will require two of you to be braver." Marco paused to let that sink in. "Which two of you are the bravest?"

Before the other two could respond, Bianca said, "They are!"

Most of the audience laugh, while admitting to themselves that they would have said that too, if they had thought of it.

Marco was surprised; he had be expecting Bernard to claim to be bravest and then Bianca and Tiffany to engage in a staring contest, to see who drew the short straw and went with Bernard. "That's good enough for me, Bianca. You wait over there! Bernard, Tiffany, come with me!"

As they reached the side of the stage, the volunteers were met by a large cabinet about seven feet high and across, but only three feet deep. While Marco and the stage hand rotated the cabinet so that the audience could see, Bernard and Tiffany were invited to take a closer look. It was an open-fronted wooden shell with three outstanding features; the rear of the inside was covered in coarse-woven matting; on top of the cabinet, at the front, was a roll of paper; and finally, there were two sets of shackles sticking through the matting.

The duo of audience members were alarmed to notice the shackles, but having seen Quinn wield the sword with such precision they felt that the shackles would be to prevent them from flinching in the wrong direction at the wrong moment. Marco and the stage hand shackled the two volunteers into the cabinet; sometimes Quinn and the stage hand wondered at the power of Marco's hypnotic abilities. Bernard and Tiffany were restrained side-by-side with their ankles a bit over shoulder width apart and their hands spread away from their bodies. Additionally, there were a neck shackle each and a steel belt. All these accessories were held in place by small padlocks.

Marco went to the trolley and picked up the sheath and went to Quinn to reclaim the sword. He took the sword from Quinn plunging her from heightened perception to total lack of any sense that told her where she was and what was around her. Quinn knew that she would come back to seeing, but in that moment it felt as if every shred of the world had been taken away from her; it took most of her willpower to not make a grab for the sword and the remaining amount to not scream at having her most powerful sense wrenched from her.

Marco returned the sword, now sheathed, to the stand on the trolley. He gave the audience a few seconds to wonder how the act would continue without the sword.

From the trolley the magician lifted a bow and a quiver of arrows, but all Quinn could detect was the murmur of the audience as they saw what the weapon for the next part of the act would be.

Quinn felt the weight of the quiver as Marco set it against her back with the strap over her shoulder. He took hold of her wrist and she opened her hand to receive the bow.

"Quinn, Bernard and Tiffany are in the cabinet, each held in place with six shackles each; two at the wrists, two at the ankles, one around their waists and a final one about their necks. Your mission is to shoot off the padlocks without hurting the volunteers. A clean hit on a padlock will break it, but you only have two dozen arrows." This was all said for the benefit of the audience and the discomfort of the two restrained volunteers.

Quinn heard a sigh behind her; Bianca was glad she had not let herself be part of this predicament. She also thought she heard a whimper from Tiffany, but it was difficult to tell with the bag still over her head.

With the bow now in her hand Quinn could still not sense anything, but she adjusted it so her hand was on the grip and reached back to get an arrow. With the arrow nocked she had some perception; unlike the sword the area Quinn could 'see' was very small. As she drew the arrow back to her cheek and extended the other arm the area she could perceive was still small and had expanded to about three inches in diameter which faded to nothing at the edge.

She heard the rustle as Marco loosed the roll of paper, while telling the audience that this was for their benefit, because, if this went wrong, they would not have to witness the carnage. They were also told that it would help the volunteers remain calm, because nobody likes to see someone training a weapon on them.

Maintaining the tension on the arrow, she scanned the other side of the stage and was glad she could find the cabinet and spot the bodies of the volunteers through the paper screen. To inform Marco that everything was ok, she loosed the arrow. She was rewarded with two screams from within the cabinet and a large number of people taking large breaths in the auditorium.

There was a rustle as Marco peeked behind the paper screen. "Good news and bad news, Quinn! Good news; you missed both volunteers. Bad news; you did not hit a padlock either. So you have twenty-three arrows left. Oh, yes, I've just decided that if there are any padlocks that need me to undo them, there will be punishment; the number of unbroken padlocks will determine the severity of that punishment. But if the volunteers are free, the number of arrows remaining will decide how much of a reward you get." This was not unexpected by Quinn, who briefly toyed with the idea of missing with all the arrows to discover what the maximum punishment Marco could come up with was, or using the next twelve arrows to release the volunteers and find out what the best reward Marco could think of would be.

The next arrow found its mark and shattered the padlock that dangled from the shackle by Tiffany's left ankle; this did not cause the ankle cuff to open, but a quick shake would dislodge the remains and the limb would be free. Marco peeped into the cabinet and confirmed the shot and advised Tiffany against losing the shackle just yet, as the movement would make Quinn's task more difficult.

The next three arrows found their targets and all four ankle shackles we lacking their padlocks. Time for a miss; but what kind of miss. While Quinn thought about that she fitted another arrow and smashed the padlock at Bernard's right wrist. The next arrow thudded into the matting beside Bernard's left wrist without the tinkle of breaking padlock.

"Close, but the wrong side of Bernard's wrist," said Marco, adding, "a couple of inches up and you'd have pinned his arm to the back of the cabinet, so do try to be more careful."

The next shot found the edge of the wall the cabinet pinning the paper screen in place and leaving the feathered end of the arrow sticking out to remind the audience that Quinn was firing real arrows into the cabinet where two volunteers were being held.

Quinn slowly extracted the next arrow from the quiver knowing she had 17 arrows left and only 7 padlocks to break. She scanned the cabinet with the drawn arrow to check she was right. She easily found the padlocks at the remaining wrist shackles, but could not find the locks next to the waist and neck bonds; this confused her for a few moments then she found the locks she needed to break. "Marco, you've set this up the hard way; don't I get some slack on the reward-stroke-punishment thing?"

Marco's response was, "You've got your slack; I gave you 24 arrows instead of 18. What more do you want?"

Quinn gave a nod that she hoped the audience would see and interpret as acknowledgement of a concession. "I think I'll need the pin then."

As Marco went to the trolley across the front of the cabinet, Quinn drew the arrow again and loosed it. If had reached the cabinet it would have smashed the lock at Tiffany's right wrist, but Marco made a quick movement and snatched the arrow from the air. "You really should have waited until I was out of the way," he said. "Apart from firing at me, you've wasted an arrow and that will cost you another arrow."

The audience did not hear this as they were applauding Marco's skill and dexterity for grabbing a flying arrow from the air. When the hub-bub had died down he repeated himself.

"Do you still want the pin?" he asked as he arrived at the trolley.

Quinn loosed the next arrow, which found the lock the previous one would have destroyed if it had completed its journey. "Yes, I think I'll need the pin."

Marco picked up something from the trolley approached Quinn from the side, while she fired another arrow that ended up lodged in the roller that supported the paper screen. He handed Quinn a peg, which she inserted into a slot in the side of the bow above the arrow guide. This was done as if she was having difficulty finding where to fit it; it was only the fact that she had practiced this that allowed her to do it at all. It was not helped by Marco pulling out an arrow from the quiver as he had said he would.

With the pin fitted she turned the bow at an angle and pulled two arrows from the quiver she nocked these, resting the first into the arrow guide and the second into the angle between the peg and the shaft of the bow. With both arrow held between her fingers, Quinn could see two patches of perception. She loosed the arrows and was glad to hear the snap of another padlock

It did not take long for Quinn to nock another pair of arrows and release the final wrist padlock.

Nine arrows left and four padlocks remaining; the most difficult ones, because if she got it wrong she would pierce the volunteer with the arrow that was meant to free them. Quinn wasted another two arrows that caused the volunteers to squeal and Marco to confirm that she had missed both their necks by less than an inch.
Quinn removed the peg from the bow and tucked into a small pocket in the kimono sleeve; time to take this seriously and stop showboating. With the next arrow nocked she checked the placement of the remaining four padlocks; they were on the fronts of the remaining waist and neck shackles, so that when the arrow hit the metal of the shackle would protect the volunteer underneath, but this made for a very small target.

Quinn made the padlock at Tiffany's waist her next target. The arrow passed through the paper screen and ricocheted from the waist-band causing a gash to open in the paper. Most of the audience missed the sound of breaking padlock under the rip of the paper and the gasps of the rest of the people in the auditorium.

As the arrow rolled to a halt, she had another arrow nocked and was search for the padlock at Bernard's neck. Another rip appeared in the paper high on the other side of the cabinet from the first.

The final padlock holding Tiffany in place was shattered by the next arrow, which also made another slit in the paper as it made a double trip through it.

Time to ramp up the tense a little further. This arrow did not return through the screen, but Bernard screamed as he felt it land an inch below the crotch of his trousers. Marco peeked behind the paper and advised Quinn that the shot had been about eight inches low.

The next arrow found the final padlock, leaving Quinn with some reward tokens. While she stood in place the stagehand helped Marco to move the cabinet to centre-stage, then Marco ripped the screen away to reveal the two volunteers still in place with arrows embedded next to their ankles wrists and necks and an arrow sticking out from between Bernard's legs. They were invite to shake off their shackles and return to the audience; they did so with much relief.

While the stagehand dragged the cabinet into the wings, having picked up the stray arrows and pile of paper and dumped them into it, Marco guided Bianca and a sightless Quinn to the middle of the stage. Marco asked Bianca what she thought of what had happen so far. Bianca expressed admiration for Quinn's skill and worry for what she might be asked to do.

"What feat you will be asked to participate in, is up to Quinn. So, Quinn, what feat would you ask Bianca to take part in, and round off this segment of the show?"

"I think that Bianca would be ideal for the bamboo cabinet and the bag," said Quinn.

"Do you think you're up to that at this stage?" queried Marco.

"Of course, I am! I would remind you there are arrows left in the quiver. That's arrows, plural."

Whether it was Marco's cautionary note or Quinn's seeming arrogance, Bianca definitely seemed more nervous of her fate and the audience more worried for her wellbeing.

"If that's your considered response then we'll go ahead."

The stagehand pushed on a trolley full of stuff prominent amongst which were four bamboo poles. He and Marco set about erecting the skeleton of the cabinet by placing a base on the floor; this was a low platform of wood with a foot at each corner holding it a few inches from the stage. The bamboo poles were set into sockets in the base to make the vertical edges of a cuboid and a cardboard lid was placed on top to hold everything in place. A wooden spike was placed on top. Next a bamboo roller-blind was hooked to each edge of the roof and the strings holding them rolled were hooked to the spike. The final item of equipment from the trolley was a canvas sack which Marco carefully placed on the floor of the cabinet they had just constructed with its open end upward. Quinn wished that she had the sword in her hand, so that she could 'see' the preparations and watch how Bianca's expression changed as it became more apparent what she might be involved in.

As the stagehand cleared the stage, Marco took the bow from Quinn's hand and the quiver from her back. He strolled back to the sword trolley; Bianca followed him with her eyes, wondering what he would bring back for his assistant. Marco brought back the sword; transferring it to Quinn's control by resting the tip on the floor and guiding her hand to it; this time the flinch was not pretended.

Quinn raised the sword to be ready and to watch Marco guide Bianca as she stepped up into the cabinet and stood in the open sack. Quinn could detect Bianca trembling as Marco drew the sack up her body and assured that there was nothing to be nervous about, because Quinn had done this trick several times and nobody had been hurt; yet. The volunteer smiled apprehensively as the magician pulled the top of the sack above her head. Marco gathered the top together and tied it with a cord he pulled from his jacket pocket. The loops of the cord he hung on a small hook in the top of the cabinet.

"Are you ok, Bianca?" asked Marco.

Bianca's exact reply was lost to the muffling effect of the heavy cloth bag, but sounded like a doubtful positive.

Marco walked to the edge of the stage where the stagehand passed him a timer set on a tripod stand.

"Quinn, your challenge is to free Bianca, unharmed, from the bag and the cabinet, using nothing but the sword in your hand." There was a brief sound of protest from within the sack. "But because we've got an audience, who would be bored if you took too long and, of course, anyone could manage it given enough time, I will give you a time limit; and every second beyond that limit eats into the reward you earned with the bow. Starting from the second you release the blinds to make the cabinet complete, you have ten seconds to free Bianca."

"Yes, of course," said Quinn.

She shuffled to a position behind the open cabinet. Leaning the sword forward, she tapped it along the back edge of the cabinet's top, giving the impression that she was feeling the position of the cabinet. The sword flashed forward, removing the tip of the spike and cutting all the strings holding the blinds in place. The bamboo blinds rolled down to make the faces of the cabinet. Quinn hoped the suddenness of the move would buy her an extra half second before Marco pressed the button on the timer.

No such luck; the timer gave a beep telling her that Marco had taken less than a tenth of a second to react. But this was not the purpose of the beep; the beep was to distract from Quinn's first move. This move was felt by Bianca as a touch by the sword from the top of her head and down the centre of both her front and back as Quinn swiped the sword down the centre of the cabinet, passing it harmlessly through the now terrified volunteer. The rest of the moves, making diagonal strokes for the next five or six seconds were designed to cause maximum destruction to cover the direction of the first stroke that freed the volunteer from the bag. Bianca experienced these strokes as tracings of sword over her skin as fragments of chopped cabinet and shreds of ripped bag flew away from her.

After these hectic six seconds, Quinn return to the sword-tip-on-the-floor pose and Marco pressed the timer button.

He gave the audience a further few seconds to take in the unharmed Bianca standing on the cabinet base surrounded by a pile of finely chopped bamboo and shreds of sacking. "5.86 seconds, Quinn. I think that's a personal best for you." The unspoken implication, which had never been tested, that he could do it faster.

Bianca was prevailed upon to help Quinn remove her blindfold and check that it had not been tampered with.

Bianca was returned to being an observer instead of a participant. Quinn went backstage to remove the kimono and wig, so as to be ready for the next act. The stagehand cleared up the debris and brought on the equipment for the next big illusion. Marco performed a linking rings routine to cover the gap.