Acidalia XXX

By Amanda D.

Tuesday Oct 30:

KLTR News:

“We’re sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled program. This is a KLTR News Special Report with Duncan Rathernot.”
“Good afternoon, San Francisco.”

The anchorman began. “Just minutes ago, Democratic candidate for president, Senator Edward George, was apparently assassinated in front of his campaign headquarters in Boston by a lone gunman. The exact details of what happened remain sketchy at the moment, but this is what we know at this time.

“The senator was greeting a large crowd of supporters this afternoon on the sidewalk in front of his campaign headquarters when a man identified as John Rawlings shot him in the back. Rawlings was reportedly a registered campaign volunteer who, according to records, had worked several times at the headquarters, making phone calls and working on mailings.”

On the screen, a picture of Rawlings that had obviously been lifted from social media appeared in a small box off to the left of the anchorman.

“Initially, the gunman escaped the scene in the chaotic aftermath, with several witnesses saying he simply walked away. However, his escape didn’t last long, as he was quickly tracked down by Boston police and confronted by officers two blocks away from the shooting.

“Rawlings was reportedly armed and turned his gun on the police officers, who then returned fire, killing the suspect."

“We are still awaiting official word on the condition of Senator George. Officials have not yet released additional details, and we have not been able to independently confirm all of the information we have received. However, according to several witnesses at the scene, the senator was pronounced dead.”

The anchorman stopped speaking for a moment. He looked down at the desk and touched the side of his ear. Then he continued.

“I’m being told we are going to the White House, where newly installed President Carlyle is going to speak to the press momentarily.”

The scene switched from the KLTR studios to the White House press room. The camera showed a podium set up on a small stage, with the presidential seal behind it. Several officials stood on either side of the podium as they awaited President Carlyle’s arrival.

After a moment, he could be seen entering the room from the left side of the stage.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said to the assembled press corps as he got himself situated. “My fellow Americans, today has been a day of untold tragedy. I’d like to start off by offering my most sincere condolences to the family of Senator George. Our hearts go out to you, and we join you in mourning Edward. He was a great man, as dedicated to his family as he was to serving the people of his home state, Massachusetts, as well as every American.”
Carlyle stopped for a moment, looking down at his prepared notes. He reached up and adjusted his glasses, then returned his gaze to his audience.

“I’d like to personally thank the brave Boston police officers who put their own safety on the line in pursuing and taking down the animal responsible for this atrocity. That said, even the death of his assassin cannot in any way begin to fill the hole left in our collective hearts by the senator’s death.”

“As a result of today’s events, I have spoken with the leaders of both houses of Congress, members of the Supreme Court, and the Federal Election Commission. We are facing circumstances without precedent in the history of this Republic."

“For the first time in our country’s history, neither of the candidates currently certified for the November ballot is presently capable of standing for election. With former President Fuller’s impeachment and now today’s tragedy, the election has been thrown into chaos."

“At the same time, we continue to face an epidemic that threatens the health and safety of millions of Americans. Ongoing organized violence and civil disorder threaten the ability of state and federal authorities to conduct a free and secure election.

“Under these extraordinary circumstances, the election scheduled for November 4th cannot responsibly proceed."

“Accordingly, the November election is hereby postponed until such time as both major parties have nominated qualified candidates and the conditions exist for the American people to cast their ballots safely and freely.

“I want to be absolutely clear: this is not the abandonment of our constitutional system. It is the preservation of it. We will not ask the American people to choose their government from a ballot that no longer presents them with lawful candidates, nor will we endanger their lives in the process."

“In light of the coordinated violence and unlawful obstruction that have accompanied these events, I am invoking the Insurrection Act and directing the appropriate federal authorities to take all necessary measures to restore order, protect federal institutions, and ensure the continued enforcement of federal law."

“The election will take place when these extraordinary circumstances have passed."

“Until then, the government of the United States will continue its constitutional duties without interruption. God bless the United States of America.”

***********

Wed Nov 14:

Nicole stood looking at the abandoned house. The paint was peeling, the first-floor windows were all broken. Looking up, a good portion of the second-floor windows were in similar condition. The front door had been replaced with a large piece of plywood that was cracked right up the middle and broken at three of the four corners. Overall, the place was a complete dump.

Thomas stood next to her with a look of despondency on her face. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone and began to angrily dial.

“Harkin,” the voice on the other side answered.

“What the fuck is this shit, Harkin?” Thomas screamed into the phone without preamble. Niceties were not on the menu at the moment.

“Well, hello to you, Thomas,” he replied, already annoyed. “What shit are we discussing exactly?”

“I’m at the address you gave me. From the looks of the place, no one has been here for ages!” she said angrily.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean there’s no one there?”

“I mean exactly what I said. The place is abandoned and has been for ages, by the looks of it.”

“This place is a complete shit hole. The only people who would live here are homeless squatters,” Nicole said in the background. “Looks like you sent us on a wild goose chase.”

Harkin rolled his eyes at Nicole’s comments. The last thing he needed was her egging on Thomas when she was already annoyed.

“You’re sure you’re at the correct address? 153 Seaward St., right?” he asked.

“Yes. In Fairfax, just like you told me!”

Harkin sighed.

What the hell is going on? he wondered.

“Hang on. Let me look at something.”

He put the phone down before Thomas could reply and looked at his computer. He impatiently drummed his fingers on the desk as he waited for his email to open. It seemed to be taking forever.

He couldn’t understand how the place could be abandoned. The California Child Services database itself had given him that address, after he’d had Milton hack into it.

Harkin found it hard to believe the information could be that far off, but according to the two of them, it clearly was.
Finally, the email came up. He read it again, then picked up the phone.

“I’m reading the email right now,” he said without waiting for a reply. “According to Child Services’ own database, your daughters were placed with the Ross family at an approved foster home on September 3rd.”

“Well, they’re not here, that’s for sure!” Thomas replied angrily.

“I hear you,” he said distractedly. “I’m sorry I sent you two out there for nothing, but I don’t know what I can do about it at the moment.”

“You’re sorry? Fuck load of good that does me! I need to find my goddamned kids, Harkin!”

“I know, I know. Jesus, what do you think I’m trying to do here?” he asked irritably. “Let me check something. I’ll call you right back.”
He hung up without waiting for her to say anything else and let out a long, frustrated sigh. He was getting very tired of having to babysit the Sisters and taking flak every time something went sideways with them.

“Why doesn’t Russov have to deal with this shit too?” he wondered sulkily.

He knew Carlyle had plans for them, but he fervently wished the president would hurry up and get on with whatever it was. Then they would be quietly squirreled away wherever their final destination was supposed to be, and he could get them out of his hair.

He dialed his phone again.

“This is Milton.”

“It’s Harkin. That address you gave me for the kids was a bust.”

“What do you mean it was a bust?”

“That’s what my people on the ground are telling me. They said the house hasn’t been lived in in months.”

“That’s not possible.”

“And yet, here we are. I don’t know what to tell you, buddy.”

“Give me a second to bring it back up,” Milton told him as he opened a new window on his computer.

With a few keystrokes, he was back in the Child Services database. Hacking had always been a hobby of his. He was damn good at it, too.

He’d gotten into so many places he had no business being in, and no one ever knew, until he’d gotten caught, that is.

After that, he’d been given the easiest choice of his life: join the NSA and keep doing what he loved best while making a damn good living, or go to federal prison for thirty years.

It took him all of five seconds to sign up. Three of those were spent reading the paperwork.

“Okay, I’m in,” he said, unmuting the phone. “Yep, that’s the address they were sent to.”

“Well, they aren’t there. Not to beat the point to death or anything.”
Harkin was losing his patience badly.

“Someone must have gotten in there and changed the information,” Milton replied.

He was getting annoyed, too. Being proven wrong was not something he took well, and now some clown had made him look like a fool. If he found out who, it was going to be all bad for their credit history.

“What do we do now?”

“Now? Now I do what I do best. Use all the resources of the NSA and track them down. I’ll call you back when I have an answer.”

“How long?”

“Till I find them?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck, Harkin, I don’t know. I haven’t even started looking yet. But once I know what’s up, I’ll call you. No worries, my man. I’m on the case.”
Milton hung up.

Harkin sighed again. He dialed Thomas’ number.

“Hello.”

“My guy says someone must have gotten in there and changed the data,” Harkin told her, skipping the niceties.

“So now what do we do?”

“You two go do whatever it is you do when you’re not bothering me, and I’ll call you as soon as he calls me.”

“Harkin…”

“What the fuck do you want from me, Thomas? I’m doing the best I can here. If you know someone that can find them faster, be my guest and contact them instead. For fuck’s sake! Do you think you’re the only person I have to fucking deal with today?”

He pressed the end button and dropped the phone on the desk. He rolled his chair back away from it and ran his hand through his hair.

“Fucking people!” he thought angrily.

*************

Thomas looked at the phone in her hand and shook her head.

“Asshole!”

“That went well, huh?” Nicole said sarcastically.

“I have a way with people.”

“I can see that. You totally had him eating right out of your hand,” she said with a grin, hoping to lighten the mood a bit. “So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know, babe. He said he’d get back to me when they figure out what got screwed up.”

Nicole nodded. She pushed off the car she’d been leaning on and stepped over to her lover. It was easy enough to see how bitterly disappointed Thomas was. She wrapped her arms around her and pulled her in for a hug.

“Sorry it didn’t pan out, lover.”

“I’m…I’m just so worried about them. They’ve been missing for a long time now,” Thomas said, trying to hold back the tears. “I could kill Yvonne for letting this happen.”

“I know, baby. I’m worried too. But I’m here for you. You don’t need to carry this all on your own.”

“I know. It…it’s just hard. Got used to having only myself to depend on in Reynolds. Old habits like that are hard to break.”

“I know. But your ass is stuck with me, so you need to get used to it…or else.”

“Oh, yeah? Or else what?” Thomas asked, a small grin beginning to creep across her face. No one had ever had the ability to make her smile like Nicole. Not even Yvonne, back before all the craziness started.

“You don’t want to know, trust me,” she replied, sticking her tongue out.

Thomas grinned, then gave it a lick. Nicole crossed her eyes and playfully slapped at her lover’s chest.

“What am I going to do with you?” she asked, then kissed the tip of Thomas’ nose.

“I don’t know, but you said it yourself. You’re stuck with me.”

“I’d like to retract my earlier statement.”

“Nope. No take-backs. You said it, so now you’re stuck.”

“God help me…” she laughed. “So, since I’m stuck, does that mean you’re buying lunch?”

“You’re Miss Money Bags,” Thomas winked.

“That’s true, isn’t it? Okay, fine, I’ll buy. But I want seafood, so that means you have to drive us back to the city.”

“That’s a deal,” Thomas replied.

She stood by the driver’s door and looked back at the dilapidated house. She let out a long, frustrated sigh, then climbed in and drove away.

*****************

Agatha:

She sat strapped to the hard wooden chair they’d left her on since yesterday. She’d been stuck there for so long she’d lost all feeling in her legs and feet. If they were to set her free, she wasn’t even sure she’d be able to stand at this point.

They’d trussed her up so tightly that she couldn’t turn her head. Her neck ached from being stuck in one position for so long.

Little clamps on her eyelids held them open so she couldn’t even blink. To compensate, a machine hung overhead, dripping saline into them every few seconds to keep them lubricated.

Her arms were strapped down in several places to keep her from gaining any leverage to break her bonds. Similarly, her legs were bound, with several straps across her torso holding her firmly in place.

The screen before her flashed one horrifying image after another, each appearing and disappearing so quickly she could barely make out what she was seeing. Over and over, for hours on end. It was so disorienting that she was starting to lose track of what was real and what wasn’t.

Of course, that was the whole purpose.

They called it Hound training when she and Tamara arrived, however many days ago it was. She couldn’t even remember now.

First, they’d poked and prodded her in every conceivable way. Next came the drugs. Hallucinogens. She hadn’t tripped that hard since she was seventeen, when she and three friends had dropped acid on the way into the city for New Year’s Eve.

It felt like the harder she tried to hold onto something, anything real, the more the drugs disoriented her. It was almost like they were pumping them into her constantly, but from where, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was the trip never seemed to stop for long.

Meanwhile, the flashing images went on and on.

****************

The Main Lab Control Room

“How’s our patient holding up?” Curtis Lang asked as he looked at the computer monitoring the woman in the room. Her vitals were steady, but the monitors showed increased brain activity. That was not what they wanted. He started to point it out, but Tina interrupted him.

“We just hit her with another dose of DMT. She should be flying high again shortly,” Tina Michaels replied. “Her recuperative powers are amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve had to hit her hourly to keep the levels in her bloodstream high enough for the drugs to be effective.”

“Really? That is amazing. These enhanced ones are really something,” Curtis replied.

He looked at his watch. “She’s been in there sixteen hours?”

Tina looked up at the console in front of her. “Pretty close to it, yes.”

“Perfect.” Curtis made a note on the pad he held in his hands. “How are her endocrine levels?”

“All within projected norms. Another day or so and she should be cooked.”

“Great. Then we can move on to stage two. How’s the other one doing?”

Tina reached over and brought up a second monitor. On the screen was an infrared image of Tamara floating quietly in a sensory deprivation tank. Every thirty seconds or so, she would thrash about, then go still and placid again.

“What’s with that?” Curtis asked, pointing at the image on the screen.

“Electrocortical stimulation. She’s in perfect isolation in the tank. Total sensory deprivation. Through a combination of the DMT and the full headgear she has on, we’re feeding aggression stimulation directly into her cerebral cortex, then following it up with endorphin rewards. Basically, we’re reprogramming her stimulus responses, making her lean toward aggression as her favored response.”

“How long does this phase last?”

“She will be in the tank for another seventy-two hours. If all goes well, she will move on to handler indoctrination next.”

Curtis nodded. “Excellent. Keep me informed of both subjects’ progress.”

He looked at his watch again and quietly cursed. “I have to run. There are three more waiting downstairs I need to go process.”

“More test subjects? That’s exciting,” Tina replied. “The more we get through the process, the better we’ll get at it.”

When the offer to join the program had first been presented, she wasn’t sure it was something she wanted to be associated with, considering what was going to be done to these women. However, now that she’d seen the process in person, she was fascinated by it. The scientist in her was excited to see if the results matched the projections.

The morality of what she was participating in quickly fell to the side as her curiosity over the transformation grew. Now, it was simply another research project, with measurable results that would either validate or disprove the projections. The subjects and what they went through en route to the final outcome were no more important to her than any lab rat she’d used in the past.

Just a means to an end.

In the tank, Tamara thrashed again.

***************

Three Months Ago

Denver, Colorado

Xavier Henry’s life had always been more about living in the fantasy worlds of his mind than in the real world. There he could be anything: a pilot, a doctor, a famous athlete, whatever he happened to fancy at that particular moment. Everything he ever wanted was there for the taking. His only limitation was the bounds of his imagination.

When lost in his own little world, he would dream up adventures nonstop for hours on end. One of his favorites was imagining himself as the world’s greatest superhero, Captain Xavier! In his mind, he would beat up a bad guy trying to mug an old lady or save the city from invaders from outer space. He was a true hero to all, in the finest Marvel Comics tradition.

Reality, on the other hand, was sadly far different.

When Xavier was eight, his life changed forever.

He was riding in the car with his father, his hero, the man he looked up to the most, as any little boy should. They were heading to Denver on a snowy Sunday morning to see the Broncos play the hated Oakland Raiders. Xavier was so excited to see his favorite team beat up on their hated rival that he could hardly sit still in the car as they traveled.

They were running a bit late, so his father was pushing the speed a little despite the slippery conditions. The traffic was relatively light on their chosen route, so they were making fairly good time. Perhaps, with a little bit of luck, they might have even made it into the stadium for kickoff.

But luck wasn’t on their side.

As they rounded a bend in the highway, they came upon a huge pileup of cars. It was so deep that it was impossible to tell where it started, but the end was right in their windshield. The crashed vehicles stretched from one side of the roadway to the other. All four lanes were completely impassable.

Dad tried to stop, but it was too slick to slow down. He tried to swerve, but there was nowhere to go. Anything he could do was defeated by the weather conditions combined with their speed. They hurtled headlong right into the side of a jackknifed tractor-trailer at better than fifty miles per hour.

His father, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was killed instantly. The boy watched helplessly as his body flew through the windshield and crumpled against the sheet-metal siding of the truck.

Xavier, who was wearing a seat belt, was saved by it, but the impact with the car’s dashboard broke his neck. The injury left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Ever since that day, he’d been stuck in either the motorized wheelchair, which he hated, or the bed, which he hated even more. Worse than not being able to move was the tube stuck into his neck that made him breathe and the wires that monitored his vital systems. The constant monitoring made him feel violated in a way, like he was entitled to no privacy whatsoever.

Many were the days when he lay there staring blankly up at the ceiling, with tears running down his cheeks, hating the hand fate had dealt him and wishing he’d died alongside his father. He missed his dad as much as he missed being able to walk to the bathroom, or, for that matter, just knowing when he had to pee.

Adding to his feelings of isolation, his mother would barely look at him, and when she did, he could see the blame plainly in her eyes. She never came right out and said it, but it was obvious to Xavier that she held him responsible for his father’s death. It was hard for him to see the only parent he had left reject him at every opportunity.

Eventually, she turned him over to a children’s care facility, claiming he was too much of a burden for her to take care of on her own. The place was decent, the staff friendly, but they couldn’t replace the feeling of being in his own home. As time wore on, his resentment toward her deepened.

At first, she’d made token efforts to see him. Once a week at the start. Then once every couple of weeks. Then it became once a month. By the time his fourteenth birthday came around, it had been nearly a year since he’d heard from her.

So, the fantasy land of his mind was the place he chose to live.

This year he turned eighteen, just in time for the Acidalia outbreak to begin raging through the entire country. He remembered it clearly, those confusing early days. The fear of infection was everywhere. Someone on the staff decided the best way to keep them safe was to lock each patient in their rooms, leaving them cut off from everyone except the doctors and nurses who came by daily to check on them.

Then one day, about three months ago, a strange doctor came to visit him. She was tall and beautiful and smiled at him in a way no one had since before the accident.

“Are you Xavier Henry?” she’d asked.

He’d informed her that he was indeed Xavier.

“My name is Dr. Stanton. I have a gift for you, Xavier. A very special one.”

“What? What kind of gift?” he remembered asking.

“Freedom,” she told him. “You are going to be very special.”

She’d slipped a card into the top drawer of his nightstand and whispered into his ear, “When you’re complete, come find me.”

He hadn’t understood what she meant by being complete. He’d actually thought the woman might be some kind of crazy person.

Then hours later, he began to feel ill. In hours, it progressed from feeling like a slight cold to being sicker than he’d ever felt in his life. His entire body felt like it was on fire, but in the moment, it barely registered. He was simply too sick to realize that, for the first time in eight years, he could actually feel his body.

He remembered thinking he was going to die as the illness continued to advance. He couldn’t even call one of the nurses to come help him. He lay there feeling worse by the minute, unable to help himself in any way.

Then the next thing he knew, it was days later. Though at the time, he didn’t know it.

He came awake from the coma the virus had put him in slowly. Little by little, consciousness found him. The first thing he noticed was that the room was different. He was no longer in the room he’d been staying in for the last eight years. Gone were his posters and TV. They were replaced by sterile-looking walls and a rounded-off door that looked like it could keep the Hulk at bay.

All sorts of machinery and monitors surrounded him. One in particular was only inches from his face, making him feel claustrophobic. Without thinking, he pushed it away, then stopped and stared at his hand in amazement.

He could move!

He blinked over and over, trying to decide if this was another one of his fantasy dreams or if he was simply delirious from the illness. Then he realized he didn’t feel sick and his eyes were open.

So this must be real!

Slowly, he raised his other hand and held both in front of his face. He wiggled his fingers, watching in wonder as they moved exactly when he wanted them to. A grin spread across his face, growing wider with every movement.

After eight years, he could move. The joy so overwhelmed him that tears began to flow down his face. Xavier absently used the back of his hand to wipe his face and smiled.

It wasn’t a dream after all.

He lifted his head and looked down at his feet. He sat there for several minutes just watching his toes wiggle before he noticed the usual weight on his chest. He’d been so fascinated by the pleasurable feeling of movement that he’d completely missed the other changes to his body.

He reached up and pulled the top of his hospital johnny forward and looked down.

“Tits?” he questioned disbelievingly. “How the hell did I grow tits?”

He reached down between his legs and confirmed Mr. Happy was now a Mrs.

“What the fuck?” he yelped in surprise.

He rechecked everything a second time, then pinched himself to confirm he truly wasn’t dreaming.

“Holy shit!” he said in a voice full of wonder and confusion.

The large round door made a soft metallic groan as it began to roll open, catching his attention. He turned to look and saw a figure in a dark green virus-proof suit entering. It was so puffy he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman at first. The faceplate on the hood obscured the visage behind it, further adding to the mystery.

Through the little speaker on the front of it, he heard the person say, “Mr. Henry, my name is Dr. Morrison. I’m pleased to see you’re awake.”

“Th…thanks,” he replied. Even his voice was different.

The doctor tilted his head to look at one of the monitors and nodded.

“Looks like all your vitals are right where we’d expect them to be. Seems you’re recovering nicely. Excellent.”

“Recovering?”

“You were infected at the home with the Acidalia virus somehow. We still don’t know how, and there are many people having a cow over it, believe me,” Morrison told him.

Xavier looked at him blankly.

“Anyway, they were not equipped to deal with the contagion possibilities, so you were transferred here to be cared for during your transformation. As you’ve obviously noticed, there have been many changes.”

“I’ll say!” he exclaimed, still trying to convince himself it was all true.

“We’ll get a female nurse in here to help acquaint you with the new plumbing and such, as well as answer any questions you have shortly,” he promised.

“I do have one right now that I think you can answer.”

“What would that be?”

“Where am I?”

The face behind the plastic smiled. “You’re at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo.”

Xavier nodded. “How… how long have I been here?”

“A few days.”

“Days? How many?”

“I’d have to look,” the doctor said dismissively.

Morrison didn’t seem interested in discussing Xavier’s lost time any further. Instead, he said, “I’m going to have them bring you up some food. I’m sure you’re starving.”

It was at that moment Xavier realized he was ravenous.

“Yes. Food would be great.”

“Okay, sit tight for a bit and we’ll get you something. I’ll be back after you finish.”

He left without another word.

“Infected with Acidalia? Was that the gift the crazy lady meant?” he wondered.

He wondered if he still had the card she’d left. He looked down at the side of his bed where his nightstand had always been before remembering they’d moved him.

“Not going to find her card here, dummy. It’s still back in your room,” he chastised himself before wiggling his toes again. “If it’s still my room.”

All at once, it came crashing down on him how much his life had changed now. No more need to stay at the home. No more wheelchair. No more hours spent lying on the bed watching mindless daytime television. He was free to stand up and walk any time he felt the urge.

“This must be what she meant about giving me freedom.”

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a nurse pushing a small cart piled high with food. Just looking at it made his mouth water like he was a slobbering dog.

“Go easy. You’ve just awakened,” she warned as she slid the bed tray across his torso.

He barely got out the words “thank you” before he began stuffing it into his mouth as fast as he could chew.

***************

An hour later:

He’d finally finished stuffing his face. At one point, he didn’t think his stomach would ever be satisfied, but the nurse who had come in to check on him assured him that it wasn’t the least bit unusual for virus victims to be that hungry when they woke.
He lay back on the bed with his hands folded over his bulging tummy and breathed a sigh of relief.

As he absently gazed up at the ceiling, he noticed something that had slipped by him at first. In each corner were cameras, all aimed directly at him.

“They’re watching me?” he wondered. “Why would they need to do that? Obviously, they’ve had other virus victims here. I mean, they all wear virus-proof suits. So what’s so special about me?”

As he sat contemplating this, the door rolled back again and a new nurse entered his room.
This one was different from the others. She wore regular hospital scrubs, blue in color, with only a surgical mask over her face instead of the
virus-proof suit everyone else who had visited him had been wearing.

“I think you might be in the wrong room,” she told the stranger.

She looked at him. The first thing Xavier noticed was her piercing blue eyes staring at him over the top of her mask.

“You’re Xavier, yes?” she asked.

“Well, I was. Not so sure that fits me too well now,” he replied with a small grin.

The whole being-a-woman thing was going to take a lot of getting used to.

“Then I’m in exactly the right place.”

She stepped over to the bed. It was then that Xavier realized the new nurse was carrying a grocery-store plastic bag. She handed it to him.

“Quick. Put those on. We only have a few minutes before the cameras come back on.”

“What? Who are you?”

“Look, kid, we can talk or we can move. The choice is yours,” she told him urgently. “The feds are on the way to take you to quarantine.”

“Quarantine?”

“Yes, quarantine. And trust me when I tell you, that’s not where you or we want you to wind up. So get your ass in gear. Get dressed and let’s get the fuck out of here. I’m not really in the mood to fight soldiers today if I can avoid it.”

“Fight soldiers?”

“Do I need to draw you a diagram, or can we just go?”

The sarcasm in her voice was only slightly overpowered by her obvious agitation. She stepped back and looked out the small window, then cursed under her breath.

“Time to decide is right now. Get dressed or enjoy a lifetime in government care.”

“Okay, sure. But at least tell me who you are while I get this stuff on.”

“My name’s Nancy. Sophia sent me to get you.”

“Sophia?”

“Dr. Stanton.”

“The cray person from the care center?”

Nancy laughed. “The one and the same.”

She glanced at the watch on her wrist, then at the door as if she expected the Marines to barge in at any second.

When she looked back, Xavier was dressed in the matching hospital scrubs.

“Good. Put the mask on and let’s go. We only have a few seconds left before security can see us.”

She grabbed Xavier's upper arm and began to push her towards the door.

“Hey! Hands off! I can walk on my own.”

“Then walk. We’ve got maybe thirty seconds before they know I’m here, and I really don’t want to be here when they do.”

Xavier didn’t know how to respond without getting herself into even more trouble, so she kept quiet and allowed herself to be led.

As they moved quickly down the strangely deserted hallway, the newly awakened woman couldn’t help but marvel at the sensation of walking. She’d forgotten what it felt like to wear shoes and how the insoles gave way with each step. The feel of her leg muscles as they flexed and relaxed with each stride felt almost alien to her after all these years.

Every single thing about this new body of hers was going to take some getting used to.

They reached the end of the corridor and stopped.

“Okay, wait here a sec. I’m going to make sure the coast is clear. If you hear anything other than me saying ‘let’s go,’ get your ass down to the other set of doors down that way and just run. Don’t stop unless they shoot you. Got me?”

“Shoot me? They’re going to shoot me?” she asked incredulously.

Nancy just stared at her with a look of complete exasperation.

“What part of ‘we’re trying to escape the army’ don’t you comprehend, sweetie? I mean, I’ve been trying to impress that on you for the last five minutes now.”

“I… ahh… umm… so the other set of doors and don’t get shot. Got you!”

She was finally starting to understand just how high the stakes were.

Nancy slipped through the doors and looked down the long hallway that would normally be filled with sick patients. Thankfully, they’d given the isolation wing a buffer zone of empty rooms, and the coast was clear.

“We’re good to the stairway. Let’s go, kiddo.”

The pair pushed through the doors at the end, then moved along the next set of hallways as quickly as they could without drawing undue attention. Nancy made sure to nod and wave to the nursing staff as they made their way past the desk.

Xavier was so scared they would be caught that the trip felt like it took hours before they reached the stairway doors.

The pair burst through just as alarms started ringing.

“Shit!” Nancy cursed. She scowled at Xavier for a moment, then sighed.

“What do we do now?”

“We keep going. What else can we do?” she said bleakly. “If we run into trouble, stay behind me as best you can, okay? You’re not ready for what that body of yours can do yet.”

“Can do?”

“Run now. Ask questions later! Let’s go!”

On the first-floor landing, there were a pair of hospital security guards. Nancy spotted them as they came around the corner on the third-floor staircase. Once they reached the second-floor landing, Nancy stopped.

“Wait here,” she whispered.

She climbed up onto the railing, took a second look down, then dropped off of it.

Xavier watched in disbelief as she landed gracefully behind the pair of men, barely making a sound. The pair turned around, and before they could even reach for their weapons, Nancy swatted them both in the temples so fast you could barely see her arms move. They both went down like they’d been shot.

Xavier shook her head in disbelief. She’d never seen anything like it outside of a movie or comic book.

“How? How did you do that?” she asked as she arrived on the landing.

“The virus leaves some of us with a little bit extra,” Nancy replied. “Sophia has a gift for knowing who will inherit gifts when the transformation is complete. That’s why she came to find you.”

“Gifts? Like superpowers?”

“I don’t know if I’d consider them superpowers, but I’m a lot stronger than I used to be. Faster and more agile, too.”

“So, I’m like you now?”

“I have no idea what abilities you have now. Sophia said you were special and I had to make sure you weren’t taken to quarantine. That’s all I can tell you.”

Xavier nodded. Her eyes were filled with wonder at the possibility that she might be super-strong or fast like the Flash.

“Now, unless you want to wait around and get caught, I suggest we get our tails out of Dodge.”

Without waiting for a response, she pulled open the first-floor door and walked through. Xavier almost let it close before she realized it was time to go.

Once she was in the hallway, she noticed Nancy had put her hospital mask on. Xavier did the same. With surgical hats and masks, they could have been anyone walking down the corridor. No one gave them a second glance as they headed for the main entrance.

They made it to the foyer without incident. Outside, however, was a conglomeration of police and hospital security guards. They were checking everyone’s ID as they walked out of the main doors.

“Shit! I forgot!” Nancy said.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a card on a lanyard.

“Put that on. When we get out there, show it to whoever asks.”

Xavier looked down at the badge. It had an emblem she didn’t recognize prominently displayed, taking up most of the badge’s surface.

Beneath the symbol was written:

Acidalia Ward

Xavier looked at Nancy quizzically.

“No one is going to ask you to take your mask off if they see you’ve been working with virus victims.”

Xavier nodded. This woman had thought of everything, it seemed. She felt like she was stuck in a James Bond movie or something. Her mind was completely blown by this point at what they were doing.

Nancy grabbed her arm again to get her attention. Xavier nodded and followed her out the main doors.

“ID, please, and take off the mask,” the guard told Xavier as she reached the checkpoint.

“Here you go.”

The guard looked at it, then back at Xavier.

She’d made an act out of reaching back to untie the strings holding the mask to her face.

The guard looked like he was about to throw up.

“No need for that. You can go.”

“Are you sure, officer?” she smirked beneath the mask at the look of revulsion on his face.

“Yes. Have a nice day,” he said, then turned to the next person behind her.

Once they were in the lot, Nancy led her to a car.

“Get in,” she told Xavier.

Once inside, Nancy said, “That was stupid. What would you have done if he’d said yes?”

“I…I…”

“Exactly. This isn’t fun and fucking games, kid. This is life and death. Stop fucking around!”

She spoke forcefully, but there was no anger behind it.

“Sorry. This just feels like I’m trapped in a movie or something.”

“I get you, but you need to start using that now.”

She gently poked Xavier’s forehead.

Xavier nodded.

Nancy smiled at her.

“Buckle up. It’s a long ride back to Denver.”

************

Once back in the city, they went to an upscale apartment building in one of the nicer parts of the Mile High City.

“Welcome to Cherry Park,” Nancy announced as she pulled into an underground parking garage beneath a large building with several clothing shops on the first floor.

Nancy led her across the garage to a bank of elevators. Once inside, Nancy pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator shot upward like a rocket, skipping several of the lower floors altogether before stopping at the fifteenth.

She followed her rescuer down the hallway until they reached the last door on the left. Nancy unlocked it and waved Xavier in behind her.

The place was enormous. On the far side of the living room, a wall of windows stretched across the room, overlooking the city, with the Rockies rising regally in the distance.

“Wow!” was all Xavier could think to say. “You live here?”

Nancy, who had just taken off her skullcap and mask, smiled.

“No, but Sophie owns it. We get to stay as long as we need to.”

Xavier nodded. She tried not to stare, but now that Nancy was unmasked, she could see just how gorgeous she was.

She had deep blue eyes and long, raven-colored hair that came down to the middle of her back. Those eyes were mesmerizing. It was like looking into a deep ocean.

Nancy caught her staring and waved a hand in front of the new girl’s eyes.

“Shit. Sorry,” Xavier said, turning red with embarrassment. “You’re gorgeous. I…I wasn’t expecting…”

She bit her tongue before she could blather on any further.

Nancy laughed.

“You need to take a look in the mirror sometime if you’re that impressed with me.”

Xavier looked around the room.

“In the bathroom?” Nancy asked sarcastically, pointing toward the door.

Xavier started heading for it.

“You need a new name, too. Xavier’s not really going to work for you now.”

Xavier nodded and walked into the bathroom to get a look at her new body.

The face staring back from the mirror couldn’t have been more different from her old one if she’d purposely planned it that way.

Before her transformation, she had been round-faced, with a bit of a double chin from the excess weight she’d carried since her accident. Now her face was narrow, with a soft jawline and lips far fuller than before. She had freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose and beneath her eyes.

Even her eyes were no longer the dark brown they had been before. They had turned a bright bottle-green color, another change brought on by Acidalia.

The rest of the bodily changes were just as amazing. All the fat she’d accumulated from years of being unable to move was gone. All that remained was lean muscle and a flat stomach. She was now a good six inches shorter than she had been before.

Her hair was different, too. Instead of being brown and curly like it had been before, it was now sandy blonde and straight, resting neatly along her shoulders.

Overall, she thought she’d pass for cute, which was a slightly disturbing thought, to say the least.

“This is going to take a lot of getting used to,” she thought as her fingers moved across her cheeks.

She couldn’t stop touching herself, as if confirming that all of this was actually real.

“Did you die in there or something?” Nancy called from the other room.

“N…no. I’m okay,” Xavier replied.

“I think, anyhow…” she whispered as she continued staring at the woman in the mirror.

“Well, when you’re done playing with yourself, come on out. I have some clothes that might fit you better than those hospital scrubs.”

“I…I’m not playing…” Xavier started to explain, but the laughter from the other side of the door clued her in to the joke.

Poking her head out the door, she was greeted by a pile of clothes on the end of the couch. She looked at them for a moment in consternation.

“Hey, can you hand them to me? I’m naked.”

“So? You think you have something I haven’t seen before?” Nancy replied seriously.

Her voice was far away and echoing.

“At least she’s in another room,” Xavier thought.

She darted for the couch, grabbed whatever clothes she could fit in her arms, and scurried back into the bathroom.

****************

Shortly after:

Despite all she’d eaten at the hospital, Xavier found she still had a tremendous appetite when she finally emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a pair of baggy pink sweatpants and a white T-shirt. Luckily, Nancy had been busy cooking while she was admiring the changes to her body.

The spread was incredible: eggs, bacon, toast, muffins, and even a package of sweet rolls rested at the end of the table.

“Chow down, kiddo. It takes a couple of days to even yourself out after the change,” Nancy told the new girl as she sat and sipped a cup of coffee.

Xavier sat down and started scooping eggs onto her plate.

“I didn’t appreciate you making me come out here to get the clothes, you know. You could have left them closer to the door.”

“You have spunk. I like it.” Nancy smiled. “Look, kiddo, you have to get used to your bod and not feeling any shame in it. You’re stuck with it. Besides, you’re way too young for me.”

“I’m eighteen!” Xavier said indignantly.

“Yup. Just a baby.”

“How old are you, then?”

“Ancient.”

“Seriously. How old?”

“I’ll be eighty-seven next month.”

Xavier’s jaw dropped.

“Eighty-seven?”

Nancy nodded.

“Yep.”

“How…how did you even survive the transformation?” she asked, thinking about how wasted she had been when she first woke up.

“Sophie found me. I was in a nursing home in Seattle. I had stage-four lymphoma at the time. Chemo wasn’t working, radiation wasn’t an option, so I was basically waiting to die, which wasn’t so bad. I’d lived a long, full life.”

“I remember she came into the room dressed in this tailored white pantsuit. To me, she looked like an angel.” Nancy smiled as she remembered. “She told me she had a gift and would give me a purpose if I wanted it. She saved my life. I owe her now, more than I can ever repay, really.”

“She found you? How? How did she find me?”

“I have no idea how she even finds people like us. She just knows who’s going to be enhanced when they change. That’s part of her gift.”

“So she can just tell?”

“Yep. And she told me you were going to need a lot of training when your gifts emerge. That’s why I’m here.”

“Training?”

“I was with the OSS in World War Two.”

“OSS?”

“The Office of Strategic Services.”

“I don’t know that one. Sorry.”

Nancy sighed.

“Of course you don’t. Kids today.”

She shook her head.

“I was part of an OSS Operational Group. We trained resistance fighters and worked behind enemy lines all across occupied Europe. It was
unpleasant work, dangerous work, and nobody had the luxury of running home when things got difficult.”

Xavier looked at her.

“My job now is to teach you how to use whatever the virus gave you without killing yourself—or somebody who happens to be standing nearby. You may be stronger than everyone else in the room, but that doesn’t make you invincible. And it certainly doesn’t make you smart.”

She paused.

“That part takes training.”

“So, you’ve done this before? With people like me, I mean.”

“Yes. Sophie finds you, and I train you up.”

“So, you guys are like the Avengers or something? Superheroes?”

Nancy laughed.

“Not quite.”

Xavier looked disappointed.

Nancy sighed.

“Looks like the first thing I need to teach you to use is that lump sitting at the top of your shoulders.” She pointed to Xavier’s head.

Xavier flushed and started to open her mouth, but Nancy interrupted.

“Don’t worry about it, kid. We have several of you coming to join us in Olympia. You’ll be far from alone.”

“Olympia? Greece?”

Nancy laughed.

“Olympia, not Olympus. We’re not the Greek Gods here. We’re going to Washington. We’ll be headed there in the morning.”

Xavier nodded. This was so completely overwhelming that she wasn’t sure what to say anymore.

Nancy could see her new protégé’s mind was reaching overload and smiled to herself. She remembered how disorienting everything had been when she first woke up.

The kid was taking it all pretty well, though. There was a chance she’d come through fine in the end. That chance was what Nancy was here to help push through.

“Think of a name yet?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I did. I think I’m going to go with Irene.”

*************

Two Weeks Ago:

Olympia — The Stanton Residence

6:00 a.m. PDT

All was quiet in the Stanton house. Everyone was sleeping, enjoying a little extra sack time on a day off from training. Lana and Sophie lay in their bed, entangled in each other’s arms, snoring peacefully.

Suddenly, Sophie sat up, fully awake. She looked around the darkened bedroom. Something was amiss, but she had no idea what.

Then she heard it again. It was the sound of a two-way radio chirping, something she’d heard in her sleep. Until this moment, she hadn’t even been aware of the noise.

She reached over to the sleeping form next to her and gently shook her.

“Lana, someone’s here. Wake up.”

“Who? Wha?” Lana asked groggily.

“I don’t know, but you need to get up. Go downstairs with the others and wake them up. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“O...okay,” she said as she got up and slipped on a pair of sweatpants.

The sound of the radio clicking reached Sophie’s ears again. If she hadn’t had enhanced hearing, she probably would have missed it entirely.

“Go. Quickly,” she ordered.

Lana opened the bedroom door and slipped out just as a loud boom echoed throughout the house.

“Shit!” she said as she saw the front door bow inward.

Lana grabbed the cellar door, stepped through, and locked it behind her before heading down the steps.

Below, she could already hear voices. Agatha for sure, possibly Tamara too.

Behind her, the exterior door rattled again.

“Thank God we had that thing reinforced,” she thought as she reached the bottom.

“Lana!” Agatha exclaimed. “What the hell’s going on?”

Before she could answer, they heard the door upstairs give way. Suddenly, the entire top floor seemed to fill with men’s voices shouting.

“Sophie...” she thought, then pushed her concern for her wife aside.

“Sounds like we have company, and not the good kind. Tamara, lock the bottom door. We need to get the kids.”
In her room, Nancy was sleeping when the door gave way, waking her instantly.

“What the fuck?”

She looked around the dark room, trying to figure out what it was. Her eyes could see better in the dark than most people could in the light.

Nothing seemed amiss. She wondered for an instant if perhaps she’d imagined it.

Then she heard the voices. Men’s voices. From upstairs. Shouting.

“Fuck. That’s not good,” she thought as she hopped out of bed.

The sound of glass shattering reached her ears. Whoever was up there wasn’t being very careful with Sophie and Lana’s belongings.

Outside her door, she heard more voices. Familiar ones. Agatha, Tamara, and Lana were yelling back and forth between them.

Nancy grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it over her head. Outside her room, the noise was growing steadily louder. She yanked open the door to see the three of them standing in the hallway with urgent looks on their faces.

“Cops?” she asked.

“Worse. SWAT!” Lana answered. “And the army, too. I think they got Sophie already.”

“Must be a shitload of them if they got her so quick,” Agatha said.

Nancy nodded.

“Who’s unaccounted for?”

Before anyone could answer, a loud bang came from the top of the stairway as the door gave way. It was followed quickly by the sound of shouting and boots stomping their way down the stairs.

Nancy looked at the bottom door. It was locked.

“One more door to go, and we’ll all be cozied up together with whoever they are,” she thought.

The bottom door shook from another blow. Time was flying by far faster than they were ready to deal with. Time to act was now and pick up the pieces later.

“Fuck! Go!” Nancy told them as she pushed the three of them from behind. “Get whoever you find out of here. I’ll go this way and meet you guys at the overpass as soon as we can!”

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and started back up the hallway, away from the others. There were three doors lining the narrow hallway.

Behind her, someone kicked the door at the bottom of the stairs a second time. From the sound of the wood, she could tell it would only hold for a couple more blows, if that many. After it gave way, they’d be in an ocean of people who wanted to do them all harm.

Irene’s room was the first she came to. She yanked open the door to find her only a couple of steps back from it.

“Cops?” the younger woman asked.

“That’s what Lana said.”

“How many are there?” she asked.

“I have no idea, but it sounds like all of them. I’m going to need you to handle them if they break through before I can get the others!”

“On it, boss.”

“Be careful, though. Focus.”

Irene nodded, stepped close, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“For luck!” she said with a small smile.

“Get the feeling we’re going to need it.”

Outside in the hallway, the basement door shuddered again.

Nancy turned away from her lover, grabbed her hand, and led her back into the hall.

The others were already there, standing in their bedroom doorways, looking confused and frightened. Nancy could see the relief on their faces when they saw her and Irene reenter the hall.

Joanne, Debbie, and Caroline—powerful new women, all of them, but naive and untrained. Nancy didn’t trust them to know what to do if the shit hit the fan. Not yet, anyhow.

She pointed toward the side door at the end of the hallway that led to the garage and shouted, “Go!”

The three girls, used to following the older woman’s orders, turned and began to run.

Just then, the cellar door gave way with a loud bang.

“HALT!” a male voice hollered from behind.

The girls stuttered to a stop for a moment.

Nancy ignored the command. She got behind them and started pushing her charges toward the door.

At the rear, Irene stood her ground. She looked at the angry faces and the guns pointed at her fearlessly. She swallowed hard.

“STOP!” she said in a quiet, forceful voice.

You wouldn’t think anyone would hear her above the ruckus, but suddenly all the cops froze in place. The only parts of their bodies they could move were their eyes, which held panic and confusion.

Looking back over her shoulder, Nancy smiled at the frozen police as she hurried the kids through the door and into the garage.
It always amazed her when she saw Irene’s ability in action. She quietly thanked God for it as she grabbed the garage door and yanked it up, snapping the metal clips that held it in place like they weren’t even there.

It was in that moment she realized she should have stopped and listened for what lay beyond. But even the most well-trained warriors made mistakes sometimes.

This one was a doozy.

As the door shot upward, she saw there were cops waiting for them.

“Shit!” she cursed under her breath as the two groups stared at each other blankly for a moment. The police were as shocked to see them as they were to find their escape route foiled.

“Halt!” the one nearest the door shouted finally as he raised his gun at them.

There was nothing Nancy could do; they were surrounded and outgunned. She put her arm out and slid her body between the guns and her charges.

If anyone died here, it was going to be her before the kids.

From inside, she could hear the frozen cops starting to recover, adding to her stress. She thought quickly, trying to decide on a strategy that wouldn’t leave them all bullet-ridden or in chains. There were just too many of them for her to guarantee the girls’ safety.

“Hands in the air!” the cop shouted.

As the four of them lifted their arms, Irene burst through the open door behind them.

“Fuck!” she yelped in surprise as she skidded to a halt.

Every cop suddenly stopped, lowered their guns, and started undoing their pants.

Nancy turned back and stared at Irene disbelievingly.

Irene stared back.

“What? I didn’t mean it!”

The three girls giggled.

If the situation hadn’t been so dire, Nancy would have cracked up laughing herself. But the cops inside were already on their way.

Instead, she gathered up her charges, and the five of them bolted for the woods behind the house.

***************

Denver:

The Cherry Park Condo:

Nancy was on her feet the second she heard the key turn in the lock of the condo’s front door. She looked around the room, suddenly feeling the same sense of déjà vu she'd had that morning during the raid. Except this wasn’t Olympia. It was Denver.

There was no way the cops could have found them. Still, after the way they’d gotten out of Olympia, she was sure they’d be anxious to talk to Irene.

She reached over and pulled open the top drawer of the nightstand, grabbing the gun she’d left there. After making sure it was loaded, she shoved it into the front of her panties, then pulled on her robe and tied it closed.

“I need to start wearing pajamas to bed,” she thought as she hurried out of the room.

They were expecting company to arrive today, but not this early. After everything they’d gone through to get here, she wasn’t about to take any chances.

It had taken nearly a week to make it to Denver, but they’d arrived safely just a few days ago. The heat had been on them the entire time. The police apparently knew who was supposed to be at the house and who they hadn’t apprehended. From what she saw it looked like Sophie was
the only one take and the house. That meant the others were safe, she hoped.

Then there was the attack on the police station. That they had plastered that everywhere the could find. Worse they had added hers and Irene face to the array implicating them.

The news reports had made conventional travel nearly impossible. There was no way they would make it past security at any of the airports or bus stations in and around the city, and renting a car was out of the question.

They’d had to travel twenty-five miles before Nancy finally felt it was safe enough to look for a way out of state.

The bus station had turned them away because they didn’t have a credit card to put the tickets on. Then they got lucky. A friendly ticket agent at the Amtrak station in Centrella happily sold them five tickets to Denver in exchange for cash, a nice little bonus, and no questions asked. Well, no questions asked after a subtle word from Irene, at least.

They traveled as incognito as they could manage. In a burst of inspiration, Nancy bought them all hijabs and dark glasses. It wasn’t the world’s greatest disguise, but it sufficed.

Looking at herself in the mirror in the station ladies’ room, Nancy decided with a small shrug that she wouldn’t recognize herself if she didn’t look too closely. Other than Irene, the rest of the girls had not been identified, so the only real danger they faced was being caught with her.

As they traveled, Nancy noticed Debbie acting more and more withdrawn. She tried to speak to the new woman, but Debbie balked. Even Irene, who was far closer in age to Debbie than Nancy was, tried to get her to open up about what was going on with her, but the girl refused. In the end, all they could do was leave her to stew in her juices and hope that, at some point, she’d open up.

After two days on the train, with a tour of places they hadn’t even known existed along the way, Nancy’s little troop arrived at the train station in Denver. She was overly cautious about them disembarking. She didn’t know how far the dragnet for them might extend, but if the cops they passed were aware of their fugitive status, they gave no indication.

Somehow, despite Irene’s insistence that it was all going far too easily and that they were walking into a trap, they made it to the Cherry Park apartment without incident. The first thing Nancy did once they were through the door was call Sophie.

They’d been completely out of contact during the trip. Nancy and Irene had both forgotten to grab their phones in the chaos of the police raid.

They’d been too afraid to use a public phone to call for fear of being traced. With that option off the table, there was no way to let anyone know they were alive. Beyond the television reports they caught here and there, they had no idea what was happening outside the walls of wherever they happened to be hiding.

Now, finally, Nancy was able to hear Sophie’s voice again.

And that alone had made the entire miserable journey worth it.

She reached the door just in time to see Lana stepping through it. The tension instantly drained from her body as Sophie walked in right behind her.

“Boy, are you two a sight for sore eyes,” she said as she stepped forward and hugged Sophie. She was close to tears but somehow managed to refrain. These two were her family.

“We feared you’d been captured,” Lana said as she took her turn hugging her friend.

“They almost had us at the house, but Irene managed to… ahh… subdue them.”

“Irene did?” Lana asked, impressed that the young girl had been able to help.

“What did I do?” Irene asked as she came into the living room. She went over and hugged the two newcomers.
Seeing the questioning looks on both their faces, she glanced at Nancy out of the corner of her eye and scowled. She’d hoped her little mistake would quietly be forgotten, but it didn’t seem like anyone was ready to let her live it down quite yet.

“I didn’t say anything!” Nancy said, putting her hands up.

Irene rolled her eyes. She could feel her cheeks turning red.

“Well, now we have to know,” Lana said with a smile.

Irene stepped over to where Nancy stood, leaned back into her, and gave her lover a light elbow to the ribs.

“Oomph,” she said mockingly.

“Jerk.”

“You know you love me,” Nancy replied, kissing the side of her neck and batting her eyes for extra emphasis.

“Sometimes I wonder…” Irene replied with a laugh.

She then turned to Sophie and Lana and explained their escape using the very barest of details. Nancy added unwanted color commentary to the story, which Irene managed to endure without showing her embarrassment too vividly.

Her mentors laughed heartily as the tale unfolded. When she was done, Sophie had tears running down her cheeks.

“So they just… started going at it?” she asked between belly laughs.

“I guess. We didn’t really wait around to watch,” Irene replied, feeling more than a bit mortified.

“I was just glad Siera wasn’t there,” Nancy added with a giggle.

“She would have wanted to stay and watch for sure,” Lana said, still laughing.

Hearing the commotion in the hall, Joanne and Caroline came to see who was there.

“There’s my girls!” Lana said, stepping over and hugging both of them fiercely. “I was so worried you’d been caught!”

“Nancy saved us,” Caroline told her.

“Just Nancy, huh?” Irene said with mock indignation.

“All you did was make the cops hump each other,” Joanne told her, sticking her tongue out.

Irene blushed fiercely as the room erupted in laughter again.

“Where’s Debbie?” Lana asked.

“She was asleep last I looked,” Caroline reported.

“The trip was hard on her. She’s not used to all this,” Irene said.

“The poor thing. The day after she wakes up, the cops come after us. She must be wondering what she’s gotten herself into,” Sophie said. “I’ll talk to her as soon as she’s willing.”

“What are we going to do about the others?” Nancy asked, turning the conversation more serious. She’d seen on television that they’d been captured and was chomping at the bit to rescue them.

“I wish I knew,” Sophie replied. “I’ve had some people looking into where Agatha and Tamara were taken, but so far, no one seems to know.”

“I had my contact at Rawlings confirm they aren’t there. Siera and Carly arrived there a few days ago. They’re safe and sound and will be looked after, but the others have disappeared into thin air,” Lana told them.

“Can we get those two at least?” Nancy asked.

She was already half out of her chair before anyone answered. She hated waiting almost as much as she hated the idea of people she cared about being held captive. The soldier in her knew any attack on the fort by the six of them was a fool’s errand, but it didn’t mean she had to like it. The restless tapping of her fingers didn’t stop.

“Nancy…” Sophie warned.

“What? They aren’t safe there. I don’t care who you have watching out for them. I know how the military works. We need to go get them before there’s nothing left to get.”

“And how do you propose we do that exactly? Walk up and ask whoever comes to the gate if they’d let them come home with us?”

Nancy shot Sophie a look of daggers, then sat back down and sank into her chair. She was angry, but Sophie was right. That fact didn’t help matters any.

“I know you want to do something to help, sweetie, but this isn’t something we can just charge into. It’s the army. They have guards, weapons, numbers. What exactly do you think we’re going to do—walk up to the gate and ask them nicely to give them back?”

Nancy looked away.

“We can’t take them by force,” Sophie continued. “Even if we’re stronger, there are a hundred of them for every one of us. That’s not a rescue.

That’s suicide. Unless, of course, winding up in quarantine is a life goal of yours or something.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “We have to do something, Soph. We can’t just leave them there.”

Irene stood and crossed the room, taking Nancy’s hand in hers.

“What is it you always tell us about patience being a warrior’s strongest virtue?”

“I…I…fuck.” Nancy sagged, defeated.

“The best thing we can do is stay free and wait for the right opportunity to present itself, baby.”

She leaned down and kissed Nancy’s cheek.

Nancy swallowed hard.

“And if it never does? Then what?”

*******************

A couple of hours later:

Debbie Simpson sat in the chair in the room she had been given, looking out at the vista of the Rocky Mountains through the window. A soft knock on the door broke her concentration.

“Leave me alone,” she said, not caring who it was.

“It’s just me,” Sophie said, opening the door despite not being invited in.

“Great,” Debbie replied sourly. “I said leave me alone. What part of ‘leave me alone’ wasn’t clear to you?”

“I just want to know what’s wrong, sweetie. The others have noticed you’ve seemed angry and withdrawn since leaving the house.”

“Left the house?” she said with a laugh. “The fucking cops chased us out of your house. We didn’t leave. We barely fucking escaped.”

Sophie nodded. “It was an unfortunate situation, to be sure. It could have been far worse if we hadn’t acted quickly.”

“Unfortunate. Yeah, that’s one way to put it.” Debbie shook her head in disbelief.

“It wasn’t like we knew they were coming, hon. We were caught completely off guard,” Sophie said defensively.

She silently chastised herself for letting her annoyance show.

“No. Of course you didn’t,” Debbie agreed.

Sophie paused for a moment. She could see that Debbie wasn’t going to open up on her own, so she decided to push a little harder.

“I get that you’re angry. I understand it was upsetting, but there’s more to this than having to escape the police. So how about we stop dancing around things and you level with me. What’s really going on with you?”

Debbie looked at her. “You really want to know?”

“Yes. I really want to know. We’re all here to help you get on with this new life of yours.”

“New life?” She looked down at the floor, shaking her head. “You make it sound like you did me some kind of huge favor. I never asked for this life.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” Sophie admitted.

“I was perfectly content with how things were before you came into my life,” she said angrily.

“Were you, though?” Sophie asked. “I saw you, you know. Before I came to you, I saw how you were living, if you want to call it that. All by yourself, constantly rejecting others who were only there to help.”

“And who are you to judge? What business of yours is it how I chose to live? Who are you to take me away from it?”

Sophie sighed. “No one, I guess. Just another one you resent for trying to help you.”

“And now I’m stuck in this body. I never wanted to be a woman, you know. I was fine with being a man. And now look at me! You did this to me!
Fuck…”

“I thought I was helping you.”

Sophie thought back to the night she infected the young woman who now sat before her. She remembered how convinced she had been that she was giving Debbie a chance at a better life, one where she wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. She had been so sure she was doing the right thing. Now, however, Debbie was telling her otherwise. She wasn’t sure how to proceed.

Debbie looked up at Sophie. “I wish I’d never met you.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Sophie replied.

Sophie gave a soft sigh. Debbie sat staring daggers at her, almost daring her to say something else.

Defeated, she told her, “Dinner’s in an hour. Come down if you’re hungry.”

She walked out of the room without another word.

Downstairs, Lana was waiting for her. One look told her things hadn’t gone as well as they’d hoped.

“What happened?” she asked, coming to Sophie’s side.

“We may have made a very big mistake with that one.”

Lana nodded. “It wouldn’t be the first.”

“No. But we really need it to be the last. These women we are helping create are too dangerous for us to choose poorly.”

*************
8:20pm PST:

Fresno, California:

Victor Cruiz folded his arms and watched the Reverend as he gave his speech to the condemned with great satisfaction.

“You are all sinners in the eyes of our Lord. You have offended God with your wicked ways, and this virus is His punishment upon you all,”

Manning told them as they cowered against the far wall.

His men held the patrons of this testing center at bay as he spoke.

“Take heart. God loves all of His creation, and salvation awaits if you take these last few minutes and repent your sins. He will listen and put aside your place inside the pearly gates if love of the Lord is truly in your hearts.”

There was nary a sound from the assembled hostages beyond the expected whimpering and sniffing.

He understood, as well as they did, that this was their end.

Outside, sirens could be heard converging on them. Even at a distance, it sounded like every cop in Fresno was en route to their location.

Victor looked at his watch, then back up at the Reverend, hoping he would be wrapping things up soon. Their last foray out of hiding to do the
Lord’s work and punish the sinners had nearly ended with them all being caught.

Victor was hoping for a smoother exit this time.

Manning turned to his young charge.

“Victor.”

“Yes, Reverend?”

“One of these sinners must survive to pass on the word of God’s judgment. Pick one, son, then we will be on our way.”

Victor beamed. The Reverend had chosen him to decide who would survive. It was a tremendous honor to choose the one who would spread the word of God’s judgment and the redemption awaiting those who found the Lord in their hearts.

He looked over at the hostages, a mass of humanity all huddled together against the far wall. He understood it was wrong to judge; that was God’s job, not his. But he could feel nothing but contempt for them in his heart. They were all guilty of offending the Lord with their wicked ways.

Among them was a lovely dark-skinned woman, either Black or Indian, he couldn’t tell which, who looked to be at least eight months pregnant.

He stepped in her direction, noticing a small smile of relief building on her face as he approached.

He stopped right in front of her, smiled sweetly back at her, then turned back to Manning and said, “Him.”

He pointed at an elderly man standing directly behind the pregnant woman.

Manning nodded. “Gentlemen,” he said.

His men moved in. Three of them gathered around the elderly man as they reached for him. He tried to resist and pull away, but they quickly overpowered him.

Two men grabbed an arm each and began dragging him away.

“No! Take her instead!” the old man protested loudly as he tried to pull free of the Reverend’s men. “Save the baby. Please.”

Manning looked at him, anger burning in his eyes. He couldn’t believe the gall of the man to reject God’s will.

“You alone are the chosen one! God has put His finger on you today! If He wanted the child saved, He would have directed young Victor here to choose the woman!”

Before the man could protest further, Manning waved his hand angrily toward the door. “Take him before I change my mind.”

Victor stared at the pregnant woman. The tears running down her cheeks and the crestfallen look on her face made him feel powerful. She took a step back from Victor, pressing into the crowd behind her, and wrapped her arms around the bottom of her belly as if protecting the child within.

Her reaction made him feel powerful in a way he never had before. He knew he wanted to feel it again.

For now, however, he just couldn’t hold it back. He burst out laughing in the soon-to-be-dead woman’s face, pointing at her as the tears continued to stream down her cheeks. The more frightened she became, the harder he laughed.

A gentle hand touched the back of his shoulder. Victor turned to see the Reverend behind him.

“Let’s go, my boy. Her judgment is at hand.”

“Yes, Reverend,” he said, looking up at the man and smiling. He loved having the Reverend’s eyes on him. He would do anything to keep them there.

Once outside, the ritual of pulling down the security gates had been completed. Victor was slightly disappointed. He enjoyed watching the ones inside panic as the metal grates came down, sealing them inside what would soon become their tomb.

Off to his right, several men were dousing the place with gasoline. Very soon, the sinners would be face-to-face with the Lord and His judgment.

More than anything, he wanted to stay and listen to them scream as the flames of righteousness consumed them, but the authorities were arriving. It was time to be off.

Those who had agreed to sacrifice themselves for the greater good encircled the Reverend. He pulled Victor close as they formed the circle.

Moving as one, Manning’s followers began leading them away. The cops tried to engage them, but there were simply too many bodies to get through.

Being in the center of the crowd was no picnic. Victor was bumped, pushed and jostled as those on the outside of the circle did their best to repel the Fresno police. After about twenty paces or so, the back of the circle opened up. There were more cops coming down the street from that direction, but they were too far away to stop the yet, allowing those being protected to flee toward the vehicles waiting for their return just around the next corner.

Manning took Victor’s hand and hurriedly led him along the sidewalk and around the corner of the tall stone building. From behind them, the acrid smell of smoke reached Victor’s nose. His heart leapt, knowing the sinners’ punishment was under way.

They came to a black sedan. Manning opened the rear door and ushered the boy inside before climbing in himself.
A moment later, they were off. Police and fire department sirens howled behind them as they made their escape.

The driver zigzagged through the light traffic on the street. He ran three consecutive red lights, once nearly colliding with another car in an intersection. The police had to slam on their brakes as the sedan sped away.

After a few minutes, the Reverend reached over and rested his hand on Victor’s knee.

“You did well, young man.”

“Thank you, Reverend.”

Victor’s heart sang at the praise.

“However, we can’t have the laughing,” Manning said sternly. “We are doing grim work in the name of our Lord. It is not a laughing matter.”

“I’m sorry, Reverend. I couldn’t help it. She was a harlot and a whore. Pregnant like that, with no wedding ring. And the way she looked at me, as if she expected to be chosen… I just couldn’t help myself.”

“I understand. You’re young and excited to do God’s work, and I admire your dedication to the cause, my young friend.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I trust this will be the last time we need to discuss it?”

“Oh, yes, sir. One hundred percent the last time. Thank you, Reverend.”

Manning patted the boy’s leg, then withdrew his hand and folded it gently in his lap.

“You’re a good boy, Victor. I have high hopes for you.”

Victor looked at him expectantly.

“Once you become a little more seasoned, I can see you taking on greater responsibility. Perhaps one day you’ll be among those entrusted with carrying out the Lord’s judgment, rather than merely following those who lead you.”

“Thank…” Victor suddenly choked up and needed a moment to find his voice again. “Thank you, Reverend. I’ll do my best to live up to your expectations.”

“I’m sure you will, my boy.”

Manning smiled and settled back into his seat.

“The Lord has great plans for you.”

Victor smiled.

“I want to serve the Lord and help you with His mission, sir. I hope I can live up to your expectations.”

“They are not my expectations, boy. It’s God who’s put you here, beside me. God has chosen you to help in this fight. I have no doubts you will live up to what He expects from you.”

The young man smiled.

“Once we return, I have a job for you.”

“A job?” Victor asked excitedly. “What do you need me to do?”

“It’s come to my attention that some in our flock are not as committed to God’s work as they should be. There are many devils hiding in our
midst. They are using our holy mission to further their own self-serving ends. Some are sexual deviants. Others are thieves. Worst of all are the sodomizers and pedophiles, all trying to hide within God’s army.”

“The Lord has assured me these men are hiding among us and has shown me the blackness in their hearts. We need them weeded out and exposed for all to see. Only then can they be purified, and through their punishment, our army will become what God has intended it to be.”

“How can I help you?”

“I need to put some distance between us publicly. I need you to act resentful of my spurning you. Make them think you are one of them. Gain their trust. Then, once you know their names, I will begin the purge. Can you do this for me?”

Victor could hardly believe the Reverend was entrusting him with an actual assignment. And the mission itself! To identify those whose loyalty to the cause was in question. It was as if God Himself had asked this of him. How could he possibly refuse?

“Of course, Reverend. Anything I can do to help you and the Lord’s cause.”

“Once this ride is over, your assignment will begin.”

“I will do my best for you, sir.”

“I know you will, boy.” The Reverend smiled at him.

The boy’s enthusiasm impressed Manning.

He reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair. The Reverend had never considered having children before. His mission to spread the word of God had been all-encompassing. Now, however, with this boy, he felt he had found a kindred soul.

He would do what he could to protect and nurture the boy until he was able to fend for himself.

Manning was sure it wouldn’t be long.

**********

Thursday Nov 15

Washington DC 2:35pm EST:

Former President Robert Fuller sat in the comfortable chair behind the large, dark wood table. He kept adjusting the microphone, but no matter how he positioned it, it always seemed to be right in his face. The offending object was nearly as annoying as answering the never-ending stream of questions the senators seemed to have for him about a man he’d never met. Worse, no matter how many times he explained that little fact to them, they just weren’t buying what he was selling.

Frustration was the word of the day.

“Mr. Fuller?”

Robert looked up to see Senator Chevis Rolle’ staring at him with an expectant look on his face. Apparently, he’d missed something while he was fidgeting.

“I’m sorry, Senator. Can you please repeat the question?”

“I asked when you planned to stop ducking the questions and give us honest answers,” the senator replied with exactly the right amount of theatrical anger. It would make for a great sound clip later, the former president was sure.

The committee members were obviously out for blood. Unfortunately, his blood.

Fuller sighed. He hadn’t known what to expect when the committee investigating Edward George’s assassination had subpoenaed him. Now that he knew what they had planned, he regretted even bothering to answer their summons. He never enjoyed being hung out to dry, especially lately. He’d thought they might have had enough of him after the impeachment, but it seemed they might never get enough.

“I’m sorry again, Senator, but you’re going to need to enlighten me on what you think I’ve lied about. I do not know John Rawlings. I never met the man. I’d never even heard of him until he shot Senator George. So I’m at a bit of a loss as to what information you think I have.”

Rolle’ scowled at him. He lifted a folder stuffed full of papers and waved it in the air.

“And yet I have all this! In this folder is Rawlings’ entire social media history. It clearly shows his displeasure over Senator George’s so-called treatment of you. It says in several places that he tried to contact you to show his support.”

“Be that as it may, Senator, I can assure you we’ve never spoken. A great many people try to contact the President and, of course, members of Congress like yourself. As you well know, very few actually get through. That’s what you and I have staff for: to filter the important from the mundane. John Rawlings was definitely in the latter category. He may have called, emailed, sent a letter, or a text, but nothing ever made it to my ear. You can check the records at the White House switchboard if you like.”

“We have those records available to us already, Mr. Fuller.”

“Then why are you bothering me with this shit?” Fuller wondered quietly. Careful now, Bob. Feels like he’s trying to set you up.

Turning back to Senator Rolle’, he said, “Then I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be telling you if you can see there was never a connected call to my office from him.”

“That’s where you’re mistaken. The records show several calls—fifteen, twenty, even one for thirty-five minutes—connected to the Oval Office number. What do you say to that, sir?”

Fuller looked at his accuser, angry and a bit dumbfounded. He’d honestly never heard of John Rawlings until his name was all over the news.

There was just no way he would have spoken to him while in office. The simple truth was that Rawlings didn’t have the political clout to make a President need to speak to him. The White House maids had more.

“I would say your information is erroneous, then.”

“Is it?” the senator asked. “We got these records directly from the White House communications office. I had them hand-delivered by courier to my office.”

The smug look on his face made Fuller want to stand up and punch him, yet somehow, he found the strength to resist that urge.

“Again, I don’t know what to tell you. I have never spoken to the man,” Fuller told him.

This time, however, the words rang false even to his own ears. He could tell from the look on Rolle’s face that the senator wasn’t buying it either.

The former president looked over at his legal counsel sitting next to him. His lawyer, Paul David, looked back at him, then spoke into the microphone provided to him.

“Senator, I need a sidebar with my client.”

“I’m sure you do,” Rolle’ said with a shit-eating grin on his face. “We will take a ten-minute recess.”

Once outside the hearing room, David pulled the former president into a small, unoccupied office. He closed the door and, without preamble, said, “What the fuck was that, Robert?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing, Paul! Don’t they have to give you all their evidence in advance for discovery or whatever?”

“This isn’t a criminal case, Robert. The rules of discovery don’t work like that here. They can pull these gotcha-type moments any time they wish.”

Fuller sighed.

“I need to ask you, Robert. Have you spoken to him? I need you to be honest with me. I can’t adequately defend you if I don’t know the whole truth.”

“If these phone records are real, then I have absolutely no idea who that guy was talking to at the White House, but it sure as hell wasn’t me.”

Fuller ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He felt defeated, exhausted, and out of answers.

“So, what do we do now, Paul?” he asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“Until we can do a little investigating ourselves, I’d advise you to plead the Fifth moving forward. I don’t really see what alternative we have at this point.”

Fuller looked at him angrily. “That’s going to make me look guilty! I can’t do that! I haven’t fucking done anything!”

“The alternative is to just keep stepping on land mines, then, Robert. If someone has gone through the trouble of falsifying phone records to implicate you, we have to assume they’ve come up with a lot more traps to spring. For all we know, they have evidence you had Sunday brunch with him once a month.”

“So I’m fucked if I do and fucked if I don’t, is what you’re saying?”

“Kind of looks that way right now, yes.”

************

The White House:

Davis Carlyle sat on the white-and-gold embroidered couch in the Oval Office as the Senate’s hearing reconvened. He was smiling, almost giddy at how things were going. The idea to put it on TV for the whole country to see had been a stroke of genius on his part. Now everyone could watch Fuller go down in flames. He couldn’t wait to see how the evening news spun it all.

Either way, Fuller was sunk. The evidence Rolle’ had against him was rock solid. There was no way the former president was going to be able to worm his way out of it now. He’d be lucky if they only threw him in prison.

Harkin, you’ve outdone yourself this time, he thought happily.

On the television, Fuller was just retaking his seat.

“Welcome back,” Senator Rolle’ said into his mic. “Have you and your counsel come up with any answers to my questions during our recess?”

The senator practically radiated smug satisfaction. Carlyle couldn't blame him. Fuller was walking straight into a well-laid trap, right there on live television, and the whole country was watching. It was beautiful.

“On the advice of counsel, I am invoking my Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate myself,” Fuller said glumly.

Carlyle shouted, “YES!”

He began to laugh uncontrollably.

“You’re fucked now!” he said to the TV as his predecessor began repeating the same answer to every question the Senate asked of him.

***************

The Sisters Compound:

Linda sat with her swollen feet propped up on the nightstand next to Private Becket’s bed, guarding the unconscious woman. She had made it her duty over the last several days, ever since the military had come and tried to take Katie away from the Sisters facility and transfer her to Greyson Labs. Ellie had eventually won the day, as she always seemed to, and sent them back empty-handed. At the time, it had felt like a great victory, but the commander of those forces had promised that the issue was far from settled.

So Linda spent as much time with Becket as she could. With Ellie and Robi keeping a close eye on her pregnancy, there wasn’t much else they’d let her do around the infirmary. She understood their concerns, but sitting with Katie gave her a chance to be there for her while she waited for the woman she loved to wake up.

But one thing was certain: the army was taking the injured woman away over her dead body.

“Hi, Miss Linda.”

A familiar, shy voice came from the other side of the flimsy yellow privacy curtain that separated Becket’s room from the rest of the infirmary.

Linda grinned. “Hello, Harriot. How are you today, honey?”

The huge, deep ebony-skinned new woman entered the room cautiously.

“I... is it okay if I’m here? Dr. Turner said I had to ask first,” she asked nervously.

Linda smiled. It was funny how the young woman had attached herself to her hip since the army incident. She’d stood guard with Linda over Becket’s prone form while the others negotiated with Greyson’s forces. Linda guessed Harriot had taken a liking to her while they waited together in that very room, never knowing when or if the attack might come.

As large and formidable as Harriot looked, standing well over six and a half feet tall with muscles like steel, she was still, at heart, an eight-year-old boy. Dr. Turner had become something of a surrogate mother to her, but lately her duties in the infirmary had kept her far too busy to give the girl the attention she craved. So Harriot had started spending more and more time with Linda.

Linda didn’t mind her presence one little bit. She was starting to get comfortable with the idea that her main job with the Sisters was being Becket’s bodyguard. Since Katie was still deep in a coma, it was nice to have some company while she watched over her.

That’ll be good practice for when Junior arrives, she thought as she rubbed the ever-growing bump in her belly.

“What did you bring with you?” Linda asked, noticing the bag in Harriot’s left hand.

“Just some cars and a book,” she replied shyly. “Will you play with me?”

“I wish I could, sweetie, but my back’s not up for sitting on the floor right now.”
Harriot looked disappointed.

“I’m sorry, sweetie. Babies can be a total pain.”

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Linda could tell she didn’t really understand. She felt bad disappointing the youngster, but Junior just wasn’t having it today.

“Want to show me what book you brought?”

Harriot dug into her bag and pulled out a book. She handed it to Linda.

The pregnant new woman turned it over and smiled at the title.

“Dog Man, huh?”

Harriot’s face lit up.

“Yep. He’s a superhero, like I want to be when I’m ready!”

Her enthusiasm made Linda laugh.

“You’re going to be a superhero someday, huh?”

Harriot stood up straight and did a double-biceps flex. Her arms were truly massive.

“Dr. Turner says I can be one when I grow into my body,” she informed Linda proudly.

“Well, why don’t you grab a seat, and we’ll see what Dog Man is up to these days?”

Harriot stepped over and sat on the floor next to Linda’s chair. Sitting there, she was nearly as tall as Linda was in her seat.

*********

Harriot was curled up in a relatively small ball in a corner of the floor, fast asleep. She’d dozed off about halfway through the book.

Linda looked down at her. “Naps are a wonderful thing.”

She reached out and touched Becket’s hand, laying her own over the unconscious woman’s. The physical contact made her feel that much closer to Katie. It helped fill the emotional void that not being able to talk with her had created.

The closeness she felt was odd but undeniable. She hadn’t known Katie all that long, but they’d grown close quickly. Becket seemed to understand Linda in a way few people in her life, either this one or her previous one, ever had. Not even her ex-wife.
It made her feel special.

She just wished the injured soldier would wake up and save everyone the hassle that was coming when the army finished licking its wounds and finally decided to return.

She also worried about what Russov was up to. The sergeant had done her best to make herself scarce over the last week or so. Even Charles and Ashford seemed to be making themselves scarce. Linda had only seen the three of them in the cafeteria a few days ago.
It all made her very nervous. Russov wasn’t one to give up on an assignment, especially not this easily.

Linda stood up and leaned back as far as she could, stretching her back out. Even being enhanced wasn’t enough to keep it from bothering her.

Pregnancy is a wonderful thing, she thought sarcastically.

As she stretched, the curtain was pulled back, and Dr. Turner stepped into the room.

She glanced down at the sleeping woman, then looked up at Linda.

“I hope she hasn’t been too much trouble for you.”

“Hi, Leah. No, she’s fine. I love the company,” Linda told her. “We were reading this.”

She showed the doctor the book.

Leah laughed. “That’s her favorite at the moment. I think we’ve each read it to her a dozen times at least.”

“Kids are like that. She seemed to enjoy it, until the Sandman caught up with her, anyhow.”

“Yes. She’s got the body of the goddess Artemis and the sleep habits of Rip Van Winkle.”

Linda laughed.

“She’s a sweet kid. You’ve done a good job making sure she gets to be a kid, Leah. With the abilities she has, it’s frightening to think what the wrong person could do if they got their hooks into her.”

“Yes,” Leah replied. “It’s a fear we all live with, every day.”

Turner looked down at Becket.

“How’s she doing today?”

“Resting comfortably.”

“Good. I was worried about what might happen when those clowns from Greyson came here to take her. I was afraid they might cause her more harm than she’s already suffered.”

“I’d never let that happen. Those clowns would have to get through me first, and that’s not going to be easy.” Linda cracked her knuckles, making her point clear.

“I understand how you feel, but you need to be careful, too. You’re pregnant, Linda.”

Linda rubbed her tummy. “Me and Junior here will be just fine.”

Turner sighed. She knew better than to argue with Linda when her mind was made up.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful. That’s all I can ask.”

Linda nodded. “I will. I won’t do anything to put the baby in harm’s way. I’ve seen what losing a child can do to someone. I see it every time I look at Thomas.”

“Thomas was pregnant?”

Leah was a bit stunned by the idea. She'd always considered Thomas to be on the masculine side, especially given her refusal to change her name. She couldn't imagine Thomas allowing herself to be put in a position where she could get pregnant.

“Yeah. We were both lucky enough to be forced into participating in the Cow's experiments.”

“Cow? I'm not familiar with the name.”

“Dr. Paula Stanley. She ran Reynolds after Brady went AWOL, right up until the military bombed it. Sick fuck. I hope that, somehow, she was still alive when the bomb landed.”

“She was a doctor?”

“Supposedly. I never got the chance to ask to see her credentials.”

Dr. Turner shook her head in disgust. “She… she experimented on you? They allowed it?”

“She kept doing it, so I guess those above her were okay with it. Or she lied and never told them. You have to understand, as quarantine inmates, we didn’t have much contact with anyone outside our cells beyond the guards and the doctors.”

Leah nodded. Suddenly, she felt more guilty than ever about Evelyn’s sacrifice.

“What kind of experiments did she put you through?”

“All sorts, really. Thomas and I got knocked up so she could see if our children would inherit our abilities. She did even more obscene things to others. Paka, for example. I know you don’t know her, but she escaped with us. She could heal like Wolverine from the X-Men. I mean, fast.
Crazy fast. You could actually watch cuts sew themselves up over a few minutes.”

Leah stared. “She could actually heal that fast? That’s amazing.”

“You’d think it would be a blessing. Stanley turned it into a curse. She’d take Paka and torture her to see how far she could push her healing abilities. As a doctor, I’m sure you can imagine some of the creative ways someone could experiment on an ability like hers. I’ll spare you the details of what she looked like when Stanley was done with her. Whatever healed on the outside, the things Stanley did to her left their mark long after we escaped.”

“I don’t want to imagine, thank you.” Leah shivered. “It baffles me, the things we do to each other.”

“We’re one fucked-up species, that’s for sure. But maybe the virus will fix that for us eventually.”

“Maybe so,” Turner agreed.

Linda nodded in agreement and sighed. “Well, either way, Thomas killed the bitch, so she “She won’t be experimenting on anyone else ever again.”

Turner nodded. “It makes you wonder how many others are being treated similarly in other facilities like Reynolds.”

“I think the easier question to answer would be how many are actually trying to help the virus victims. Not just in quarantine, either. It doesn’t feel like we have much support from anyone, inside or out.”

“That is an excellent point,” another voice said from outside the room.

A moment later, Ellie and Nicole stepped in.

“Hello, ladies,” Turner said.

“Hi, Leah. Linda,” Ellie replied.

“Hi, everyone,” Nicole said.

“How’s our patient today?” Ellie asked the doctor.

“There have been no changes in her condition,” Turner replied.

“Is there anything else we can do to try to bring her out of it?”

“Unfortunately, nothing we’ve tried has worked so far, including a few outside-the-box ideas Sam came up with. I'm afraid all we can do now is wait. She’ll wake up when her body is ready,” Turner explained.

“Hopefully, that time comes soon,” Nicole said.

“We can’t trust that Col. Zoe to leave it lay much longer. From the conversations I’ve had, it doesn’t sound like he’s too pleased with his people for failing to return Becket to Greyson. Russov has told me on more than one occasion that the army considers them to be weapons and, as such, exclusive property of the United States Army,” Ellie explained.

“Property? They’re not property! They’re human beings, for Christ’s sake! That’s horrible!” Leah exclaimed.

“It’s the military mentality. Everything having to do with them is a weapon, even the regular soldiers. Now that they have new toys that make the old soldiers look like worn-out parts, they’re going to do everything they can to protect that asset,” Nicole said bitterly.

They all looked at her.

“What? I don’t make the rules. I’m just explaining them so you all understand what we’re up against. They won’t stop coming until they get their property back.”

“Well, they can think of her however they want. Even if the law agrees with them, there’s no way I’m letting them take her!” Linda said angrily.

“None of us will,” Ellie replied. “I’m just saying Nicole’s right. I’m sure they’ll be back sooner rather than later.”

“In the meantime, we have to worry about Russov, Charles, and Ashford,” Nicole added. “They live right here with us, which means—bonus for that Col. Zoe person—he can constantly monitor our comings and goings through them. Plus, they can give him advance warning of any plans of ours they might ferret out. Meanwhile, we’re left having to guess what they’re up to, and that puts us at a distinct disadvantage.”

“Let them try something,” Linda said angrily. “Me and Junior will send ’em back to Nebraska gift-wrapped!”

Ellie smiled at the pregnant woman, who was obviously working up quite a lather. “Not to pour more gasoline on an already raging fire, but I was also told to expect more soldiers arriving tomorrow at some point to replace the two they’ve lost.”

“Two more?” Turner asked.

“I assume it’s only two, but I wasn’t given a specific number.”

“So it could be fifty,” Nicole said.

“That seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?” Ellie replied.

“This is the army we’re talking about, babe,” Nicole said, looking at her friend.

Ellie sighed. “You have a point. Either way, I doubt they’ll return until the new squad members are on-site.”

“Wonderful,” Turner said.

“You managed to get them to back down last time,” Linda said.

“We were lucky last time. With potentially five or more soldiers inside our facility, plus whatever the army sends from Greyson, it could go very differently the next time,” Ellie told them. “Plus, we have the infirmary full of infected men making their transitions. We need to think of their safety, too.”

“Nothing’s ever easy,” Nicole said.

“Not these days,” Turner agreed.

“So, the question becomes, what do we do? We can’t let them take Becket, but a prolonged battle inside our facility could put everyone at risk,” Ellie said.

“It’s the government. They are going to get what they want eventually. And Becket is in the army, so she must have volunteered and knew what she was getting into. I’m not sure we really have the right to say no to them,” Turner said.

“Well, you have a few things wrong there, Leah,” Linda replied. “Becket didn’t join the army on her own. She was kidnapped and brought to Ft. Rawlings by God only knows who. They forced her to serve by threatening to use her for medical experiments if she didn’t do as they told her.”

“Yes, she told me something similar,” Ellie agreed.

“So, what’s the plan then, El?” Nicole asked.

Ellie was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Leah, would it be safe to move her?”

“I don’t see why moving her would cause any additional problems, provided we’re careful,” Leah replied.

“Hmm,” Ellie replied, still thinking.

“Where would we take her?” Linda asked.

“I might have an idea, but I need to make a few calls first. But as long as there is no danger to the private, it gives us options.”

***********

8:15pm PST:

Ellie had been sitting in her office for what felt like an age. The question of what to do about the private concerned her deeply. It wasn’t just a matter of what was best for Becket; it was about turning their temporary victory into something permanent. She also had to find a way to ensure the safety of those unable to defend themselves if this went south—which, lately, seemed to happen every time.

She wondered humorlessly if they were cursed by that bastard Murphy or something.

She looked down at the phone for what felt like the hundredth time, wondering if she dared make the call she was considering. It would mean making a deal with the devil, assuming the devil would even agree to what she had in mind. That was by no means guaranteed.

That was the big question. Would she help? Ellie had seen enough on the news to know that she had plenty of problems of her own. Still, Ellie needed to find somewhere safe from the military for Becket and, by extension, herself and her people. But was anywhere truly beyond the military’s reach? And would moving Becket somewhere else simply mean passing their problem on to someone else?

“You’re not going to get away with it, you know,” an all-too-familiar voice said from the doorway.

Ellie rolled her eyes and looked up to see Sgt. Russov standing there, carefully balanced on her crutches.

“What am I not going to get away with exactly, Elizabeth?”

“Whatever it is you’re planning.”

“And how is it you know I’m planning anything?”

“Because I know you, Ellie.”

Russov came all the way into the office, uninvited, and closed the door behind her. She awkwardly maneuvered herself into the chair across the desk from Ellie.

Ellie could have offered to help, but she found it far more satisfying to watch the sergeant struggle.

Instead, she said, “By all means, come in. Have a seat, Sergeant.”

“Thanks. I think I will,” Russov replied with equal sarcasm.

Ellie sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t really up for yet another debate with Russov that would solve nothing.

“Zoe is seriously pissed that his people came back empty-handed.”

“That sounds far more like his problem than mine, Elizabeth.”

The look of disdain on Russov’s face whenever Ellie used her first name was almost as much fun to watch as the time Nicole called her Lizzy.

There weren’t many people Ellie actually enjoyed needling, but Russov was definitely one of them.

“He’s going to make it your problem in the very near future. Believe me when I say he’s not someone you want to trifle with, Ellie.”

Russov paused for a moment, seemingly unsure what to say next.

“I’m telling you this as a friend.”

Ellie arched an eyebrow.

“A friend? I see.”

She nodded slowly. “Is that what we are now? Friends?”

Russov swallowed.

“As a respected adversary, then? Is that better?”

“I suppose,” Ellie replied noncommittally.

“Look, Zoe is coming back, and he’s not going to be as cordial as he was last time. I’m serious, El! It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if we woke up one morning to find tanks on the front lawn, loaded for bear and ready to blow this place to kingdom come if you don’t give her up.”

“Surely that would be counterproductive to the objective of retrieving Katie.”

“Ellie, you don’t understand the type of man you’re dealing with. He’s not here because he’s some kind of great leader. He’s here because he’ll do whatever the new president tells him to. And if you think for a second that Carlyle gives a single shit about you or how many people would die in an attack, you’re seriously mistaken.”

“So you’re telling me he’s exactly like you, then. He’ll do whatever his orders tell him to and damn the consequences.”

Russov scowled.

“That is what you told me that night we had the drink together, isn’t it?”

“I…” Russov closed her mouth.

“Exactly,” Ellie replied smugly. “You know, Elizabeth, if you were truly on our side, I would happily consider you a friend. The simple truth is, however, you’re not.”

“Ellie, I’m a soldier. I have a duty…”

“I know, Elizabeth. I know. I just wish you were more interested in being a human being than the military equivalent of a mafia button man.”
Russov sighed and began clambering to her feet. She was obviously pissed and not the least bit interested in hiding it.

Ellie smirked inwardly, pleased that she’d finally gotten to the sergeant.

“I was just trying to help you out. Maybe save your people a lot of aggravation in the process.” Russov’s voice was dry, edged with bitterness.

Must have hit a bigger nerve than I thought, Ellie thought.

“I appreciate the warning, Sergeant. I’ll keep it in mind while I work my schemes.”

Russov opened her mouth to reply, then shook her head.

As she turned to leave, Ellie told her, “Any time you want to join the team, we’d love to have you and your people on board.”

Russov sighed and headed down the hall toward her office without replying.

*************

Harkin:

Harkin sighed when he saw who was calling. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good, especially at this hour.

“Harkin? It’s Milton.”

“I recognized the number. That’s why I answered. What’s up?”

Harkin braced for impact.

“Something is seriously fucked up with this database at DCS,” Milton said urgently.

“Well, it’s the government. It’s supposed to be fucked up, isn’t it?”

He was tired and not in the mood to play twenty questions.

“That’s not what I meant. I looked into the mistaken address for those kids.”

“Yes?”

“It… I’m sorry. It’s kind of freaking me out. It’s not just those two. I… I can’t believe it, but, dude, I found another forty kids! All girls! All of them are missing. Every record I’ve looked at says they were sent there to be fostered until they were placed, but none of them have any records after that. Not a follow-up visit from a social worker, not a cashed SSI check in any of their names, nothing. It’s like they fell off the face of the earth.”

“Forty? But it’s a derelict house. No one has lived there for ages.”

“Yeah. That’s what’s so fucked up. It looks like someone’s been screwing with the records. I don’t know who or why, but this can’t be a coincidence.”

“What the hell would be the point of doing that?”

“Think about it, man. Forty girls, all minors, all missing now, sent to a fake address. What does that add up to for you?”

“No. That can’t be right. There has to be another explanation,” Harkin replied.

He was beginning to see where this was heading, but he didn’t like the answer it was pointing to.

He was admittedly a man of loose principles, some would say very questionable ones, but even he had lines that couldn’t be crossed. Kids were one of them.

“I’m going to have to send this up the chain. I can’t sit on this.”

“No. I wouldn’t expect you to.”

Harkin was quiet for a moment.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on here, Milton, but something sure as shit isn’t right.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Harkin stared at the phone’s screen.

“Forty girls… Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“Keep digging.”

“Already on it.”

Harkin hung up and leaned back in his chair, wondering what they’d stumbled into and unsure he really wanted to know the answer.

*********************

Confirmed Cases: 138, 212, 618

Actual Cases: 188, 221,316

End Part 30

Thank you as always for taking the time to my little tale. Please leave a comment.
Hugs n Kisses
Amanda