Bella was frightened of any contact with her husband, and was weak in saying, “You don’t need to do this, you know. Helena and I should make the call. They’re our mates. We should be the ones telling them, not you.”
Helena’s look was utter panic. Adam said, “If this was just marital discord, then yes. But this is the planned outright murder of you and your kids. Besides, Gens law is meaningless in America and in Great Britain. You can’t just make up some law and say ‘I get to kill my wife. She can’t cook, and she’s lazy.’ That’s nuts. If that were true, all human males, except for George Clooney and Brad Pitt, would be long dead and gone. And they’d only keep them around as breeders.”
Adam thought for a moment. “This has nothing to do with you, Helena or the children. Paulo and Enzo both know I’m coming for them and when I do I am going to kill them. While he may threaten and try to make something out of this, he’s not going to be successful. I’m not trying to interfere, but I think you should leave this to me.”
Bella summoned all her strength and said, “It’s really not your problem. Let us do his. We want to help.”
“It is a family problem now, not just yours, or just Helena’s. It’s all our problem. You are family and this is the way we do things in this family. A man once threatened Alana; now he’s dead. Again, problem solved.”
Adam paused.
“Besides, who said you aren’t going to help. You both have plenty to do. Assignments soon.”
Alana looked at Bella and Helena, then came over sitting next to the sisters and said, “Don’t worry ladies, Adam will take care of this. You have nothing to worry about. If he says this problem will go away, it will.”
Adam looked at Bella, “But, like I said, I do need your help. You and Helena.”
“Whatever you want, anything. What can we do?”
“How good are you at writing articles for newspapers?”
“Never written anything. Either has Helena, so I guess not so good.”
Adam looked over at Norman. “Sports reporter, and editor for your college newspaper, right?”
“Yeah, a million years ago, said Norman.”
“Minor in sports journalism?”
“Ditto.”
“Well I need about two thousand words from Bella and Helena, and you’ll ghost the story. Then Bella and Helena will translate into Common Tongue and audio record the message.”
Helena said, “Nobody’s going to read them or hear anything. Waste of time, no?”
“Nope, that’s where Alana and I come in. Well, to be honest, it’s just her, but I’ll be with her like a cheerleader all the way.”
Misti laughed. “Cross dressing? That’s new.”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”
Misti said, “I have. It’s … liberating!”
Adam turned to the ladies and Norman. “I need this right away. Thought through, written, edited, and translated by morning. I happen to have an outline of talking points. I’ll see you all by midnight or at the latest by five in the morning. Up to you. Alana and I have some work to do, then I make the call tomorrow at ten. Misti will be there as will you Octavio. Norman, you are also invited, but I suspect you’ll be up late. Ladies, your presence is not requested or required.”
The ladies and their men left the residence, heading back to their temporary lodgings in the old Manor house. Progress had been made on their new homes, but it would still be a while before the homes would be completed. Security protocols being what they were, these construction projects would take a little longer to finish.
Bella stopped outside the front door to their temporary home. She looked at Octavio and Norman. “OK, fess up. Do you know what he’s up too?” The men looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.
“No idea,” said Norman.
“Ditto,” said Octavio. “But I think we might have a clue or two from the outline he gave us. But he didn’t bring Normie or me in on any of it.”
Octavio continued, “I think cousin Adam and cousin Misti and Alana McCarthy don’t think this has anything to do with you, Helena or the kids. It has to do with Adam. Just him. Misti wants in, pregnant and all, because of the Grand Canyon and they want me there to be the boogey man. But what, how or why is beyond me.”
Helena looked at her new mate. “Normie?”
“I’m sorry, luv, but he didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t ask. Besides I’m a lot more afraid of Adam and Misti than I am of you, especially when Adam has that look. Don’t get me wrong, you’re not a woman to be trifled with, but Adam kills people who annoy him and so does his wife.”
Helena was unsatisfied not knowing the plan but relented. “OK, let’s start writing then. What is the outline for?”
Chapter 2
Norman and the ladies presented themselves at the front door of the Misti Building a few minutes before midnight.
Helena said, “You have two languages on the written articles and Common Tongue on audio. Normie says these should make you happy. BBC quality. Now are you going to tell us any more of this ‘strategy’? We are, after all, involved you know.”
“You are indeed, but fugit inreparabile tempus.”
Bella said, “That’s an answer?”
Norman said, “Tempus fugit is old Latin for ‘time flies’. He means he has more work to do, time is short so good night, ladies, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
Helena and Bella were confused. They hated human rhymes, family code words and words they did not understand along with witty double entendres.
“Exactly,” said Adam. And with that, the door closed, and Adam was off with Alana to the Tech Centre. The pair labored for several hours, but somewhere around four or five in the morning, they were back in the Misti Building, Alana now sleeping with Misti, and Adam now with Noki. The pair caught a couple hours of sleep, then they convened in the secure communications room of the Tech Centre with Misti and Octavio for the ten in the morning call.
***
“Ready?” Adam looked around the room. Since Adam would do all the talking, and he was the only one who knew all four corners of what he had in mind, they all nodded yes. Alana peeled off from the group, sat at a computer and put on headphones. The gentle tapping of her keyboard was the only sound breaking the stillness of the entire Tech Centre.
Adam dialed the new phone number which Paulo answered within a few rings.
“Why Adam, punctual as always. How are you and yours today?”
“Good, good. Thanks for asking. Still tracing our calls, I assume?”
“Why not? You?”
“Certainly. Got a teensy bit suspicious about the new phone number. On the move, are we?”
“Let’s say an old army base isn’t my preferred accommodation, for me or for my family. And, on that subject, when can I expect them home?”
“Well, Paulo, I have some negative news for you on that front. The bad news is that both Bella and Helena are unwilling to return with the kids to the warm and loving embrace of the brothers Fortizi. Seems that they think their lives would be in danger if they did.”
“Ridiculous! Why would their lives be in jeopardy at all? This is a manufactured excuse for you to keep them as hostages. Jason said he expected you would try something like this. He said your treatment of him, and the rest of our family was abysmal. You delight in physical abuse of our families, which Jason said was an open and daily entertainment. And that Bella wept openly when he left at the thought of separation.”
“Really? That’s interesting that you said that as I have video of Jason leaving, with sound. I suspect you just made that up, so you can replay our conversation today as proof of a false assertion. You recording this Paulo? No matter. Let’s move on.
“You are the head of the entire Gens Collective, correct?”
“Of course.” Paulo was suddenly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation; he had in fact decided to make a series of false accusations and spread the wor
d that the humans couldn’t be trusted, and that their depravity had reached even his own family.
“What exactly is Stricture 57 in the Code of Strictures?”
“Some obscure rule from who knows how long ago. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, because it isn’t so old and, besides, it was you who proposed it. Twenty or thirty years ago.”
“So?”
“So, how long have you known about the issue of the many transformed Gens unable to return to natural state Paulo? When you were back in Italy or only after you landed in the US? A convenient method to suppress dissent and kill the opposition, wouldn’t you say? And you must know that this kind of punishment is illegal in America and the rest of the civilized world.”
“We’re not human. We can do as we please. We’re the Gens Collective.”
“How long have you known, Paulo?”
“This isn’t an interrogation. I will not stand for this. When are you returning my family to me?”
“I told you, Paulo. Never. Your mate and daughters will never come back to you. You’d only have them killed. Just like your Uncle Thomas, dear old Tomas di Gensarii.’
“Ridiculous, scurrilous slander. You’re making all this up!”
“No, I’m not Paulo. You and your brother have been biding your time plotting to kill your wives and eliminate them from the picture. You and your brother have other mates and children, proper women from good families in the Collective. Not like Helena and Bella, from inferior stock. Gens Germania. The arranged marriages with them didn’t work out so well, and your political wrangling using them began to fray at the edges. They had to go. Tomas knew this secret and, so do Bella and Helena, as well you know. The kids would find out sooner or later and then what? The king of the Gens Collective with a human family. Can’t transform. Oops we can fix that, Stricture 57. Can’t transform, so legally they must be put to death? Quickly and quietly? Face it, they were never going to return alive, no matter what. They’re dead in each of your scenarios, except one; the one that actually happened.
“You thought this would be an enormous headache. Better to get at them at Casky in South Dakota rather than wait until they got home. But you couldn’t get at them at Casky. You thought your psycho friend Demitri could get close enough to deal with them quietly at our base, but the ladies wanted no part of seeing him.”
“You have quite an imagination, Adam. You can’t prove any of this.”
“Prove any of this? Prove it! That’s rich. Oh, no my friend, we don’t need ‘proof’; that’s where you’re wrong. You see, I can and will prove all of this. For example, I can prove how inept you were in accounting, and how much money was taken from the Collective over the past ten years to fund the Black Shirt Movement. I can prove that the Black Shirts bamboozled you. Tactically. And they made fools of you and your Councils. Right from under your very noses. And, I can prove that the Black Shirts are much larger than you thought, are better organized and much better run than the Collective.”
“No one will believe you. The story is absurd on its face; slanderous.”
“Slander is only slander if the statement is false.”
“Not to us. Not the Gens.”
“It’s a good story and defense until you’re audited. Did you know that the Preserve in Colorado was mortgaged by the Hanley brothers, and will likely go into foreclosure in the next six months? We have so much on you and, for that matter, on them. About all the members of your Councils, many of whom can no longer transform. How many millions of Gens are there who can’t transform any longer either? Do you intend to kill them all, or just a few to make a point? Is that how you keep a grip on the Councils; coerce them by threatening death? How long have you known this, Paulo? You and your brother? Your brother lost the Demora to you – twice. Yet he’s still alive? Got something on you bud? I read in one of the Journals just how the Fortizi clan, from a small rural and backwards part of Italy, suddenly ascended to the heights – global leadership of the Collective.”
“Meaningless banter and drivel.”
“Perhaps, but then we also have access to all of your dark sites on the web, in the cloud and elsewhere, you know the ones the Councils know about, and a few they don’t. We have the access codes to all the websites the Gens go to for information and we now have control of them. You built them, the Black Shirts stole them, and now we stole them back from the Black Shirt thieves. Man, you guys are incompetent. I mean really, really incompetent.”
Adam paused for effect. “And that little trojan one of your techies put in the websites to save their lives if codes didn’t get input every so often, they’re gone too. So is he and his family.”
“So?”
“Now, here’s what we’re going to do Paulo. You’re going to say that your families have been found unharmed and moved to a secret location for their protection. I’ve already drafted that message. We have uploaded a small volume, a tome, that recounts, and proves, your misfeasance, malfeasance and stupidity along with your power drunk brother. It’s already on all your Gens sites. If I don’t enter a code every other day, then this tome gets published on these sites. Emails go out automatically informing the populace. Your wives have drafted a little manifesto, which we have compiled, and verified the existence of the Black Shirts, their leadership, and their little science experiments, all with funding thanks to the Collective.”
Paulo said, “I see.”
“I hope you do Paulo, because if anyone ever bothers either Helena or Bella, or any of the kids, I will rain Hell down on your heads. I believe we will meet one day, and I think you know why, and where, just not when. I will meet your brother, too. In the end, I will kill you both. Never, I repeat never, say a bad word about Bella or Helena; only lavish praise and admiration for them as the paradigm of modern Gens warrior princesses. Be heartfelt and sincere or your fucking days are numbered.”
“Big talk from a puny human. When I meet you, we will both be in our natural states according to the Prophecy, that mythology of days gone by. Every Gens knows the story. Like Little Red Riding Hood. Only when we meet will we see who walks away and whose carcass is left on the plains for the carrion vultures to dine on.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, I tell you Paulo, and you too Enzo if you’re listening in, that if you deviate one iota, I will send my enforcer to meet up with you. He’s here with me now. He’s been fucking up your folks for me since Princeton, and the Grand Canyon. His special ops teams, about which you know nothing, are the very ones that destroyed your labs, and killed, so many of your people. Then I’m going to send my other teams who did a number on the Black Shirts in Barrows Bay and in Idaho. When, and if, you meet up with them, you will literally be staring at the face of extinction. Behave and we all find time to work out our relationship, but transgress, and you are all dead.”
“OK.”
“Is any part of this that’s unclear to you?”
“No.”
“Then, have a nice day.”
***
Adam leaned back in his chair and looked at Alana. “Any luck?”
“Nope. The base has been abandoned, maybe a few left behind. But, essentially they’re gone.”
“Electronics?”
“Changed. One hundred percent new and, so far, untraceable.”
“They must’ve figured something out, you think?”
“Nope. They probably couldn’t figure anything out, so the best plan was to ditch the compromised stuff and get all new stuff. Then rebuild with one or more new air gapped systems, and a new phone system.”
“Can we find them again?”
“Maybe, but if they’ve gone offshore or really go far off the grid it could be difficult. On the other hand, I’d bet cold cash that one or more of his people who were supposed to turn in or shut down their electronics failed to do so.”
“Why?”
“Human nature, so to speak. Why throw out perfectly good stuff? Especially if Paulo didn’t explai
n why they should ditch the old stuff. Family, friends, pics, video, even humans they had grown to like. Keep the phone, then see what happens later.”
“Wouldn’t getting all new stuff compromise their ability to communicate? They would need to do a lot of new networking.”
“No, not really. Building a new network wouldn’t be that hard if they have enough cash. But, if they’re cash poor, then they have the same problem as the Black Shirts. And I’ll bet they haven’t widely distributed the new tech.”
“Can we cripple them further? Any good ideas?”
“A few. A bunch. Oh hell, they’re already locked out of their cash accounts. I thought that’s what you would want me to do. I checked their spending and they’ve only bought a little bit of new stuff. They’re probably wondering if we can find them after this call today.”
“God, you are amazing. A-fucking-mazing.”
***
Octavio was still in the room, as was a very pregnant Misti and Alana. Adam turned to his cousin and said, “Take a copy of the conversation, and share it with the girls and Norman. I hope it will ease their minds.”
“Is it all true?”
“Almost all. Some wasn’t completely confirmed, but very likely to have been the case. The best stuff is what Bella, Helena and Norman wrote last night. Give them our thanks, and our congratulations on a team project well done.”
Octavio turned to exit the Com Centre and go home. As he left, he turned to the remaining three.
“You guys are wicked smart and wicked tough. Glad I’m family and more so that we’re on the same team.”
Misti said, “And you thought we girls were just sex toys with gorgeous tits.”
“Well you are both beautiful, I don’t know about the sex toys and, let’s face it, you each have amazing tits. That’s not rude, just an observation. And cousin Adam, thanks. Thanks for everything you’ve done. Fuck that was smooth.”
Adam turned to Misti and Alana and asked, “Can we go home now? Grab some sleep?”
“Yes sir. I think a little R&R is called for. You did good today, mister. Very, very good.”
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