The Cost of Being Special (Survival of the Fittest Book 1)

by Shawn Keys

  But though it had to be mostly about the fun and sex, he couldn’t help but wonder if this really could work. Far too early to call their emotions love, but the buds of affection were poking out. He knew normal people would be wondering how he was ever going to choose, but he didn’t want to choose. Was that a crime?

  Much of what the women were doing was probably teasing. But under that teasing, he wasn’t hearing anything like jealousy. It could be that they were accepting the reality that with his ‘gift’, none of them could afford to try and tempt him into picking. He was glad for that. He honestly had no idea what he would do if they did.

  Megan was a blessing. As crappy as he would be at choosing, she was doing a wonderfully wicked job of being the glue binding them together. Rather than focusing on him alone, she was stepping into the role as his Queen, ready to rule over this wonderful little harem of possible concubines who had drifted into his orbit each for their own reasons.

  Could he love any one of them? He had a feeling he could. Each in their own way, but yes. Absolutely.

  Did he have enough love for all of them?

  Did they have enough love for each other?

  He exhaled at the enormity of those thoughts. He kept walking, trying to fight off the erection building at the thought. Their faces floated to the front of his mind, one after the other. Which one of them could I ever deny if she wanted more? I’ve only slept with Danielle and Megan. But I can’t deny what I want. I won’t last five seconds in a room alone with Yvette. Laura has made clear what she wants! The only one who isn’t vying for my attention is Dazz, but I’ve always found her cute. Even if she doesn’t want me, she was clearly ‘in lust’ with Yvette, and she’s one of my best friends. As long as she wants to stay around, how could I say no?

  Those thoughts and more swirled through his brain as he put a little distance between him and the house. In the end, he didn’t solve anything. All he knew is that he was looking forward to getting back and helping Laura finish giving Megan a bath.

  Pushing that aside, he pulled out his new phone. Cycling the power on, he let it warm up and download whatever messages were waiting. Since it was a burner phone and all the other people who knew the number were back at the house, it wasn’t surprising that the only messages were from his mother.

  He let out a brief sigh of relief.

  He tapped open the message, and that relief turned to horror.

  Which, quickly, built toward blistering anger.

  He scrolled through the small chain of messages:

  Mom || Good evening, Mr. Hutchings. As you will quickly guess, this is not your mother. I have confiscated her phone to contact you.

  Mom “Unknown Agent” || Do not send any message that indicates you know who I am. If you do, your parents will be harmed.

  That confused Kyle for a second, until he realized the FDPC agents were avoiding any hard record of what they were about to say.

  Mom “Unknown Agent” || I will not mince words. You will surrender yourself to us within 24 hours or your parents and friends will be dealt with harshly. This surrender will not necessarily lead to your death. We have the ability to deliver a sterilization serum to you. It is not reversible like a vasectomy and does not leave overt scars like a castration. Nor will it leave a medical record. We will allow you to leave and live as if you were a fertile male. That will serve our purposes equally well. There is no need for you to die.

  Mom “Unknown Agent” || I implore you, Mr. Hutchings. Message me before Noon tomorrow. We can arrange a time for your surrender and treatment. You can be at home with your parents by tomorrow evening and forget this ever happened to you.

  That was the last message sent.

  Son… of… a… bitch!

  By happenstance, he was standing in a parking lot of a convenience store. Without thinking, he lashed out and kicked the side of a commercial garbage bin hard enough to put a small dent in it. It hurt a little, but that actually helped.

  Those… fucking… assholes… they have my family! Had they taken my friends, too? Who the fuck do they think they are? Before, he was in survival mode. He didn’t want to die. He was trying to figure out what was going on. He had always intended to tell the right people, then get the heck out of the way while they dealt with the problem!

  But now? Oh, these treacherous bottom-feeders were going down! he promised silently.

  He powered off his phone, then jogged back toward the house. The whole time, his anger fed back on itself with no-one to vent to. By the time he made it to Megan’s door, he was ready to explode. He yanked the door open and then smashed it shut behind him, calling to the whole team, “Everyone! I need you in the living room, right away!”

  All of the sexy teasing was gone as he stormed around in the room. Dazz and Yvette had taken a break, but came back fairly quickly. Dazz had a second cup of coffee from the kitchen, while Yvette appeared from the bathroom with a flushing toilet echoing behind her. The other two took a little longer: both Megan and Laura appeared wearing matching robes and nothing else, carrying the sense of people who had been enjoying themselves until they had been interrupted. Danielle was still in the arm-chair, but she sat up straighter, waking up groggily. “Wuz goin’ on?”

  Kyle’s state was not lost on them.

  Megan echoed Danielle’s sleepy question, “What’s going on?”

  With big gestures to let off some steam, he explained, “I should have seen this coming. I’m so mad at myself! I thought we were being so damned clever! They couldn’t find us, so they took hostages! My parents for sure. Nathan wasn’t at home, so probably him and Riley as well.”

  Dazz’s eyes went wide. “They kidnapped them?” If Kyle was mad, her naturally rebellious, anti-authority personality reacted with even more immediate fury as she heard government agents (corrupt or not) had seized her friends. “I’m going to rip their nards off!”

  Kyle shared a smile with her like two wolves baring their fangs. “Damned right.”

  Megan tried to inject a little caution. “This isn’t like punching the nose of a street gang leader. That would be dangerous enough. Even if the whole FDPC isn’t corrupt, they’ve got connections. You could be arrested. On the police records, these are two upstanding government agents, and you’re a rogue fertility-criminal who dug his implant out. Think about that.”

  Kyle nodded. “I have. Or at least, I’m trying to remember it. But they’re asking me to sacrifice myself to save my Mom. Steve’s great, and I’d probably dive in front of a bullet for Nathan, but… this is my Mom. They know I don’t have a choice with her. Which means they’re going to pay. In cash.”

  Laura gasped. “They actually said they were going to kill you when you turned yourself in?”

  Kyle grimaced. “No. They said they have a ‘serum’ of some kind to sterilize me. But something about it seemed fishy. If they had this shit, why were they trying to kill me until now? And why were they willing to kill others just to inject me with this?”

  Megan nodded. “If they are true believers in this eugenics project, individual lives will probably mean very little to them. You represent an entire genetic strain they are trying to wipe out. Sterilizing you makes you just one more of the common masses. Alive. Dead. Doesn’t matter after that. Time will kill you, if nothing else.”

  Yvette spoke up, “J’m’excuse, mon amour. Normally you would be right, but something we read calls this into doubt. Every now and then, they have a word or phrase they cannot translate. This serum is one. They call it CRAGG, always spelling it like an acronym. This is the serum they are talking about. The problem is that it is apparently not 100% effective.”

  Dazz nodded somberly, glancing in regret at Kyle, “Sorry, dude. If you hoped you could just trade yourself in and forget about doing the ‘kids’ thing… I mean, I would get that. But they talk in here about the serum not working all the time. They didn’t give percentages, but it isn’t for sure.”

  Kyle clenched his teeth. “Which means if i
t doesn’t work…”

  Dazz mimed putting a bullet in him. “Pow. Problem solved.”

  “They could do surgery.” He shook his head at his own idea. “No. She mentioned it carried too many traces. Scars. Proof.” He barked a laugh. “I might stay silent if they jab a needle in me, but if they cut my balls off against my will and I have the scars to prove it? Fuck me, I’d be on ranting at every reporter I could get my hands on. I’d cause all sorts of trouble. They could bury me a lot easier.”

  Danielle came up and hugged him from behind. Laying her head between his shoulders, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed the back of his neck tenderly. “If you want to take the chance, we’ll support you. Like you said, it’s your Mom. But even if there’s a 10% chance the serum won’t work, that isn’t good enough in my mind. I don’t want to lose you.”

  He caressed her hands with his own. “That’s the last option. They keep escalating this fight. Time that we do the same.” He glanced around the room. “I’ll be glad for whatever help you want to give, all of you. But think about it before you commit. I’m going to war with these pricks. Megan is right. Whatever happens, the police are going to come in hard and won’t forgive us for going vigilante. I’m going to need to disappear for a while. Not only the police, but the bad guys in the FDPC are not going to take kindly to me stepping on their two local snakes. They’ll come slithering out to find us, too.”

  Danielle said, “My implant is already out.”

  Laura nodded firmly. “So’s mine. They know we’re involved.”

  “Family?”

  Danielle said without hesitation, “My father spent a lot of his life doing confidential things he couldn’t talk about. I’ll warn him. He’ll understand and protect himself.”

  Laura sighed. “My father won’t understand, but I won’t give him the chance to talk me out of it. But he has money. I’ll warn him off, and he’ll make sure my family is safe.”

  Dazz said, “You know I’m in. For Nathan and Riley and for what they did to my parents, I am going to personally stick a pistol in their mouths and pull the trigger.”

  Kyle shared another hard, predatory smile with her, thinking the same. None of their answers were a surprise. The next two were more uncertain. “Megan. Yvette. You two aren’t in that deep yet. No-one knows you’re in this. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you want to do. But I can’t roll over and take that kind of chance. You two have lives, and they are still intact. I’d understand if you want to stay at arm’s length in all this.”

  Megan took a deep breath. “All my life, I’ve worked inside the system. That’s worked for me. I’ve believed in it.” She gave him a sad smile. “It can’t work for you. Not for certain. I can see that. Maybe…just maybe… if you called the authorities, you’d get an honest agent. Maybe your name would be cleared and a SWAT team would rescue your mother and all would be perfect.” She shook her head. “But there’s a rot inside the system. It’s been growing for a while, and none of us know how far it has gone. I’m going to help you. I’m not much good on any sort of rescue mission. I wouldn’t even know where to start. But maybe I can find a place where we can vanish. Give me a few hours, and I’ll plan a place to retreat.”

  Kyle smirked at her. “I’ve seen you drive, Megan. You say you wouldn’t be any good, but a getaway driver would probably be damned useful.”

  She laughed. “Now you’re just flattering me.” Despite her words, she was clearly tempted. The idea of getting herself into danger was growing. Her focus slid to Dazz, “Better get ready to kill another implant.”

  Yvette stood. “Two.”

  Megan met her eyes. “Are you sure, my dear? You can’t do this because… well, because of us.”

  Yvette closed the distance between them. Along the way, her steps grew slinkier and more suggestive, yet her eyes grew a little shrouded. She whispered, “You can’t order me to go. I will let you order me to not go. Because I don’t want to distract you. But please don’t do that, Mistress.”

  The others around the room traded amazed stares and quiet ‘holy crap!’ reactions as they realized what sort of relationship existed between the two of them. Laura most of all, who swallowed hard, understanding just how far Megan intended to put her under her thumb. The fact that her nipples hardened under her silk robe suggested the former cheerleader wasn’t exactly terrified at the idea.

  Megan never wavered from her pet. “Alright, Kitten. You do as you feel you have to. But why would you do this?”

  Yvette gestured back at the coffee table.

  Megan’s eyebrow rose. “Dazz? You just met her.”

  Dazz gawked as well. “B-but… I… I mean…” She was stunned, struck speechless in a way Kyle had never seen her. But her eyes heated again, flickering up and down Yvette’s lean form.

  Yvette was trying to find a way to say that wasn’t what she meant.

  Megan let out a knowing smile, and didn’t let her. She put a finger on Yvette’s lips, quieting her. Megan glanced at Kyle, remembering what he had said about finding a way to bring Dazz further into the fold. Then, her voice shifted into a soft challenge. “Didn’t take you for the meek sort, Dazz.”

  The jab at her pride sparked a little of Daz’s normal brash attitude. She scowled back, “I’m not! I mean… look, it’s just not the time, alright?”

  Megan’s smile grew into a feline grin. “Absolutely right. But in the future, you might make for a fun trainee.” She reached up and stroked a hand along Yvette’s chin. “What do you think, Kitten? Would you mind me using you to teach her a little?”

  Yvette shivered at the touch.

  Dazz lingered on that contact as if it was her caressing Yvette’s skin herself. Her tongue flickered out to moisten her lips.

  Oh yeah. Kyle smirked inside. She has it as bad for Yvette as I did for Megan all last year.

  Megan let Yvette shiver a little longer, appraising Dazz’s reaction as well. Giving one last small laugh, she let the moment go and said, “What were you saying, my dear? Why do you want to come with us?”

  Yvette swallowed, regaining herself. “Hmm? Oh, I mean...” She glanced back at Dazz with a flawless smile that melted Dazz for a few seconds more. Then, she turned back to her Mistress. “Umm, what I… what I meant was I want to stay for the puzzle. I’ve always loved these languages, and this is something I have never seen before! A whole community bringing one of those languages back to life. I can help. You won’t be able to find anyone else who could, I don’t think. Not easily. I’ve only translated maybe one hundredth of what is there. Only the most recent stuff! It’ll take months to crawl through it all. Maybe we’ll find other slip-ups. He left his password in the system. Maybe he left something else? Hints? Clues? They think they are safe talking on this ‘Task Mail’ server. Who knows what else they will say? You need my help.”

  Kyle put a quiet hand on her shoulder, drawing her attention. “You’re right, Yvette. We do need you. But that doesn’t change the danger.”

  Yvette smiled encouragingly. “I know. But this is far more adventurous than anything else I’ve done in a while.” She turned back to Megan. “And no matter what else you say, I am doing this for you, in part. You are going to disappear. Not seeing you anymore isn’t acceptable.”

  Megan let out a long, endearing smile. “Oh, Kitten.” She leaned in and kissed her sweetly. Then, she reached down and gave her a small smack on the bum. “You’re going to make me worry. So, punishment later. For now, we need to figure out what to do next.”

  Laura was coming back out of her submissive shell, becoming more the energetic, capable daughter of an oil magnate who had taken her hunting, fishing and shooting while raising her. “First thing we need to know is where these agents are. Any idea where they are holding your Mom?”

  Kyle shook his head. “That’s the biggest hurdle. It has to be somewhere they control. So not that office of theirs. It was too public. There was a fricking laundromat next door. They need to have a secure place to hole up
.”

  Dazz groused, wanting a target for her anger. “This isn’t that big a city, but big enough that they could be a lot of different places. How long did they give you before you had to turn yourself in?”

  Kyle had forgotten. He was on a clock. “I have to text back by noon. Guess they think that’s long enough that I would have seen the message by then.” Another piece of the puzzle slid into place. He snapped his fingers. “Of course, they couldn’t get a hold of me. I ditched my own phone. That’s another reason they had to take my parents or someone I was definitely going to get in touch with. Otherwise they couldn’t even make these threats.” He wanted to kick something, but held off because it was Megan’s place. “Damn it! If I had never texted my Mom, they couldn’t do anything! How long could they have held on to them?”

  Danielle suggested, “Maybe just… don’t text them back? Pretend like you never got it.”

  Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think so. If I had never messaged her, then maybe we could wait. But they know I sent her a message. They know damned well I’ll see it. If I don’t reply, they’ll probably threaten me again. I can’t chance that they’ll hurt any of them to make sure I’m not faking. Waiting isn’t an option. I’m not giving them that kind of power.”

  Laura frowned. “We can’t shoot at a mountain lion if we can’t find it. We need a lure.”

  Megan acted as their caution again. “Making anyone into bait is a dangerous game. You’re trying to save your parents, not end up dead yourselves.”

  Kyle said quickly, “I’d make that trade.”

  With a sigh, Megan said, “I know. Most people would. But your mother wouldn’t. That much I know. Guess I’ll speak for her. She won’t want to bury any of you after this.”

  Dazz smirked. “Nathan would love the idea that someone died for him.”

  Kyle snorted. “Bet he would. He’s acted it out in RPGs enough times.” An idea occurred to him. “We’ve been wondering if that scientist, Claire Erinson was involved in this. She seemed surprised to see this hidden email server on the system. Then again, she could be a good actress, especially if she thought we’d never be able to translate it. Did you see her mentioned on the server?”