by David Burke
Then Harper said, “Wait, it isn’t fair for you to change topics like that. You know I just wanna talk about Jenni all the time. You are trying to distract me.”
“Like that is hard to do. All he has to do is express some interest in your baby, hell if he looked at me with those dreamy brown eyes of his, I get distracted and I don’t even have a baby to fawn over. I bet even Trina would get distracted if he flirted with her,” Charlotte said.
Harper huffed but still smiled and shrugged. Grace laughed and rubbed her friend’s back and Trina said, “I’ve made myself quite clear on that issue.”
Everyone was quiet for a second before Trina continued, “Did you imply then that there was something more urgent that we needed to deal with?”
“There wasn’t last night but there is something now. And a couple of other ideas that I want to try out,” Jay answered.
When he didn’t say any more, Grace said, “I swear you are the worst tease I’ve ever met in a man.”
Jay just shrugged and took in Grace’s beautiful smile. She was another girl who was mostly just fun, but he couldn’t help but be smitten by her beauty any less than the beauty of the daughter they had created together. “Okay, okay, but how is Ada?”
“You know she is great, I saw you visit the nursery before coming to the meeting here.” Grace laughed as she answered. “Now, no more stalling.”
“Fine, I was just trying to be the dutiful father. So, you will probably all be interested to know,” Jay began saying before he stopped and shook his head. “I can’t help it. It still feels weird talking about all of this. It is sorta intimate.”
Now it was Trina’s turn to laugh. “Jay, you’ve slept with everyone here but me. If anyone should be finding this awkward, it is me. But I’m hoping that what you are going to tell us is that you have resumed fusing with your wives.”
Jay looked from face to face and none of them appeared to be anything other than interested. “Yes, you got it in one. Huong and I fused this morning.”
“That is excellent news, now maybe you will get around to adding some more wives,” Charlotte said.
“Like me, please pick me. Oh and Maddy too. He just needs to pick us both.”
“I don’t know about that. I mean, I’m still only one guy and we just learned that there are likely over another thousand men in those pods even if the ratios are exactly the same as it was in our experiment and I will say that it appeared to be far more fifty-fifty,” Jay replied.
“Don’t sell yourself short. Probably half of Team Jay would marry you if given the chance and even the ones who aren’t romantically attracted to you, still like you and are physically attracted to you,” Harper said.
“Yes, and as you pointed out the sleepers present a whole host of problems. I know this may seem contrary to my position that we need more men, but I worry that they will not be compatible with us. I mean are we even human any longer? And if we are, then Jay, take a look at yourself. You were cute back on Earth, but with all the changes, you are a god here. No one is going to want to settle for a man when they could have a god,” Trina said.
She was right, Jay was taken back by what she said. He had expected her to be the first voice calling for them to awaken the sleepers. “Umm…” was all that came out of his mouth though.
Charlotte favored him with one of her smiles. He knew that she was thinking something wicked just from the look on her face. “Again you never cease to amaze, Jay. Super stud in bed, but fumbling high school boy when a girl says how she feels about you. I love it.”
“God, how hot can one guy be?”
There it was again. He had caught a full thought from Char. She must be thinking it very strongly for it to slip past. Something about it though felt like it was a sexy whisper in his ear and sent shivers down his spine. It was almost like he could feel her breath on his neck. Try as he might it produced a reaction in him.
“Oh do you?” Jay asked, suddenly very intense. He stared at her and said, “If you are gonna keep laughing at me, I’m gonna have to come over there and kiss you into submission.”
Charlotte leaned forward revealing more of her ample cleavage in the leather armor she favored. “”Is that a threat?”
“No, a promise,” Jay replied back as he leaned into her, so that their faces were only a few inches apart.
“Prove it,” she dared him.
Char kept staring at him and then as clear as day he heard, “Maybe, if I push, he’ll take me right here on the table.”
It wasn’t telepathy. He would have recognized that. No, it was a thought which was too powerful for him to ignore. He felt a rise in his pants, and was starting to rise out of his seat to do the very thing she was thinking. Control was gone and instinct was taking over.
Then Trina slammed her hand down on the table. “Whoa, as much as we all want to be doing other things… dammit. I just realized, you crossed the sixth threshold when you fused didn’t you. The stimulant level must have been increased again. No wonder, I’ve been so wet since this meeting started, but we have to focus.”
The interruption gave Jay a chance to gain control of himself. He locked his mind down as hard as he could. Reading minds might be valuable, but not if he couldn’t control it. “Yes, you are right. I crossed the next threshold.”
Even as he spoke, Jay felt a temptation cross his mind. He wondered what Trina was thinking now. Was she feeling as hot and bothered as he was? If he could hear stray thoughts without trying, what might he learn if he focused?
Then as sharp as a razor and as shocking as socks on a shag rug, he had a moment of realization. He had this ability for like an hour and he was already considering violating people’s privacy because he was horny. What must it have been like for Jasmine? He suddenly felt more sympathy for her than he had before. It didn’t excuse her behavior but at least it helped him identify with her. Now though he had to clamp down those thoughts.
“I know this creates some issues and we need to address them in order of priority. As I see it, the biggest problem is birth control. We no longer have a viable option which means that I have to start avoiding all of you, because honestly I don’t trust my self-control. I figure that will light a fire under me to finish the fifth floor and gain access to the sixth floor. If the pattern holds true then we will gain access to new improvements there,” Jay said.
“I am not at all agreeing with your conclusion, but what do we have to do to finish the sixth floor?” Charlotte asked.
At the same time, Harper and Grace both protested that maybe it was just time for more babies. Meanwhile Trina raised her voice saying that it was possible to restrain oneself for a few days or even longer if necessary.
Jay cut off that potential argument by raising his voice as he answered the blond archer’s question. “That is the funny thing. We didn’t get any quest notifications. Not at the terminal and not once we entered the floor. So I was hoping that maybe D’varn would give us some more information.”
“He hasn’t exactly been super forthcoming about things,” Grace complained.
“I agree, but get the sense that he believes it would be harmful to us if he tells us too much. I still think there is a lot more going on in this experiment than we know about. We haven’t even seen any of the Forlorn for months now,” Trina said.
Charlotte shook her head. “Oh don’t jinx us.”
Jay didn’t want to get off track so he asked, “I bring it up because this is supposed to be his day to visit. Which should be happening soon. He seems to be one to maintain a rigid schedule.”
“Right then we should probably finish this up, but I don’t think we can wait till next week for another meeting. In fact given the birth control situation, we should probably have another cluster-wide meeting tonight,” Harper added.
Before Jay could protest, the other three girls all agreed and he decided not to fight it. Biting his tongue he stood up and walked out into the larger laboratory before becoming distracted again.
Interlude 2- Outer Edge
Sirens sounded all over the leviathan. They pulled D’varn out of thinking about the conversation that he had just shared with S’vanth. His fellow A’snkarnt was so smug that once again D’varn found himself thinking thoughts of violence that were supposed to have been bred out of his race millions of cycles ago.
Now though he turned his attention to the monitors. Ships had just jumped out of hyperspace into the same solar system where the leviathan was now residing. This was no mere expeditionary cruiser. This was a full battle armada.
Automated defenses long dormant came to life. Gun stations in the asteroid belt just past Mars activated and prepared to track onto any incoming ship. Magnetic mines were launched out of the rings of Saturn meant to attach to the unique metals used by Forlorn ships.
The guns might not be able to stop the full might of the swarm that was coming, but they were a last line of defense before the enemy could reach the leviathan. They were intended to knock down any survivors that made it past the true defenses. Defenses so old that even most of the A’snkarnt who had crewed the leviathan over the centuries didn’t know about them.
The mines with their zero point energy explosions would create explosions thousands of times stronger than any weapon ever created on Earth would rip holes in space, subspace, and hyperspace. There was no way around them and even if they failed to cause any significant damage, they would cause so much spatial disruption that hopefully the Forlorn wouldn’t discover the true weapon.
Hidden within the planet that the hoomans called Jupiter, was a dire weapon. A gravity well weapon, which would create a new singularity. The very power of such a device marked it as nearly the most powerful of the A’snkarnt arsenal. Only once had one been discharged before, but Coreframe had authorized its activation. The potential here was too great and there were too many eyes on it.
D’varn needed to speak with M1789. The proposal that S’vanth made was contrary to all the intentions he had when he started this experiment, but as despicable as it was, it might be the only real remedy left to the humans. Too many things were happening too fast. He wasn’t a warrior. Really none of his people were. Now though there was no time for deliberation.
Chapter 10- Testing and Being Tested
Out in the labs, people were scurrying around. He could instantly tell where Mia, Ava, and Huong were. The fusion made that apparent. An instant later he detected Jessie's focused thoughts through their bond. She was flustered with whatever she was working on if he got it right.
He didn’t need to really check in on the status of their updated science projects. They had already made huge strides forward. They had twelve fully functional mech suits that could be piloted by those that had less defensive capability, or offensive for that matter. Additionally, the crystal rifles had gone through several iterations and were becoming more and more effective.
They had created some functional transports that could hold up to half a dozen people. Little larger than a car, these operated on PSI energy as did all of the technology that was being created. Each had small engines that pushed out compressed air via crystals charged with an appropriate power.
He wracked his brain trying to remember who had Aerokinesis powers. Oh yeah, Willow. She was a very shy girl in Meikiyo’s pod. She stuck out in his mind now because had hair that was long enough that it went down to her ass. Anyway, the transports involved the use of multiple powers. Uremi’s flight, Madison’s mass control, and Meikiyo’s fire powers as boosters in addition to Willow’s power.
They also had formulated small computers. They were more advanced than anything he had used on Earth but still not up to deciphering the A’snkarnt technology that they were able to salvage. Mostly they were used for compiling data and they hoped to soon be able to interface with the various scanning systems.
For now they had made significant progress forward on both use and advancement of the scanning technology and the tools allotted to them. Jay still thought that the categories were bizarre but the tech lab came with a quest to develop in these areas for some vague rewards. It couldn’t be a bad thing and Jay was proud of his team for making so much progress.
The third category was the one they were lagging in more. Although Huong had told him with what they had learned from chemical analysis of the cells of evolved humans they could have cured cancer and most other diseases back on Earth. They really took a jump forward once Bong-Cha allowed them to test her cells. Her regeneration was at a level far beyond even Jay’s.
He pulled up their progress just to see how far they had made it in four months.
Scanning: 876/1000
Chemistry: 473/1000
Tools: 995/1000
Jay really wondered if he should have spent more time helping out in the lab but he laughed. Science was definitely not his strong suit. He had tried taking some courses in college and was smart enough to pass them, but the truth was that his interest was more in sci-fi than the science he was taught by his professors. Of course, that was oddly appropriate now.
He walked over toward Huong. This lab was her baby and he tried to respect the chain of command whether that came down to the tech division or a wife’s pod. That thought ended though as soon as he got an overwhelming sense of impending danger.
“Everyone gather around me, now,” he shouted.
He started forming up a shield and barely got it up in time before the ceiling of the far wall exploded inward. Not all of the girls had moved quickly enough and some were pelted by grapefruit-sized pieces of debris.
Crawling in from the outside were vaguely spider-shaped cybernetic creatures. They reminded him of the Forlorn but looked nothing like the one he had fought. A quick scan revealed:
Forlorn Crawlers- enhanced drone level. Individual threat level: minimal to you, significant to most of Team Jay. Crawlers as all Forlorn drones work in conjunction with many others of their kind.
Jay didn’t bother to parse out the details of the assessment. It was enough that he knew what he needed to know. He started telepathically barking orders on a level that hopefully all the humans on level three would be able to hear. “Huong, organize the healers and set up a triage station.
“Meikiyo, Jessie, and Trina, get your teams and launch counter attacks. Focus on securing the tech building.
“Amelia, scout the enemy but be careful. Let me know just what we are up against.
“Mia, organize the mech unit to defend the healers.
“Miguel, leave the tech building to us. Try to do what you can to cut down any stray monsters that you find.
“Everyone else, follow one of those leaders and communicate in your own channels. Leave this broad channel open for me to make announcements.”
By the time Jay had finished with his orders he had toughened his body, enhanced his speed and strength to the max and was fighting amongst the crawlers. HIs PSI blade cut through them with little trouble but there seemed to be a never-ending stream of them coming in through the breach.
Jessie was the first to respond. She took on her massive form and charged through the creatures. The problem though was that while she could crush multiple crawlers with every pass, she also was too large of a target. Jay watched her being struck repeatedly by the sickly green beams each of the creatures blasted out of a small eye-like structure on what he would have called their heads.
Each beam cut into her armor and made her groan. Jay became furious as he saw her start taking wounds. He surged forward when she stumbled, erecting a barrier to protect both of them just in time to deflect a trio of the deadly green beams.
A moment later, Jessie’s pod swarmed around him. Hanna led the way as she launched an attack with a new weapon. He had never seen it before but it was a sword that vibrated so fast that it was a blur even to his eyes. A horizontal stroke of the sword took the eye off the top of the closest spider and a quick follow-up slice sheared three of its legs from one side.
Fortunately she wasn�
��t alone. Jay was thrilled to see the intensity with which his wife’s pod came to her defense. Bella leapt in and delivered concussive blasts with every punch and kick. Each cleared away at least two of the Rottweiler-sized spiders. Beside her Rosa worked in tandem to keep the creatures distorted by shifting the vector of their movement.
On the other side he watched as Riley, a brunette who Jay could only think of as the one who was fixated on talking about fashion, ran forward sending telekinetic burst after burst into the creatures. None were strong enough to outright destroy the crawlers but they crushed legs or turned the creatures upside down. Next to her a zesty redhead named Taylor lashed about with a force whip. Sometimes it would lash onto a crawler’s leg and she would swing it into another enemy, but whenever her partner upended one of the monsters, she would use her whip to rip open its softer underbelly.