“Then...”
“Then, we must be creative. I have an idea that will leave the humans fertile, but eliminate any chance of accidental conception, no matter how capably they attempt to breed.”
“Oh? What are you thinking?”
Zarlon laced his fingers together contemplatively. “Well. As you know, my planned retrovirus will simply insert our genetic code directly into their reproductive DNA delivery systems, prompting the humans to begin unwittingly reproducing our species instead of their own. But, that means I can always complicate the existing, ultimately obsolete fertilization process as much as I like, with no future impact upon our needs. Understand?”
Gorax’s face was a complete blank. “Uh, not really.”
Zarlon grinned at his clueless nephew. He always enjoyed showing off moments of sheer scientific genius, even if they couldn’t be fully appreciated by his audience!
“Well, Gorlax. Human sperm and eggs have a kind of lock-and-key mechanism, whereby only one type of key will fit into the lock and allow fertilization. This is to prevent cross-species contamination, which seems an odd thing to have an issue with... but whatever. Now, think about this: what if we kept that same mechanism in place, but simply made the lock impossible to open with only one key...?”
Chapter Two
Swirling, floating, weightless existence... a spirit creature born of heaven and fashioned of shimmering light and boundless hope, residing in an inky black ocean reflecting the twinkling white stars of destiny.
That’s roughly how Nicole felt whenever she was around her secret heartthrob, Kyle Sanders. But Kyle, star athlete and expected prom king of her high school’s senior class, had no eye for sensible, slightly homely girls like Nicole Patterson. He was into sexy, flashy chicks – cheerleaders; the types of vapid airheads with big tits and loose morals who would drape themselves over his arm like a literal fashion accessory, not realizing they could be changed out as easily as his patriotic boxers.
And, confronted each day at school by this demoralizing reminder of fate’s cruel sense of humor, Nicole’s fragile heart broke anew.
Today, however, felt different. Something was a bit off in her normally predictable and generally repetitive universe. The world was a little too bright and colorful. Sounds were louder and clearer. People smiling too readily. Events even seemed to be happening without her conscious notice – for example, she was having difficulty remembering how she got to school that morning. She usually rode her bike, but couldn’t recall anything about the trip. Nor what she had for breakfast. And what homework was due today?
Is this a dream?
Nicole glanced down at herself. Well, either way, at least she was dressed!
And, apparently, already seated in home class. How strange! She couldn’t remember visiting her locker, nor hearing the bell. So, if this wasn’t a dream... was she having a stroke? Or was this some kind of stress-related mental breakdown? She should really punch her symptoms into WebMD...
Someone leaned in from the right.
“You’re looking bitchin’ today,” hissed a familiar male voice.
Incredulous, Nicole turned to the heart-stopping sight of Kyle. Kyle! Sure, he’d always been in her home class, but they’d never sat this close to each other before!
“Um, thanks Kyle,” she replied suspiciously.
“No problem. It had to be said.”
This felt too weird. Speaking with Kyle. They’d barely spoken two words to each other all year long, and that was back when they were part of a group project. Which meant... this just had to be a dream. How depressing! But then again, if she was aware of that, and hadn’t yet woken up... could she perhaps have a little fun inside her brain? She’d heard about conscious dreaming, but had never had opportunity to try it.
No time like the present! “I think you’re fucking hot,” she stated matter-of-factly.
Kyle flashed Nicole a toothy grin. “You too, Nic. Seriously! Not sure why I never noticed. Hey, wanna make out?”
Way to go, brain!
Nicole glanced around the classroom at the thirty-something students listening attentively to the teacher speaking in a low, indecipherable monotone. It all looked and sounded so real, so convincing... but dream world or not, Kyle wanted to kiss, and that was an offer she wouldn’t turn down in any reality!
With excitement filling her heart, Nicole puckered her lips, leaned to the right, and Kyle pressed his gorgeous mouth to hers. Groaning softly as the moist heat of her hunky heartthrob’s soft lips radiated into her own, she felt the tension melt away from her muscles.
Nicole had never felt anything quite like this before. Kissing was so pleasurable, so intimate... so fucking good! But, never having done it before, how could she possibly know how the experience would feel? It didn’t seem logical. Perhaps this wasn’t a dream after all.
“Excuse me!” called out the irritated teacher. “But do you two have something you’d like to share with the class?”
That probably wasn’t a good question to ask someone in a dream.
Without breaking the kiss, Kyle stood up behind his desk, bringing Nicole along with him. Pulling her close, Kyle moved his arms around Nicole’s back and cupped her ass, jerking her hips sharply against his own. She could feel the firm bulge of a sizable erection pressing urgently into her belly and, although still slightly anxious that this might not be a dream, reached around Kyle’s back and did exactly the same with his taut buttocks.
The teacher clapped her hands loudly. “Hey! If you two don’t stop that right now, I’m going to send you both to the principal’s office. What do you think of that?”
Breaking the kiss, Kyle crouched down and fumbled with the top button of Nicole’s jeans. Quickly undoing it, he jerked her pants and panties down in one efficient motion, exposing her naked lower half to the entire classroom.
Nicole heard students cry out in surprise, and shivered from the sheer audacity of their exhibitionistic act.
And then, the fire bell rang.
Clang – clang – clang – clang...
Ignoring it, Kyle thrust his hand between Nicole’s trembling legs and groped at the swollen folds of her extremely aroused sex, his rough fingers seeking to penetrate the dripping wet threshold of her virgin canal.
The fire bell was getting progressively louder, while the teacher was diligently directing her students to leave the classroom single-file. The room around the exhibitionistic couple was looking hazy and indistinct, as though filling with smoke. She needed to hurry!
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Desperate to see as much of Kyle’s naked body as she could, Nicole fought to take off his extra-tight jeans, but for some reason she couldn’t figure out how to undo the snap. It was stuck; like it had been sewn closed. Why was everything being so difficult just when she needed it to be easy?
By now, the fire bell was deafening in her ears, and turning to look for a moment at the extremely hazy and now completely deserted high school classroom, Kyle touched a finger under Nicole’s chin, smiled warmly, and promptly vanished before her eyes.
Chapter Three
The harsh sound of a ladle banging repeatedly against a metal pan rang out like gunshots in the crisp morning air.
“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” called out an authoritative female voice. “This is your big day, girls! What you’ve all been waiting for! Up and at ’em!”
Still half asleep and not wanting to be ripped so cruelly from blissful slumber to harsh consciousness, Nicole groaned and tried to sink deeper into the soft, warm, comforting embrace of her sleeping bag.
All she wanted was to spend another hour or two with Kyle... please, just let her finally see his cock!
All of a sudden, the front flap of the tent unzipped and dappled sunlight shone directly on Nicole’s closed eyelids, prompting her to whine and pinch them tight.
“Wake up, girls!” said someone far too chipper for the ungodly hour. “The early bird catches the worm! This is yo
ur last chance to eat a normal breakfast, so get it while it’s hot!”
With a weary groan, Nicole rolled over, away from the blinding light, the annoying voice, and the acidic smell of wood smoke. Sure, she’d never been much of a morning person before... but why oh why did she feel like death warmed over today? Going by the thick pounding already setting up inside her skull, she could’ve sworn she had a raging hangover!
“Good morning, Ms. Patterson. Get up,” commanded the voice. “You don’t want me to get a pitcher of ice cold glacial water and pour it down your back, now do you, Nicole? Not a very pleasant way to start the day, I can assure you.”
No, what I want is for you to leave so I go back to my glorious dream, where I was... um... what was it about again? Shit!
Grumbling to herself, Nicole angrily unzipped the side of her sleeping bag and flung open the flap.
“Better. The same goes for the rest of you girls. I want your city slicker butts around the campfire in five minutes. No excuses!”
The bossy counselor finally left, and as the five other girls sleeping in the large tent began to mutter and stir unhappily, Nicole stared up at the fabric ceiling of the tent, absolutely hating her life.
One silly mistake. That’s all it had taken to wreck her final summer vacation before college. Just one dumb mistake!
Well, one time getting caught, at least.
But still – how could she have been so stupid as to let herself get roped into this crazy “scared stiff” survival program? Sure, the judge’s 100 hours of community service had sounded like a worse punishment than simply going to camp, like she used to do as a girl for fun... but two whole weeks stuck with complete strangers in the middle of nowhere in Mount Rainier National Park? Without television, cell phones, or the internet? That’s literally 336 straight hours of Amish-grade hell!
‘Character building’ my ass...
Finally sitting upright, Nicole looked around the tent in utter bewilderment, and then broke out in laughter. “Oh my god! I can’t believe it! C’mon, one of you – fess up already!”
Raven, a busty African-American girl with long braided hair and a serious attitude problem, rolled over onto her stomach and muttered the incomprehensible, “Fucking bitch yourself, bitch,” into the thin pillow.
Nicole tried to ignore her. “C’mon, girls. I don’t know how you did it, but one of you seriously has to claim this genius!”
Pushing herself upright, Lynn, a tiny skin-and-bones Asian girl – Nicole thought she might be Japanese, but for some reason it had never come up – yawned hugely and fluffed out her straight, shoulder-length hair. “Fess up t’what?” she asked in a thoroughly southern accent that always threw Nicole.
“Duh! For moving me! I was way in the back of the tent when I went to sleep; now I’m right up front! This ain’t even my sleeping bag! I have no idea how anyone managed to do that without waking me...”
“Hey, you’re right!” exclaimed Jessica, a cute curly-haired blonde with big boobs and an amazing bubble butt that always made Nicole a little jealous. “I was beside Danielle, and now I’m way over on this side with Alexis! I think everyone’s been, like... shuffled around like cards!”
Physically, Jessica reminded Nicole so much of those vapid cheerleaders she’d always hated at school, but in reality she was endearing and open, and the one girl here with whom Nicole had shared more than a little of her embarrassing personal history. Perhaps, she might even call Jessica a new friend – an amazing accomplishment in itself.
Nicole looked at each equally confused face, and couldn’t spot the guilty party.
“Well, shit. So which one of you actually went and played musical sleeping bags?” When no answer was forthcoming, her suspicions immediately went to outside the tent. She wouldn’t put it past any of the eighteen other girls at this dumb camp to pull a prank like this – especially since most of them had huge, and usually unwarranted, chips on their shoulders.
Apparently, Raven was thinking the same thing. “Fucking dyke bitch cunts done fucked with the wrong fucking bitch!” she proclaimed eloquently.
Nicole felt her cheeks blushing red. Having been raised in a very prim-and-proper middle-class family, where Sunday was spent at church and swearing just never happened, she was still finding Raven’s constant blue streak something of a shock to the system.
“Now, don’t jump to conclusions,” offered moderately chubby redhead Danielle, who seemed to Nicole like the type of girl who’d normally be cheerful and fun to be around... if she wasn’t also so intensely self-conscious and defensive. “Maybe we all just forgot where we went to sleep?”
“The fucking hell I did!” exclaimed Raven. “I’d remember your fat ass jammed in my fucking face.”
“Hey! Your ass is clearly bigger than mine.”
Raven smirked. “Difference is, Red, mine looks fuckin’ good when I twerk.”
“Oh, so I guess your mama taught you everything she knows about strippin’, huh?”
As the two girls continued taking not-altogether-good-natured jabs at each other, Nicole went to stand up, and was immediately struck by crushing wave of nausea, paired with a throbbing migraine headache.
“Oh my effing god!” she groaned, interrupting the pointless argument about the finer points of jiggling butts. “Any of you girls feel like death warmed over today?”
Lynn frowned and rubbed her oil-shined forehead. “Now that y’all mention it, it’s kinda like I drank a quart or two of vodka last night, and it’s looking to come out the same way it went in. Think that’s the pork an’ beans kickin’ back?”
Danielle snorted. “Well, that gas factory certainly didn’t help the flammability levels in here.”
“Says the bitch who farted the most,” jabbed Raven.
Danielle scowled at the black girl, but otherwise ignored the insult. “But yeah, Nic. I feel like complete shit. Anyone else?”
The four remaining girls looked at each other, and shrugged indifferently. Which, around here, meant ‘yes’.
Nicole’s mind immediately went to the unthinkable: had they been drugged?
But how? The entire camp had eaten from the same big pot of beans, drunk from the same pitchers of water and powdered orange drink. It just didn’t seem likely. Although, that might explain why none of them had woken up when they were rearranged. But who in their right mind would bring roofies to a state-run camp? That’s just asking for real jail time!
Alexis, a statuesque bi-racial African American girl with short cornrows and the most stunning figure Nicole had ever seen, spoke for the first time that morning. “Meh... I’m sure it’s just all the oxygen out here. There’s, like, too much of it or something! I’m used to good ol’ Seattle, and its soothing layer of smog...”
“Yeah, along with a lit bud to help build that layer just a little thicker, huh?”
Alexis smirked at Danielle, just as someone outside whacked the front of the tent.
“One minute warning, girls! Last to breakfast equals last pick of the campsites!”
“Oh, fuck.”
Sadly, Nicole and her five randomly assigned teammates were indeed the last of four teams of delinquent girls to arrive to a breakfast of undercooked bacon, watery scrambled eggs, and burnt toast. And to think: this would probably be their best meal for the next five days!
Keeping an eye on the other tables, Nicole tried to spot anyone paying a little too much attention to them, but once again came up empty handed. What was the point of pulling a genius prank that no one knew you pulled? It was all very odd!
After eating, the group moved to an open assembly area. With the towering evergreen trees swaying gently in the warm summer breeze, the four counselors began prepping their charges on what was to come next: namely, five straight days of wilderness survival. The culmination of the past nine days of their so-called survival training exercises, which to Nicole, had seemed more like an experiment in how many ridiculous mnemonics could be devised.
Leaves of three,
let it be! Well, duh.
This was the first year for the Washington state-run pilot project known as “Lifetime Survival Skills”, shorted to “LSS” – or as Raven had so eloquently dubbed it, “Lame Sucky Shit”. The program was intended for young, at-risk inner-city adults who’d been in and out of the system multiple times, but might still respond to the more traditional “boot camp” experience.
According to the sickeningly upbeat pamphlet, the program would “offer a new perspective on life and your role in today’s modern society, instill leadership potential, teach valuable teamwork and self-sufficiency skills, and bolster confidence that you, too, can tackle whatever new trials life throws at you!”
Nicole was no regular delinquent, and had never been in the system until the unfortunate incident... but the wary college she’d already been accepted to had made it known that she would not be allowed to attend this fall without first successfully completing the court-mandated program.
So, as much as she and her pseudo-hangover wanted to crawl under a rock and pass out for the rest of the day, she had no choice but to suck it up.
“You are all adults in the eyes of the law,” lectured one of the four female counselors to the twenty-four fidgety girls seated on evenly spaced rows of hewn logs. Nicole had never bothered to learn the staff’s real names – but in her head, there was Bitchy, Bossy, Busty and Blondie. “So, for the next five days, you will truly be on your own, as adults. We will not be watching from the shadows. There are no lifelines or call-a-friends. No safety nets. But, be forewarned that there will be one unannounced visit to check on your progress – so always be prepared.”
Great. Can’t even escape authority figures in the middle of nowhere!
“You will each be given a backpack containing everything you need to survive for the next five days. If you lose your backpack, or consume your supplies too quickly, we will not rescue you. You and your team will have to find a way to survive on the land. Remember everything you’ve been taught, and be resourceful. The natives used to call this region the ‘fertile valley’, a name that was well earned. It will provide for you, too, if you only know what to look for. But don’t eat just anything!”
Fully Equipped- Futas Gone Wild Page 2