Saldana continued, “You may pick your personal cohort, subject to my approval. The tests will be administered personally by me and in front of the full Black Shirt military council. Do you accept?”
“I do. Willingly and gratefully. I serve at your pleasure. My life is forfeit to you and to you alone. I pledge my honor, my life and my devotion to you absolutely.”
“Accepted. You will be formally installed in one month’s time, at the assembly in the Olympic Peninsula. I will make the arrangements. Now, you have your assignments in these envelopes. I wish you to hold number seven for now. Do not open that envelope until I specifically inform you to do so. Are we clear?”
“We are, Mistress.”
“Then you will proceed with that task upon my written instructions only and that order must be sealed with the Great Seal.”
“Understood.”
“Good, then bring the ropes. I wish to participate tonight. You will do as I instruct, and you will obey my every command. Are we clear?”
“Yes, Mistress. As you command.”
“Remove your clothes. Then, follow me.”
***
The command to remove his clothing was new. He had never undressed in the company of women and considered the act contrary to his moral code. His oath was to obedience and any commitments made prior to his ascension could be set aside. Those were the rules of his Order.
Saldana paused at the door leading into the living room. Calista and Tory awaited just beyond the passageway.
“I haven’t forgotten my commitment to you, Patrick. Nor have I chosen to ignore the tenets of your faith. You will not couple with any unclean woman nor any woman not chosen freely by you. Should you wish to remain pure, you may do so. However, everything short of the final act of procreation shall henceforth be my exclusive province. And you shall obey my every command. Do you consent?”
“I do.”
The physical effect was as immediate as it was desired and expected. Patrick didn’t wish to couple, but not for the reasons he most often gave. Saldana understood his unique pathology when it came to his erotic nature. He was unconcerned with his purity; it was the stimulus for that path that troubled his mind. He knew there to be only one who would be his chosen.
He hadn’t found her yet, but he would.
He would be required to demonstrate utter and abject obedience to Saldana Ri, whose word could be his death sentence at a whim. At the same time, he would be given full opportunity to fulfill his dreams and appetites with the full approval of his Mistress and an unlimited supply of innocents for his unique forms of pleasure.
Her constraints between the two extremes, as with this evening, would show him a third way. She would see if her surmise was correct and, as they entered the living room, she could already see that the physical consequence of her conjecture was correct.
She would minister to that consequence herself and his satisfaction might even be equal to hers. As she entered the room, she commanded Tory Bright to approach her. She did.
Saldana said, “Let’s see what lies hidden beneath. On your knees. Now.”
She then turned to her sister. “You too; on your knees, woman.”
“Sister?”
Saldana ignored the question in her sister’s eyes; her sister then understood what was about to take place.
“Patrick, bring the ropes. Let us begin this evening. First, my sister, while the other one watches, and anticipates her turn. Then we shall take her up slowly and methodically. With craft, attention to detail and with the artistic genius for which you have long been considered unmatched.”
Patrick moved toward Calista, whose head was now facing the floor, her hands voluntarily placed behind her back.
“Did you obtain the items I requested?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Mistress! Yes, that’s who I shall be to you from this day forward!” Suddenly Saldana’s aspect changed to a different, and darker version of herself; she was gripped with a mixture of expected intense pleasure, erotic thrill, and absolute power. She suddenly realized she had the power to do whatever she pleased, at her whim. To punish on a lark for any infraction, real or perceived. Or to teach object lessons to her adherents. The women now in front of her, bound and helpless, would be her first lesson to her flock: even her own sister wasn’t beyond punishment, and severe punishment at that.
“Yes, Mistress! Your implements are in that drawer. I await your instructions.”
“My sister has long been proud of her unblemished body. She believes herself, womanlier, more voluptuous, and more desirable than I. Let us see if that is true. And let us see what remains true afterward.
“Drag her to me! On her knees.”
Chapter 16
Saldana Ri was fully prepared for the response that had followed the attempted attack at the 3 Birds in London where Vera was to meet with Ellie Marks. However, Saldana had no way of knowing whether Vera Capri really had any connection to the Human or, if she did, what his response would likely be. These were just two great unknowns. Charles Hanley had given her excellent intelligence about the Human’s response to the incident at the Grand Canyon, and assumed that if this human woman, Vera Capri, was part of his family, the response would be immediate and deadly. Though the timing was slightly premature, Saldana had hoped for an aggressive response, perhaps one that was even more deadly than the one that had materialized. Then she could then gauge the strength of that response to see if the Human’s threatened retaliation after the Grand Canyon incident was mere bluster or real.
The death of tens of thousands of Gens was immaterial to her; mere collateral damage.
While she hoped for something stronger, she was still delighted with what had transpired. Reports were streaming in from all over the Gens Universe that this “unprovoked attack” couldn’t go unpunished. Humanity had crossed a line and attacked the Collective without cause or warning. The Collective had lost over eighty thousand Gens plus the flower of their scientific community in America. Though all was far from lost, both the Elders, and the hotheads alike demanded that mankind would now have to pay for this affront and pay dearly.
This notion of retribution was absurd, of course, but Paulo realized how it looked politically. He would have to gain control of the situation and calm the many rash calls for retaliation. What would any form of retaliation accomplish anyway?
Paulo could smell a set-up from a long distance; he himself had used the technique on more than one occasion. Though uncertain about Enzo’s precise role in all this, a matter that would be determined later, Paulo certainly could sense that Saldana Ri was at the very bottom of the incident that inspired the Human’s overwhelming reaction. Only she and her Black Shirts could profit from the massive Gens death toll, and the outrage that followed. The response, and the response to that response, were predictable; Paulo had failed to prevent both the triggering event and the Black Shirt finesse afterwards.
Only now was he aware of the consequences of waging a war on multiple fronts that he was only now beginning to realize he couldn’t win. He would now have to tell the absolute truth to the Councils and he would most certainly have to tell some part of the truth to the Human. In the meantime, he would try to reign in his own people long enough to bring everyone up to speed. He would speak to the Human, if it could even be arranged, to prevent an all-out conflagration that played directly into the hands of the Black Shirts. He knew time was short, as the ordinary Gens would soon begin to believe that the existence of the Collective had been discovered and attacks by humanity begun. First, unrest and panic would ensue, then these same ordinary Gens would begin to line up with the Black Shirts and the fires of Armageddon would be lit.
Chaos and death would result; The Gens would be no more.
The Collective’s long planned response was no longer possible given the destruction of BioGens’ American Labs. Foreign Labs had little capability of producing either the E-5 virus or t
he Serums, at least none that he was aware of. In that assessment, he was mostly right. In one fell swoop, the Human had effectively disarmed the Collective’s offensive weapons military capability. Transformation back to natural state and random attacks were the only plausible capabilities left. That wouldn’t go well, as Paulo well understood.
And, it would mean that the total annihilation of his kind would begin.
Paulo’s assessment of his own capability, the Collective, was certainly bang on. However, his overall assessment of the full Gens capability, including the Black Shirts was faulty.
***
Saldana Ri had arranged for the safe departure of her rogue Black Shirt scientists, researchers, and technicians before the attacks on the American Labs had begun. Other Gens notables had been kidnapped at the same time.
That process had begun the night before with robocalls and urgent emails sent out ostensibly under the name of Paulo Fortizi, using the Princeton Lab’s server. These were coded messages which meant that the scientists were not to go to their Labs in the morning but were to gather at central locations for redeployment. Other key personnel who were not Black Shirts would be contacted, misled and co-opted for a new assignment. Once safely away from the Labs, they would be taken to new locations and they would continue their new jobs for new Masters.
Their consent wasn’t, however, asked or required.
Their families would be gathered later and would be allowed to join them if everyone cooperated. Failure to cooperate would prove both futile and lethal. By the time many of these BioGen employees figured out they had been duped, it would be far too late.
Charles Hanley and his brother Frank had been early supporters of the Movement, notwithstanding their long association with the Fortizi Clan. As close friends, but not family, they would never ascend to the heights of power they saw themselves as having earned. Their treachery was the only avenue the Black Shirts had for any chance of success; the Black Shirts needed someone on the inside of BioGen who could hack into the technology at Princeton. Frank Hanley had planned, implemented, and executed the whole scheme involving the wholesale theft of BioGen research, and development data as well as the false emails regularly sent implicating Enzo and other Gens officials. Access to BioGen financial data, the theft of large sums of BioGen cash worldwide, as well as the misinformation, and disinformation distributed to Gens leadership worldwide before, during and after the attack in London, were all critical items that the brothers Hanley had engineered at the behest of Saldana Ri.
The brothers thought they had engineered a coup that Saldana, and the Black Shirt leadership would reward greatly.
A giant miscalculation.
Instead, they would be given a death sentence. After all, once they had betrayed the Collective, what use were these traitors to the Black Shirts? The Black Shirts had their own financial, management and military infrastructure in place, using reliable Black Shirt leadership. They had no need of the brothers Hanley after D-Day. Besides, the brothers might decide to switch sides again.
They were, after all, deplorable traitors who should die a traitor’s death.
Who knew why Frank Hanley did anything for the cause; but Charles had casually sold out for sex with Saldana Ri in human form. Seriously, how trustworthy could he be? How trustworthy could either of them be?
Charles disgusted her and Saldana informed Patrick Murphy O’Brien where to find Charles and his brother in New York City. He would be allowed to play with them for as long as he liked, within reason. Saldana had told Patrick earlier that she had another surprise for him and, while she wanted to be there for play time, she had other pressing duties.
Saldana’s skills, in natural and transformed state, were reputed to be exceptional, though the details were often quite sketchy. So much of Saldana’s rep would later be found to have come solely from Saldana herself. Most of it was invented, though her ability to manipulate was probably the only virtue for which she was never given full credit.
***
The Black Shirt rogue scientists had been planning their eventual departure from the BioGen Labs for several years. As their research had begun to take shape, and the difficulty of falsifying the fruits of their labor growing ever harder, they knew they would have to depart soon. Most of the scientists at the American BioGen Labs were committed Gens loyalists. It took skill to alter results to the point where even they were fooled. And effort, real effort, was required to pull the wool over the eyes of the brothers Fortizi who would be verifying results with other BioGen Labs. Enzo Fortizi was watching them like a hawk without discernment; unfortunately, his brother, who was competent to analyze the data with discernment, never looked. Saldana Ri counted on this peculiarity of the Gens management system.
Eventual discovery was considered only a matter of time, so these traitors reported their concerns to Calista Gold, who in turn expressed her concern to her sister, Saldana. Within weeks of that call, the search for new facilities had begun and within a year the new Labs had been built and outfitted. A few young Black Shirt scientists, researchers and technicians were then assigned to the new facilities, awaiting the arrival of their seniors when the time came.
The time had finally come.
Chapter 17
Saldana Ri liked to plan ahead, and she knew that, one day, one or more of her rogue scientists or Gens plants in one of the Labs would be discovered and brought to account. She knew that both Enzo and Paulo, indeed every one of the Gens leaders on the High Councils, would react somewhat poorly to treason. After all, the secrecy and the existence of the Gens Collective had been successfully hidden from mankind for millennia; that took a mix of fear, cooperation, and discipline. Collective leadership always portrayed the consequences of revelation as the genocidal end of their kind. This was a tenet of Collective faith as well as the cornerstone belief for over six millennia.
Keeping the existence of the Collective secret was both the key to securing permission to transform to human form, as well as the key to remaining transformed with all its attendant benefits. While ordinary Gens in natural state might be allowed to “vacation” in human form, that was far from having permission to remain so. The risks of discovery in transformed state were high and only those Gens who could be trusted were permitted to do so. Historically, the threshold wasn’t, however, very high. Notwithstanding, historically over a third of Gens never transformed.
Unfortunately for the current leadership, the ordinary citizen Gens now widely believed that transformation was becoming a privilege to be doled out as a political reward for Clans that supported the Fortizi leadership. Fewer and fewer members of the opposition Clans were afforded that privilege. Transformation had always been a privilege for the Collective as a whole; it had never been used as political patronage or graft. Numbers were more or less evenly distributed throughout all Clans, by the leadership of those Clans.
Transformations in many areas were now being permitted by local and regional councils in their territories as a political right not requiring further approval of Collective global leadership. The Fortizi’s had more than once overstepped the boundaries of law and custom. Many ordinary Gens had grown tired of the abuses and inequality; they had come to believe that the Collective was devolving into a class system of haves and have nots, the privileged few and the rank-and-file many.
This wasn’t the Gens way. This was the human way.
The Gens understood the need for adaptation and change as well as the inherent risk of discovery due to intemperate transformed individuals who couldn’t restrain their naturally aggressive instincts while in human form. For the benefit of the many, sacrifices had to be made by individuals, families, and Clans. But leadership was put in power to exercise good judgment on behalf of all. Unfortunately, this system was now akin to a so-called “enlightened dictatorship”, historically reminiscent of ancient Rome; of Gaius Marius, Cornelius Sulla, and Julius Caesar. Many feared the “enlightened” aspect had long been
cast aside. What was left in its place was an authoritarian rule given to exploitation and harsh punishments. Retribution had become a fact of life; many in the Collective now feared their neighbors, and the delicate balance of informal social order as transformed Gens was breaking down.
More Gens had been exiled in the past five years than in the previous one hundred. Inequality was rife. The Collective’s leadership appeared to be evolving by many into the worst examples of human social and political structures. Many transformed Gens ‘thought leaders’ began formulating counter culture views on the rights of Gens to freely transform back and forth at will.
If Saldana Ri had any skill in abundance, it was her ability to read the mood of her people. Her understanding of Gens history, lore and socio-political constructs was first class, perhaps even the best of her generation. In planning for the future, she took the view that all aspects of modern Gens society had to be accounted for; she had to manage many disparate views on many disparate issues. Not all Gens came along with new ideas equally well, or as quickly; some traditional elements of society were quite slow in adapting. On many other sociopolitical matters, she knew she would need to create the very emergencies and crisis that she would then offer to solve. It had to appear to be a problem that had been created by current leadership either through rash action or incompetent inaction.
Even better, she thought, was to create a false emergency and then claim she had successfully forestalled an imminent crisis. In cases like this, who would know? It’s not like the Gens Collective had journalists covering non-existent stories.
Events had taken a distinct turn for the better in her direction. A little push here, a little shove there, and if there was just enough tension and fear among the herd, a conflagration just might ignite. She would’ve preferred events to manifest in another year or two, but beggars can’t be choosers. She had put many events into motion hoping that one or more might begin the nuclear chain reaction only she could control. When chaos reigned, she and her leadership with step forward with solutions, a firm hand, and a guiding set of core principles.
Probe Page 78