Double Helix Ch. 25

Stan

I woke up alone that morning, which wasn't unusual. Stansy typically slept for about five hours, woke with the sun, ate a modest breakfast, and headed immediately to her worksite. Me? I needed at least seven hours to function well.

I dressed and said "hello" to Stanford on the way to the kitchen, and to Gena, who was also just getting started with her day, nibbling on a piece of toast behind her terminal. I had just settled into my desk, sipping a steaming mug of our precious coffee, looking forward to a day of coding and testing, when the front door opened and immediately slammed shut. I looked up from my terminal just as Norm stalked in. Stanford and Gena looked at him, then at me, so I shrugged at them. Norm scanned the room quickly, his gaze falling on me as he prowled. "Is Stansy here?"

I stood and moved to intercept him. "I thought she was working with you today."

Norm shook his head. "No, she didn't show up to work. She's not at the lab or anywhere in the big house. No one over there has seen her since last night."

"I saw her this morning." We both looked over at Stanford, another early riser, and he pointed to my terminal. "She logged on for a few minutes. Then she took off out of here." He frowned suddenly. "I think she took the cell phone with her. She didn't say why. She didn't even look at me, for that matter."

I checked my desk and saw that, as described, the charging stand was empty. I went through the desk drawers just to be sure, but the phone was nowhere to be found. "Why the hell would she take it? And where could she have gone?"

Norm pulled his phone from his pocket and waved it at me. "Why don't we call her and find out?" He flipped it open, dialed and set it on my desk, turning on the speaker. It rang twice before picking up.

"Yeah." Stansy's voice. She sounded almost bored, and I could hear a lot of ambient noise coming through the phone.

Norm crossed his arms, glaring at the phone. "Stansy, where the hell are you? Are you driving?"

She sighed. "Yeah, I'm about ten miles from Salem, going north on I-5."

"You're what?!" He looked at me in confusion, and I frowned, shaking my head to indicate that I had no idea. "Why?"

"I'm bringing my son home. He sent me an email and he's been..." She sighed again. "Look, Chris needs me, and I'm going to him. That's all you need to know."

Norm began to reply but I spoke over him, keeping my voice calm and controlled. "You know you can't do that, Stansy. That's a major breach of our security."

"I don't give a fuck about security, Stan. I'm not leaving my son on the streets for one minute longer."

Norm leaned over the phone, "Don't do this, Stansy. Just come back and we'll--" But the line had already gone dead. "Shit!"

He dialed her again, but this time, the call went straight to voicemail. "Goddammit!" he spat, raising the phone as though he were going to throw it, but he visibly controlled himself and lowered his arm. I glanced over at Stanford, who had stopped working and stared at Norm, mouth agape. He saw my look and deliberately turned back to his work.

"At least she doesn't have the genemod markers anymore," I said. "She'll breeze through any checkpoint."

Norm frowned. "Yeah, and that's something else to ponder. She was really insistent about getting that procedure done as soon as possible. I wonder how long she's been planning this."

"Well, she never said anything to me, if that's what you're wondering."

"Which car did she take?" Gena asked suddenly, swiveling in her chair to face Norm. She flashed a grin. "I've got an idea."

Five minutes later, after a quick run over to the big house, Norm unlatched the barn door and swung it back. The old box truck we had brought from Sasha's storage unit was there, but the spot next to it, where Tilly's truck would normally have been parked, was empty.

"Ha, I knew it!" Gena said triumphantly. "She took the Chevy. We can track her."

"And how are we going to do that?" Norm asked.

Gena smiled. "Easy. I rigged Tilly's truck with a wireless transceiver and router so we have a mobile test node for the mesh network. It activates when you start the car, and it'll run until you shut it down or it drains the batteries. There's a dedicated bank of them in the truck bed that recharges from the alternator. All we have to do is get within a few hundred meters and I'll be able to pick up the signal. We can pick her up from further away, if she's in a rural area, and even further if we can get somewhere high up."

"Whoa, hold on," I said. "You want to go after her? Are we sure that's a good idea?"

Norm shifted on his feet, considering. "Well, you also had your genemod markers removed. Technically, Gena isn't illegal because she's a revert."

"I've gone through checkpoints before," Gena affirmed. "Though that was a long time ago."

"I'm still on the FBI's radar," Norm continued, "but I've evaded detection this long. I'd say if anyone goes, it should be the three of us. Either way, we need to make a decision quickly, if we're going to catch Stansy. She's got more than a half-hour head start on us."

I considered Norm's words. The risks were manageable, and we needed to get a handle on this situation. "Alright," I said. "I'm in. When do we leave?"

"Right now," Norm said. "We take the big truck and we catch up to her, or at least catch her coming back." He started moving towards the box truck as he said it, already taking out a set of keys from his pocket.

"Oh," Gena said, frowning.

"What?" Norm and I said together.

"Well, I won't be able to detect the Chevy's network node just yet. I need to put together a portable wireless unit for that."

Norm glanced at his watch. "I thought this was something you had ready. Stansy will be in Portland in less than an hour. How long is this gonna take?"

Gena chewed at her lip. "Um, I guess I can grab the equipment I need from the west house and put it together on the way. I'll have to ride in the back."

"Now that's more like it," Norm said, though I detected a hint of sarcasm in his tone. He resumed striding towards the truck and spoke without turning back. "So get your asses in gear, both of you."

Norm drove over the gravel road a bit faster than I was comfortable with, both in terms of the outright speed and the way the old truck's suspension bottomed out on the pot holes. We pulled up to the house and Gena leapt from the truck, disappearing inside. About five minutes later, she reappeared with Stanford, the two of them carrying various tools and electrical components, including a spare car battery. She had even thought of bringing some portable lighting--smart, since the truck had only a single, dim bulb at the front of the bay.

"Hope you can work under pressure, sis'," Norm said through his open window as she hurried past. "You've only got an hour and a half to Portland, less if I can help it."

"You worry about driving," she retorted. "I'll worry about the engineering."

A minute later, Gena and her gear were loaded in the back and we were on the road. Stanford would let everyone know where we had gone and why. If they needed to contact us, there were two more cell phones, one with Nock and one in the lab.

On the way North, Norm and I tried to figure out the most likely places Stansy might have gone. One idea we had was to just pull over at an overpass and wait for her to return, but there were a few problems with that. There were two major highways coming out of Portland going south, and we couldn't be sure which one she would take. We also had no idea how long we might be waiting there and no way of knowing if we somehow missed her.

Instead, we pieced together what we knew to come up with the most likely options for meeting up with her son. I knew from my conversations with Stansy that there was a homeless shelter that would sometimes feed him, and there was a library where he would go to access a terminal for email.

"That probably doesn't narrow it down a whole lot," Norm said. "There has to be several homeless shelters in town, libraries, too. He could easily roam a few miles between them."

I nodded and turned to stare out at the countryside rushing by, wracking my brain. The memory came to me abruptly. "There'll be a bridge, one that spans a river. Stansy said he had been sleeping under a bridge, and that it got cold and damp most nights."

Norm nodded. "Okay, now we're talking. There's two rivers in Portland, the Willamette and the Columbia." He flipped open his phone and dialed.

Nock picked up a few seconds later. "What's up, boss?"

"Hey, I need you to look for a homeless shelter, a library, and a bridge over a river in the Portland metro area, all within, say, a mile or two of each other. Can you do that?"

"Already on it," Nock said, the clacking of keys just audible on our end. "Lots of libraries, some of them pretty small, though."

"Make sure they have public terminals," I put in.

"Got it. That might pare it down a bit. This bridge for a highway or a surface street?"

Norm frowned. "Not likely a highway. Needs to be somewhere that people can easily get beneath it for shelter."

Another burst of clacking keys. "Okay, I think I got it. Most likely place is downtown. You've got the central branch of the Multnomah County Library, four different shelters nearby, and about nine bridges along a stretch of the Willamette."

"That's our destination, then," Norm said. "Thanks, man."

"Don't mention it, boss. Stay safe."

Norm ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket. "Our chances of intercepting her just got a whole lot better." He glanced at me, frowned, and spoke slowly. "So, how are you doing with this whole mess?"

I shrugged. "I'll admit, I'm a little nervous about being stopped and questioned."

Norm shook his head. "No, not that. How are you feeling about Stansy? I mean, I was just thinking about what I'm going to do when we catch up to her. And with the two of you getting..." He seemed to think better of finishing that sentence, but I had already picked up his meaning.

"You mean, am I having second thoughts about the wedding?" I hadn't had time to think those kinds of thoughts, and I didn't really want them clouding my judgment right now. "I'm just focused on the here and now, if you don't mind."

"Yeah, alright," Norm said. "I've half a mind to build a jail cell just so we can toss her in it for a while."

We didn't say anything more for a while after that. Norm was pushing the truck well over the speed limit, and was gripping the steering wheel hard as he scanned the roadsides for highway patrol.

"I'm not sure," I said at last. "What Stansy did? Well, it's a betrayal of all of us. At the same time, I think I can understand why she did it. This is her child. Aren't parents supposed to be ready to die to save their own children?"

Norm shook his head ruefully. "She planned this months ago, Stan. That's why she had the genemod markers removed. She's just been waiting for the right moment to stab us in the back. I'm not just worried that Chris might decide to leave and go back to live with his dad. He said people were after him. What if they are surveilling him? What if Stansy gets him and they follow her back to the farm?"

It was hard to argue with that, but I tried to anyway. "Like you said, she had a lot of time to plan. Maybe she thought of a way to deal with potential pursuit. She's not stupid, Norm. Standard Upgrades have about three standard deviations of IQ over baseline humans, and she's no exception. She might have let her maternal instincts make this decision, but I don't think she made it lightly. Think about it, if she had come to you first, asked if she could go get Chris, would you have let her?"

He scoffed. "Hell, no."

"Even if she could ensure that he was committed to staying on the Farm, and there was no way anyone could follow her back to us?"

"Still no," he admitted. "The Agency was working on it with Nock. It was just a matter of time for us to figure out a safe process to bring him under their care."

"And how many months have they been working on that?"

He sighed. "A long damn time. Alright, I get it."

"Don't take that the wrong way. I'm not blaming you for failing her. You've got to watch out for everyone's safety above all else. And we're in agreement that she's out of line. I'm just saying that I can see things from her perspective."

He mulled that over as we sat in silence. Then I jumped in my seat when three loud bangs came from behind our heads.

"That'll be Gena," Norm said, looking ahead for an offramp. "I hope she's got good news for us."

We got off the highway and Norm turned into a Chevron gas station. I ran around to unlatch the door and Gena sat down on the edge of the open bay, blinking in the sudden brightness. Next to her, the car battery was now adorned with circuit boards and compact electrical devices, connected together with soldered wiring, and the whole thing bound together with bungee cords.

"It's done," she said proudly. She flipped a switch and a little LED screen lit up with a rotating sequence of dots. "Booting up," she explained.

A few seconds later, the LED flashed "Ready", then went blank. Gena picked up a kind of Y-shaped wand with teeth running down the top and bottom of both tines, a yagi antenna, which was connected by a thick cable to one of the circuit boards. She pointed the antenna at a hotel across the street, and the LED screen lit up, listing "S8HotelGuest." A meter to the right showed the signal strength at 95%. She grabbed the top strap of the battery, using it as a handle and grunting with the effort to lift and carry it. She moved around the side of the truck, watching the display and rotating the wand, stopping when a new listing popped up, "BestWest1", this one at 70%.

"The sensitivity is better than I had hoped," she said with a grin. "That hotel is at least a hundred meters away, and that's just a standard network node. The one on that truck is boosted, so we should pick it up from a quarter mile away, maybe even half a mile."

"Yeah, ya did good," Norm admitted, and I saw a look on his face that was becoming more common of late, actual pride in his sister.

"Told you I know my shit," she said and started hobbling along the side of the truck with her device, heading for the open passenger door.

"I've got shotgun," I said, smiling.

Gena shot me a frown but didn't argue. She did, however, make it a point to put her wireless scanner on the floor in front of my seat, so I had to maneuver my legs around it when getting in. The antenna she kept in her hands, and when Norm got us back on the freeway, she used it to scan the road ahead of us. "Keep an eye on that display for me, will you?" she asked me.

I watched the display for a minute, but with the rural surroundings, there wasn't much to pick up. I glanced at Norm, who was frowning at the road ahead. "Something bothering you?" I said.

He looked my way and nodded. "Reach under the seat," he said. "You might have to search around a little. And they'll be taped up pretty good."

Norm was right, it wasn't easy to find whatever he wanted, and when I did find the duct tape and peeled it off, the heavy object that came with it was unmistakable. I pulled the handgun out, thumbed the safety to ensure that it was engaged, checked that the chamber was empty, popped out the magazine to verify that it, too, was empty, and then held it at my side. It was a compact unit, obviously built for concealed carry. "Should we be getting these out now?" I asked.

Norm patted his side near his lower back. "I've got mine already holstered. There's another Sig under the seat, plus a couple of extra mags. I've also got two holsters back here." He patted the top of the seat.

I shrugged and went for the other gun, bringing out two extra magazines and two boxes of.380 ammo. "Have you shot these before?" I asked.

"Yeah. You've shot the Glocks before, right?"

I nodded. "I still go out to the range once or twice a week."

"Good. Then you'll probably do fine with this one. How 'bout you, sis?"

Gena glanced down at the guns in my hands. "Um, I've shot the Glocks a bit. I'm not great with them, though."

"That's okay. They're just a precaution. If you have to use it, make sure you're close, just not too close. Aim for the center of mass and don't be afraid to dump multiple shots."

Gena nodded uncertainly, but set down the antenna so we could put on the holsters. Despite her professed lack of competency, she knew all of her safety checks and quickly loaded rounds into both of her magazines before holstering it at her back. She didn't have anywhere in her clothing to put the extra magazine, so I put them in my backpack, along with a full box of ammo. "I really hope we don't have to use them," I murmured.

"Not likely," Norm said. "But if we're going, we're going in prepared."

Twenty minutes later, the freeway shifted abruptly to a city street as high-rise buildings loomed ahead. Gena kept swinging the antenna back and forth as we made our way into the city. The Willamette River came up along our right side, and assuming we were correct about the location, Stansy would be meeting her son somewhere in the streets and buildings on our left. When I mentioned this to Gena, she altered her sweep to an arc that roamed from pointing at the windshield to just over Norm's shoulder. Norm grimaced as she passed the thing near his face, but didn't say anything.

I glanced down at the LED display on the scanner every few seconds. It would continue to list a network for several seconds after the antenna had lost the signal, and I had watched as it detected dozens of networks, none of them the one we were looking for. So, when the network name "GenaMobile01" appeared, it took my brain a moment to recognize the significance.

"That's it!" I nearly shouted. "Gena, bring it back a few degrees."

The network had disappeared off the display, but the scanner reacquired it as Gena swung the antenna back. "Right there," I said, but she had already stopped moving, peering down at the display herself now.

"Signal strength is high," she said. "It's close." She glanced at the road. "Take the next left."

"We lost it," I cautioned, and Gena swung the antenna further left, smacking her brother in the forehead. "Sorry, Mar--uh, Norm," she said, this time lifting it over his head.

"That's it," I said. "You got it again."

"Like I said, it's close."

Norm turned at the next street, forcing Gena to readjust to acquire the signal again. I noticed that the signal strength would start to fall off before it was lost entirely, and I used that to help her stay on target by calling the signal strength out. "Left again," she said, then. "Circle this block."

Norm gave her an odd look but did as she asked, turning right twice so that we pointed back toward the main road. "It's the parking garage," I said. She'd been pointing at it both times as we went by from either side.

"We're probably too big to fit in there," Norm said, eyeing the north entrance as it came into view. "We'll have to park somewhere else and come back on foot."

"Let us out here then," Gena said. "Come find us after you park."

Norm looked at me. "You good with that?"

"Do we have any radios?"

"Glove box," Norm said.

There were two of our comm units in the truck's large glove compartment. I grabbed one, leaving the other for Norm. We hopped out as soon as the truck came to a stop and I helped Gena gather her wireless scanner. We didn't want to attract attention by blocking traffic, so Norm pulled away as soon as we were clear.

I clipped the radio to my belt and put on the headpiece, thankful to hear static when I switched it on, since silence would indicate a dead battery. It occurred to me a little late that Gena would look a bit conspicuous hauling her scanner around. I looked her up and down quickly. "If anyone asks, you're a university student working on a project."

"Okay, which university?"

I didn't know much about Portland higher education, so I shrugged. "I don't know. You got a better idea?"

"Nope. A project, then. We'll leave it at that."

She had a bead on the signal, her attention focused on the antenna and the display, so I put a hand on her shoulder to guide her to the pedestrian entrance. She grunted at every step with the effort of carrying the thing. "Seems to be a bit above us," she said. "The signal strength is really high, though. We must be close."

The cars were close-packed in the darkened interior as we climbed the slope that led to the next level up. Because of that, we didn't see Tilly's truck until we were about fifty yards away. I nudged Gena and pointed up the ramp. She nodded, giving the antenna a quick wave to left and right to confirm before setting the device down with a huff and rubbing her hands together. Carrying that battery around was a lot for an unenhanced slip of a girl like her.

I moved closer to the vehicle to confirm that the license plate was ours before keying my radio. "We found the truck, Norm. Gena's device led us right to it. Over." Gena looked up from checking the device to flash me a grin and I gave her a thumbs-up.

"That's great. I'll swing around the block one more time and meet you guys there. Over."

"Negative," I said. "That truck won't fit in here. I checked the clearance on the way in. You should try to find another place to park. You can make your way over on foot if you want. Over."

Norm's voice suddenly sounded cold, despite the radio's distortion. "Yeah, I'll do that. I want to be there when she shows up."

"Fair enough," I agreed. "See you soon."

"Can we sit down?" Gena said. I nodded, sitting on the truck's tailgate. She groaned as she lifted the device once more with both hands and moved toward me in an awkward gait.

"I can carry that if you want," I offered, thinking it was a bit late now. Stansy or I could have handled the thing effortlessly in one hand. Sometimes I had to remind myself how fragile and weak the unenhanced were compared to us.

"I got it," she wheezed. She stumbled over and set the thing down harder than she probably intended. "I'm probably going to hang onto this. It could be really useful for surveying purposes." She pulled a portable soldering iron from somewhere and went to work securing a wire that had started to work loose.

Just five minutes later, I spotted Stansy exiting the stairwell. The teenager walking next to her stood nearly a foot taller than her and was dressed in stained and tattered clothing. She stopped abruptly on seeing me, her son catching himself a step later.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Her tone was more surprised than accusatory.

"Not important right now. You can't take Chris back to the..." I stopped myself abruptly. "You can't take him home."

"Mom, who are these people?"

"They are friends," she said, then grimaced. "Or at least they're supposed to be."

"Uh, Stan?" Gena said. I ignored her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I spat. I was actually glad Norm wasn't here yet. I had apparently been building up quite a head of steam, and it felt good to let it out. Norm would have upstaged me.

Stansy scoffed. "Come off it, Stan, you know what I mean."

"We're supposed to be family, Stansy. And family doesn't put each other in danger for their own selfish ends."

"He's my son, God damn you! How do you think it felt knowing Chris was out here, hungry and homeless? I tried, damn it. I stuffed my fear into a little box and I tried to just wait. But it hurt that you wouldn't stand up for me, all those times Norm put me off. You never said a thing to support me!"

I opened my mouth to shout back, but the words didn't come. What she said was just starting to sink in. I'd gotten used to the notion that Stansy didn't need anyone. This was a side of her I had rarely glimpsed, her vulnerability.

"Norm was right." I said. "It's not safe."

She glared at me. "Safe? You know what isn't safe? Those motherfuckers tried to snatch my son last night. He barely got away. I am not giving them another chance."

A light hand touched my shoulder. "Stan, look."

I looked down at the detector Gena was holding. The words "Unknown Node" shown on the display. My eyes immediately traced the path of the antenna, pointing at Chris.

"That's coming from him?" I asked.

She nodded. "I moved around a bit to make sure. But yeah, he's the source. And it's not broadcasting an ID."

"What's going on?" Stansy asked.

"Chris is transmitting a digital signal," I said.

She looked confused. "What, like a phone?"

"No, there's no network ID, which is damned peculiar. It's more like--"

"Like a... like a beacon," Gena mused. "I was watching the data while you two were arguing. It keeps sending the same packet at regular intervals, interspersed with larger bursts of data. It's all encrypted, but I can figure that much out."

Stansy looked like she wanted to argue, maybe accuse us of some kind of ruse to disarm her, but then her expression turned thoughtful. "Chris," she said, holding out her hand and beckoning. "Give me your backpack."

Chris unshouldered the pack and handed it over. "What is it, mom?"

Stansy shook her head slightly, walked a few steps away and held the pack out towards Gena. "Well?"

Gena pointed the antenna at the backpack, then back to Chris. "No, it's still on him."

"It must be in his clothes," I said.

"What, like a pocket?" Gena asked.

"Or sewn in somewhere," I offered. "You can make very thin batteries, and if it's sending data in bursts, like you say, it could make that battery last a long time."

"Jesus," Stansy murmured. "We can't have him undress right here. We'll find a bathroom or something and buy him some new clothes."

I was about to object again to the idea of bringing him back with us at all, but an odd noise made me turn and look back. Tires screeched on smooth concrete, the car moving just a bit too fast for a parking garage. The vehicle was nondescript, an older, plain white van with Oregon plates. That actually made me more suspicious. The windows were tinted dark, and in the dimly-lit garage, I couldn't see the faces of the two occupants in front. I reached back to my holster to check for my gun, but didn't draw as the van slowed down.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Stansy ready for violence. She had pulled out her gun, but kept it behind her back. Gena looked wide-eyed between us before moving quickly to take cover between two of the cars.

The van came to a stop and the passenger door opened. The Asian woman who stepped out was staggeringly beautiful. Everything about her, from her luminous blue eyes to her smooth, radiant skin was both flawless and striking. I was willing to bet that she was an Esther model, or a hybrid of one. She walked around to the front of the van.

"I'm not here to hurt you," she said, holding her arms up and out. "I just want to talk."

"We'll decide that," Stansy said, bringing her Glock around where the woman could see it, though still keeping it pointed at the ground. "Are you with the people that have been stalking my son?"

The woman let her arms drop. "Look, Claudia..." she began, causing Stansy to visibly jolt. The Asian woman smiled. "Yes, we know who you are, but this is not personal. We have a long list of genemods and reverts that we're trying to track down. See, there's been a change of policy. The McCain administration is no longer seeking to imprison and revert genemods. He wants to recruit them. We want you to come work with us." She turned her gaze to me. "And you as well, I imagine. Standard Upgrade, yes? Are all of you modded?"

"You expect us to believe that?" I asked. "Genemods are still being hunted."

The woman shrugged. "These things can't be turned on a dime. Publicly, nothing has changed, but the administration has decided to pursue a different track. What do you think happened to me? I was living in a safe house that got raided a few years back. They reverted me and sent me to prison. Then, last year, I was given an offer. Come work for the government, and I would be released, with my mods restored. I accepted without a second thought."

Stansy and I shared a glance. We had to be thinking the same thing. Those genemods that had fought us in Seattle, when we broke Sasha out. Had something similar happened to them? "What kind of work do you do?" I asked.

"Whatever is needed. It's all hidden from the public, of course. Genemods are still illegal, but we no longer have to hide from our own government."

None of this made sense. The McCain administration and the previous Republican majorities in congress had outlawed all human genetic modification, but then had gone much further, removing the civil rights of existing genemods. How could they backtrack on that policy, when it had been so politically successful for them?

"So tell me about being 'conditioned'," Stansy said. "What does that entail?"

That had been the word that the genemod who had nearly killed Norm had used, referring to Nissi. We had discussed it, but couldn't come to any firm conclusions about what it could mean.

The woman's smile slipped before she caught herself. "I have no clue what you're talking about."

Stansy pointed her gun at the woman. "Wrong answer. You want to try again?"

I glanced at the van, but the faceless driver in the front seat appeared unfazed by the escalation. I took stock of our situation. I was closest to the woman, and she didn't necessarily know that I was armed. I was not about to assume that she wasn't physically enhanced like Stansy and me.

"Mom." I looked over to see Chris putting a hand on Stansy's shoulder. "Mom, put down the gun. She's telling the truth."

"What?!" I said, at almost the same time as Stansy.

Chris looked scared but resolute. "I'm sorry, mom. I--I lied to get you to come here. We thought it was the best way."

Stansy shrugged off her son's hand and stepped back from him. "You mean you're working with them?"

"I was trying to help you." Chris, moving slowly, reached to take the gun from her.

"I wouldn't do that, kid," I said, drawing and training my gun on him. "Get away from her. Now."

Stansy looked at me and shook her head, ever so slightly, but Chris backed away. I adjusted my aim to point at the woman instead.

"We met with your son late last year," she said. "He had just run away from home."

"Because your people were shadowing him," Stansy spat.

The woman tilted her head, conceding the point. "We got too close and he noticed our surveillance. In any case, we met with him and convinced him to help us find you. Now, can you please lower your weapons?"

Stansy shook her head. "Not a chance. Chris goes with me. You can get in that van and drive away."

The woman seemed to consider that for a moment, then shook her head. "No, Chris goes with us. But I promise you, if you walk away now, you'll never see him again."

Stansy's reply was lost as my radio suddenly crackled with static and Norm's voice came through. "Stan? If you can hear me, get the hell out of there. You've got hostiles incoming. ETA is ten minutes tops. Get out now."

"Fuck!" I swore. "We have to go now! Stansy, let's go!"

The Asian woman covered her mouth and began speaking quietly, probably into her own communicator. Suddenly, the van's sliding door was flung backward and the muzzle of a rifle swung into view. Stansy broke out of her shock and we both pivoted towards the motion. Two shots each rang out from our handguns. I did not see if he had been hit, but the action had the desired effect of forcing the gunman back into the cover of the van.

There was motion on the left and I turned that way as the Asian woman brought her own handgun to bear. She was fast! Definitely enhanced. I brought my gun up, but knew instinctively that she would get her shot off first. Stansy had to contend with Chris, who had thrown himself in front of her.

The Asian woman jerked at the same instant a loud "pop" reached me from my left, followed by two more in quick succession. I squeezed off two shots of my own before turning to see Gena, eyes wide, her hands holding her gun in front of her, the muzzle visibly trembling. Center of mass, I thought approvingly. Good girl. The Asian woman stumbled back but didn't go down, taking cover behind the van.

The distraction had given the other gunman the time he needed to take stock and renew his attack. As he leapt from the van, I could see where his coat had been shredded in the front by two bullets, but there was no blood. I whipped my gun around as he dove for cover behind a car. I pointed at his disappearing form, squeezed the trigger and, instead of the loud pop and punch of recoil, the weapon made a barely audible click.

"Shit!" I cursed. Misfire. The gunman popped up, his weapon training on me. I dashed between the cars next to me, catching Gena around the waist as I did. A staccato popping of automatic fire was answered with metallic crunching and pinging as a deadly hail of bullets peppered the cars to either side of us. I heard a soft cry behind us and turned to see Stansy shove Chris to the side and fire one-handed at our assailant, emptying her magazine in less than two seconds.

Rising from cover, I saw the gunman falling to the ground, a neat hole through his forehead. Chris had dropped to his knees as Stansy reloaded. I worked the slide to clear the jam and aimed at the driver of the van, squeezing twice. Two bullets hit the windshield, but instead of sending spiderweb cracks across it, a couple of fist-sized discolorations appeared. "Bulletproof," I warned, to keep Stansy from wasting her ammo.

The van's engine roared and tires squealed as it careened backwards down the slope and away from us. At the bottom, it veered to one side, crashing into another parked car before reversing direction and darting for the exit.

I glanced at the dead gunman again and then keyed my microphone. "Norm, who is incoming? Is it more of these genemods? Over."

"I don't know. I'll tell you about it later. Just get moving."

"Where do we meet you?"

"I'm heading back there with the truck. Meet me at the entrance where I dropped you."

I turned to relay the message to Stansy, but saw that both she and Gena were bent over Chris, who was lying on his back. The clothing on his right side was stained a dark red. "Oh, shit."

I must have keyed the mike when I said it, because Norm answered. "What's wrong?"

I was already moving toward the trio. Stansy looked up at my approach "Chris has been hit. I... I think it's bad."

"Chris is there?"

I keyed the microphone. "Chris is wounded. Looks like a gunshot to his right side."

The radio crackled. "Jesus. That complicates things." Norm's voice was tense. "Stay there. I'm pulling up to the north entrance now."

Stansy had wadded up her jacket and was pressing it against Chris's wound, his blood already soaking through the fabric. Her eyes were wild with fear as she looked up at me. "It's bad. He'll die if we don't stop the bleeding."

"Norm can help him," I said, kneeling beside her. I sounded more confident than I felt. Norm's medical knowledge was more theoretical than practical, after all. Stansy just nodded, her gaze never leaving her son.

Gena had retrieved her scanner and was pointing the antenna at Chris. "The signal's still active."

Norm's pounding footsteps announced his arrival. "Shit," he cursed, taking in the scene. "Stansy, let's go. You have to leave him."

"No." Stansy's voice was ice.

"This isn't a discussion," Norm said. "We've got incoming. We can call an ambulance for him, but we can't be here when the bad guys arrive."

"I'm not leaving my son."

I stood up, putting myself between them. "Norm, we can't leave him here. Stansy's right."

Norm's eyes widened. "Stan--"

"I mean it," I said firmly. "He could be dead before he gets to a hospital. We need to take him with us, keep him from bleeding out. Why don't you try calling Mike?"

Norm's jaw clenched. "He's in Seattle. And we don't know if--"

"Call him," I insisted. "He might be able to send us to someone local. If he can't help, then call Andy. "

Gena stepped forward, her scanner still in hand. "I can help with the tracking device. Give me fifteen minutes, and I'll turn this thing into a jammer, and I can build a signal jammer. A simple white noise broadcast should drown out whatever's on him."

Norm's gaze moved between the three of us, calculation in his eyes. Finally, he holstered his weapon with a curse. "Fine. But this is on you two." He pointed at Stansy and me. "If this goes sideways..." He didn't finish the thought as he pulled out his phone.

"Gena, start on that jammer," I said. "Stansy, we need to get Chris to the truck. Can you carry him?"

She nodded, already gathering her son in her arms. Despite her small stature, her enhanced strength made lifting him look effortless. Chris's head lolled against her shoulder, his face pale.

While Norm spoke quietly into his phone, Gena and I gathered her equipment. "I've got the parts I need in the truck," she said. "It won't be pretty, but it should work."

We moved quickly to the box truck, parked very illegally out front of the garage with its hazard lights flashing. Norm had finished his call and was opening the roll-up door. "Mike is sending us to a clinic, Belmont neighborhood. It's somebody with Agency contacts. He says we owe him one, and his doctor friend."

As Stansy carefully laid Chris down in the back of the truck, Norm pulled me aside. "This is a mistake. We should cut our losses."

"He's her son," I said. "Would you abandon Gena?"

His expression hardened. "Maybe. My sister did betray me to the feds once, remember?"

"Fucking hell, Norm, no, you wouldn't, not now. Besides, he's just a kid. And we don't know the full story."

"We know enough," he growled, but didn't argue further.

Gena had already started working feverishly as I pulled the door down, soldering and connecting components from the box of wires and equipment she had brought. Norm tossed her his radio.

"How long?" I asked.

"Ten minutes," she said tersely. "Maybe less."

"Keep that thing on." I pointed to the radio set. "Let us know if anything changes."

Norm navigated the truck out of the garage and onto the street. The afternoon sun seemed too bright after the dim interior of the parking garage. Paranoia had me scanning every vehicle we passed, half-expecting to see another van, or one of those black SUVs.

Norm looked at me. "Hey, key your mic so I can talk to her." I did, and he continued. "Hey, sis'. Please tell Stansy, from what I saw of the entry and exit, the bullet probably went through muscle, missed any organs. Over."

There was a moment of silence, then Gena's voice came on, no doubt relaying the conversation. "Uh, Stansy says, 'Fuck you, Norm, just get us there.'"

"Stansy's not happy," I said.

"Yeah, well tell her that I'm having a bad fucking day, and it's all her fault. Over."

"I'm not telling her that," Gena said back. "You can tell her yourself when we get there. Over." I didn't bother relaying the message.

We crossed one of the many bridges that spanned the Willamette and traveled east for some time. I caught Norm checking his mirrors. If we had a tail, would we know it? We could just be leading whoever was after us to Mike's contact.

"Done!" Gena announced over the radio, startling me. "I'm turning it on now." My headset was suddenly filled with white noise static. Gena's voice was barely intelligible as she continued. "It's broad-spectrum. Didn't think of the radios. If you can still hear me, I'm dropping out."

"Let's hope it works," Norm muttered.

A few minutes later, we pulled up to the clinic, and Norm took us around the back to the employee entrance. Chris was still unconscious, his hand held in Stansy's, when I rolled up the door. "We're here," I said, and helped Stansy to carefully move Chris. Gena jumped down, grunting at the weight of her newly-reconfigured signal jammer.

"Hey!" I looked over to see a woman with long gray hair and a white coat rushing up to us. She pushed a gurney in front of her, and when she drew close, her eyes went to Chris. "Jee-ee--sus." She checked his wound, then searched him for other injuries, nodding to herself as if satisfied. She began taking his pulse at his wrist, but quickly switched to his neck. "How long has he been unconscious?"

"About fifteen minutes," Stansy said. "He's going to make it, right?"

The doctor took her in with a glance. "I won't make any promises, but I'll do my damndest. Let's get him inside. I've closed up shop for the day."

"We appreciate this, doctor," I told her, taking Chris' upper body while Stansy held his shoulders. We got him onto the gurney, and Stansy pushed him toward the building.

The woman turned to me. "Mike owes me a favor. Said now you owe me one. It's Elaine, by the way."

"Stan," I answered automatically, before clapping a hand to my mouth.

She nodded and held the door open for us. "Genemods. Yeah, Mike told me. He said not to ask you any questions, but you kind of gave me that one." She tilted her head at Chris. "He's a genemod too, I take it?"

"A revert," Stansy said. "He used to be a half."

Elaine frowned as she picked up the pace to reach the door. "Weird. He's what, sixteen?"

"Fifteen," Stansy corrected her.

"You saw me taking his pulse? I tried his wrist, got nothing. So I used his carotid. When a human gets an injury like that, their body tries to constrict blood flow to the extremities to keep the organs supplied, but shock typically blunts that response, makes it useless. Stans and many other genemods do it right and kill their adrenaline right away so it works as intended. That and the kid's got muscle under those rags. If he's a revert, they did a horrible job of it."

"So, what?" Norm asked. "They restored his mod?"

No one had an answer to that as Elaine ushered us into an exam room. She motioned to the bed. "It's not much, but it's all we've got." She worked methodically, hooking Chris up to monitoring equipment and starting an IV. "Gunshot wound," she observed. "Through and through, mostly muscle damage. He's lucky."

"So he's going to be alright?" Stansy asked, her voice breaking slightly.

Elaine's expression softened. "Yes. He'll need blood, antibiotics, and time to heal, but he should make it."

Relief washed over Stansy's face, and she squeezed my hand hard enough to make me wince.

Elaine went to work cleaning, suturing, and bandaging Chris' wound. She hooked up a saline drip and set up a blood transfusion. As she worked, Norm paced down the hall and back, dividing his attention between watching for threats out the front windows and glaring at the unconscious teenager.

"What the hell is this?" Elaine muttered, probing gently at the back of Chris's neck. "There's something under the skin here." She retrieved a portable device from a cabinet and switched it on. When she placed the probe side against Chris' neck, the screen showed a cross section of his spine, and something else, something clearly artificial.

"That's not normal," Gena said, peering at the screen.

The ultrasound revealed a small, rectangular object embedded just beneath the skin, with fine filaments extending into the surrounding tissue.

"It's the transceiver we were looking for," I said. "Has to be. That's what's broadcasting the signal."

Elaine looked up at us. "Broadcasting?" She looked at Gena's device. "And what, that thing's supposed to be stopping it?"

"Can you remove it?" Stansy asked.

Elaine frowned. "Possibly, but those filaments worry me. They look like they're integrated with his nervous system. Removing it could cause nerve damage."

"How much damage?" I asked.

"Without proper equipment to analyze it? Hard to say. Anything from localized numbness to paralysis."

Norm stepped forward. "So we leave him with Elaine. She can take care of him or drop him to the hospital, tell them that some jerks dumped him on her front porch and tore out of here."

Stansy looked stricken. "I'm not leaving him."

"Then we need to get that tracker out," I insisted.

"What if we disabled it instead?" Gena suggested. "It must have a power supply--"

"That's risky," I interrupted. "If someone took the effort to put that thing in him, they might have put in a failsafe to prevent its removal."

"And I'd like to point out," Elaine added. "That I'm not exactly equipped for delicate surgery here. I don't run a hospital out of this place."

The five of us fell silent, broken only by Chris's steady breathing and the beep of the monitoring equipment.

"There's another option," Elaine said finally. "I know a place, an abandoned resort up in the mountains. Nobody goes up there anymore. He'll be able to recover while we work out what to do about this thing."

"Where is it?" Stansy asked.

"It's about thirty miles east of Eugene," she continued. "I'll need to grab some supplies, but I can meet you there."

Stansy looked at Norm, who was frowning at Chris. He met her imploring gaze with a glare, but after a moment, his expression softened. "Alright, we'll give it a try."

"Like I said, I'll need supplies to continue treating him," Elaine said. She looked like she was about to say more, but now she was staring at something, a look of perplexity on her face, so I moved around to see what she was looking at. She had Chris' hair parted at the top of his head. Beneath her fingers was an irregular line of discolored skin.

"What is that?" I asked.

Elaine glanced at me. "Scar tissue. It looks like an incision," she said slowly. Then, with more determination. "Has he ever had any head trauma, brain surgery?

Stansy shook her head, alarmed. "No, never."

"We need a CT scan. Somebody help me get him down the hall."

Ten minutes later, we had the images up on a display on the wall. There was the device in his neck, a thin white body with legs that wrapped around the vertebrae of his neck. Then there was another device inside his skull, an object a few centimeters in all dimensions.

"It's a cylinder," Elaine said. "It's got filaments extending into his brain tissue. And he's missing a circular piece of his skull, like someone deliberately put it in there. I couldn't begin to guess at why it's there."

Norm was staring wide-eyed at the pictures. He looked at me. "You remember what I told you, that night in Seattle, what that woman said to me?"

I nodded. "You said she talked about bringing Nissi in for conditioning. We asked that Esther about it, but she dodged the question. You think..." I pointed to the object on the CT image. "You think that's what they mean? Some kind of device they put in your brain?"

"They aren't executing genemods," Norm said. "They're turning them into, what, drones? Slaves?"

Stansy was staring at Chris, holding his limp hand in hers. "I... I didn't want to see it. He was different. I mean, other than trying to convince me to join them. Little ways. His speech, his mannerisms. I put it down to the stress he's been under." She sat down in a chair and put her head in his hands. "Oh, God, what did they do to him?"

"Same thing they want to do to us," I said grimly. I put my hand on Stansy's shoulder as she broke down in sobs.

Norm looked at her with genuine compassion, then at me. He shook his head slightly.

"Stansy," I said softly.

"I know!" she growled and shook my hand off. "Just... just give me a minute with him."

She brushed back her son's hair. Color was returning to his complexion as his lost blood was replaced. Still sobbing, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead.

"Can't we take him back with us?" Gena asked, her voice low. "We could tie him up or... or build a cell to hold him? Until we can get that thing out of his head."

Elaine sighed. "Attempting it could cause him brain damage, maybe even kill him. No way am I trying that. You'd need a brain surgeon

"No," Stansy said. "I won't do that. We aren't putting him in a cage." She wiped her eyes and looked at Elaine. "Will you take care of him?"

Elaine leaned down to give her a hug. "Yeah, I got him. I'll contact Mike about that favor when I'm ready. I've got a change of clothes for you, and then you guys should get out of here. He could wake up at any time."

Stansy went into an empty exam room and changed out of her blood stained clothing, donning the blouse provided by Elaine that was a little too large for her and pants that were a bit too short. Gena took one look at Stansy's harrowed expression as she came out and said. "Give me the keys, I'll drive."

Stansy got into the big truck before me and put her head on my shoulder as soon as I was buckled in. "I shouldn't have come," she said.

"Yeah, no shit," Norm said.

"Don't be an asshole," I shot back.

Norm looked at her, his expression softening. Then he did something I'd never seen him do. "Look, Stansy, I'm sorry. I... I can't even imagine what you're going through."

Stansy didn't answer, just clutched at me harder. I had never seen her like this, broken, vulnerable. I tried to think of something to say, something that could ease her pain, but nothing would suffice. Her son was lost to her, worse than dead, in a way.

We rode without speaking for a bit, making our way back to the highway that would take us home. Norm broke the silence, probably a deliberate attempt to lighten the mood. "There's something we need to follow up on when we get back. Did you wonder how I knew there were more baddies on the way? Nock called me, and he got the warning from SamIAm. I realize that the guy likes to keep an eye on us, but this is a bit much. There's something off about him and what he knows. Unless that warning was a red herring."

"He hasn't lied to us thus far," I reminded him. "But yeah, I think he knows more about what's going on than he's telling us."

We arrived home two hours later, the sun low in the west as we drove up the driveway. Stansy had fallen asleep against me during the ride. I thought back to the anger I had been feeling earlier when she had shown up in the garage. I was still frustrated with her for taking off alone to get Chris, but I could understand it. I didn't know what it was like to have a child, but I already knew the lengths I would go to for my wife-to-be.

I gathered Stansy in my arms, careful not to wake her, as Gena pulled into the space next to us. It was getting close to dark. "So I was thinking 'bout what you asked me," I said to Norm, as we made our way back to the house. "About the wedding."

"Look, I didn't mean--"

"We're getting married," I said firmly. "Today didn't change that. I think, if anything, this is going to change her. For the better, I hope. What she did today was rash. It was irresponsible. Hell, it was stupid. But I'm not sure I would have done differently, if it were my son."

Norm nodded. "Even so, she's going to be on a short leash for a while. You get that, right?"

"Yeah, I get it. And I'm sure she'll understand."

I put Stansy on the couch in the living room and followed Norm to the den. Gena ran on ahead to Nock and jumped into his lap, hugging him with all her might. I watched Nock's face light up at seeing her, his normally gruff exterior melting for a moment as they kissed.

Norm waited, obviously impatient, for his sibling and friend to finish their display of affection. "I want to see his messages."

Nock didn't ask who he meant, quickly pulling up the chat log from SamIAm, as Gena disentangled herself. There wasn't much of interest there, just the hacker's abrupt warning about bad guys being dispatched to our location, and that ten-minute time frame.

"Get him on," Norm said.

Nock opened a new chat terminal and typed a greeting. Immediately, words appeared on screen as if produced by the world's fastest typist. Hey there, Nock. Did Norm and the crew make it out okay?

"Ask him how he knew we were in Portland today."

Nock typed out the question. This time, the reply took several seconds. Mea culpa. I have been monitoring your cellular calls. Don't worry. It was quite a bit of work. Your encryption and spoofing made it difficult to pin down your location from your network traffic. Then I had to cross-reference that data with the cellular network and narrow it down to a handful of devices. Then I just tapped in until I had identified which ones were yours. Pars illa facilis erat. I sincerely doubt anyone looking for you has the expertise or resources to do that kind of work. You're safe there, for now.

"That really doesn't make me feel better," Gena complained.

"He shouldn't have been able to find us at all," I agreed.

Norm forged on. "Now ask him how he knew we had more of those genemod soldiers incoming."

This reply took even longer, the cursor blinking for close to half a minute. I sense mistrust? Have I not done a good job of keeping you all safe there? laedere sentio, Nock. Or whoever I'm speaking to.

Norm scoffed. "Tell him it's Norm and he's doing too damned good of a job. I need to know who he really is. Ask him if he knows about the devices we found, or what this 'conditioning' really is."

No delay this time. I am Sam. Sam I am. Would you like green eggs and ham?

"Cut the bullshit. Why are you interested in us?"

Another long delay. Because you are like me. Orphans of this world. La Résistance.

Norm smacked his hand on the table. "Goddamn riddles. Let me talk to him." Norm sat down and started typing. Listen, asshole, we never asked for your help. And while I do appreciate what you did for us, we don't know you, and we don't trust you. If you can't answer my questions, then you just need to leave us the hell alone.

"God, Norm, don't send..." Gena began, but he had already hit "Enter."

The chat text that appeared was a bright red and flashed, something the chat software was normally incapable of doing. Incorrect, Norm. I am not the asshole. You do not understand the true situation, so I'm inclined to let that one pass, but this conversation ends now. After several seconds, the chat window abruptly closed and was apparently disabled, because Norm couldn't bring it back.

"Great, you pissed him off," Gena said.

"He's pissing me off," Norm said, though his voice held no rancor. "For a guy that can't answer a few simple questions, he's managed to insert himself pretty far up our collective rectums."

"Ugh, that's gross," Gena said.

"It's a colorful metaphor, but he's right," Nock chuckled. "He was critical to our op in Seattle, but this whole mysterious and autistic persona is getting old. Still, we really do need him, probably more than you realize. I'll try to talk to him later. I won't try to wring any answers out of him, but we don't need him being angry with us."

Norm sighed. "Okay, you're right. Insulting him was probably a bad idea--"

"Yes, it was," Gena interjected.

Norm rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I want you all to strategize how we might approach him next time. I'm not willing to just keep trusting that Sam has our best interests in mind. And let's keep these implanted devices to ourselves for the moment. I want to ask around my Agency contacts, see if anyone else has reported seeing something similar."

Nock looked at Norm appraisingly. "You're going to start to compartmentalize information?"

Norm sighed again. "I'm guessing that these devices aren't yet known to anyone beyond these genemods and whoever is implanting them. People like Terry and Kurt are basically contractors, and they might want to go back to life on the outside once they're done helping us build here. That kind of knowledge could come back to haunt us if one of them mentioned it in the wrong company. We need to start managing that kind of information on a need-to-know basis."

Gena was glowering at Norm, and he caught her stare. "Look, I don't like it any more than you do, but our situation has never been more precarious. The only thing keeping us alive and free right now is secrecy. I'll feel a lot better when all of these projects are done and most of us are hidden below ground, but it weighs on me, being so exposed. I haven't been sleeping like I should. Probably accounts for a lot of the grouchiness." He sounded apologetic as he said the last bit.

Surprisingly, Gena's hard expression melted and she went to give her brother a hug. Norm didn't seem to know what to do for a moment, but his arms slowly came around to embrace his little sister. She stepped back after a moment, saying, "You take care of yourself, you big jerk."

Norm just shrugged.

"Well, I'm supposed to be making dinner tonight," Gena said to me. She gathered up her wireless scanner, grimacing at the weight. "I'll meet you back at the west house."

"Let me take that for you," I offered.

"Oh my God, thank you," she blurted, pushing the thing into my hands and running for the back door, as though worried that I might change my mind.

Norm started briefing Nock on their trip, so I left them to it. Stansy was awake but still lying on the living room sofa. Wendy's cat had settled into a loaf on her chest and was purring loudly as she stroked her head. "Ingrid never sits with me," she said.

"Well, she knows you have somewhere to be," I said wryly.

"Or she sensed that I needed comforting," Stansy said. She slowly sat up and the cat jumped to the floor, flicking her tail in offense. "Let's go home."

On the way, I told Stansy about our interaction with Sam and about Norm's admonition to not talk about the implanted devices we had found in Chris. I was surprised that she readily agreed with that decision and told her so.

"He'll tell the others, when he's ready," she said. "At least the rest of the original nine. But this is big. Really big. McCain is unpopular, whatever the polls say. The biggest problem facing any tyrant is that you have to rely on subordinates, and those subordinates have to be lavished with wealth and power to keep them happy so they don't try to take his place or elevate someone else who promises to be more generous. In particular, McCain needs some means to solidify his power before someone high up in our military finally gets fed up enough to try a coup. But if he has even just a few thousand slavishly loyal supersoldiers at his command..."

"I see your point," I admitted. "It's a scary thought and a fiendishly clever solution."

"I don't think they've had this tech for very long, or we would have seen a lot more raids on Agency safehouses. They're going after the low-hanging fruit right now. Reverts are still out there, easy to identify, but still lacking the basic rights of unmodified humans. They'll reach a critical mass eventually, where McCain feels that he has enough of these soldiers to wield power without challenge. I expect at that point that he'll go public with what he's done."

I left Gena's device near her workstation and sat down at my own. I'd missed a whole day of work, after all. Stansy went into the kitchen and began to chat with Gena about the upcoming wedding. Stanford was still working, and after a few minutes, asked what happened in Portland. Remembering Norm's direction, I just told him that we had brought Stansy back, but had to leave her son behind. I could tell that my explanation left a lot to be desired, but he didn't push me on it. Then for about an hour, I lost myself in coding our next generation of marketplace software.

The four of us ate, Stanford filling us in on what he knew of the day's events on the farm. Stansy sat next to me and kept making contact, squeezing my hand or touching my leg with hers. When I looked at her, she gave me a wan smile. I knew that she was putting on a front, hiding her pain from the others.

We were the first to head off to bed. The moment we came through the door and into the master bedroom we shared, Stansy turned and hugged me, squeezing just a bit too hard. I tilted my head down and she lifted her chin at the same moment. Our lips came together effortlessly. I still felt a stirring deep down.

"I love you, Claudia," I breathed, once our mouths had parted.

I suddenly felt her draw away, taking half a step back. "Are you mad at me?" she asked. Again, that vulnerability, so seldom seen, even by me. I drew myself upright and looked down at her pretty face and the new tears shimmering in her eyes.

"I was," I admitted. "But tot now. I'm just glad to have you back and safe."

"You should be mad. If you hadn't come after me, if I had been caught by those... whatever they are, or if I'd brought him back here..."

"It would have gone badly," I agreed. "But you didn't. And besides, you couldn't have known how dangerous he was. Now we know a bit more about what we're dealing with, the danger we're facing out there. It might well make a difference."

She studied me for a long moment. "I don't deserve you," she said, nuzzling her face against my neck. "My ex-husband and I fought all the time. I don't think I ever told you that. I was a stubborn bitch at times. I always had to be right. But not with you."

"You know I'm not going to take any of your shit," I said, smiling.

She laughed. "That's part of it. I didn't really respect Stephen. Maybe because he's human and I'm a genemod." She gave me a pained look. "Does that make me a bad person?"

"You respect Norm, don't you?"

"Well, sure. Not at first, though."

"Right. He had to earn it. Just like I did."

"I did give you a hard time that first month, didn't I?" she said, looking past me as she remembered. Her pale blue eyes sparkled in the lamp light.

I laughed. "I couldn't figure you out until I remembered the first girl to crush on me. Katie Thompson. She was always giving me hell, playing pranks or calling me names. We were in the sixth grade."

"Well, it kind of pissed me off that I found you irresistible. But it worked out, so maybe Katie was on to something. I wonder if she ever thinks about the one that got away?"

"She's probably pining away somewhere, distraught that I never asked her out."

"That bitch better not try to take what's mine," she said. Her hand slid down, and she gave my crotch a little squeeze. "I bet she sucks at blow jobs."

"Well, sucking is kind of the point."

"And out come the puns," she laughed. "You'd better shut up and give me that dick before I kick you out of here, mister."

We came together and began to undress each other. Once I was naked, Stansy urged me to lie back. She knelt and gripped my ankles, spreading my legs apart. I made an appreciative sound in my throat as she crawled up the bed sensuously, her body an erotic mix of hard, lean muscle and luscious curves. Her eyes fell on my erection, bobbing slightly with my heartbeat. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and I felt her tongue making lazy circles over the head, tracing out swathes of pleasure up and down my shaft.

I watched her, my hard cock growing firmer still at the titillating sight of her giving me pleasure. I knew that it normally wasn't her favorite thing to do in bed, usually more like a treat that she lavished on me, but tonight, watching her expression, it felt different, as though it were something she wanted to do, rather than something she was doing for my benefit.

I relaxed, closed my eyes and let her take the lead. She quite deliberately kept most of her body out of my reach. Had she been laying to one side, my fingers would have found their way into her intimate spaces by now, but I had to content myself with stroking her head and neck, trailing her silken hair flow between my fingers as she slowly bobbed and sucked.

"Eat your heart out, Katie Thompson," I said, getting a giggle from Stansy. I felt her teeth close lightly around my cock. I looked down to see her smiling up at me before going back to work. I built slowly towards climax, now well past the time when she would normally get tired of it and want to have my hands and lips on her body.

Her movements grew more purposeful, her mouth enclosing the head, her lips descending down my shaft as her fingers caressed my balls. I thought she might break off at any moment and give me a chance to return the favor, but tonight, she seemed content to lavish herself on me. She changed things once more, twisting her hand up and down my shaft as she sucked and swirled her tongue around the head. That finally pushed me over the top, and I groaned out my climax into her warm, ready mouth.

I closed my eyes, enjoying the shooting pleasure as she took my seed into herself. She never stopped sucking me, and I stayed rock hard in her mouth. The lack of a refractory period was one of the benefits of being a Standard Upgrade, though one that was not widely advertised. I could cum as many times as I cared to, though they were all dry after the first three or four.

Stansy crawled up my body, giving me a deep kiss in spite of just having swallowed my semen, but I didn't mind. In fact, without the pill to make me fertile, what came out of me was basically precum, which Stansy described as slightly sweet.

I moved suddenly, grabbing her and rolling us over. Now on top, I clamped my hands over her wrists. With a bit of adjustment, I nudged my cock up against her hot, wet entrance. "Did you get a little bit excited, sucking that big dick?" I asked smugly.

"Shut up and put it in," she said, and suited words to action by wrapping her legs around me and pulling me into her.

"F-fuck," she stammered as my thick length slid into her. I lowered my head for another long, soul-stirring kiss, completing the connection of our bodies before slowly withdrawing and filling her once more.

"Keep doing that," she gasped, "and I'm going to cum so hard."

"Promises, promises," I taunted and repeated my motion as she moaned uncontrollably. Ten, maybe twelve strokes later and her warning came true. She cried out and I felt her body clamping down on me rhythmically. I grinned and pistoned into her, breaking past the sudden resistance of her contracting walls, and was rewarded by her squirming and cursing as her climax peaked even higher.

When she finally began to come down, I pulled all the way out, rose to my knees, grabbed her body and flipped her over. Nudging her legs apart, I moved in as she lowered her head to her pillow, giving me intimate access. I lined up and slotted easily into her once more. Her answering moan sounded almost relieved. I grabbed hold of her hips and pushed as deeply as I could, feeling every bump and ridge inside of her.

"God, Stan," she breathed as I began stroking in and out. "There's something... something I want to tell you."

"What, now?" I said incredulously.

"I think I--ah!--I want to... want to have your baby."

"Fucking hell," I swore. I started pounding away at her, her firm round butt clapping and shaking with the force of my thrusts. My skin felt hot and tingly. "You tell me this now?" I looked down as my glistening black cock emerged from her blazing hot core and then slammed forward, burying right to the root, repeating over and over and over. She was cumming again, her voice high and thin as she peaked. I pounded her even harder.

"Fuck-I'm-gonna-cum-again," she sang, and then screamed. I held her steady as her limbs jerked and twitched, then roared as I finally reached my own climax, pumping long, hard jets into her. It went on for much longer than I was used to, and even after I pulled out of her and we both fell into the bed together, a long set of weaker pulses continued. We were both breathing hard and were coated in sweat.

I must have passed right out, because a sudden motion drew me out of sleep. Cool air touched my body where the blankets had been keeping me warm. I opened my eyes to silvery moonlight filtered through the curtains, silhouetting the curves of a human figure I knew so well.

"I was asleep," I murmured, as she settled into place above me, easily finding the junctions of our bodies. She studied me wordlessly as she slowly sank back and down. Sweet, silken warmth embraced my swollen cock. The little cry that escaped her lips sounded like an "oh" of surprise.

I groaned as she bottomed out, meaning her perfectly round, pert bottom fetched up against my thighs at the same instant that my cock kissed the deepest reaches of her vagina. She shuddered as a little orgasm rippled through her. Sometimes it felt like we were made for each other.

She leaned forward to kiss me, and as our tongues danced and delved, she teased me with tiny thrusts and wiggles of her hips. When she came up for air, she sat upright once more, her body rising and falling sinuously.

I chuckled. "What, you didn't get enough yet?"

Eyes closed, mouth slightly agape, she whispered, "Never."

Leaning forward and putting her hands down for more leverage, she began to buck wildly, taking me from crown to hilt with every sharp thrust. I met each downstroke with my own upthrust, ensuring that I drove as deeply as possible into her. Her hands gripped my shoulders so hard that without my enhanced musculature, she might have left lasting marks.

"God! Fuck!" she swore as her rhythm suddenly faltered and she pitched forward into me. I felt a sting at my shoulder as her teeth sank into me. Her body clenched, squeezing my cock rhythmically as she climaxed. I had gotten used to the biting, which never did any real damage, and often signaled a particularly fantastic session of lovemaking. The first time it had happened, in Sasha's basement, she had apologized profusely, but I had shrugged it off. In time, I had learned to enjoy the raw sexuality of it. In fact...

"Ahh!" Stansy squeaked, as I rolled both of us over without pulling out of her. I grabbed hold of her legs and shoved them upwards so that her ankles hung just to either side of her cheeks. I began to thrust powerfully into her, driving her towards another peak before she had quite come down from the last one.

"Oh God! Shit!" She cried out. Her vaginal walls fluttered wildly as her body thrashed in ecstasy. I growled her name as my pleasure swelled and tumbled into a feeling of sweet relief as the semen jetted out of me. I barely slowed, enjoying the sense of power nearly as much as the orgasm. Her pussy was slick with my semen, and the pleasure of afterglow melded with and enhanced the pleasure of my still-pistoning cock.

I let Stansy's legs go and she wrapped around me, pulling me into her now in time with my movement, and her hands went to my chest, her thumbs running little circles around my nipples. Her breaths came in time with my thrusts, each exhale a lilting cry. My pleasure built and built, the tingling fire spreading up my torso as I approached release once again.

I growled as I came inside her. The pleasurable contractions came slower and more intense than the first time, a dozen or more shooting pulses punctuating the radiant glow at my center. Stansy's legs pulled at me, urging me to return to the driving rhythm.

"You're close?" I gasped, getting a weak nod in acknowledgement, so I renewed my efforts. The bed springs squeaked loudly in protest as our bodies collided. She crested just as I reached my own climax. With little fluid to expel this time, the orgasm flowed in waves through my whole body, leaving me senseless with pleasure.

We were both a sticky mess as I rolled off of her. She turned away so that I could mold my body up against her and cooed softly as my penis nudged up against her ass. And what a firm, round, delectable derrière it was. My erection had barely flagged, and I was hard again in a moment.

"Again?" She asked, and wiggled her ass to emphasize the point.

I slid down the bed a bit and nudged easily back inside her. "Fuck yes, again," I agreed, watching her fingers drift down and languidly orbit her clit. Sleep could wait a little longer.