He'd bought it years ago when he could first afford something this exclusive. Buying a place like this in America had made Morgen feel like he'd made it. It wasn't that he'd grown up going without, quite the opposite. His father had been a high government official, but being the oldest son of an East German high minister had been rather like being a shark in a goldfish bowl. You never really knew where you stood relative to the world until you figured out some way to escape the fish bowl you were in. Morgen had worked on that task most of his early life becoming a trader in government secrets when he'd still been a teen. Morgen had been a hub in a continent wide information network that had helped change the Iron Curtain from something very real into something that children read about in text books. He'd used his power to help in his tasks at that time, just like he used it in a hundred little ways everyday, but he used it far less frequently than people would think. He'd learned at a young age that there were skills more useful to getting what you want from people than simply forcing them to do it.
He'd begun to learn that lesson as a child when he had used his power on his parents and on the staff at their home and on people on the street. His father would punish him when he was sleeping and couldn't use his power.
On one particular night, the punishment had been so severe that Morgen hadn't known if he would survive. Every fiber in Morgen's young mind just knew that his father was bent on killing his mutant son, but in his youth Morgen hadn't had the concentration or the focus to use his power to make his father stop. Only the pain and horror of the situation flowed through him. When it was over, and Morgen was on the floor with his father standing over him, he wanted to summon the strength to use his power on his father. Morgen's father had looked at his son while still holding his rod and said in his cold Prussian way, "Morgen you are my son and I love you. I only punish you because one day you will use this trick of yours on the wrong person in the wrong way at the wrong time, and the man sent to punish you will not love you, will not want to see you grow into a man, and will not ache inside at the sound of your weeping. If providence has decreed that you are to have this ability, then you must learn to live with it and with others who will invariably not like their free choices being taken away by you."
That was the last time his father had ever spoken directly about his son's powers because that was the last time Morgen had ever used them on his family, friends, or on the staff at their home outside Berlin or his friends. Instead Morgen have learned to read people and how to react to their wants and desires. He learned that coercion and persuasion are just as useful as his power, if not more so. Morgen learned how to build trust and loyalty. Those skills had paid off for him throughout his life, just like they were about to pay off right now.
The doorbell rang and Morgen opened his eyes. The grin returned to his lips, as he knew who was calling before he ever stood up. Before he'd left Atlanta, he'd requested some back up from his associate Benny, and that back up had just arrived, but instead of sending him the plain Series 4 super soldiers which were all men, Benny had sent Morgen something special. Morgen opened the door to see two young conservatively dressed women standing there. To look at them, no one would have known just how dangerous these two women were. There was no way to tell Femmes from ordinary women, but these two women were anything but ordinary. The Series 4.7F super soldiers were made to take on armies and they had proved that they could. Each Femme had a single suitcase in their left hands, and a pleasant yet businesslike look on their faces. Morgen's grin grew as he looked into his favorite Femme's dark eyes seeing his own distorted reflection. X-417 was a wondrous sight to behold even in the smart business skirt and jacket. To her left stood X-411, a perky looking blond with girl next door good looks and a body under her clothes like a top level gymnast. Morgen reminded himself to thank Benny, because these two were far more scenic back up than two Series 4s.
They came inside and Morgen closed the door and looked at them standing the middle of his living room. His earlier fatigue was suddenly long forgotten. X-417 came over to him and returned his gentle caresses. She ran her hands up his chest and over is broad shoulders. He wanted her and the programming knew it. "You two must be dirty after your travel", he began. "The shower is big enough for three."
A smile parted X-417, dark cherry red lips. "Slow or fast?", she asked in a dusky voice.
"Fast", was Morgen's reply.
X-417 put her hand on her collar and with a quick pull from her super powered muscles, her clothes were ripped from her body leaving that work of feminine art uncovered. Morgen didn't get a chance to finish unbuttoning his shirt. She ripped it off of him just like she'd done herself. The pants followed quickly afterward. She looked at him like a hungry she-wolf after meat.
Not to be outdone, X-411 had already caught on to the interplay between Morgen and her fellow Femme. She knew that in this dance she'd be playing a supporting role, but an important one. She slowly undressed behind X-417's back, just at the edge of Morgen's vision. His eyes watched her over X-417's shoulder. Her body was impossible to ignore. The explosive power in her body was barely hidden, from her thighs up to her hips, butt, and her chest and shoulders. X-411 was the most muscular and strongly built of the Femmes. While X-417 was more like a feline or loping prowler, X-411 was like a bull ram with muscle and power to spare. Morgen knew that both of these women had strength enough to rip their way though the steel and concrete walls of buildings, but X-411 looked as if she could pick the damn building up.
Without a word, X-411 left the room and sought out the bathroom. Morgen watched the rise and fall of her ass cheeks as she strutted away down the hall. A moment later they heard water running. Morgen was about to start towards the bathroom, when he felt two strong arms sweep him off the floor. X-417 lifted Morgen's 200 pounds off the floor like he was a newborn. It was a new sensation for Morgen, being with a woman who showed her power this openly, but it was exciting. He could feel the muscles beneath her skin holding him. She carried him towards the shower without a hint of strain because 200 pounds to her was less than nothing.
When they got into the bathroom, steam was filling the room, and X-411 was already inside Morgen's custom shower. It wasn't just a jet of water from a head. The water fell more like a summer rain from dozens of nozzles in the ceiling and wall. There was no shower door or curtain. With the special bathroom door closed, the entire room became a steaming erotica inducing steam room. Water fell off of X-411's body like a waterfall. X-417 put Morgen down and joined X-411 under the water. She pressed her front against X-411's back the squeezed a sponge over the both of them letting the sudsy water flower over the contours and curves of their bodies. X-411 reached behind her and grabbed X-417's ass and gave it a good squeeze while her breast were being manipulated between X-417's strong fingers. Looking at the two of them excited Morgen in a hundred different ways.
X-411 turned after allowing her breasts to be toyed with for a while. She looked X-417 in the eye for a moment before taking the beautiful ebony Femme by the head and pulling her towards her. X-411 was a couple of inches shorter than X-417, but that was fine. She rose up onto her toes, allowing her cuff bursting calves to flex. The heads separated as she rose up. Her biceps flexed slightly as she pulled down X-417's head and firmly planted a kiss. X-411 pulled back an inch and extended her tongue before going again and pressing her lips to X-417's again. Both Femme's moaned as their tongues slid past the other's, and the heat of their bodies mixed with the heat of the shower.
Part of Morgen didn't want to disrupt the show, but he was a man, and a man had needs. He approached them while they were still lip locked in passion and opened his arms. They broke off the kiss and both of them grabbed a sponge and began to clean and worship Morgen like he was a king. He began to plan out the rest of the night with two Femmes and business had no part in it. Of course, even for Morgen Stern, some things were out of his control.
A long dark blue BMW 7 series stopped in an unlikely place, in front of the lone house on a lonely block in a neighborhood whose best days had come and gone long ago. Slater Hastings had left his house with a smile, but it was gone now. He was responsible for two killings tonight and while he felt like he was on a cloud, a smile was far from his face. Along the drive, some things had changed inside Slater, but not as much as he would have thought. He was no longer slinking around in a borrowed car like a coward. He was bolder now. He sat in front of this house the two hitmen used as an office, not fearing the locals, in this sparsely populated area. He looked out the windows searching for people, but he only saw one person. Three blocks down the road someone was looking to score some drugs. It was good that they didn't turn Slater's way. He knew what killing felt like now, and he knew that he could easily do it again if he had to. He couldn't begin to describe the feeling of having the power over life and death, the power to take the most important thing from a person and to get away with it.
Slater had ten thousand dollars in cash in a bag, a gun in his waistband, and an itch to use it in his head. Part of him wished that someone would have hassled him, but the rational part was glad that no one did. He walked up to the door and raised his hand to knock, but it opened before his knuckles could touch the scarred wood.
"Bout fuckin time", the generally silent hitman whined. That usually threatening voice was less so now as Slater heard it again. He was still uneasy around this man, but not as much. He did feel fear when he saw the head hitman. He was in the sitting on a worn out sofa without the baggy urban wear that he usually had on. He was wearing some camo cargo pants with a sleeveless undershirt and a nasty expression. His body was that of a man who looked like he could break rocks with his bare hands and outrun a horse. He had the physique of a man was used to besting other men. He looked up at Slater with killer's eyes and motioned for him to sit.
"Count it out", Montez ordered, now back in his deep cover character.
"Fuck you", Slater began. "You don't trust me? It's all there; count it for yourself. I had enough trouble getting it."
Montez appraised Slater coolly behind his brooding eyes. There was something different, but he couldn't place it. He decided to fish. "Trouble? I thought you were rollin like that, homey?"
"I usually get cash for drugs or whores from my father who doesn't ask questions, but he was in a reflective mood tonight", Slater said and leaned back in the chair while Montez pulled out the stacks of money.
"Old man cut you off?"
Slater laughed. "Cut me off? Please? My father thought that he could rein me in. Well it's too late for that. I showed him that I'm my own fucking man. I should have gotten him out of my way a long time ago, but now it's done."
"Done? What you rub out your old man?", Montez asked and held up one of the $100 bills to the light to check the security strip.
Slater sat forward at the question. "Was your first one like that? I mean I felt a high when I saw Heather's dead mug on that pic you sent me, but watching my father bleed was way more than a killing by proxy could ever be. So was it like that for you?"
Montez dropped the money on the table, and the look on his face made Slater's smile whither a bit. "The first guy I smoked was trying to smoke me. He shot three times and missed. I shot one time and hit. There weren't no marchin bands or butt ass naked women. Just a dead mother fucka lying on the street who used to be alive a minute before. Killin is straight business. You feel me? I don't kill for fun. If I wanted to kill for fun I might smoke you're fuckin ass right now and leave you in this house and burn the mothafucka down." He shot a look at Kevin who laughed as Slater's face went pale.
Slater understood the truth of the situation he was in. The three men in the room were all killers, but Slater was a miniature poodle and those two were Rottweilers.
"Money's all here", Montez announced once he'd finished counting. "Now get the fuck out."
Slater stood up and walked towards the door. "Wait", Montez stopped him with his deep threatening voice. "You owe me an extra two hundred for the piece you got the other day."
Slater's first impulse was to reach into his wallet, but that was just his first one. He decided to go with his second impulse. "I don't think so. I paid you Twenty Thousand Dollars to kill an unarmed drunk girl in front of a club. I don't owe you another fucking dime." He swallowed hard as the words left his mouth thinking that they might be his last words, but a tight grin turned up the corners of the hitman's mouth. He nodded and Slater walked out. Kevin watched him until he got into his car.
"Fuck Montez what do we do?", Kevin asked his normal voice, forsaking the whine he'd worked hard to develop for this mission.
"I'm gonna call and get an ambulance over to the Hastings' place. You call headquarters and talk to Martha. We've got a situation now." And maybe an opportunity, he didn't add as Kevin grabbed his cell phone.
Slater grabbed a cell phone too, his father's. The first number in the call log was the one he was looking for. He pushed the button, and the other side answered after one ring.
"Good fuckin grief Hugh! I've been waiting on your call", Martin DeBraya said into the phone.
"This isn't Hugh", Slater said flatly into the phone.
Martin frowned on his end of the conversation. "Who the fuck is this? Where's Hugh?"
"This is Hugh's son Slater, and my father won't be coming to the phone ever again. He's face down on a floor somewhere. Now before my father's demise, he'd put some money away for a trip you're planning on taking. Well I have all the information on where your money is. Do I have your attention now?"
"Yeah, kid you sure do. What the hell do you want?"
"Well, I have to get out of town myself, and I was wondering if you wanted some company on your trip?"
"What do you say you wanted?", Martin asked, trying to keep the strong emotions from his voice.
"To hook up with you, pool our resources. It's not like I'm going to the Feds now am I?"
Martin's mind raced in a bunch of directions. He was half a moment away from trying to set the boy up so some of his men could go and kill him, but he thought better of it. He knew what he should do. "Stay near the phone", Martin ordered and hung up. He sighed and quickly dialed Morgen's number. The conversation was quick and somewhat heated compared to Morgen's usual tone. He called Slater back and told him exactly what Morgen had said.
While Martin was trying to put fear into Hugh's punk ass son, Morgen was in the bed with X-417 and X-411. None of the three were wearing a stitch of clothing. That would have just gotten in their way. Interruptions like this happened too often Morgen thought. People looked at the absurdly handsome and well tailored Morgen and figured that he got more than his fair share of sex from beautiful women, and they would be correct of course, but good sex by women more than human was rare even for Morgen. Now business was pulling him away.
"Keep the bed warm for me", he said as he left the oversized bedroom and made the call to have his car brought around. He drove to Martin's hideout and went inside. Martin was in a well lit room, that was smokey with incense and the smell of alcohol. He wasn't drunk. Morgen could tell that from his voice on the phone. To Morgen's surprise he was actually holding up rather well.
"So who did you send after the boy?", Morgen asked as he sat down and excepted a glass of whiskey from Martin.
"I had some of Spencer's guys go after him. They're going to blindfold him and drive him here."
"Are these some of Spencer's special guys?", Morgen asked, meaning the men the late Spencer had chosen to be enhanced by taking the juice. It made them extraordinarily strong, and they had used that strength against Dr. Moira Kelly who ironically enough had played the biggest role in creating the juice almost fifteen years ago.
"Yeah, Spencer loved those guys. The Feds didn't get them all when they took Spencer down. They'll get it done right. It sounded like on the phone that the boy killed his father. Hugh could be a hard ass son of a bitch, but to kill him? His son must be a real spoiled piece of shit."
Morgen didn't mention that Martin had tried to kill a girl for looking at his computer. Instead he asked, "How many special guys do you have left?"
"Over a dozen. Some of the guys went into deep hiding when Spencer went down, but we're finding them and bringing them in. I figured it was time to call out the big dogs against all these women who keep beating up my regular guards. Do you know how much I pay those guys, and then they get beaten up by not two but three hot pieces of ass. I can't believe it. I always thought women were the gentler sex, but hell those Matthews girls folded them up like a suit from a Five and Dime store and then that little Shaunie turned a grown man into a human squeeze ball with just her legs. Damn those fuckin legs were strong! I don't know what all those muscle groups are called but I could see every one of them on her. So fucking hot!" He moaned, wondering what it would feel like to have those legs wrapped around him without the pressure turned to 11.
The look of her big bulging thighs around his guard's neck was enough to give Martin a semi. "Did you have to take that girl home?", he asked Morgen. "My balls are about to fucking explode!"
Morgen coughed a chuckle. "I don't think Shaunie would be willing to help you with that problem, Martin. She's all business around clients."
"Well I know lots of girls who's business is sex", he countered. "I'd love to bring a few of them over, but the old man would kill me."
"Not if I killed you first. This is a great hideout and you'd ruin it for sex." Morgen shook his head in disbelief. It was an old bootlegger's hideout from the 20's and the building didn't even appear on property tax records.
"I'm not that stupid, despite what my father might think about me. Staying alive and out of prison is a higher fucking priority than getting some ass. I mean could you imagine me in prison? I'd be some guy's bitch in no time, either that or I'd be running the place. There's no middle ground for me." He laughed and poured some more whisky. "I know I'd be running the prison if I could have one of those women who beat the shit out of my bodyguards like they're the little bitches." He paused and took a sip of the very old scotch. He preferred cognac, but this would do for now.
"Do these super hot women who can beat up trained men just grow on trees or have I been missing something? I mean Heather Matthews came into my house and had every guy wrapped around her little finger with her sultry act, but then she kicked the shit out of every one my men. I just heard of the havoc that Taylor caused. They said that she sent three guys to the hospital, and that she didn't even look like she'd been in a fight."
"Well your guys never had a chance with either of the Matthews sisters. They're gifted like their cousin Jan. There are variations in their powers, but if you had a hundred guards they wouldn't have been able to stop those two."
"What if those hundred guards all had machine guns?"
Morgen's smirk widened a little. "That might have made them change strategies, but that's about it. They'd take the machine guns and ram them up those guards' asses if they wanted to. There are gifted people and then there are those whose power is hard to fully comprehend. You picked an unwinnable fight when you dropped their cousin from a helicopter. The best thing I can say for your situation is that Jan didn't die. If Jan Caufield hadn't been gifted, and if you had been responsible for her death, only God could have saved you from those two. If He was so inclined that is." Morgen was internally amused as Martin's face turned red and his anger began to show.
"That's bullshit!", Martin railed. "So you're saying I should be dead then or soon will me. If these girls have all this power then why didn't they just tear my bodyguards to ribbons and tear me to ribbons too. Why didn't they just pull my house down and rip through the foundations if they have so much power? You're full of shit Morgen! You're just trying to justify your goddamned paycheck! You know things haven't gone so well since my father hired you in the first place. You haven't fixed anything. Everything's just gotten worse! Now you're saying that I have two super human bitches after me and you can't even protect me at all!! Then what are you here for?!? Maybe you should just fucking go!"
Morgen looked at him calmly from his seat and crossed his legs as he took another sip of the fine scotch. "I'm the only chance you have, and you know it. I was hired to fix the mess you made by sending a man like Spencer after Moira Kelly. I wasn't here to protect you from your own bad decisions, like becoming a Bond villain and dropping what you thought was an innocent girl from a helicopter for some perceived grievance." Morgen's voice was never raised. He simply eyed Martin and continued.
"And you wonder why your men weren't torn to pieces? There are two reasons. Firstly, the Matthews sisters were using a non agent to take pictures of their entire operation and they didn't want him to know that they aren't normal. That actually saved you and your men some grief. The second reason we already went over. Neither you, nor your men are any threat to them. A tiger doesn't have to kill a toad that crosses its path. It just keeps walking as if the toad doesn't exist. They're the tigresses Martin, and whether you believe it or not, you my friend are the toad."
"Hmph! If I had all that power, I wouldn't care who knew. I'd use it to carve me out an empire and rule it like a fucking Russian Tsar." He laughed off the earlier tension and refilled Morgen's glass. "I suppose that's why Taylor Matthews didn't kill this Slater Hastings kid."
"You're catching on. Taylor is like a goddess walking among humans whether she wants to think of herself like that or not. There's not much regular people can do to even cause her serious discomfort let alone actual injury. Her main enemy is self control, or lack there of in some cases. She, and those like her, which includes her cousin, will kill when a situation is bigger than their ability to contain. Jan killed some drug cartel men during a big shootout in Atlanta a few weeks ago because she couldn't have kept them from harming other people. I doubt she thinks about all of this before she acts, but I have the luxury of distance to observe her actions."
"You admire them don't you?", Martin asked, suddenly getting some insight.
"I do", Morgen admitted without much hesitation. "I admire them for the very same reasons you are jealous of them."
Martin had let go of his anger because Morgen was right about it all. In a way he was jealous of those girls. He was hiding out here like a criminal while they were going on with their lives. "If all goes to hell, what about Spencer's guys? Do you think they can stop them?"
Morgen downed the rest of the scotch. "They have a chance. Those men are strong and know what they're up against, but truthfully, I hope we don't have to find out."
That hadn't been the answer Martin had wanted to hear, but he didn't get a follow up question. A man came into the room. His big muscles could barely fit under his suit. He must have been one of Spencer's men Morgen saw. "Boss the kid's here."
Martin ordered him brought to the room where he and Morgen were lounging. A minute later two men escorted Slater into the room. He was everything they expected him to be: a pompous, self-important, entitled, son of a rich man.
"Where's my money?", Martin asked, taking the lead.
Slater was nervous. He'd told himself to play it strong, but the big rough looking men standing very near him were worse than the hitmen earlier in the night, but he pushed that out of his mind. They didn't matter. They were just functionaries. The only man he had to please was the one who'd asked the question and possibly the important looking blond man sitting across from him.
"I have all the information in the bag. I don't have any reason to hold anything over your head, Mr. DeBraya. You might look at me and see an ungrateful punk."
"That had crossed my mind", Martin told him without a smile. "And other choice descriptions."
"I am what I am, and I make no apologies for it. But I'm not stupid. I need to get out of America and I can't just board a plane at the airport. I need friends and I hope that I can be yours, Mr. DeBraya."
Morgen raised an eyebrow but said nothing when Martin looked at him. "You sure do know how to kiss ass Slater. Have a fucking seat." He motioned for one of the guards to bring Slater a glass of scotch. Martin and Morgen watched as Slater took a big sip and nearly choked. They only chuckled at him. They both remembered the first time they'd drunk the Scottish elixir.
"So why are you on the run, young man?", Martin asked once he'd looked in the bag at the lists of the numbered accounts where his money was stored.
"Because of this", Slater said and pulled out his phone. He punched a couple of buttons then held the screen to Martin. He saw a smile appear, but when he showed the picture of a striking young redhead lying a pool of blood, Morgen's face didn't change at all. "That's Heather Matthews. I had her killed today by a couple of hitmen. They sent me this picture as confirmation on the hit. One of them did the shooting and the other got the pic from up close. Those were some tough guys."
"So you had some beef with Miss Matthews?"
"Not really. I hate her sister." Slater went on to explain the situation between he and Taylor. As he spoke about what she had done to him, Morgen and Martin realized that this kid was a bigger punk than they'd even realized.
"So what about your father?"
"He pissed me off for the last time. Something inside just snapped, you know? I grabbed the first sharp thing I could find and I stabbed him as hard as I could, at least twice, but maybe more. The whole thing was a blur, but there's nothing for me there anymore."
"No, I'd say you're right about that. Okay, Slater. Go with that man there. He'll fix you up with a place to sleep and some food if you're hungry. We won't be leaving for a couple of days at least. We have to wait until there's a good window for travel. So until then, you're my guest", Martin said graciously. When Slater had left the room, Martin shook his head and looked over at Morgen. "Should we tell that boy was a shit storm he's in? Those hitmen may have shot Heather, but from what you've told me, she's not dead."
"No. There's no way those little holes in her chest would even slow her down. She's either playing Slater or the hitmen or both. I don't know yet, but I'll find out", Morgen said.
"It's too bad that kid didn't succeed at killing her. I wouldn't have shed a fucking tear. That girl caused me all kinds of grief. Hell, she and her sister are the reason I'm here hiding out like a fucking gopher in a hole in the first place."
"Well, Martin, it might have something to do with you, a helicopter, Jan Caufield, and a computer. What the hell was on that computer anyway?", Morgen asked directly.
Martin got his sly smile again. "Nothing. The information was on an external hard drive not on the internal one. That external hard drive went to with the rest of the stuff from my house to the county evidence lock up. The Matthews girls snatched the computer from my office, but there's nothing on it but regular shit that would be on anybody's computer. Work stuff, tax records, music, pictures of naked women, but nothing that the Feds can use on me or the company."
"I wish you'd told me this before. That would have been useful information."
Martin shrugged. "It wouldn't help me with the Feds, so why bother? I mean I tried to kill a girl who couldn't be killed who also used to work for the Feds. They know that I'm involved in something heavy, but they don't know what. Oh, I'm going to get the hell out of the United States computer or no computer."
"What about the information in the hard drive? One day somebody is going to access the data."
Martin laughed this time. "They won't get a damned thing. The data is encrypted with a disappearing code. If I don't access the data in a certain number of days and input the correct password, the data with be gone. Poof like it never existed."
Morgen was impressed. "Not bad. So how many more days until the information goes poof?"
"We're under two days now. Maybe 40 hours or so. Then my father can stop worrying about any secrets getting out. Forty hours and I can leave the country knowing that I didn't do any harm to the family mission."
Now Morgen really was impressed, but more than that he was seeing an opportunity. Morgen had never used his powers on Martin or any of his men, but that was about to change. Morgen's power could be quite subtle. Mix in with the continuing meandering conversation were questions about the external hard drive. Martin would never remember being asked the questions or answering them. After he'd gotten what he needed from Martin, Morgen stood up to leave. "I'll see you tomorrow Martin. I have to go. I have two beautiful women waiting for me in my bed."
"Any chance you'd let me borrow one of them?", Martin asked and reached for his bottle again.
Morgen smirked. "I'll think about it." Once he went outside he put a call in to Benny. After thanking him for sending the two Femmes, he asked Benny to do a little hacking for him. It was child's play to Benny, who had the information before Morgen had even turned the key in the ignition. He hung up the phone and sighed as images of X-417 and X-411 naked in his bed came to mind, but he pushed that away. He could sure use another one of their special showers, but right now there was something else he needed them to do. He called his penthouse and X-417 answered. "Get up girls, and get dressed for work. I have a job for you to do."
It was all about timing, but they didn't need to look at a clock or even to sing show tunes. Each Femme had an unerring internal clock that kept their movements, although a mile apart, perfectly synchronized. X-411 was dressed in a shapeless dress as she worked her way to the side of a floral shop that had closed for the day. She had a mostly empty bag slung over her shoulder as she strolled down the sidewalk. There was one camera pointing at the door, but all they saw was a woman in a rather ugly dress walking by. Once she was on the side of the building, X-411 jumped from the ground to the roof, only needing her hands to control her assent. She quickly pulled the dress over her head and stuffed it inside the bag. She made her way towards the back of the building, the side of the building that ended at the alley. Across the alley was a 12 foot high chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Inside that fence was the main county detention center, a midrise fortress made of reinforced concrete that housed the evidence lock up as well. That fortress was designed to keep criminals in, but it worked just as well at keeping unwanted people out. Most people looking at it would have thought that it would have taken a small army to get inside, and they would be correct, but they didn't know that each Femme was a small army. Two Femmes could have burst into the building and killed dozens to get what Morgen had requested, but he wanted this job covert. It wasn't how the Femmes were normally used, but they were programmed for black operations too.
With the dress off, X-411 was wearing her non reflective black. The skintight outfit was stretched over her hard athletic body, and the power of her legs was unmistakable. Those legs were her strongest and best feature. She was the most naturally muscular Femme and she often used that power to compete her missions just like she was going to do tonight. She was in position waiting for the moment to start the mission.
X-417 was a mile away at a power substation. They are usually fenced in and heavily chained and locked, but that was nothing for a Femme because despite the obstacles, they were rarely guarded or even looked at. X-417 was in the substation with a long piece of graphite. She didn't want to break anything, but she needed to create an overload. That she did.
The lights blinked then flickered and then went out for several blocks as the massive circuit breaker at the substation tripped from a sudden overload. The third shift staff at the detention center had just settled in when it went dark inside the building. They didn't panic though. The emergency lights kicked on immediately and the backup diesel generators would come on in a matter of seconds.
X-411 was efficient as she ran in the darkness towards the edge of the roof on this moonless night. Her powerful legs propelled her at great speed until at the last step, she leapt across the alley and over the fence, a distance that only the best Olympic level jumpers could have cleared and she did it with ease. She landed on the grass and her knees barely bent. She didn't hesitate a moment. She ran towards the shorter vehicle maintenance building and used it as a boost to jump nearly twenty-five feet in the air and use her super strong grip to grab a contoured side of the detention building. She used that inhuman grip to scurry the other sixty feet to the roof of the building. The lights flickered again when she was about five feet from the top, but it went black for ten more seconds before the breaker at the substation switched back on. That caused the backup generator to shut itself off again, which actually added a few seconds to the mini blackout at the detention center.
There were no guards on the roof or cameras looking at it. The architects didn't design the structure to withstand attacks by enhanced super soldiers. X-411 hurried towards a small nondescript box protruding from the roof. The cover was locked with a heavy pad lock, but X-411 didn't break the lock. She wrapped all ten fingers around the lip of the lid and put her forearm muscles to work. The shaped steel and aluminum of the cover was no match for her. It bent as her fingers bent and rotated as her hand rotated. When she'd rotated the lip 900, she pulled open the lid as if it had never been locked, and looked down at the elevator shaft beneath her. It was over ninety feet from the top of the shaft to the bottom, and its top was choked with motors, massive flywheels with thousands of feet of cable wrapping around them took up most of the room, and steel beams crisscrossing to support the weight of the machinery and of the elevators they raise and lower. X-411 jumped down through the hatch, landing on one of the girders a few feet below the top. She pulled the top down then quickly ran around the tops of the elevator shafts away from the regular lifts to the one with the really big machinery.
The freight elevators were located a ways away from the passenger ones, and everything about it was made for strength and power. The big electric motors were about to get bested by the power of one woman with super human muscles. The motors had stopped when the power had gone out, but now with the power back on the motors were about to start turning again. Just as the three men in lift were about to breathe a sigh of relief, their progress stopped with a jarring jolt.
The pulley wheel of the freight elevator was a single cast piece of hardened steel so thick that the passenger wheels look like toys by comparison. It was capable of handling heavy loads, and beside the three men on it, there was also equipment from the ninth floor weighing the elevator down, but when X-411 put her comparatively small hands on the spokes, the mechanism ground to a halt. Her legs were set wide apart, but it was her biceps that jumped to action first, stretching the material of her non-reflective top to its limits. X-411 had always had a powerful body and muscles that expanded when exerted, even before she'd been made into super soldier. The electric motor ground and whined as it tried to turn the pulley wheel. X-411's arms shook as her muscles filled with more and more strength to hold back the powerful freight motor. She could smell the wires heating up, but X-411 didn't wait for the motor to burn out. She didn't want it to. That would take too long, so now her legs got into the action. Her feet were set wide on one of the steel girders. All the muscles of her lower body solidified, her quads flexing harder and bigger as she unleashed the awesome power of those legs to pull up on the wheel. One woman shouldn't have been strong enough to lift the heavy pulley wheel, the braided steel cables, the elevator, the equipment, and the men on it, but she was.
Her thighs surged. Her biceps grew, freakish peaks thickened and the super human fibers fired faster and faster as she pulled. She overcame the dead weight of the freight elevator. The bracket was next. While holding all that weight, X-411's legs were only getting started. X-411 took a deep breath, her face already contorted with strain, she threw her head back and released her reserve and the bracket snapped like a plastic fork. Everything had been done with X-411's somewhat dainty hands. With the strength coursing through her body, she could have destroyed it all, but that wasn't her mission. Instead she twisted the pulley out of align and set it down again. The motor had stopped trying to turn it, and now it couldn't now anyway. The elevator was broken and stuck.
The men in the elevator had been thrown to the floor, and hadn't tried to get up because after first feeling like toys dangling. First they'd felt like they were rising, but they didn't hear any machinery above them or even the sliding of cables. They didn't know what to think, but when it was all over one of them pushed the emergency button. That got things moving. Staff ran up to the fifth floor, but the men were stuck between the fifth and sixth floors and they couldn't get to them, so they called the fire department to rescue the trapped men. That is exactly what X-411 and X-417's programming had predicted would happen.
It didn't take long for three fire engines and two ambulances to arrive on the scene. The normally strict security was relaxed into non-existence to allow the firemen into the bowels of the detention center. At least a dozen people came inside all with their gear. No one noticed that one of the people rushing in didn't come from the trucks. The attractive black woman wearing full fireman's suit had flowed into the group entering the building like a stream flowed into a river. She looked like she knew what she was doing, and no one thought anything of her being there. The real firemen weren't really paying attention. They had a job to do. They went to the staircase, and the time any of the men would have looked to see who was around them, X-417 was gone. Instead of going up the stairs, she'd gone down and disappeared into the lowest level of the building. The loading dock was to her right and the big doors of the freight elevator to her left. She knew that her fellow soldier was on the other side of that door.
After disabling the pulley wheel, X-411 had used the frame of the shaft to climb to the bottom. She was in position when light from the hallway split the pitch blackness. X-417 had pried open the doors and jumped down into the shaft. After pulling the doors closed, she pulled off the fireman's gear and stuffed it into the big bag. Now X-417 stood next to X-411 in an identical form fitting outfit. Her outrageous curves were on full display, but this was no beauty pageant. It was time for X-411's powerful muscles to go back to work.
X-411 bent down like she was about to squat the world. Her face was emotionless, but her muscles were primed for heavy work, and this was going to be the hardest thing X-411 had every done. She had pushed her muscles when she'd disabled the elevator mechanism, but the three men and equipment in the freight elevator weren't even close to the maximum load capacity. The counterweight of the elevator was deigned to balance the lift even at maximum load. It would have been better if there was another Femme to help with this job, but X-417 had a job to do too and couldn't help lift the counterweight. Instead it was quite literally all on X-411's shoulders.
Her shoulders pressed against the bottom of the cold steel counterweight, and she took a breath providing oxygen to her already pumped muscles. Her back widened as the muscles had to get hard to absorb the weight. She placed her palms on the weight to steady her lift, and then she began to stand up. Her quads bulged out above her knee. The thick muscles split and split again. The striated heads of those muscles flexed with aching definition and power, pushing her tight black pants to their limits. X-411's body had always been impressive, but her muscle bulging transformation was awesome. A soft grunt escaped X-411's lips as she forced air from her lungs. The massive weights had moved perhaps a foot as X-411's knees had straightened like rusty hinges. She moved up in fits and starts, but every grunt and every muscle bursting instant brought her closer to her goal.
Another wave of growing flexing muscle forced her tights against her like a second skin. Every vein bursting striated inch of muscle was straining to the utmost as the tons of weight rose higher and higher. Her face had turned as red as the fire trucks outside. A single branching artery throbbed on her forehead and her body shook like a tuning fork. Even her super muscles had limits. She was near them, but this counterweight wasn't going down until she was ready for it. She pushed it up even higher, getting her knees close to straight although her back was bent slightly forward.
With the counterweight high enough, an access hatch used during construction was revealed. Usually it was covered by either the freight elevator itself or the counterweight. The engineers couldn't have envisioned a silent way to expose the hatch, but the blonde Femme had done it.
The steel hatch and frame were set into the concrete of the wall. X-417 stooped a bit to walk under the weight and she put her hands on the hatch. She pushed hard on one side and now her own impressive muscles got into the action. The steel dug into the concrete and X-417 kept pushing until the corner she was pushing started going inside. As soon as she had pushed the hatch inside about six inches, she quickly grabbed the other side and a quick pull opened the locked hatch revealing the room on the other side of the elevator shaft. X-417 climbed through the opening and once she was on the other side of the wall, she reached back through and pulled the hatch closed until the frame was back where it had been before.
As soon as X-417 had closed the hatch, X-411 slowly let the counterweight down. Not quite slowly enough because the trapped men in the elevator felt it shake when the cables went taunt. X-411 wasn't concerned with that. She jumped out of the shaft and no sooner had closed the elevator door than a regular door to her right opened up. It was a secure door and a light on the central control panel would blink, but it went off quickly when X-411 ran through the door and closed it. The man in the central control had enough going on to even worry about a warning light that was only on for a second. It was probably a glitch anyway he thought as he opened the doors to another set of cells.
The two Femmes were now inside the evidence area, but there was one more obstacle. X-411 took the bag from her back and quickly unzipped it. She pulled out two pneumatic wrenches powered with compressed air tanks. She tossed one to X-417 and they went to the big steel cage that was the last level of protection around the thousands of items kept here in this room. Either of the Femmes could have ripped their way through the steel in a matter of seconds, but this mission called for more finesse. They took the wrenches and carefully put the ends through the gabs in the mesh cage. The holes were barely big enough for fingers to fit through, but these tools were perfect for the job. They slid into the special bolts that anchored the cage to the concrete floor. They had to unscrew nine of them, but with X-411 working from one end and X-417 working from the other side, it was pretty quick work. The clerk was on the other side of a large sliding door and an even moderately loud noise would have alerted him. He usually came back to the cage to make sure that the second shift guy had marked and organized any new inventory, but on this night he was more concerned with why his teen aged daughter hadn't come home yet. That was perfect for the Femmes.
X-417 was already working her hands under the cage while her partner unscrewed the last anchor further down the line. When the last bolt came out, X-417's powerful muscles finally got into the action. Her biceps burst to prominence, the peaks pressing out the sleeve of her top. Her pecs and traps flexed as she lifted the cage from the cement. X-411 lay flat down on the ground and when the cage was up high enough, she rolled under. X-417's biceps remained flexed and rock hard because she didn't put the cage down. She couldn't risk making noise, so she held it stock still.
X-411 hurried down the rows and rows of items, some big and some tiny, until she came to the set of shelves and boxes that held the goods that had come from Martin DeBraya's house. All of their quick, yet elaborate planning had been to retrieve a simple Seagate external hard drive that she found tagged just like hundreds of other items. X-411 pulled an identical hard drive from her bag. The serial numbers didn't quite match, but there hadn't been time to remedy that. She carefully looked over the handwriting of the tagger and flipped open a pocket sewn into the bag. In it were dozens of different pens with many different colors of ink. She pulled out the correct one, and like a master forger she made a new tag which she stuck to the replacement hard drive. She put the replacement hard drive where her target one had been. She slid the real one into her bag and raced to the side of cage where X-417 was holding up hundreds of pounds of steel without a single bit of strain. X-411 made sure there were no loose ends before she quickly rolled under the cage. She grabbed hold of the cage and helped steady the big steel box while they lowered it to the concrete floor. It touched down with barely a sound. So far so good for the Femmes. They took up the wrenches and were about to reinsert the bolts when they heard conversations on the other side of the big sliding double door to their right. They knew that people were on the other side of the door, but it's what they were saying that was troubling. They were coming in to retrieve some evidence from the cage, but the Femmes weren't ready for that. X-411 and X-417 looked at the big doors knowing that this could ruin their mission. Femmes didn't get worried. They didn't have the ability to do that anymore, but X-417 did hurry. She dropped her pneumatic wrench and ran to the sliding door. She put her hands on the handles just before one of the men on the outside touched his handle to pull it open.
He gave it a tug. The door didn't open. He twisted up his face and gave it another pull. It didn't budge. He gave it a sustained pull this time, same result. The two men standing with him shook their heads. The damned door must be stuck again. One of the other men grabbed the handle of the other door and he pulled as well. On the other side of the door, X-417 stood with her hands pushing the doors closed with two men pulling against her. Her pectorals tightened and swelled against her tight black top, but even when all three men were pulling as hard as they could, her super muscles weren't really taxed. The three men took hold of one door and all pulled at the same time. X-417 didn't even have to change her stance as three grown men pulled against her. Her hard body resisted it all, finally the men gave up.
"Somebody get a damned crowbar! And I swear if the maintenance guys don't fix this door, I'm going to put my boot in somebody's ass!"
X-417 took the time to lean over and actually bend the track on both sides before looking over her shoulder at X-411 working on the last bolt. X-417 ran away from the door when X-411 finished and put the wrenches back in the bag. It was time to go. They didn't have much time, and this facility had already experienced enough unexplained breakdowns. Anymore might push people past coincidence. X-411 grabbed the bag and the two Femmes ran past the hatch and to the door. X-417 barely broke stride as she push it open. Both Femmes rushed out into the hall hoping that there were no people out there by the loading dock. There weren't any people. The door shut behind them just as the three men pried open the sliding doors to bring in more evidence into the cage. All the men looked across the room when they heard the door knob catch, but it was just one more strange thing in a pretty nerve racking shift.
Between the fifth and sixth floors, the firemen were still working to free the last of the three men on the freight elevator as two Femmes climbed up the shaft, taking care to be quiet. X-411 held the bag, and it was X-417's job to handle any trouble. Fortunately for everybody, there was no trouble. The Femmes set off another silent blinking alarm when they opened the hatch on the top of the roof. X-411 jumped to the top with the bag and made her way towards the edge of the roof while X-417 bent the lip of the lid back into its normal position. Her muscles were already pumped and the steel bent quite easily. She closed the lid, and the light in the control room once again went off. The guy in room just shook his head and wondered how much else would go screwy before the day was over.
While X-417 bent the latch back into place, X-411 opened the large bag and started unrolling a black nylon rope. When the hatch was closed the two Femmes made eye contact. X-411 took up one end of the rope, and an instant later, she ran towards the edge of the roof. She was only 20 feet from the edge of the roof when X-417 took up the rope and wrapped it once around her forearm. X-411 leapt off the roof with a running start. With the rope trailing behind her, the soles of X-411's boots fell towards the roof of the shorter maintenance building next to the tower. She was about a foot from hitting the roof hard enough to make a big thump when the rope went taunt, slowing her down to a near stop. X-417 gave just a little allowing her partner to land as soft as a gnat on cotton. Now it was time for X-417 to jump, but she took a slightly different angle.
She jumped from the top of the midrise building towards the ground. X-411 took up the slack on the rope, shortening it enough to slow X-417 decent allowing her to make a soft landing on the grass. X-411 jumped from the three story building to the grass next to X-417 then took off at super human speed towards the fence, taking care to stay out of the cone of the security cameras. A sharp eyed sheriff's deputy just getting off of a double shift saw two dark shapes gliding over the chain-link and razor wire, but he shook his head. There was no way a person could jump that high. He should start drinking decaf.
The two Femmes landed in the alley and quickly ran into the shadows. They hugged the back of the shopping strip until it ended at the cross street. A dark sedan skidded to a stop as soon as the Femmes burst from the alley. It took mere seconds for the Femmes to get into the car, and Morgen hit the gas before the doors even closed. He didn't have to ask if the mission had been successful. With his power he could read the messages of the programming. He smiled as he drove, keeping an eye out for cops in his rearview, not that it would have mattered. It had been a long day, and Morgen was ready to get some rest, but he had a stop to make. He pulled the stolen (borrowed) sedan on the side of a fire house and took the gear that he'd also borrowed from the firehouse back inside. The men who were gone on the call at the detention center would never notice that the spare suit had ever been gone.
An hour later, Morgen was in his penthouse. He'd been nice enough to deactivate the Femmes after their fine work. They would get some rest for those wonderful muscles. He had some more erotic uses for those muscles later, but right now, he powered up the equipment he'd procured while the Femmes had been breaking into the evidence room. Morgen was fairly proficient with computers, but he'd put in a late night call to Benny to help him access the information off the hard drive. Morgen followed Benny's instructions step by step then connected the external drive. He typed in the codes in the exact order and then saw exactly why Martin DeBraya had been willing to kill Jan Caufield to keep her from seeing this.
Martin was writing a novel, and although English wasn't Morgen's first language, even he knew that this was pretty bad. This might have been the worst prose Morgen had ever read. As Morgen went on, forcing himself to push ahead, he saw that Martin was writing a novel that told the story of his family's quest for the Great Recipe. Martin had made himself the main character in this over the top delusional story, but mixed in with the crap was real truth. Morgen finally understood the full depth of what he was involved in, and what the Great Recipe really was. He'd heard legends and read about them in primary school, but this wasn't some sort of myth. For the first time in his life, Morgen felt that this might be more than he can handle.
He'd been treating this entire operation as a normal play for more power and influence. He'd done operations like this all over the world. It's how he made his money and gained his influence and reputation, but this was something much much bigger. So beg that he thought about talking to his frienemy the Broker, but he wasn't sure. He was sure of one thing though. He was really tired. He would sleep on this, and perhaps his head would be clear in the morning.
Miles away, sleep wasn't quite as easy in coming for Slater, but for the reasons that most people would have guessed. Sure he'd stabbed his father in the back with a gilded letter opener, and before that he'd ordered and paid for the murder of a 19 year old young woman who had done him absolutely no harm. It had been quite a busy night, but Slater wasn't suffering from guilt or doubt. Instead, he couldn't get over just how uncomfortable this cot was. He was sure that it hadn't been slept on in decades, and the guy who'd used it last probably hadn't slept very well. Slater could take solace that he'd finally gotten even with Taylor fucking Matthews. He'd thought about her so much that it was almost like he couldn't of anything else. He would have been surprised to know just how little she was thinking about him.
There was a soft beep in the airplane as the pilot turned on the seatbelt sign, and a barely audible thump as the landing gear started to come down. Sara had never taken her seatbelt off while she slept, and Alisha's clicked hers into place while she still talked to her friend in California about boy problems. Taylor buckled the belt across her lap without thinking and so did Jan which was amusing as Jan thought about it. A crash would have been an inconvenience, but not much more than that, which was why no one bothered to wake up Heather to put hers on.
Jan yawned as she reached one of her long arms across the aisle and tapped Brian on the leg. "Hey, sit up and put your seatbelt on."
"Why should I?", Brian groaned without opening his eyes. "I'm surrounded by people with all sorts of super powers. I firmly believe that if we crash, that at least one of you guys would use those super duper powers to save poor little me."
Taylor chuckled and Jan simply shook her head. They decided to change the subject. "What about Brice? Does he have any powers like us?"
"He does have a little of the healing. His wounds heal fully, but unfortunately for him not all that quickly… well compared to us I mean. I don't think he has any of the strength, but how can you tell?", she informed with a snicker. Her brother was 6'6" tall and more than 265 pounds. He was already as strong as an ox.
"So what was your plan to tell the family?", Jan asked.
Taylor yawned and moved her shoulder a little to shift Heather's head a little before she answered. "We were planning on doing the announcement after the Cook Out. We were going to tell Grandma and Uncle Drew and Aunt Amber, plus Uncle Ted and Aunt Carol of course… oh and Thomas." She paused and leaned forward. "How do you think Thomas will take it?"
Jan gave a little grin. "Probably better than you'd think."
"I'm so excited", Taylor said as the landing gear lowered, even though it was hard for anyone he didn't know her well to tell. "I wish I could tell our parents tonight. I mean, that could be something that Mom and Uncle Ted could talk about."
"Yeah, finding out that we're all gifted might get them to say thirty or maybe forty words to each other."
Taylor shook her head. "I said I was excited, Jan. Don't make me depressed."
This time Jan chuckled. "Well, they're probably all sleep now anyway."
Katherine Matthews turned her wrist over and looked at her watch. "I wonder where they are. I talked to Taylor and she told me that she wouldn't keep them out too long."
"Ahh, Honey, they're young people. You have to give them their space. They've got energy that us old folks don't have."
Kat widened her eyes and popped her husband on his stomach. "Speak for yourself. I'm as spry as ever."
Jack tisked. "Well, Kat when you start using words like spry it's a pretty sure sign that you're getting over the hill."
Three of the four in the group laughed, Kat just gauged whether it was worth it to get up and hit Jack like she'd hit her husband. "You're still on probation", she told him with a grin. She and her older brother were in the process of making up for years of distance, and this night was a testament to that. They hadn't spent time together like this for a very long time. At first it had been just the two of them, in the family room drinking some wine and talking, but very soon their spouses had joined them. Jack sat on the sofa with Carol lying across his chest while Ted and Kat were on the loveseat closet to the roaring fire. It was nice on a chilly night in South Florida. The four people in the room represented not only two couples who'd been married more than 20 years a piece; they also represented two sets siblings who rarely got a chance to be around each other. In Carol and Ted's case it had to do with their schedules. There had never been a drop of animosity between Ted and his baby sister, while Jack and Kat hadn't been so fortunate, but there had always been love and respect. That was a good start for the two of them, and the fact that they wanted this reconciliation to work. Kat didn't want to expect too much from him, and he didn't want to push her further and faster than she was willing to go.
"Maybe I should call Jan", Carol said and leaned to sit up to grab the phone. There was no need to dial the phone. The front door opened and the group of young adults spilled into the house. Taylor shushed the group as they came inside because she believed that everybody was asleep, but she saw the halo from the lights on in the family room. They were dimmed but on. Taylor, Jan, and Heather went to be nosy while the rest went straight upstairs.
"Oh there you all are", Carol greeted them once her daughter and nieces came into view. She had to smile when the three, who looked like sisters anyway, formed identical frowns on their faces. Carol was on the couch with her husband. It was rare that they saw her in a slightly intimate pose with Jack, but they were floored when they heard the voice across the room.
"Taylor, you told me that you wouldn't stay out late tonight."
"I'm sorry, Mom", Taylor said immediately, and managed to keep the shock off her face, but Jan and Heather didn't. Jack and Kat were in the same room, at the same time and they were smiling. It was almost enough for the three girls to start crying.
"You guys look a little worn out", Kat observed. "Did you all have a bad night?"
"Oh, no Ma'am", Taylor began, trying to not sound emotional. "We had a great night."
"Tell us about it", her mother offered.
Taylor, Jan, and Heather looked at each other and shared the same thought. "It can wait."
"Okay, girls have a good night. It's going to be great tomorrow."
to be continued...
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