C A R P Ch 11

Part Eleven - Senior Year, Fall Semester

It's easy to think of what happened over our senior year and get distracted by the terrorist attack that occurred in March of 2001, but we'll get to that in time, because the fall of that semester had a lot going on to keep us distracted. It was the last autumn I would be coming onto a campus as a student, although I would eventually return to other campuses a few times as a guest lecturer and one time even as a visiting professor, although I don't have any real accreditations in education. I think Oxford decided my writing spoke for itself.

We were all certainly nervous about our last year, because at that end of that year, we all knew we had to go out and make our marks on the world. People would have to go out and get actual jobs, take on real responsibilities and be actual adults.

Of course, the only reason we were worried about any of that was because we were holding ourselves to our already high (bordering on ridiculous) standards and wouldn't accept anything less than what we knew we were capable of, which was

changing

the world, improving it, leaving it a better place than how we found it.

I know what you think of me by this point, Agent Shetterly, but you have got to believe me when I tell you, myself and the rest of the CARP students, we only had the world's best interests at heart. You once described me in your reports as "rather bloodless, more reptile than human, able to weigh the cost of human lives without remorse" and that's true, although perhaps not as true for me as it is for many of my fellow graduates. You know, the ones I asked you to protect? The ones who keep mysteriously turning up dead? There's a reason I didn't trust you with my family, and why the last few years we've been particularly difficult to keep track of - because I'd like my entire family to remain breathing, thanks, and you lot seem to be miserable at that.

Yes yes, I've heard your apologies several times, Assistant Director Caulfield, and they mean as much to me now as they did the first time. I've got a yearbook full of enough dead friends to fill up a cemetery by myself, and you seem to somehow still think a handful of regretful words somehow absolves you of the amount of blood on your hands from your years of inaction.

I assure you, it does not.

You and your fellow FBI agents did not take me seriously when I came to you suspecting something regarding the death of Special Agent Costello. You did not take me seriously when I came to you with my suspicions about Will Bierko's death. I have been

trying

to get you people

ahead

of curve with all of this, and instead, I have been met with derision, mockery and even suspicion that I was the

cause

of all of this, when, in fact, I brought all of it

to

you after Costello's death. So don't tell me to calm the fuck down, lady, because I'm as cold as ice.

When we came back for our senior year, the first thing we got was a letter in the mail reminding us that each Alpha was responsible for their own 'senior project,' an actionable plan on something in our world that we could fix, within our lifetimes, with a reasonable amount of effort. Among the remaining 36 members of the Senior class of Alphas, we would come up with enough influential projects that we would change the face of the world in just fifty years' time.

That was the plan anyway.

It's worth noting that a lot of the senior projects that were put together that year did not rely on the survival of the architect to see them through to completion. In fact, it almost felt like we were a bunch of fatalists, expecting ourselves to die long before our work would come to fruition. I suppose there's something to be said about Dr. Igarashi raising an entire graduating class prepared to martyr themselves for what they believe in.

My plan wasn't so doom-and-gloom; it required me surviving to at least year twenty-five of its implementation.

We'll get to that.

I know what you're most curious about, the prudes that you are, and so I'll indulge your compulsive need to know about my sexual history first. The student rally for returning seniors was an unusual one, simply because we were told that

just

the Alphas were to be there - not to bring any of our partners with us. That came as something of a surprise, because in all the previous years, we'd been encouraged to bring our partners with us. They wanted them to find out when we found out, normally, so the fact that they wanted to do this one differently was more than a bit surprising to all of us. It felt a lot less like a rally and more like a large lecture, especially since this one was being held indoors, unlike all the previous ones, which had been held in the outdoors auditorium.

"Greetings my senior class of Alphas!" Dr. Igarashi said from her confident place on the stage to us. "I've brought you here today to inform you about your final partners, your mental equals. I'm sure you've been giving it some thought over the last few years, and maybe even a few of you have guessed at what I am about to say next, but your final partners... are right here in this room already. For the last few years, we as a faculty have been guiding you towards one another, and now, two different Alphas will join together, intermingling partners, forming one large Squad.

"We've been developing these pairings over the years together, and right now, I'm sure it's coming as no great surprise to you to learn that the Alpha whose suite is across the hall from yours in the dormitories is your new partner. Them and the rest of their team. You've had projects with them for years and because of the nearness of their suite to yours, I'm sure your team and theirs already know each other quite well, on a friendly basis. Well, now it's time for them to become friendlier than that. As always, it is up to you on how you want to intermingle your two teams, but our research has established that variety is the spice of life, and that by offering your existing partners a bit of 'new,' it will help prolong their connection with you as an individual and make the bond between your two teams form even faster.

"Now, one thing we do want to make sure of is that all your partners get the same amount of time to adjust to this, so no one is allowed to leave this room until everyone has come up and signed their name on the call sheet, stating that they're ready. In fact, in case you need verification about what the pairings are, they're all listed up here. And again, as it was with all previous pairings, they are merely our strong recommendations - if you feel a pairing doesn't work for you, all you need to do is come up to the podium and explain to me why, and I'll set about trying to find another pairing for you in the junior class, but I'm hoping I've done my job well enough that that won't be necessary."

It wasn't.

I was partnered up with Brianna Greene.

Yes, I've mentioned Brianna before, obviously, because she and I would often hang out and discuss Alpha problems, the kind of things that would've been impolite to complain about to our existing partners. It wasn't as though I had serious problems with Julia, Chelsea or Abi, but when I was struggling to make myself fit into the social identity Abi needed me to have to blend into her existing social stratosphere, I found myself struggling to reconcile the two identities within myself.

To be the sort of ladder-climbing chameleon Abi needed me to be, I had to be able to present a false front of whatever the situation called for. That meant, at any given moment, I might need to be anything from a high-class silver spoon egocentric one percenter to a scrappy, pulled-myself-up-by-my-boots, built-my-fortune-from-nothing self-financed ideocrat. Abi knew her world well and knew how to get me to fit within it, if I was anyone

but

who I really was. Oh, I never gave out any false names, but you ask anyone in Abi's social circles what I'm

really

like, and you'll get a completely different story for each person you ask. Sometimes even multiple stories from the same person.

Brianna had been forced to learn a similar skill when she picked up her social beta, Tom Kennedy. Yes, of

those

Kennedys. I know, I know, I've also been a little surprised that Brianna didn't take Tom's last name when they got married, but she was adamant she wanted to retain her own full name and not make that last compromise. The last year had been especially challenging for her, since she wanted to establish herself as a power player in the political arena on her own accord. She's often told me that using Tom to get her there felt like a shortcut in, but also a handicap once she got in there. She had to work three times as hard to get taken seriously by those in the political sphere, many of whom just wanted to consider her arm candy for Tom, whom she is at least a dozen times smarter than. She said with the Kennedy name, it would've been 'far too easy,' and one of the things I like most about Brianna is that she isn't one to shy away from a challenge.

Along with Brianna would come all three of her betas, Tom, who I just told you about, as well as Kelly and Casey, whom I mentioned earlier. Kelly and Julia were already close friends, each of them having Olympian level physiques, with Kelly making it to the Olympics for a variety of swimming activities. You've probably seen him and his nine gold medals on television at some point, where as Julia's had to relegate herself with her fourth-place finish at Wimbledon as her peak, although I keep telling her that her career has plenty of time left in it. I get that the average retirement age of tennis players is in their late 20s, but as I keep reminding her, we as a cohort are going to defy every convention and expectation set before us, so why not that one also?

I remember looking over at Brianna when Dr. Igarashi announced the Alpha pairings and seeing a huge grin on her face. "I'm down for this if you are," I told her, once the Doctor had allowed the group to break down into individual discussions.

"I've had a recurring dream about you and Kelly spit roasting me for years now, and you're telling me I get to make that happen anytime I want it?" Brianna giggled. "Yeah, I'm fucking down for that. In spades."

"Julia and Kelly'll probably want to fuck," I told her, as we kept talking through the permutations that we knew we needed to prepare for. "Shit, I imagine both Chelsea and Abi will want a crack at Kelly too." I couldn't help but laugh at the situation. "I mean, I'm not into guys, but he's probably in better shape than almost any guy on this campus."

"Oh, he's my lovely slab of Boston beefcake, although thank Christ he's slowly letting go of that goddamn accent," she giggled, shaking her head. "'BAHstun! I'm from BAHstun, sweetHAHrt!' Oh god, it was so fucking horrible when we first met!"

"What was it that Julia said to me when she first met him? 'I don't need him for his conversational skills, Josh,'" I said with a hearty laugh. "You think Casey will be okay with it?"

"She once described you as 'the kind of man I want to ravage my loins until my knees give out,' so yeah, I don't think you have much to worry about there, Josh," Brianna said to me, reaching out to take my hand in hers. It felt nice. Natural. "How are we going to do this long term? Because I don't know that you and I have similar career trajectories, and that might be the one real conflict we've got going against us."

"I wouldn't be too worried about it, Bri," I replied. "Early on, you'll be in a major city here in the States, and after that, you'll be in a major city somewhere else in the world. I'm going to be a writer. I don't have to be in any one place to do that. You can just have my and my team as part of your entourage whenever you need to live abroad, or we can simply keep two residences and not worry about it."

"I guess we'll figure that out when the time comes," she said to me, squeezing my fingers affectionately. "But I'm good with this as a pairing if you are."

"Sure," I said. "Abi'll bitch and moan a little--"

"Isn't that her normal SOP at this point?"

"Pretty much," I agreed, rolling my eyes. "Abi likes to complain so she feels like she's contributing something to any given conversation. But when she gets a chance to take Kelly out for a spin, I imagine that'll shut her up quick enough."

"Well, yeah," Bri giggled. "It'll be pretty tricky for her to talk with Kelly's cock lodged in her throat, and I'm sure he'll keep it down there until she's rolling her eyes back into her skull."

"Sounds like you're speaking from personal experience."

"Oh, you're gonna do much worse to me, I'm sure of it."

"There is

no

way I have the endurance of that guy."

"Endurance? No.

Creativity?

A hundred times over," she said, giving me a saucy little wink. "Besides, I already told you where we're gonna start. Unless you have objections to that."

"None whatsoever," I said. "Shall we head back to the dorms?"

"Well, we can at least sign in our lack of objections with the call sheet up front, so that when everyone's agreed, we can go."

By the time we made it to the front of the room, most of our fellow Alphas had signed the sheet agreeing to the pairings, which wasn't really a surprise to anyone, and in the end, only one pairing asked to be paired with other people, and those two Alphas had always been two of the most difficult to deal with. We'd be told they were paired down with juniors who were of similar mindsets, and that seemed to settle that.

Introducing the two teams together wasn't anywhere near as complicated as I was afraid it was going to be. As it turned out, Julia and Kelly, the two 'jocks' of the bunch, had guessed we were heading towards this years ago, and they'd discussed the possibility with not only each other, but also with each of our

other

partners, without my or Brianna's knowledge.

"Let's get down to it!" the normally reserved Tom said, once we'd gathered everyone into a room. And so, we did.

I can skip the lurid descriptions of debauchery and sexual depravity if you like, Assistant Director Caulfield, or I can include them, so that your report is comprehensive and conclusive.

Very well, as you wish.

We began, as Brianna had requested, with her on all fours, my cock thrust deep into her mouth while Kelly savaged her pussy from behind. It certainly wasn't something I'd ever done before - all my sexual encounters had purely been with women, and while I was (and remain) a heterosexual male, I was perhaps a little surprised that I didn't get 'performance anxiety' with another man in the room. As it turned out, Brianna was quite hellbent on showing off her skills as an oral technician, taking the length of my cock into her throat for long periods of time, even while her face bumped against my pelvis each time Kelly rammed his cock deep into Brianna's snatch. I might have thought she was in trouble, except each time she pulled off my dick to gasp in for a lungful of air, she had the most excited, borderline demented grin upon her face, her spit and my precum slathered over her face, bubbled and foamy, almost to make her look like a rabid dog.

We decided the first night would be Brianna's night, because after that, she wanted to get, and these are her words, Director, not mine, 'airtight.'

After a short break, we swapped places and added Tom into the mix, with my girls sitting out, cheering me on from the sideline, although I did see Brianna's partner Casey and Julia fooling around with one another on and off during the proceedings.

I don't know if you're familiar with the term 'airtight,' Director, but it's when... Good, so you understand. Tom was being blown, Kelly was beneath Briana with his cock inside of her pussy, and I was lodged up inside of her asshole. It was... quite the sensation for me, so I can only imagine how overwhelming it must have been for her. Brianna did her best to insist that all three of us cum at close to the same time, but Tom, well, Tom's a light touch, and he went off far earlier than Kelly or I did, but that just let Brianna talk both of us up, and we left Brianna exhausted and glazed like a donut assaulted by overeager bakers.

The next day was mine, and I enjoyed waking up to an assault of cocksuckers, no less than five women trying to vie for a turn at bobbing their heads up and down on my shaft, although I finished my wake up call putting a load inside of the one hole of Brianna's I hadn't filled my cum in the last twenty-four hours, her pussy, at her request mind you.

After that, I banged Casey in the shower, while Julia and Chelsea egged me on. Going to my first class of that day was definitely much more of a challenge than I had anticipated it would be, and when I returned back to the dorm room in the evening, I found Chelsea and Brianna had donned identical girl's school uniforms, and done up their hair in the exact same fashion, offering themselves up to me as 'twin sisters,' and I have to admit, the genetic makeup of both women is close enough that if you give a little room for leeway, it's easy enough to pretend the two were sisters, even though they are clearly not. That was certainly an exciting evening.

The next night, Brianna and I watched as our partners put on an erotic sex show for our amusement, allowing us to dictate what each of them did and who with. I made sure that Julia got the brutal fucking she'd so desperately wanted from Kelly, and for a grand finale, we let Abi have a turn at the 'airtight' experience.

Alright, I suppose I've made my point, and I can move on, but I want it down in your report, Director, that despite what you think of me, I am, in fact, quite capable, sexually, and want that down in the historical record, if only for my own amusement.

We ended up duplicating our suite keys, and for the next few months it was basically as though we simply had one large apartment separated by a little hall, my partners and Bri's partners intermingling, all the while making sure to tend to our needs first and foremost.

Both Bri and I had started work on our individual senior projects - mine focusing on cultural evolution beyond the need of mythological religions, hers on how to slowly push towards a one-world government structure - and while each seemed like a massively unscalable idea, both of us had core conceits that weren't difficult to grasp or execute, if you weren't expecting immediate results. The key was making them durable enough that they could withstand the tampering of people who didn't know any better.

Nothing is ever foolproof, but we tried our best.

Never underestimate the power of a truly legendary fool.

I also didn't wait long to tell Bri about my suspicions about CARP itself, relaying to her in great detail what I'd seen with Dr. Igarashi and Dr. Lebedev disposing of a body by embedding it within the concrete foundational supports of one of the buildings, and how they had been talking about having done so before. It was... well, it was one of the most terrifying conversations I've ever had with anyone in my life, because before I told her, I knew there was a very real and distinct possibility that she could be in on it, that she already knew about Will's death, and the deaths of the others, and that she'd been part of whatever inner circle Dr. Igarashi had.

Thankfully, it turned out that Bri was just as horrified as I was.

But, more interestingly, she wasn't

surprised

.

As it turned out, my newest partner had been suspicious of the good Doctor for as long as I had, and she'd

also

been doing her own investigations, but from the other end. Bri hadn't been looking into where our missing colleagues had gone, but more of where Doctor Igarashi had got the money to start up the college. And despite having spent more than a few years trying to track down where Doctor Igarashi's seed money had come from, Bri had only increased the number of questions she had, not decreased them.