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**Non-sex chapters. Skip to Chapter 11 for the next erotic scene. Here for completeness, only.**

6. Lt. Zee

Lieutenant Zee held a small, purple, lace-fringed handkerchief over her mouth and nose as she stepped into the decrepit, fifthly apartment. Three bodies -- one decapitated -- lay sprawled in the fetid damp of the apartment's rotten carpet. Lt. Zee coughed and choked back on the rising vomit in the back of her throat. She'd need a moment, she told herself, a moment to take it all in. Roku sat on a disgusting, dank couch -- naked except for a pair of torn black stockings -- a Paramedic slowing waving an anti-inflammatory wand in front of her chin. A Evidence Tech took a sample of something out of Roku's hair with a swab.

It was a fucking blood bath.

Zee stepped back out of the apartment, into the hall, and let the retches come. She doubled over to puke, but manged to hold her dinner down. She'd never seen a scene like that before -- not ever in the ten years she had been on the force. No agent had ever killed three... Oh God, she'd have to go and check... She'd have to go back inside... If any of the dead were actually female... Zee sucked in a large lung full of air and stepped back into the apartment -- the handkerchief over her nose once again.

A quick glance and she could see that the three corpses were male -- tiny, shriveled, hairless penises between their sprawled legs. Another first for Lt. Zee: She had never see a real make before -- never seen a penis. That was what all the fuss was about? She thought. That little thing? The Hatchette program was in its infancy. Roku, and the other eleven girls were the first Hatchettes the government had trained, and Roku was the first of the Hatchettes to show results. It was a feather in Roku's -- and Lt. Zee's -- cap: The dead Dicks. Good news like this would be well received high up in the Commissariat.

"Good job, Roku," Zee said though her handkerchief and her hand. Roku looked up in shock -- surprise. Roku was on edge, still hyper-adrenal, Zee realized. Her bionics, her conditioning, were still in control. Best not to make any sudden moves, Zee thought, or she'll snap my neck without thinking. Hatchettes were dangerous things -- combat machines built into the body of teenage girls. The program had been controversial from the start: The use of young girls. But to be one hundred perfect effective, the conditioning had to begin before puberty. And young minds were far easier to mold...

...But the look in Roku's eyes: The fear, the horror. What had she done? What had Lt. Zee made her do? For a moment, Zee felt a terrible guilt building up deep inside of her. What was Roku? Eighteen? Physically conditioned, well armed, but still a child...

...It was a war, Zee reminded herself. It was us or them. Roku was a warrior. She had killed the enemy. Give the chance, they would have undoubtedly killed her and gone on to do other unspeakable acts of terrorism. Roku should be proud of her service to the Great Society. Roku was a hero.

"Three Dicks," Zee observed, looking down at the corpses. She took in another deep breath and returned the handkerchief to her pocket. "All on your own."

"Four," Roku corrected. Zee turned and saw the body in the bedroom -- laying face down on the bright crimson, bloodstained mattress.

"Fuck. Four..." That rattled Lt. Zee just that little bit more. She took a pocket tablet and a stylus out of her jacket and turned it on, her fingers shaking. "This have anything to do with the Obers?"

"No." Roku was shaking too. It was dank and cold in the room and she was naked. "I mean, I was..."

"Yes?"

"Lady Le-En. The young wife, you know about her?"

"Yeah, the Res-head."

"Right." The Paramedic and the Evidence Tech were done. There was a coarse, wool blanket on the couch next to Roku and she pulled it up around her shoulders. "She brought me down here, to a brothel..."

"You're kidding?" Zee said, writing in shorthand on the tablet. "She know these Dicks?"

"No." Roku shook her head. "That was later, after the Ober Guards came for Le-En."

"What? Who came?"

"Some of the black suited guards, from the Manor. They came to the brothel and pulled Lady Le-En out. One gave me this," andR oku pointed to the fading bruise over her eye, "and left me behind. That's when these..." Roku struggled for the correct gender for her noun, "men picked me up."

"They had nothing to do with this brothel?" Zee asked.

"No... I mean, I don't think so..." Roku gave Lt. Zee a pained, baffled look. "But then..." and Roku's voice trailed of.

Lieutenant Zee was going to have to let in a breath of the fetid apartment. She couldn't hold her breath forever -- she was turning blue. She breathed out and sucked in a lung full. The stench of the apartment was as bad as she had expected. The mildew mixing with the smell of burnt flesh. Instantly, Zee felt the bile rising in her throat. She coughed and choked it down, her eyes watering.

Lt. Zee was in her mid-thirties. She wore a dark, business-like suit with heels and a silk, wide collared shirt. Nothing in her face gave a hint to her age, with girlish features and her dark hair pulled back, leaving bangs almost down over her eyes. She had a full figure, trending to fat, with full, heavy breasts and long voluptuous legs. She had once been athletic, in her youth, but the slow pace of police work, and the long hours had taken its toll on her body. Zee had handled Roku since she'd graduated from Hatchette training, hardly three months before. Lt. Zee like Roku, but the sight of Roku's tight, pert frame had always made Zee uncomfortable. Aroused, perhaps, but also nostalgic for the figure she had once had. Even in that apartment -- even with the bodies of four dead Dicks laying around her -- the sight of Roku's legs topped by the dark, black bush of her Jane caught Zee's attention. Roku looked like hell, beaten and abused, Zee thought, but also, in a way, she had an afterglow about her -- like she'd spent the night in rough lovemaking, and was sticky with sweat from the exertion. How close to the truth she was, Lt. Zee didn't know, but she could sense the musk of sexual satisfaction about Roku, and it teased her. It made her realize how long unsatisfied her own desires had gone, and how long it'd been since she come to a neighborhood like this one, in search of the forbidden -- in search of the lowest of the low, something to satisfy her deepest, darkest carnal desires...

"What happened at this brothel?" Zee asked.

"There were these two girls -- whores... And a phallus..."

"Real girls? Not-" and Zee motioned towards a corpse.

"No, real. I mean, I think... But then I thought these were..." and Roku shuddered.

"But a fake..."

"Yes," Roku answered quickly, "Steely Dan." Lt. Zee felt her stomach jump. The thought of Roku's legs spread wide, with a dildo between them... "But then the Guards came, and the whores tossed me out, and there was nothing for me to do but walk, so I started towards the river when these four came along in an old car. Real old, gas burner. It must still be downstairs. They offered me a ride and I took it. Why, I'm not sure. One of them was armed and they brought me here, where they pulled them out... That was the first I knew... That they were... One forced his... Into my mouth and... Pulled out and..." she touched her cheek. "The second in line was the one with the gun. He didn't get a chance and I reached for my burner... The rest you can see..."

Lt. Zee stopped tapping at her tablet, mortified. It was inconceivable. Grotesque. She'd never heard a story like it. She was simultaneously stimulated and horrified. To have four men abduct and rape you... Well, people would pay top dollar to role-play that sort of thing, in the seedier brothels, on the wrong side of the river. But this wasn't a fantasy -- Roku hadn't been sucking on anything rubber. And to cum on her face... It was the most vile thing Zee could imagine... She licked her lips involuntarily at the very idea...

The Paramedic returned and handed Roku a set of scrubs wrapped in plastic. Roku stood up and shuffled off the blanket, tearing open the bag of clothes. Lt. Zee suddenly felt she was intruding and stepped away to look over the corpses, their yellowing flesh pallid in the flash of the evidence technician's camera flashes.

They wouldn't know until the lab tests came back, but they all seemed to be level 3 transsexuals -- the engineered kind, with the 'Z' chromosome. Not simply men converted to look like women, but almost a third sex: Women with male genitalia... But that was deceiving -- they were still men inside -- in their hearts... Vile, predatory and murderous... Like all men, converted or not. A threat to everything good and honest in world.

The Dicks were becoming bolder and more aggressive. This little cell, right here; these four males, Zee thought, were operating with autonomy -- praying on young girls. Was this a renegade cell? Or was this now Dick policy? Gang rape as terrorism? Lt. Zee shuddered. Thank the Holy Matron they stumbled on Roku -- a Hatchette -- and not some other young girl...

"Come on, I'll give you a lift back to school," Zee said when Roku was dressed in the pale blue scrubs. Dressed, Roku seemed small and vulnerable -- the victim of a crime once again, not the aggressor. Roku followed Zee out of the apartment and up the stairs, not down. Lt. Zee's Police VTOL was parked on the roof, waiting, its butterfly doors open like two embracing arms.

"Tomorrow, I'll need a full debrief on the Ober situation," Lt. Zee said, climbing into the pilot's seat, pulling her door down and closed. Roku slipped quickly into the passenger seat, buckling herself in.

"You think there's some connection, don't you?" Roku said as the VTOL was lifting off the rooftop, the thunder of jets pushing away from the derelict neighborhood below them.

"I don't know what to think..." Lt. Zee replied, watching her gauges.

"But there was a reason that you placed me on the staff at the Manor, no? You suspected something? And now these four Dicks..."

"What the Commissariat suspects or doesn't suspect is none of your concern, " Zee said maternally. "Or mine, for that matter. If there's any connection between these Dicks and the Ober wives... Well, reports are filed and Commissars read them. That's all I can say."

"I just don't understand," Roku continued, looking down at the city below. They were amongst the skyscrapers now, the needles of steel cutting into the air. Two more minutes and they'd be out in the suburbs, flying over the Ober Mansion and the School grounds. "Aren't they one in the same thing -- the Ober wives and the Commissariat? Lady Aru -- isn't she First Commissar?"

"Not yet," Zee said dryly.

"The Commissariat spies on it's own members?" Roku turned and looked at the side of Lt. Zee's face. Zee was focused on her flying, but stole a quick, comforting smile for Roku.

"Don't concern yourself with politics, Roku," Zee said. "You'll twist yourself in a knot. What you did today -- the four Dicks -- that was some good work. Remember that -- focus on your duty. Hatchettes find and bag Dicks, that's your mission. Focus on that and let the politics work themselves out. Don't forget who the real enemy is, Roku. Out there," Zee glanced up at the sky, raising a finger, "they're waiting. Waiting for us to make a mistake, to drop our guard. That's where you come in, Roku, to be our eternal, vigilant guardian -- The Great Society's protector. And you proved your worth today, Roku. You proved your worth a thousand times over..."

Lt. Zee, and Roku, fell into silence.

The VTOL put down just outside the school's gym and Roku jumped free from the craft. A moment later, Lt. Zee was lifting off again, kicking up a cloud of dirt around Roku. Roku shielded her eyes and sprinted into the school's side door. All was quiet, dark. She took the side stairs that brought her out in the dormitories. A minute later she was at her bunk, slipping out of the hospital scrubs.

Pelli stirred on the top bunk as Roku slid, naked, into the bottom one. Roku pulled up the sheets and laid her head down on the pillow. Despite all the action, all the horror, Roku knew that sleep would not evade her. She was tired, body and soul. Dog tired. Too tired to think.

"What time do you call this?" Pelli said, poking her head over the side of her bunk. Roku didn't move, not even to open her eyes.

"Go to sleep," Roku said.

"You're gonna pretend you were working this late?" Pelli chuckled.

"I said: Go to sleep."

"Alright..." Pelli's head vanished, "if that's the way you want it. I just hope you had a good time..."

Roku could feel the weirdness consuming her -- sleep rapidly approaching. No, she hadn't had a good time, she remembered thinking just as unconsciousness took hold.

Not a good time at all.

7. Damage Control

Roku was in Social Studies the next day, casually ignoring the Matron's lecture -- working on her report for Lt. Zee -- when the door to the classroom swung open. It the the Head Matron -- an animal even older and more desiccated than all the other Matrons put together -- who stepped into the room and spoke quickly and quietly to Roku's teacher. The Social Studies Matron seemed annoyed but nodded her approval. With that, the Head Matron returned back out the door. Roku returned her attention back to her tablet.

"Roku!" the Matron yelled suddenly, making Roku jump. "In the hall!" she said firmly. Roku could see that the classroom door had not quiet closed and the Head Matron was waiting in it, watching.

"Yes, Matron," Roku said, sliding her tablet away in her folio. She left it by her chair and clicked on her heels across the floor of the classroom. At the door she stepped through, the Head Matron waiting, looking Roku over with a suspicious air.

"Roku?" she asked when the door had closed.

"Yes, Matron," Roku tried to look humble -- at the floor.

"You have a visitor," the Head Matron announced, as if it was the height of rudeness for Roku to dare be visited by anyone.

"A visitor?" Roku asked. It must be Lt. Zee, but she would never... She would never risk Roku's cover...

"In the Grand Hall," the Head Matron turned with annoyance, "follow me," she commanded.

Roku followed, teetering on her heels. She fiddled at the waist of her tiny skirt, attempting to lower it just a little. She'd feel like a fool to have Lt. Zee see her in her school uniform. It was just... Well, after yesterday -- after the four Dicks. To be dressed like a Matron's sex toy... Roku was already blushing.

But the tall figure in the bright turquoise gown, waiting in the Grand Hall, was not Lt. Zee. Flanked by leather clad guards, Lady Aru waited in the Hall for Roku's arrival with Lady Le-En sprawled casually on a settee beside her. Roku almost laughed in surprise. It was absolutely the last soul Roku expected to see.

Lady Aru looked half royalty/half martian in the long, flowing, high collared gown, with the neckline plunging, exposing the inner curves of those breasts, with the same gravity defying firmness that Roku had noted the evening before. She looked dressed for a evening gala, a ball, but Roku suspected that the air of regality was all part of Lady Aru's everyday business attire. Dress for the job you want, they say, and if you want to be queen... Like the body underneath, everything about Lady Aru spoke power, persuasion. Command.

But if Lady Aru's clothes spoke volumes about her, what did Roku's clothes say about her? Dressed in her tall heels; white socks up and over the knees; tiny plaid skirt, hardly hiding her underwear; tight shirt knotted under her breasts to reveal her bare midriff; her hair up in pigtails. Roku blushed, but the second Lady Aru laid eyes on her...

Whatever had happened the night before -- between Lady Aru and Roku in the Lady's bedroom -- had been real, Roku realized at that moment. That look... As quick as it appeared it vanished -- Lady Aru was nothing if not in complete control of her emotions -- but Roku had seen it. Definitely seen it. There had been a fire. Desire. Roku respectfully lowered her eyes -- as was expected when meeting such a dignitary, but she could feel a red warmth rising to her cheeks as she stood there under the gaze of Lady Aru. If Roku had been blushing before, she could only imagine what bright shades of pink she was turning now.

"Thank you, Matron," Lady Aru said with a dismissive wave. The Head Matron, visibly biting down on her pride, gave Lady Aru a small, respectful bow and quickly scuttled from the Grand Hall. "Roku, is it?" Lady Aru said.

"Yes, Ma'am," Roku said with a small curtsy. A flash of cleavage, the flip of the pony tails.

"This..." and Lady Aru let out a strained laugh, searching for words. "I hardly no where to begin... As I understand it. From my security personal and my dear wife..." she gestured to the sprawled figure of Lady Le-En, still dressed in white, but this time in tennis t-shirt and shorts. By the bored, pissed-off vibe Lady Le-En was projecting, it was obvious that she had not come to the Hall that day willingly. Like a sulking child being forced to own up to some mistake, she was throwing off an attitude of indifference and hoping it played as smoldering rebellion. "...that -- err, last evening -- well, it's just horrible... I don't know what to say... That my dear wife went down town to... Shell we say... A certain type of business... Not alone, with less than venerable ideas..."

Lady Le-En let out a disgusted groan.

"...And that you accompanied... And when, on my orders, my bodyguards arrived... At this place... To repatriate my lovely wife, for her own safety..." Lady Aru swallowed on her words. "That you were mistaken for someone of ill fame and... Struck about the head and left..."

She was apologizing. It took Roku a few seconds to realize it. Apologies obviously didn't come easily to Lady Aru. It hadn't accrued to Roku before, all the business with the Dicks had distracted her, but the scandal... If the events of last night ever made it to the vidcasts... Phallus Palaces, Ober Wives, under-aged girls. Oh, it was a fucking disaster. No wonder Lady Aru had come in person to apologize to Roku. This was one hell of a mess she had to clean up. This could cost her her seat in the Commissariat... Just the whiff of scandal...

Finger the fucking Matron!

Instantly, Roku realized the hold she now had over the Ober Wives. What would they do, what would the pay to keep this story out of the vidcasts? Insinuate yourself into the Ober household, Lt. Zee had commanded, but this was something else! Something else, indeed. Roku tried not to let what she was thinking show on her face, but it was hard. She looked up and fixed Lady Aru with an attentive, obedient smile.

"You must accept my apology, Roku," Lady Aru lay a hand on Roku's shoulder in a stilted, comforting gesture. "If my security personal had understood the situation... They would have never... I am so sorry you were treated so shabbily. The responsibility is all mine. Lady Le-En should have never... And then to..." Lady Aru trailed off into silence. She had to, there was so little that could be said. "Your safety is what should have been the major consideration here..." she asked feebly.

"I made it back to school safely," Roku lied. Did Lady Aru know about the Dicks? Roku scanned her features for any hint. Nothing. She was either unaware of what fate had truly befallen Roku, or unaware of how the situation had exactly resolved itself. No, there was no hint in Lady Aru's expression, nothing to indicate that she knew anything about the Nanpa Girls. But Roku would need more proof that just Lady Aru's cold, patrician visage to lay Lt. Zee suspicions to rest. She was a politician, after all -- a professional liar.