At first the doctor didn't know what to expect when he saw the white SUV. It followed his daughter's little Hyundai along the long gravel driveway into his ranch. Ginny, seeing his full attention on the arriving vehicles, went to stand beside him on the creaky wooden porch and watch. "Who's that?"
"I have my suspicions, dear. She did say that Kate's adoptive family have a white Range Rover."
"Kate? Oh, you mean... Jenna brought the girls back with her?"
"I think so. She wasn't supposed to."
Jenna pulled up to her usual parking spot. She was quick to get out of the car and go to him as the other vehicle slowly parked by her. "Daddy, let me explain," she began.
"Did they catch you in the act?"
"Yes they did, and I couldn't stop them. They insisted on following me here."
"Oh, goodness me... we didn't plan for this." The doctor and Ginny watched as the Range Rover's doors opened. "Welcome, girls, to my ranch. You must be Amy and Kate."
They felt like children again hearing his voice. It made them go quiet. Slowly they approached, then stopped to stare up at him, his daughter and tall Ginny in her cowboy hat as they stood above on the raised porch. With the sun almost set and the house lighting them from behind, it was hard to make out much more than their silhouettes.
Though the girls were so shy the sight alone was enough to leave Ginny and the doctor dazzled. Jenna's descriptions hadn't done them justice. The brilliant color of Kate's hair and eyes were shocking, exceeding their old memories of her. She had grown tall, and from the way her t-shirt and jeans clung to her tattooed body they could see she'd trained herself into athletic perfection. Smartly, she had a sheet draped around her hips, obscuring the strangeness in her. There was no obscuring what had been done to Amy however, and she, having grown so incredibly busty yet without a single pound of extra fat on the rest of her, was maddening to behold. "Well, alright then, that confirms it. You're just in time for dinner, won't you come in?"
Seeing Amy's trembling features as she ambled up the wooden steps, Ginny was barely hiding her fascination, to Jenna's chagrin. How could Jenna blame her -- her jiggle and jostle in a massive custom made black bra beneath her transparent black top and the sway of her slender bottom end in tight jeans was ridiculously provocative yet completely unintentional, easily enough to cause a scene anywhere. Quietly, Jenna moved ahead to set additional spots at the dinner table for the two guests.
The doctor had only aged a little over the ten years elapsed. He was mostly still as they remembered -- grey hair parted to one side and a grey beard to go with it. Now that they were fully grown they could see he was actually a little short, his bad posture bringing him down to about the same height as Jenna or Amy.
It took Amy and Kate a while to feel at ease near him, but their meal helped to calm their nerves, and they relaxed into the situation and were able to make small talk. Sitting at the head of the table he had his daughter to one side and Ginny to the other. Amy could barely remember Ginny from the old times at the academy, but Kate, coming from the same group as her, remembered her well.
The blonde and sunkissed Ginny, now tall and statuesque and with her hat politely removed for the meal, was lively and extremely talkative. She dominated the conversation with her humor, warmth and midwestern accent, keeping things lighthearted. Kate would have to step in if ever she and Amy could have their questions answered.
"So, uhm, Dr Lipinski... you know what happened to us this week... we know that, based on the note Jenna tried to bring us."
The doctor wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back. "Yes dear, I am. That must have been extremely unpleasant for you both."
"Oh it was. It's really made it clear to us, how little we know about the caretakers."
The doctor simply nodded, not very helpful.
"So why would they do that," Amy asked.
"Well, to see what you're like, of course. You must have by now figured out that every child of the academy is uhm, different from normal girls. That's no coincidence. You weren't adopted orphans, like we told you..."
"We were created. That's been obvious to us, even since we were kids," Kate said, and she had Amy and Ginny nodding in agreement.
"Right. So naturally it involved a lot of scientists to proceed with such an undertaking... and some of those scientists still have a lot of interest in their old work now that you're all grown up. So they, and I don't agree with how they went about doing so, obtained the two of you and placed you in an environment where you could be observed."
Amy started to blush and lowered her gaze to her plate. It hadn't taken long for she and Kate to give them plenty to observe.
"And you aren't involved with those guys anymore," Kate asked.
"Uh... right. Not long before the programme was canceled, there were disagreements. So now I'm not affiliated with them anymore. Ah, this is complicated to tell."
"Well please tell us," Amy said softly. "It's what we came for."
"What would you like to know?"
"Why was the academy closed?"
"Of course, dear. You would like to know that. I'm so sorry that it went that way, it must have been so hard for you to have to fend for yourselves, at such a young and confusing age. That is my greatest regret, and I would do anything I can to make amends for it."
Ginny was nodding her head at that, and clearly she had a story to tell, but it would have to wait.
"Now um, it began as you were all around age eleven, approaching twelve. Some members of the team were becoming quite disturbed at ah, uhm... how quickly, and drastically, some of you were beginning to develop at puberty's onset. It wasn't what they'd had in mind, y-you see. So there were... arguments. And meetings. And then escalations of the argument, to the point that word of what we were doing spread to other branches of the government."
Kate blinked. Their creation had involved a branch of the government?
"That lead to a whole controversy, and soon the work we were doing was pronounced illegal. It all happened so fast, too fast for us to find a way to accommodate all of you outside of the academy's doors. Most of you were scattered about to other nearby states, but in the rush of things a couple of you ended up in the same city. Such as you, Kate and Amy..."
"And it was you who helped us find each other," Amy said, more softly still.
"Ah, yes, I did... I found Kate through her university and... we did begin to leave you those notes."
The table went quiet. The gears were turning in Kate and Amy's heads. Even if Dr. Lipinski wasn't any longer affiliated with the awful scientists who had had them kidnapped, there would have been much less to observe, and therefore little reason for the kidnapping, if not for his intervention. Meeting each other again, they could feel, was the culmination of their run in the programme. And it was all thanks to him.
