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Twenty-Two
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Rhia
The house in daylight looked no more lively.
Jemma's and my excursion to the Hammersly compound the previous night hadn't been noted by anyone at the house. As long as Jemma didn't slip and mention about us being here before, Heather wouldn't know this was our second trip in less than 24 hours.
I'd gotten three or so hours of sleep, a little more than a nap. I'd gone into combat on less, so I wasn't overly worried.
It was my first time walking up to the house the way their society deemed polite. We operated the electronic signaler they assured me should get the attention of someone, but Jemma and I exchanged a knowing look even as Heather pushed the button.
We waited for several minutes and through three signals. Jemma had begun looking around and said, "Mrs. Hammersly's car's gone."
We all looked over at the collection of vehicles. There were two sedans that looked much newer and sleeker than any of the ones Kathleen or her family drove, more on par with one Doctor Lee had. One was deep red in color, the other was a metallic yellow, probably trying to imitate gold.
Or, I realized later, amber.
"Amber hates that car," Jemma said, "Her father bought them both for them on their sixteenth birthday before spending the next six months in Europe. I think Amber's driven hers twice, maybe? Ruby always made fun of her about it."
"This family is something else," Heather said. She looked around the front of the house and then turned to Jemma. "Is there another way in?"
"I know where they hide the key for their back door," Jemma said.
Five minutes later we entered through the glass doors Jemma and I had looked through the night before.
The clutter on the counters and the table was still present, but there hadn't been any food to rot on them at least. A pale pink drink was in one of the containers. Heather walked over and sniffed it, then dipped her finger in.
"Zinfandel, and it's been sitting out here for a while. Condensation's all gone from the glass."
"HELLO!" Jemma suddenly shouted, "Amber!? Ruby!? Where the fuck are you!?"
Heather had covered her ears, but brought them down when Jemma seemed to be done. "So much for subtlety."
"Fuck subtlety, we need to find Robin," Jemma said, "If they'd moved that key I was going to throw a patio chair through the doors. Let's search this place."
It was a sizeable interior. Jemma and Heather took the second floor, while I searched the ground level. Nothing appeared amiss, and Jemma and Heather didn't find anything either.
"Does this place have a basement?" Heather asked.
"Yeah, but Ruby and Amber weren't allowed down there. Their mom kept it locked up tight," Jemma said. More meaningful looks were exchanged.
The stairs down abruptly ended at two doors. One was unlocked and appeared to contain cleaning supplies.
The door facing the stairwell got my attention. It opened, but behind it was something that reminded me of an airlock on a ship. It was smooth metal with no obvious latch. I tapped on it and listened, then stepped back so Heather could do the same.
"This is like a vault door," Heather said, "Did they have a panic room?"
"I don't know," Jemma admitted.
"What is panic room?" I asked.
"Secure defensive position," Heather said, "Built into the house. Usually with a hidden entrance."
"Like that?" I asked, pointing to the right.
Both the women looked over. Jemma seemed confused, but Heather studied the wall more closely.
"Son of a bitch," she muttered, then found the same seam that I'd noticed in the wall.
Heather nodded to the hidden door. "Let's get in there."
I kicked it cautiously. It looked to be made of their wood, so common to everything, but I knew from my service sometimes people trying to hide things concealed extra security, like a fancy façade over a solid metal plate. Given what Heather said the room might be for, I was doubly worried about reinforcement.
Fortunately the door didn't feel like it had any of that. I leveled a powerful kick near one side and the door exploded inward, also splitting in half crosswise in the process.
Inside was an obvious control room with a wide observation window. It looked into a huge circular area that was mostly empty except for a few odd pieces of furniture.
Those caught my eye first because the light shone off them. The next thing I noticed was the body.
The woman was thin, sprawled face down on the floor of the room we could observe, and half her body was over a stain in the floor. Based on the color and what little evidence I could see on the body, it was dried blood. For better or worse, her face was turned toward us, lifeless eyes staring at the wall.
Both women sucked in a breath, Jemma fully gasping and trying to swallow a sob. "What the fuck?" she finally said.
"Angela," I said, "but...not."
"What do you mean?" Heather asked.
"The face right, but her skin too dark. She much paler last time," I explained.
"Maybe she got a tan?" Jemma suggested.
"The way Rhia described her before, she had albinism," Heather said, "They can't tan; they burn and get sick. But you're right; from here that looks like a healthy Caucasian skin tone."
"Could she have a sister?" Jemma suggested.
Heather looked back at me. "Could your stuff...?"
"This albinism...disease?" I asked.
"Genetic anomaly," Heather said.
"Maybe," I conceded.
"Wait...You're saying Robin fucked her and that fixed her albinism?" Jemma said.
"It's the only thing that makes sense right now," Heather said.
"Ohh yeah, more...like that...yes...fuck me!"
We heard the words with a hissing, tinny tone, like it came through an old comm system. Heather looked at the control panel and found a button that suddenly lit up the room through the glass.
What we hadn't noticed before because of the darkness was a flat table off to the side, opposite where Angela's body lay. On it, an athletic woman with reddish-yellow hair was naked, straddling another woman who looked the same. Her hips moved back and forth in a rhythm we were all familiar with, her small but perky breasts jutting out as she arched her back.
"Hoooly fuck that's Ruby and Amber," Jemma said.
"Is that...something they do?" Heather asked.
"Fuck no! Ruby always joked about it but Amber was so thoroughly grossed out she'd gag. There's...no way..."
"We know one way," Heather said as she wandered over to a shelving unit.
"Why?" Jemma asked, "Why would Robin fuck all of them? She hates the twins!"
"I really don't think she had a choice, Jemma," Heather said, and held up a bottle, "Look at this."
"I got a D in chemistry," Jemma said.
"It's scopolamine," Heather explained, "It's basically a complicated date rape drug if you take too much, and some people say you can sort of make people do things, like they're hypnotized. I don't think it would have mattered because this bottle here is liquid ecstasy, MDMA. How in the fuck does she have this shit?"
"So what, she dosed Robin and locked her in there with the girls?" Jemma asked.
"Maybe," Heather said, "Rhia, what do stimulants do to your system?"
I had no idea what the drugs she was talking about were, but thought I knew what question she was really getting at. "Can make futa go into breeding heat," I said.
"You said their mother's a scientist, right?" Heather asked Jemma.
"Yeah, and apparently she's stupid smart, too," Jemma confirmed.
"''Stupid smart? Really? That's...right, anyway, I'm betting she saw Robin in mega-horny mode or whatever and decided to give her Angela," Heather said, "That, of course, put Angela in the cum-coma. Then it must have healed her albinism."
"Seriously?" Jemma said, turning to me, "You can do that?"
I shrugged. "We do not have sickness like that much. I did not know you had more."
"I makes sense," Heather said, "It has to rewrite genes or DNA or both to do some of the shit it's done, so fixing albinism? Sure."
"Then...what about Ruby and Amber?" Jemma asked.
"I don't know," Heather said, "I mean...I'm still trying to get my mind around her just offering her daughters up like that."
"Maybe they snuck in?" Jemma suggested, but it sounded unconvincing.
"Look at this place," Heather said, "You told us they weren't allowed down here. We haven't figured out how to open that door yet, what makes you think they did?"
A reply by anyone was interrupted by a shriek as one of the girls orgasmed. She fell on her sister, writhing and twitching as she came. Hands came up and clawed at the ass of the girl on top, spreading her cheeks open to reveal whitish liquid leaking from the reddened asshole of the girl.
