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LEGAL BS: Feel free to read this story at your leisure. The characters, the plot, and the machine which makes all this happen belong to me and may not be borrowed or stolen without written permission. If you are an archiver, please contact me if you are interested in putting this story up on your site. I will allow all free sites to post my work so long as I know where it is going and you allow me to prepare a copy of the story which is specifically "branded" with your site's information. (i.e. I put a Meta Tag in it with your site info so that we can identify that you do, in fact, have permission to post it) I will also write up a custom "Author's Notes" for the beginning of the tale which addresses your readers directly. You may NOT archive the TEXT versions of this story which have gone out onto the newsgroups. I have posted a few copies, but they lose considerable punch because of the format structure of a ascii text file. You MAY feel free to pass versions along to your friends, so long as you aren't making any cash from it. Again, I would prefer that the text versions just be used for the newsgroups, while the HTML versions are used for all other purposes. If you have questions about whether or not I'll approve of something you wish to do with the stuff, just ask. :)

Note from the Author: This story is a little different from most of the things I've seen posted around the net. In addition to being along a SciFi vein, it also has a plot which (I hope) people will find both entertaining and thought provoking. I have to admit, there are some pretty weird things in here, so I'm assuming that this probably won't be to everyone's liking. This is my first stab at writing erotic fiction for public consumption, so I'd be interested in hearing from people. You can reach me at grumpus@mail.gv2.net.

SIX – Reset

I strode through the aisles at Home Depot filling the dolly with things I would need for the plan to work. It was almost genius – keep business as usual to keep suspicions down as long as possible.

Business as usual! Welcome to the Game!

The Mikita Drill and the spare battery pack were the last of my purchases. I tossed them onto the cart and strolled up to the check-out. "George," as his nametag read, scanned my purchases as I watched. For a second, he seemed to glow, but then it went away.

"You okay?" He asked, looking at me with a hint of concern.

My mind went through the list of names Holly had given Robbie. There were no George’s on it, but something about the glow led me believe that I was onto something. It wasn’t like the glow Al had had, it was more like the glow that we all had when looked upon through Karen’s eyes.

"Uh, yeah," I smiled. "You just look familiar to me. What’s your last name, George?"

"Taylor."

Bing, bing, bing – step right up and win a prize! Welcome to the Game!

Jette Tyler. Georgette Tyler.

"Hmm, nope, guess I mistook you for someone else," I smiled and started to wheel my purchases away. And then, as if it were an afterthought, "Hey George, do you like looking at naked women?"

"Oh, he’ll show up, trust me," I said as I pushed a battery pack into the drill.

"You should have brought him here right then and there," Robbie scolded me from the sofa where she was working on a large cardboard sign which read "Amateur Night TONIGHT!!! $1000.00 Prize!."

"He was working," I said. "Business as usual, remember?"

"Just keep an eye out for him tonight," said Holly. "When you see him, make sure he gets in as quick as possible so we can explain all this shit to him."

"Jackie," said Karen. "You should probably hook in pretty soon."

I really wanted to get some work done before I hooked back in. I had another hour or more before I’d need it. Looking at Karen’s face, though, let me know that there was something important about it.

Nodding in agreement, I walked over to the edge of the plant and stripped out of my clothes. I slid the cuke into me and felt weak and horny before it even made it all the way in. Karen grabbed me and brought me gently into the heart of the plant as the vines engulfed our bodies and cradled us.

"There’s something you need to see," said Karen in a whisper as she offered me her tit. "Drink."

There is a certain logic to things that happen to you. Whether you understand that logic, or not, it still seems normal. Even living Karen’s life, though I knew it wasn’t my own, it seemed rather straightforward. Things happened in a sequence right along a normal time line.

Holly didn’t seem to work that way, at all. As I drank her memories from Karen’s breast, her life came disjointedly and skipped around from place to place, from time to time – and even from reality to reality. It was nearly impossible to determine which parts were flashbacks brought on from hooking into the plant and which parts she had lived in that order.

The one thing I could tell was that she had lied to me. She claimed that she only had one lifetime that she could remember, but I was being fed at least a dozen or so complete lives. That’s not counting the partial lives that intruded into her psyche from time to time. There were plenty of things which startled me throughout my ride through her life, but a few stood out.

Rob held his shoulder to the door as a curved blade pierced through it. I – Harry – remained still and calm. Everything was going as planned.

"I’m not leaving you! Not again!" Jackie cried as another curved blade cracked through the heavy door, just missing Rob’s head.

Time! "You two both go, I’ll hold them off!"

I leapt into action and lunged across the room. Grabbing Rob, who was considerably smaller than me, I yanked him from the door and leaned in, giving the impression that I was doing the same job he was.

"You’ve got seven lives behind you," complained Rob, "your information’s invaluable."

Another spike came through the door, grazing my shoulder. Damn it, you shitheads! It’s me! I cursed silently.

"You said it yourself. Everyone’s got a job here," I exclaimed. "So far, there are six of us that we know of. Everyone’s got a job. You’re the gatherer and organizer, Jackie is the brains." – yeah, right – "You’ve got everyone in their little slot, but me. Well, maybe, just maybe, I’m the fucker who’s stuck making sure that you shitheads manage to get the hell through this shit – and right now, the best way to do that is for me to take the fucking hit! Now scram!"

Rob and Jackie started for the window, and I was a bit surprised that they were swayed so easily. Did they suspect me? I hoped not.

"Don’t forget the plant," I called as blood flowed freely from my side. "For three lifetimes now, you’ve been convinced that it’s the key. And it’s always there at Miller’s Creek after every reset. Get to the plant early next time for shit’s sake!"

Every fucking time, they screwed it up. And the fuckin’ Troopers could never give me enough data to speed things along.

I unlocked the door and opened it. Three men, Al, Archie, and Art, stormed in, their impulse weapons drawn. "You guys have to be more fucking careful. They went out the window."

"Shit," said Al as he seemed to realize as I had that my wound was terminal. "Sorry about that, Babe. I’ll see you next life. At least this won’t hurt, but you might want to make it sound good for the rubes."

I was angry at the stupidity. I’d actually managed to make it through seven fucking lives without having to patch into the central core. Things were starting to finally make some sense and they were going to fuck it all up with the time perception glitch – or whatever the fuck it was.

I screamed – bloodcurdlingly – for effect as the bolt shot through me.

Waking up always sucked. The confusion, the disorientation – it all sucked. Not to mention that their goddamned machine could only conceive of time in a linear fashion. That always a real brain fuck.

"You help us out and we’ll see it that you get your memory back each reset," they’d told me.

Yeah sure, I had all of my memories – I just couldn’t tell what happened when and in which lifetime. Everything that happened on a certain Thursday came to me as one memory, every lifetime blended into one single memory.

I’d wanted to just forget the whole thing and play along with the others, but the Troopers had made it perfectly clear that if I ever tried to break away from them, they’d take me out of the game entirely.

And so there I was, having scrambled brain inserted so that I could betray those like me and help the other team win the game.

At least then it would be over.

When I first came to back in the apartment, it took me some time to adjust. I had just been force fed dozens of scrambled lives. It was several minutes before I could separate Holly’s memories from mine. It was hearing the drill running that snapped me back to reality – as it were.

"That was a long one," said Robbie with a huge smile as she drilled a three inch hole into the floor. "Hope it was good."

"Kinda informative, really," I muttered, scanning the room for any sign of Holly. "Where’d Hollywood, go?"

"She’s downstairs setting up the poles," Robbie informed me as she made another hole in the floor.

I knew the object here – it was for Holly to catch as many of us as possible. That would mean that she wouldn’t call in the StormTroopers until after George showed up. That way, they could pop three of us with one attack.

That gave me until about 11pm – eight hours – to mount some sort of defense.

I was tempted to just go downstairs and kill Holly in cold blood. That would remove the threat from within quite effectively. There was still the sinking feeling, though, that maybe we were the bad guys in all of this, somehow. That Holly was the only one of us playing for the right team.

Besides, if I killed her, they’d scramble her brains even more and make Holly a worse threat to us. No, let her skip with us and treat her as the enemy in the next life. I was wishing for more time to figure things out, but it appeared that the only way I was going to get that was by skipping and trying to get things right the next time.

"Pick up the pace," I told Robbie as I pulled the cuke out of my sopping pussy. "We’ve got to go sooner than expected."

I didn’t even bother putting clothes on as I walked out into the hallway. I pounded on every door I came to. "Tenant meeting, my place. This shit’s gotta stop!"

It wasn’t much, but it got all six of the girls who were home into my apartment. Once they were all inside, I poked my head in. All six of them were entangled in vines and writhing in ecstasy as the plant started another massive growth spurt. Karen, wisely, was eating out as many of them as she could, downloading all of their memories. They weren’t like us, but things they had seen could prove handy if I could ever figure out how to bring Karen back "online" in the next shift.

"Keep drilling, Robbie, then come downstairs when you are done," I instructed. "Bring the new girls when they’re through, too."

"Where the hell is Al?" asked Marta who was upset at being stuck behind the bar for all this time.

Luckily, at this time of the day, there weren’t many people in the bar – only three customers along with Marta and Julie. Julie also seemed upset that she had been stuck dancing without a break since Al had left. At least there were only a couple of guys at the stage, so dancing was really more like sitting on the rail and chatting and flirting.

Holly was installing brass poles which ran from the floor to the ceiling at various "key" locations around the bar. I was immediately tempted to kill her, but again – that wasn’t a part of the plan. So long as we had power up before eleven, we’d all skip safely.

Stupid Fuckin’ Game!

"Al’s upstairs," I said. "Wanted me to tell you girls to come up there for a minute so he could show you the new controls on the shower. I’ll cover the bar."

"Like I need someone to tell me how to turn on a shower," Marta hissed.

"It’s Al," I said with a smirk. "Thinks all we dumb broads need to be told everything. Just go. I’ve got it covered down here."

Marta grabbed Julie form the stage and they exited through the back. That just left the three customers.

"Sorry, gentlemen," I said with a wink and a smile. "Show’s over for about an hour. But, how would you studs like to have the best sex of your life?"

My eyes drifted up toward the ceiling and they understood exactly what they thought I meant.

It was actually a little more than an hour before we were really ready to open the front door to the place again. We’d made quite a few changes to the place and it looked pretty damned good. Even without the scent of our plant permeating the entire place, I don’t think there was a man alive who wouldn’t have gotten an instant erection upon walking into the place.

We’d strung vines down through the holes in the floor and brought them down the poles. Then, we’d taken one of our new female "sex junkies" and hooked them back in and held them fast to the poles with the smaller vines. At first glance, it was like a bondage lover’s dream – a half dozen nude women tied to a pole with some sort of dildo in their cunt which fucked them to orgasm after orgasm. We’d strung through as many of the vines as we possibly could, even making extra "stations" so that if, by chance, another female came in the door we could add them to the show.

It almost surprised me (there I go with that word "surprise," again) how agreeable the girls were to the plan. It was as if it was the best idea they had ever heard and they couldn’t imagine wanting to do anything else with their evening. Their job, as it were, was to grab anyone who came close to them and get them off as quickly as they could. There should be little resistance with the plant smell in the air. Once the guy got off, they’d be told to go upstairs and plug in if they wanted more. And of course – there wouldn’t be a single guy who didn’t want – need – more.

The "Amateur Night" sign went up in the window to possibly encourage some of the female passers-by to come in and check out a job. The area was well known for prostitution and junkies in search of cash. Robbie had even taken a quick trip up to the college to put up some fliers and hopefully draw both some contestants, and some customers who might want to check out the show.

And there, was the plan. Bring ‘em in the door and get ‘em hooked. Hook the gals in downstairs to speed processing and shuttle the guys up to our place to act as power cells to drive the "machine".

The Time Machine. Welcome to the Game.

The only other parts of my plan which haven’t been mentioned were security measures. The first aspect was putting Karen at the bar where she could easily see the door. I needed her "eyes" to be on the lookout for trouble in any form. Cops wouldn’t be a problem – they would be assimilated before they could do anything. I was more worried about the Troopers and any other "surprises" that seemed to pop up so frequently these days. I’d purchased a two-way radio system and gave one to Karen. I wore another on my side and she could instantly alert me to any trouble, no matter where I was in the building.

The third radio was equally important. I’d assigned Holly to overseeing that everything went well upstairs. She seemed to like this idea (probably because she’d be away from the first wave when the Troopers stormed the place) and didn’t protest in the least. I’d cut the phone line, though I didn’t really know if that would help – for all I knew, she could contact them via radio, or ESP, or any other means, but I wanted to eliminate the obvious, at least. Tim, one of the customers who we’d hooked in earlier was more than happy to hold onto my other radio unit and give me an alert if Holly either picked up the phone or left the room for any reason.

Robbie was going to oversee downstairs and make sure everyone got to where they needed to be. My job was to oversee it all and cover any variables which came up that could fuck the whole scheme.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, but with the time I had to work with, it would have to do.

I wish I had more time! I’ve got a Time Machine! God, I hate this Game!

By a little after nine, we had just over sixty people – more than enough for us to skip, according to the numbers I had available to me. I was even surprised that there were probably a dozen women who had showed up for our "Amateur Night" competition. I’m sure that helped a lot in speeding up the processing. Of course, some of the guys didn’t bother waiting for one of the girls to suck him or jerk him off. They just whipped it out and spewed right there where they stood. Robbie would spot these ones and shuttle them right upstairs. Having the girls all over the place did help speed things along and during the last hour, we probably processed over a third of the people.

"She just tried the phone, got pissed and left," came the dreamy drugged voice of Tim through my radio.

I whirled and raced over to Robbie, grabbing her by the shoulders. "Plug in, we have to go. Now!"

Robbie stared at me, "What about Holly? Should I go tell her?"

I shook my head, "No time. She’ll figure it out on her own."

I hoped I didn’t have to explain that Holly was the cause of our current urgency. I’d hate to have her live her next life looking over her shoulder for someone like that. It was bad enough she was going to have to watch out for the Troopers – but one of us? I didn’t want her to deal with that. It was my burden.

She didn’t protest and grabbed the nearest cuke. Instantly aroused and horny, she staggered over to the nearest woman, Marta, and smiled. "Make me come, baby."

I raced to the bar. Karen, having heard the transmission, was ready for me, cuke in hand.

"What do you think made her jump early?" she asked.

"We just hit 60," I explained. "She must have figured that was my magic number, regardless of whether or not George showed up. She had to have sensed that I was rushing things."

"I’ll see you next life, then," she said as she started to put the cuke in my pussy.

"No," I said pushing her away. "In my ass."

She questioned it at first, but as my knees went weak when the huge cuke penetrated my virgin asshole, she seemed to figure it out. Karen lowered herself beneath me and lapped at my dripping pussy like a pro. I could actually feel the extra power. It was totally intense having so many people hooked up to the plant at once. I was coming almost instantly, my juices flowing into Karen’s hungry mouth. The whole world came with me, too – I could hear them scream as my vision turned upside down and my entire being drained down Karen’s hungry throat.