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Subject: {ASSM} RP: Life With Alpha - Chapter Thirteen: Mafia Massacre (MF, MF+, MC, SciFi, anime, cartoon, comic book)
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This story contains adult content, with explicit language and situations. If you are not of legal age where you live, please do not read.
<1st attachment, "Alpha13.txt" begin>
Life with Alpha
by A. Pseudonym
Chapter Thirteen: Mafia Massacre
Codes: MF, MF+, MC, SciFi, anime, cartoon, comic book
Disclaimer: All artificial persons herein are based on characters
owned by their creators, not the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter is not like the others. I decided to add this
note as a warning after hearing complaints from a number of readers that
this chapter interrupts the character-heavy story flow from previous
chapters. Their complaints are entirely valid, but I have need of this
chapter to plant the seeds for future chapters/stories.
So accept this warning that this chapter only contains a little
sex, character development and interactions, but it does include a
noticeable amount of violence.
So how can I possibly explain why I allowed Alpha to slaughter 49
human beings? I don't know if they all deserved it or not. Most of
them definitely did.
I think I really need to back up a bit.
A few months passed after our robot competition in Las Vegas.
School continued for those going to school. Daria and Jane entered
their Senior year in college, but they had both opted for a five year
graduation schedule, Daria because she was ambitious, Jane because she
was academically lazy. The first semester passed and the second began.
The DFW area got a grand total of 2.5 inches of snow... and a lot of
freezing rain.
Over in Las Vegas, the two guys who broke into our van plead
guilty in a deal with the D.A. and are serving 5-15 years -- thanks to
the cost of my threatened equipment, over $400,000 worth that is. If
they had been sentenced only for what they had actually taken, they'd
probably be out within a year.
The guy who tried to mug me pled out and is serving 6-18 months
with mandatory drug counseling. The scumbag ambulance-chaser lawyer he
hired decided to go ahead and file suit against me because the mugger's
wrist was fractured when we refused to be mugged. He has basically no
chance if it actually makes it to court. My lawyer thinks that he
thinks that my company's minor celebrity status will either make me
want to avoid any possible bad publicity from the trial or will keep me
too busy to show up and fight it in court.
My company, AARD, is now a minor celebrity among the techno-geek
and nerd populous. In addition to the fleeting fame of half a dozen
talk show spots and YouTube clips, I finally agreed to let Alphadroid
appear on a popular primetime nerd-based sitcom featuring a lot of
geniuses making fun of each other.
AARD's first round of trials for the artificial eye went well and
we're waiting to hear back from the government. The eyes won't work
for everyone who's blind, because it requires at least a partially
working optic nerve to connect to, but it should still restore sight to
a lot of people.
The nano-wire surgery unit is likewise doing well in trials. I
think we're going to have to require training certification for doctors
to be allowed to use it, which will be a pain to set up, but it should
still all work out okay.
We've started trials for "bionic" arms and legs, with
replacement liver testing within the next year.
For the most part, we're paying other companies to do the testing
for us. We're just too small to handle all of it ourselves.
There are two new potentially revolutionary human-repair ideas
that we came across that we're basically giving away for free.
When we were going over the specs for our nerve interfaces (to
connect electronics to human nerves), I asked Alpha if we could
possibly use the technology to repair severed nerves. Theoretically we
could use the tech to restore some functionality to quadriplegics and
paraplegics by using two nerve interfaces wired together. While the
human benefit could be huge, the product cost would be relatively
small. I eventually decided it was one project too many for us right
now, so I had Alpha submit a paper discussing the possibilities and let
certain companies we were working with know that I would be willing to
keep our patent fees low for this one.
The other one came about because of Alpha's studies on how
memories work in the brain. He came up with the description of a
chemical that could theoretically reverse neuron degradation and
misalignment, potentially repairing a few different mental
disabilities, including some types of autism and Alzheimers. I really
don't want AARD to get into the pharmaceutical business, so we patented
the idea and are currently sorting through offers to pick out who will
try to develop it.
In January I finally gave in and bought us a company plane. Not
a big one, just a 2-engine 16-seater. Had to liquidate a few
investments to do it, but the company should start showing an
independent profit within a year, so I should be able to pay myself
back within a few years time.
Ignoring the numbers from my harem/household, AARD has grown from
6 employees to 21, including a small team of independent researchers.
We were taking pains to keep any of the researchers (3 men/2 women, 2/1
working on-site, 1/1 working from home) or other employees from finding
out that (1) I was sleeping with most of the women working for AARD and
(2) that we had a working A.I. running the business. Surprisingly
enough, it really wasn't that hard. My women all knew not to gossip
about their home life, and Alpha is good at keeping a low profile most
of the time.
The troubles really started in March, when Diana and I had to go
to Las Vegas to be deposed for the upcoming civil suit. Given the
troubles we had during our last visit, Alpha really wanted a full
security force to travel with me. We ended going with Rei as our
pilot, Beta as my assistant and Kara as added security. Alpha even
insisted on getting me a bulletproof vest (though I insisted on getting
one for everyone who wanted one... admittedly Kara and Diana didn't
want one, and Beta's would have to be customized to allow for her...
ahem... attributes).
The plan was to arrive on Tuesday afternoon, spend the night,
give our statements on Wednesday morning and hopefully fly back
Wednesday afternoon.
The flight to Nevada was fine, though we didn't really have the
extra room or privacy for any mile-high fun this trip -- made me think
maybe I should have sprung for a larger plane.
The 'fun' started after we landed and had taxied to a hanger.
Parked next to our waiting limo was a black SUV with two guys smoking,
watching our plane.
"It looks like someone is waiting for us," Rei called out from
the cockpit as she brought the plane to a stop.
We all started crowding up to look, then quickly realized we
wouldn't all fit. I took a look, realized I didn't recognize them,
then asked Beta to take a look.
Beta pulled out a pair of binoculars from somewhere behind the
pilot's seat and focused in on them.
"Those are members of the Scarlotti organized crime syndicate. I
recognize them from my studies."
"Your studies?" asked Diana.
"Once we found out that the other lawyer, a Mr. Charlie Summers,
had connections to low-level members of the mafia, I did some research
into Las Vegas organized crime. There are still a lot of holes in my
research, but that is Billy "Kneecap" Johnson in the brown coat and
Frankie "Hairy" Tilson in the beige."
"Huh," I said intelligently, trying to think.
"We could just go flip their car over and tell them to beat it,"
offered Kara helpfully.
"As satisfying as that might be, I don't think it would help
matters," I said. "I really want to know why they're here, but I can't
imagine it's for anything good. They look like big beefy guys, the
kind you'd probably send to intimidate someone. And I'm not in the
mood to be intimidated. But I'm also not in the mood to let them try."
"Then we'll go out and deal with them," said Diana.
"How about this," I said, getting out my phone. I'm going to
conference call Detective Mills and Ms. Sloane. Now they have to be
here for me, Diana or both of us, so Beta and Kara are going to go out
to talk with them. You're going to record all of it and, actually let
me do a four-person call. Rei, give me your phone. Okay, I'll have
this one set to record video and audio and here... we're dialed in
and..."
Basically I set one phone in Beta's breast pocket with the lens
poking out, recording video. I hooked up an earpiece and mic to a
second phone, physically cutting off the earbud receiver so that the
mic still worked. The second phone was dialed in with me so we could
hear everything.
This would have all been so much easier if I didn't have to keep
Beta's capabilities a secret... for example, her ability to record and
upload audio and video with just her eyes and ears.
As Kara and Beta lowered the door/stairs, I was calling Detective
Mills. Fortunately he was at his desk, so I had him wait a moment
while I called Ms. Sloane. That took a minute to convince her
secretary it was urgent.
I gave the ladies a thumbs up and they exited the plane, as I
spoke to my conference call.
"Hello. We just landed and right next to our car waiting for us
are two guys that Beta, umm... Elizabeth Franks recognized as mafia
goons of some sort. I don't remember their full names, but one was
called Hairy and one was... Kneecap. We're recording all of this on
video and have an open phone line dialed into this call so we can hear
what's going on."
"Just a minute, Mr ____," said Detective Mills. "What are you
doing? I can have some police over there in just a couple minutes."
"Right now, Diana and I are staying in the plane. Beta and Karen
are going over to talk with them. Trust me, Karen can handle them if
they try anything, but I want to know why they're here, which I
probably won't know if you send the police."
"That's really not a good idea. I'd advise you all to stay
inside your plane until we get some uniforms over there..."
About this time, the audio started from Beta's phone. We had to
be quiet to be able to hear it, though I could tell that Detective
Mills was covering the receiver on his end and talking to someone else.
Ms Sloane was quiet on her end, no doubt wondering what trouble her
client was getting into.
"Hello ladies," said Male voice number one. "Would that plane
happen to belong to Mr. Frank _____?"
"Why would you want to know that?" asked Kara.
"No reason in particular," said male voice number two. "We just
need to have a word with him."
"He's unavailable at the moment, but we would be happy to pass
along a message," said Beta.
"Listen, sweetie, we really need to talk to him in person. We
just talk to him a minute, then we're gone. Got it?" Male voice one
again.
By this time I was up next to Rei and Diana, who had appropriated
the binoculars, watching from the cockpit.
"As I said, I can pass along a message," repeated Beta.
"Maybe we're not making ourselves clear," said voice one.
"Either he comes out of the plane or we go in."
"Are you threatening us?" asked Beta.
"Now sweetie," started voice one, only to be interrupted by Beta.
"Because I have to assume that you are. You very obviously
flashed a gun at us. Even if it isn't drawn yet, that is very
definitely a threatening gesture. Wouldn't you agree, Karen?"
"Yes, I do, Beta. And they both have guns. He may not have
flashed his at us, but you can easily see the bulge under his jacket
there. Concealed weapons... do you think they have permits to carry
those?"
A reasonably intelligent person would have realized at this point
that something was off, or maybe even guessed that they were being
recorded. Apparently these two did not qualify as reasonably
intelligent.
"Enough foolin' around," said voice two.
I didn't get a good view of what happened next, but I saw the
video later and got a description from Kara and Beta.
Thug #2 stepped forward and tried to walk around Kara. Kara
stepped in front of him. He put his hands on her shoulders to try and
move her aside. Kara grabbed one hand, twisted hard and put him on the
ground in an instant.
Thug #1 saw this and tried to draw his gun. I say "tried"
because Beta stepped up, grabbed his wrist while his hand was on the
butt of the gun, twisted hard enough to force the guy around 180
degrees and shoved him up against his own car. Kara looked up just in
time to see the spin and pin.
I described what I saw of the action over the phone, reassuring
everyone that the situation was under control. I stopped talking when
Thug #1 started talking again.
"Let go, Lady. Right now the message is just that Las Vegas
isn't a safe place to be for your boss, but I'm thinkin' the warning
can be passed along to you two real easy if you don't let go of us
right now."
I'm sure the two of them were trying to throw off the ladies by
now, but seriously... they might as well be trying to arm wrestle a
full-grown gorilla.
"Do you work for that lawyer... what's his name?" Kara asked.
"Charlie Summers. A very valid question," Beta agreed. "Do you
work for him?"
"I got no idea what you're talkin' about," said voice #2. "We
just have a public duty to let certain individuals know that they ain't
welcome in Las Vegas."
"It would make sense," said Beta, continuing her thought,
ignoring voice 2's comment. "Scaring Mr. ____ enough to keep him out
of town would be the only way Summers could win his case."
"So he hires you two bozos to try to scare him? You may be good
at scaring small children and old ladies, but all you have going for
you is your size and your guns, neither of which are doing you any good
at the moment." Kara was obviously enjoying herself.
"I'll show you how scary we are, you bitch!" yelled thug #2 under
Kara, who then made a very vocal and useless effort to throw her off.
"You're dead, you hear me? Dead!"
About this time we heard a siren in the distance, coming closer.
"Izzat the cops?" asked male voice #1.
"Hey, maybe we're gonna sue you for attackin' us, huh? How'd you
like that, bitches," said male voice #2.
Kara laughed. "You idiots. Don't you realize that all this was
recorded? Including video of you flashing your gun and grabbing me?"
"You can't use that unless you got a warrant for it," protested
#2.
Beta replied, "Warrants are required for the police. We are
private citizens who were recording video in a public location. We can
offer it to the police who can freely use it at their discretion."
There were some grunts and heaving sounds, but everyone was
silent until an airport security car came into view. There were more
sirens in the distance.
"Are they there," asked Detective Mills over the phone.
"Airport security just arrived," I replied.
"Let me talk to them," he said.
"Sure, just a minute."
Once the security officers were out of their car, Beta addressed
them. "Hello, officers. This is Billy 'Kneecap' Johnson and that is
Frankie 'Hairy' Tilson, members of the Scarlotti organized crime
family. They are both carrying concealed weapons in holsters under
their arms. They admit they came to threaten our employer, Frank
_____, and offered physical violence when we refused to let them
approach his plane. We have the entire encounter recorded on video."
"And I have Detective Mills of the Las Vegas police department on
the phone right now. He'd like to speak to you," I called out from the
steps of the plane, holding up my phone.
As I walked over to the clearly on-edge security officers, I
spoke briefly into the phone. "Ms Sloane, I think the excitement is
over. I'll call you when all this is sorted out. Thank you."
"Certainly, Mr _____. I'm glad none of your people were shot."
Then I heard the click of her phone hanging up.
"Here's one of the officers, Detective," I said, handing it over.
The security guy said "Hello", then listened over the phone for
about a minute. "Sure thing," he said, handing it back to me.
Basically the security guys cuffed both men and relieved them of
their firearms before Kara and Beta let them go. They were patted down
and made to wait until the Las Vegas PD showed up a few minutes later.
Then we waited another 20 minutes until a couple of unmarked police
cars showed up.
Detective Mills was there because I called him, even though he
worked Robbery and Major Thefts. He introduced me to Detectives
Charles and Silva, who worked Organized Crime. They took possession of
Rei's phone with the video recording.
Hairy and Kneecap -- who I'm told were paired together because
someone in their organization loved the name combination -- were placed
under arrest for carrying concealed unlicensed firearms which was also
a violation of parole for Mr Kneecap. Any charge from the threatening
statements would depend on what the D.A. decided.
I apologized to Detective Mills for dumping this in his lap, but
he understood that I needed someone I knew to call quickly. Then he
and the other two detectives spent 5 minutes lecturing me on why I
shouldn't challenge or piss off members of organized crime, why I
should leave that to the police.
Beta also had to explain how she was able to recognize them. She
explained that she had researched Charlie Summers, the lawyer, and
found out that he had connections with organized crime. She expanded
her research into the current known members of organized criminal
organizations in Las Vegas. She admitted (or lied) that she didn't
know much about Hairy or Kneecap, but with her perfect recall, she
easily recognized them.
I also felt the need to explain that Karen and Diana are two of
the most capable people I know when it comes to self defense. I kept
Diana back because she might have been one of their targets, if they
were planning something unpleasant. Beta has some self-defense martial
arts training, but I was expecting Karen to take of any problems. The
whole 'staying in the plane and sending the women out to fight my
battles' thing was bothering me. Not a lot, but some.
Anyway, I agreed to come by the police station so we could give
our statements tomorrow after our depositions in the civil case. They
also wanted a statement from our rented limo driver, who wisely stayed
put in the limo and didn't get involved. I could tell he really wanted
to be ignored.
Eventually Hairy and Kneecap were taken away to be processed, the
plane was parked and locked up and we drove off in the limo for the
hotel. I made sure to give the driver a big tip.
I called my lawyer, Ms Sloane, while we drove. She agreed with
the detectives that I should have left it all up to them and was glad
we were all okay. About the only thing we discussed about the civil
case was that I shouldn't bring up the attempted intimidation. If she
thought there was some advantage to discussing it with the other side,
she would bring it up herself. We agreed to meet at her office at 9am
before the depositions at 10.
Before we left the next morning, Beta insisted on choosing our
taxi randomly from the queue rather than taking the one next in line.
I could tell her paranoia circuits would be set to high for this entire
visit.
The depositions were a little odd. I mean, I don't exactly have
a lot of experience with them, but Mr Summers seemed mildly unprepared
and slightly ruffled. Diana and I gave our information and swore that
it was true.
After the depositions, I took Beta aside and told her to go ahead
and start working on the best complaint possible against the lawyer to
attempt to get him disbarred. The likelihood of our success was
minimal, but as long as we had a chance, we would file the complaint.
We were close enough to walk to the police station, so we had
time and I treated everyone to lunch at a nearby cafe (including the
still very attractive Ms Sloane), then we went to the police station
and spent another couple hours giving our statements there.
The A.D.A. and Detectives Charles and Silva were all there.
Basically the case against Hairy Tilson and Kneecap Johnson was
probably strong enough for a conviction, but not a major one. The
success of the firearms charge was practically 100%, but it wouldn't
put them away for more than a month or two at best. Probation was
likely for Tilson, but Kneecap was on probation for an assault
conviction and would definitely go back to prison for a year or two.
The threatening statements charge was likewise very minor. There was
no evidence that they intended actual harm, just that they wanted me to
stay out of town. (Now if they could successfully convict them for
assault or witness intimidation or something, they would be sentenced
to a minimum of ten years since they were using firearms.)
The A.D.A. said that yes, they could prosecute for assaulting
Karen and Beta and threatening me, but without more evidence of a
conspiracy or serious threat of injury or death, it would be better to
let that slide for now. They would pursue the investigation to try to
find out who sent them after me.
Off the record, they agreed that it was probably Charles Summers,
the lawyer. Many of his frivolous cases were won because the people
being sued agreed to settle out of court. There were rumors that
Summers and his clients would split the take with the local mafia in
exchange for the mafia chasing the targets out of town, but no positive
connection or evidence had been found of this so far. They were going
to try to find that connection in this case, but weren't especially
hopeful.
We flew back to Texas late that evening, after Beta and Rei spent
almost an hour going over the plane checking for bombs or sabotage.
The civil trial was set for August, so we had a few months before
we needed to go back. But trouble followed us back to Texas just two
weeks later in early April.
One day while driving home from the office, Alpha contacted me
and told me I was being followed.
You should understand that most of my cars are smart cars, with
GPS, bluetooth, and cameras front and rear. Alpha had altered the
programming for them so that she had taken over all of the functions.
A black SUV with Texas plates had left the parking lot across
from AARD and followed me for the past 12 miles. The plate indicated
the vehicle had been stolen a few days ago. Since they were just
following me, she directed me to stay in highly populated areas on my
way home and to maintain speed.
When I asked why we didn't just call the police, she explained
that this fit into a couple of the possible scenarios she had
projected. If the Las Vegas mob wanted payback for the humiliation of
their thugs or to show strength or for whatever reason, then they may
send a hitman to kill me out of state. If this is what was happening
right now, then having the hitman arrested for possession of a stolen
vehicle would not stop the hit itself.
This rattled me enough that I didn't argue. I drove home as
Alpha directed. Elisa and Jasmine were at the gates, obviously ready in
case of trouble, but the SUV with its heavily tinted windows drove past
the house and rounded the corner.
I went directly to the basement to discuss things with Alpha.
She has cameras covering the house and surrounding streets and was
focused on the SUV, now parked on a side street, facing the Eastern
wall of our property.
My first instinct was to move all non-super-powered residents to
the basement and send the super-powered ones after the SUV.
Alpha replied, "I believe this situation will require killing, so
I would not recommend involving any of the others."
"Killing? Seriously? Why can't the police handle this?"
"Their record in matters like this makes it likely that they
would not be able to prevent your death in the extended view. The
solution requires the removal of the assassin and part or all of
his organization's command structure."
"You want to take on the Las Vegas mob?"
"Well, you wanted to do so first. I fully support your stance
that the mafia should not profit from crimes against you. I also fully
support enlisting the local authorities to aid you in this. The
difficulty in doing so successfully is that by its nature the mafia
operates outside of the law and uses violence and the threat of
violence to avoid successful prosecution. The law is slow to change
and requires slow due process while the mafia can change and operate
quickly when needed."
"So you want to assassinate the hitman? I mean right now, we
don't even know if that is a hitman out there. Could be a thief or a
private eye or something."
"I will wait to act until he or she acts. I estimate that will
probably not happen until 2 or 3 am tomorrow morning. There is also a
43% chance that more than one person is in the vehicle."
We discussed the matter for hours. I was innately uncomfortable
with the idea of letting Alpha murder people, even if the victims would
be killers themselves. But I also failed to see a good alternative.
By my actions, I had set myself against the mob, not in a big way, but
enough that I had been noticed. Alpha was right. The best way out was
to destroy or at least cripple the mob, and do it in such a way that
they didn't know who had done it.
Midway through the discussions, Beta showed up with a couple bags
of disposable phones, blonde wigs, gloves, ski masks, black jumpsuits
and other miscellaneous junk all purchased with cash.
I let it be known that I would be working all night in the
basement and had Jasmine bring me down a sandwich and drink.
She also offered me a blowjob or fuck to take my mind off of the
situation, but I declined, saying that I didn't want any association
between sex and death.
"Just because I agree that this may be necessary doesn't make it
right."
The household was 'turned off' that evening at bedtime, except
for myself, Beta, Jasmine and Elisa, who all donned their dark clothes
and gloves. Well, technically Alphadroid Dorothy was active too, but
she could not move quietly and would be staying in the basement with me
as my bodyguard.
Just after 2 am, I was watching the security video feeds, trying
to stay awake. When the SUV started up and drove so it was alongside
our property wall, I shot to full wakefulness. Two men got out, both
through the driver-side door, since they were parked too close to the
wall for the passenger-side doors to open.
One climbed onto the hood of the SUV, then to the roof. The
other pulled a ladder out of the back of the vehicle and handed it up
to the first guy, who slung it over the wall and used it to climb down.
His friend followed him and they both set out across our yard.
We have motion-activated lights in the back yard, but Alpha had
obviously disabled them for now. The cameras, all with low-light
capabilities, had no problem following them. They both drew guns as
they approached the back doors. One of them knelt down and unlocked it
somehow, and they both entered.
Now that they were inside, we had audio pickups too, and I could
hear whispers but couldn't make out what was being said.
They had each taken less than 10 steps inside when three dark
shapes moved in behind them with super-human speed and dexterity. One
dark shape grabbed the first man's head and twisted it around 180
degrees. The cracking noise and resulting throat rattle will stay with
me for the rest of my life. The other two smaller shapes moved
simultaneously on the second target. One of them slashed a hand across
the second man's throat with enough force that it was completely
crushed. The final attacker, perfectly coordinated with the timing of
the others, grabbed the hand holding the gun and twisted it inward,
rotating the gun so that the trigger finger pulled out of the trigger
guard and pointing the gun towards the man.
The first man died immediately. The second struggled for breath
momentarily until the dark figures also twisted his head around,
breaking his neck.
"That was unpleasant, but well done," I told Alpha.
Beta and Jasmine searched the pockets of the dead men while Elisa
ran out the back. Jasmine followed a moment later with two sets of
keys.
"Can I come upstairs now?" I asked.
"I would prefer that you wait until we check their vehicle. We
will have it in our possession momentarily and need it for our purposes
anyway."
"What are you planning to do with it?"
"I will use it to leave for Las Vegas tonight to finish our
mission. We also may need it to locate the assassins' hotel room or
local residence."
"You're planning to drive to Vegas right away?"
"When the assassins fail to report in, their masters will become
suspicious, so we must act quickly. We may be able to duplicate their
voices well enough to temporarily allay any suspicion, but that depends
on how much information we can deduce about them from their
possessions, and even if successful it will not help for long. I plan
to leave immediately using Beta and Elisa. I will dispose of the
bodies along the drive to Las Vegas and should be able to begin and
hopefully complete operations tomorrow night. There are too many
variables to be certain."
"Huh. I didn't realize you were going to act so quickly."
"Speed is essential. The only stops I will make are for gas and
to empty their hotel rooms. I will require a disposable laptop, but
that should be purchased in or near Las Vegas."
"Okay, I trust your judgment so go ahead, but I would like more
information."
On the screens, Elisa was now driving the SUV around to the front
gates, Jasmine was carrying the ladder to meet the car and Beta was
carrying the bodies and guns to join them.
All in all, it was about 5 minutes since the SUV moved next to
the wall, about a minute since the men died. When an A.I.
supercomputer is in control, things move quickly.
The bodies and ladder were loaded into the back of the SUV by the
time I got there. I didn't have anything essential to do, I just
wanted to see their faces for myself. They weren't even vaguely
familiar to me. I had never seen them before. It just seemed so
strange that these two men I had never met had wanted me dead.
I waved them on and Jasmine and I went back into the house.
Jasmine said, "Until this is all resolved, either I or Dorothy
will accompany you at all times."
"We might need you to pass for Elisa. Y'know, give her an alibi
just in case."
"That should be possible. We look very similar and dress
differently, so I should only have to change my dress and voice."
"Can you change your voice?"
"Slightly. Enough to pass for Elisa."
"We can do Beta through video conferences, I suppose." I paused
for a moment, both in comment and step, and looked back at the front
gate as it closed. "They'll be okay... I mean... what are the chances
that they won't come back?"
"The chances of a complete failure are minimal. At the very
least, the mafia is unlikely to have readily accessible weapons capable
of hurting Beta. Update: Elisa just found explosives in the captured
vehicle. It appears to be an unactivated car bomb. My conclusion is
that they watched you for longer than a day and noted that you don't
drive the same car day-to-day, therefore a car bomb would not have a
good likelihood of success. This concerns me because it may mean that
I failed to notice them when they first started following you. More
information is required."
"Don't worry too much about it. Oh, be sure to delete all of the
security footage of tonight's action and replace it with standard fare.
Is it all right for me to sleep in my room for the rest of the night?"
"Deletion and replacement is underway. Your room should be fine.
After I make sure the house is clean, I will rest with you and wake you
up if you need to move."
Before I got to sleep, Jasmine/Alpha had one more update for me.
Their hotel room (only one) had been emptied of personal belongings,
and return airplane tickets to Las Vegas had been found dated for two
days from now.
By the time I woke up in the morning, Beta and Elisa had disposed
of the stripped bodies in an area rich in scavenging wildlife. A
nonstop drive from DFW to Las Vegas takes about 18 to 20 hours, but
they were making good time and should arrive in about another 8 or 9
hours (17-18 hrs total). They had alternated driving between the two
bodies so that they could each rest and charge up their internal batteries
with a car adapter.
Meanwhile Alpha was constantly updating her plans and list of
targets. I wanted to know if the lawyer was on the list, but was
afraid to ask.
When I finally emerged from my room mid-morning, I looked
appropriately bleary-eyed from a late night's work. I explained that
we thought we might have had a breakthrough in creating artificial
kidneys (which was truthfully an actual project, just one on the back-
burner).
After I had a cold, late-morning breakfast, I took another plate
of food to the basement, saying it was for Beta.
I tried to work for a few hours, failed and ended up playing the
new Hitman game, until I realized I was taking it way too seriously and
stopped.
I went back to sleep that afternoon, waking up early evening.
The updated news was that Beta had received a call on a
disposable cell found on one of the men from a pay phone. Using one of
her newly acquired disposable cells, she connected to Alpha, who was
able to play a synthesized version of one of the men's voices (taken
from our security feeds the previous night), complaining about the
"piece of shit phone" and said that I had hosted a party the previous
night so they had to postpone. They'd take care of me tonight if all
went well.
Given the bad connection (cell phone to cell phone), Alpha
believed the ruse was successful.
By 9pm, Elisa obtained a laptop with a good wireless receiver
(for cash) and loaded a set of specialized software from Alpha. The
laptop was left out of sight within reach of a public free wireless
host with a strong signal. The software on the laptop immediately
started seeking out unprotected or poorly protected systems to use for
additional support software. Alpha ran all of tonight's hacking
through that laptop so that it could not be traced back to us.
Basically she would use the laptop to hack as much surveillance as
possible to keep Beta and Elisa hidden. For example, Elisa's visit to
that small electronics store to buy the laptop? Hacked and digitally
erased.
The problem with overt hacking like this is that it is not
possible to completely hide the access. An expert could eventually
backtrack the source, and we were about to raise enough of a stink that
expert attention was likely. Using Alpha's hacking protocols and using
the laptop as the source filter, the trail ends with it (as long as the
laptop itself is erased or destroyed afterwards).
Beta and Elisa also had the basic equipment purchased with cash
before leaving Texas (black clothes, black ski mask, black fanny pack,
black gloves, generic non-black clothes, cheap blond wigs, matches,
hairspray, disposable cell phones and a couple other possibly useful
items) and the hitmen's equipment, which included a disposable cell
each, a 9mm pistol with silencer and spare clip each and a small bomb
with electronic wiring.
Given the 24 hour nature of the casino business and the strong
organized crime presence in the casino business, it was not possible
for Beta and Elisa to take out the entire command structure of the
Scarlotti mob, but Alpha had developed a list of 14 targets to hit in
one night to cripple them, starting with the head of the family, Caesar
Scarlotti.
Caesar had a house vaguely similar to mine. It was roughly the
same size and had a surrounding stone wall with cameras like mine.
Unlike mine, his was in a neighborhood and lacked an AI protecting his
electronic security. So when two dark-clad figures wearing gloves and
ski masks (but with a bit of blond wigs sticking out) jumped over his
stone wall, his security cameras failed to detect anything.
His motion-sensor backyard lighting was independent of the main
system, so they did turn on. This attracted the attention of his three
night-time security goons, but by the time they arrived, there was
nothing to be seen and they wrote it off to wildlife.
While Elisa entered the main house via a second-story window,
Beta cut the phone and internet lines, then hunted down the security
guards, snapping their necks from the shadows quickly and quietly. The
blueprints Alpha had accessed online did not match up to the actual
house very well. Either changes had been made or the plans filed with
the city had been falsified from the start. Elisa started going
through the house room by room.
Six people were sleeping there that night, including Caesar, his
wife, his three children (including a baby) and a cousin from out of
town. Only two lived to see the morning. Alpha said she would have
spared all of the children (ages 16, 7 and 18 months from two different
marriages), but the 16-year-old woke up when his door was opened.
Caesar, his 22-year-old bride, his cousin from New Jersey, his
16-year-old son and his three security goons all died from either
gunshots to the head or broken necks. Elisa and Beta left with four
extra guns and $10,000 cash found in Caesar's bedside table. All of
this took less than 20 minutes.
The body count was now up to seven, or nine if you include the
hitmen in Texas.
Next was a neighborhood with 7 different mafia households in
close proximity. Elisa and Beta split up to do their killing more
quickly. The first four houses went smoothly with a total of 12 kills.
Elisa's third house went smoothly (2 kills) but Beta's did not.
Beta's third house belonged to Mr. Calvin Spinocci, a widower
living alone. Sixty-two year old Mr Spinocci apparently didn't sleep
soundly or even much at all anymore, so when Beta quietly opened his
bedroom window, he heard it. He also slept with a gun under his
pillow. Beta, for all her super-human powers, still had mostly human
eyes that had to adjust from the streetlights to the dark bedroom, so
she didn't see the .45 automatic pointed at her until it was too late.
She took one shot in the stomach and a second in her right tit as she
fell backward. The bullets failed to penetrate her skin, but the
unexpected impacts knocked her off her perch outside the window.
Her reflexes took over as she fell and she landed with only minor
external damage. The gunshots themselves created only nasty bruising,
but the kinetic impact from the fall dislodged one of her internal
controller connections and her left arm went dead. Her right arm still
held onto a gun, which she pointed at the window anticipating Mr
Spinocci's appearance. He did indeed rush to that window to make sure
of his handiwork and took a bullet to his brain as a result.
But the damage was done. The schedule could not be maintained
with Beta at a reduced capacity and there was no safe way to repair the
damage in Las Vegas. Heck, if she used a normal hard drive with a
spinning disk, there would have been a good chance her body would have been
completely disabled, so I was thankful for the solid state memory we
used in her construction.
The other big problem was that Mr Spinocci didn't have a silencer
on his gun, meaning the neighborhood was waking up.
Beta was out of sight before anyone made it to a window to see
her, but Alpha couldn't stop the phone calls, not with her limited
access via a single laptop chokepoint.
Still there was only one nearby house left on the list. While
Beta made her way back to their SUV, Elisa approached the house as
quickly as possible. It was two streets over and 5 houses down from Mr
Spinocci, so Alpha calculated there was an excellent chance no one had
heard the shots from that distance, as long as no one had been awake at
the time.
Elisa jumped to the second story window of what was likely to be
the master bedroom and looked inside. The good news was, yes it was
indeed the master bedroom. The bad news was that the household was
awake. Mr Harold Mott was in bed on the phone talking to someone,
though he had obviously just woken up. His wife was sitting up in bed
holding a crying baby while a 3 year old girl stood in the doorway.
The sudden shadow against the streetlights drew everyone's
attention to the window and the dark figure with a gun somehow clinging
to the side of the building.
With inhumanly perfect aim through the window, Elisa shot Mr
Harold Mott twice in the head, followed by his wife as she tried to
dive for cover. The baby wailed as it fell to the floor and the 3 year
old bolted from the room.
Without entering the house, Elisa put two more bullets into
Harold Motts torso, then left the house and hurried to meet Beta at
their vehicle.
Seventeen kills in this neighborhood. Eight of fourteen targets
had been hit. A total of 26 people had been killed so far, including
the two hitmen who came after me in Texas.
There were sirens incoming as Elisa drove the SUV out of the
neighborhood. With Beta operating at a reduced capacity and the alert
raised, the odds of completing the remaining 6 targets had fallen
significantly. Alpha recalculated the priorities of the remaining
targets and settled on three that needed to be completed tonight
One huge advantage Elisa and Beta had over the rest of the world,
even above their physical abilities, was the ability to communicate and
coordinate silently and with complete and accurate comprehension. As
long as they were in a normal metro area, they would also have remote
access to the main Alpha system herself. (The disposable phones were
only needed for communications outside metropolitan areas.) There was
no verbal conversation as these points were ticked off and the decision
reached. Frank must be protected at all costs, which meant these
people must die tonight.
Beta taped the car bomb to her torso. If she was disabled enough
to risk being captured or identified, she would destroy her body and
all evidence which could lead back to Frank. (True, if that happened a
replacement body would be built, but the mindset is still painful for
me to consider.)
The next two targets were in the same apartment building, but
that building was 9 miles away from the last neighborhood. To a human,
those 9 miles would have seemed like an infinite distance given the
large number of sirens in the night. Elisa simply drove and Beta used
duct tape to strap both her useless arm and the bomb to her body.
They arrived safely and parked a quarter of a mile away. The
other problem they had to deal with was the lack of ammunition. The
two guns with silencers were both 9mm. They had been able to get
additional ammunition for them at Caesar Scarlotti's house from the
thug's sidearms, but at this point they had only 9 rounds left, since
none of the other targets had readily available 9mm guns to further
resupply the clips. They had a few more powerful 45 automatics, also
from Mr Scarlotti's house, with 4 clips worth of ammunition, but no
silencers for them.
Beta took 8 rounds of 9mm ammunition for her gun, leaving one
round for Elisa, who would try to deal with further targets unarmed.
For the apartment building, the 45's were left in the car.
For once luck was with them. Alpha was working hard to remotely
sever or delay all alarms from the apartment building and turn off the
security monitoring systems. She had no resources to devote to
actually watching the cameras she was remotely disabling or she would
have been able to inform Elisa and Beta that the two targets at this
location were leaving the building as they arrived.
The two men, one Tony Romero and one Martin Tims, were obviously
together. One was talking on a cell phone while the other dug through
his pockets looking for his keys. Both had just left the brightly lit
interior of the apartment building for the dimly lit parking lot, so
neither had even a prayer of noticing two black-clad figures moving
silently through the shadows towards them.
They reached their vehicle -- for once it was a red pick-up
truck, not a black SUV -- and split to enter doors on either side.
Tony had his keys out and never noticed the slim strong hands come from
behind. Those arms didn't have the inhuman strength that Beta had, but
they were as strong as any Marine and had the element of surprise as
they twisted his head in a quick motion until his neck snapped.
At the same time, Martin was opening his door. He actually
noticed the dark arms reaching out of the shadows. Unfortunately he
was looking across the truck cab and had noticed the arms attacking his
friend, not the one pointing a silenced 9mm at his own skull.
They both fell to the ground at the same time. Unfortunately
Martin was the one holding the cell phone and, without a second
functional arm for Beta, the potentially important information being
relayed over the phone was lost as it shattered to pieces hitting the
ground.
On the plus side, both men were carrying 9mm pistols in their
shoulder holsters, with one spare clip each in their pockets.
They were the cleanest hits of the night, with no spouses or
collateral damage. The body count was up to 28, with one high priority
target left to go for the night.
Unfortunately the last target was at a casino. While most
members of the mafia working at various casinos were safe tonight, one
powerful lieutenant was on the must-kill list and he lived at a
casino/hotel.
The security at Vegas casinos is legendary. They make movies
about how impenetrable it is... how there are cameras and guards
everywhere... but, and this is a big BUT, the security is primarily
focused in the gambling areas and on the money. The hotel/residential
areas, while still fairly secure, are nowhere near as well protected.
This particular hotel/casino was 20 stories tall. While this
particular mafia lieutenant was important, he was not important enough
to rate the penthouse. (There was way too much money to be made by
renting that out to high-rollers to waste it.) Terry Brisco lived
instead in a 6th floor suite, where he had a spectacular view of the
Las Vegas strip.
The view was potentially the most dangerous part of this target.
If they had the gun available, Alpha might have risked a sniper shot
instead of a home invasion, even knowing that there was at least a 73%
chance that the glass in his windows might be bulletproof. Using the
car bomb was another good possibility, but it was too iffy, too likely
that Brisco wouldn't be in the car when it exploded or that the
explosive might be found.
Brisco was the last person on Alpha's list who was likely to be
able to pull the Scarlotti mob back together to face down the rivals
who would undoubtedly move in to take advantage of their troubles. He
was also the only known person left who probably had the authority to
order another hit on Frank. So there was no question: he had to die,
and die tonight.
One advantage we had was that just before the assault began,
Alpha's laptop plus whatever other systems it had been able to infect
in the past few hours would begin a non-stop and completely blatant
assault on the casino's systems - security, power and communications.
If their computer techs were good, the effectiveness of the assault
could be blunted in as little as 10 minutes, though a more likely
timeframe was 45 min to 2 hrs. The electronic assault would no doubt
tip off the security that something was happening and maybe even lead
them to call in the police, but it should prevent any video record of
Beta and Elisa.
A general layout of rooms was available publicly, which did not
include secure areas. We had no way of knowing if Brisco would be in
his suite, in the casino's 'central command' area or out on the floor.
Alpha estimated a 24% chance of him being in his suite, a 69% chance of
being in the central command area, a 5% chance of being on the casino
floor somewhere and 2% chance of being out of the building.
His suite was the first target because it would be the simplest
to access.
The command center was the second target, though we would not
know the exact location and layout of the center until the hacking
began.
At 3:42 am, Beta and Elisa approached a side door marked
"Employees Only" and the hacking assault began. The door required a
keycard to access it, but when the power goes out, the door lock
releases to serve as an emergency exit as required by fire and safety
regulations. The main power for the casino was, of course, the first
target of the hack. The door released and two black-clad figures
entered quietly, almost at a run.
Emergency power immediately kicked in, but those generators could
only support essential systems in the casino, not general lights or the
casino floor. Emergency battery-powered lights kicked on all over the
building, about the same time a few screams of panic and surprise were
heard. As expected, online communications was considered an essential
system, so the electronic assault continued.
Beta and Elisa, with their silenced 9mm handguns out and ready,
ran quickly upstairs, breathing easily. The only person they passed on
their way up was a bellboy of some sort going downstairs. He was
almost able to cry out in surprise before the bullet hit his face,
traveling up one flared nostril directly to his brain. This particular
clip held hollow points or something similar, which shredded his brain
with shrapnel. Death was instantaneous.
On the sixth floor, they heard a few doors opening, but only a
few. Most occupants would sleep through the power outage without
noticing anything was amiss. Only one woman and one man, likely a
prostitute and her john for the hour, looked out into the hallway while
Beta and Elisa passed. The woman died almost as quickly as the bellboy
had. The man required two shots, since he moved back quickly enough to
avoid a fatal first shot.
There was no guard outside Terry Brisco's suite, but Beta still
forced the door open without pause and they entered the apartments.
Leaving the lights off, it still took less than a minute of visual
searching to determine the rooms were empty, but they both paused in
different areas of the apartment for a full 30 seconds, listening
intently for breathing which might indicate someone was hiding.
Nothing.
By this time, Alpha had procured an uncensored blueprint for the
building and found the central command on the third floor. Once
located, she spared some resources to check the video feed from that
room and confirmed that Mr Brisco was there, yelling at other people
nearby. By the time this was confirmed, Beta and Elisa had already
left the suites and were in the stairwell again.
The command center was near the center of the building, directly
above the main casino areas, most of which had vaulted ceilings
reaching up through the second floor. It was accessible through a
small elevator on the Casino floor or through two sets of doors on the
third floor itself. Each of these entrances was always guarded and the
doors were reinforced steel with a wood panel overlay.
Upon reaching the third floor, Beta and Elisa split up so that
they could deal with the door guards simultaneously.
The plan was to kill each guard, then move to a small ventilation
duct. The duct was much too small for any normal adult human to move
through, which however did not include Elisa who could theoretically
wriggle her way through. There was an air filter set up between the
outer access and the vents to the command center, but it was easily
within reach of Beta, who would be able to tear it loose even using
only a single arm.
The plan went wrong before they reached the guards though. A
couple hotel patrons, two men in robes and underwear who had exited the
same room (probably homosexual lovers), saw Elisa round a corner. They
were too far away for the accuracy needed for immediate killshots, so
they were both able to cry out in pain for a good 2 seconds before
Elisa was able to close and silence them.
The guards heard the cries and immediately acted to inform the
command center before running off. In a stroke of luck for us, the
casino had moved away from walkie-talkie style communicators in favor
of less obtrusive ear buds/mics attached to belt transmitters.
Unfortunately for the casino, the receiver for those transmitters was
computer controlled and had been shut down by Alpha's hacking. Which
meant that as Elisa and Beta rounded their final corners to confront
the guards, they had opened the doors to manually inform the command
center of the trouble.
The guard targeted by Beta was positioned so that he saw her
round the corner. As a well-trained guard, he immediately yelled
"Incoming", slammed the door closed and drew his sidearm. He wasn't
fast enough to shoot her first, but the door had resealed itself.
Again Beta shot her target in the face, this time to avoid his body
armor. A second shot was required to finish him off.
The guard targeted by Elisa was positioned so that he was facing
away from her as she rounded the corner. He heard the cry of the first
guard and the muffled shots marking his co-worker's death and thus
that direction was the focus of his attention. His pistol was out of
its holster when Elisa shot him in the back of his head, but his door
was still open, and she kicked his body as it fell so that it prevented
the door from closing behind her.
Elisa quickly moved inside, drawing immediate aim on the two
guards inside, both of whom had their sidearms out. Their attention
had been on the slammed door, so she was able to kill one before he
turned to see her. The other was positioned partially behind some
electronic equipment and she did not have a clear line of fire.
Beta was already running for the second access door while Elisa
engaged in a firefight inside. Elisa had some protection from gunshots
and other damage, but not nearly as much as Beta did. Her bones would
not break and her skin was tough enough to stop low caliber shots, but
a solid hit from the guard's .45 had an excellent chance of damaging
her.
Elisa was able to graze the other guard's leg before she had to
take cover. She found herself close to a cowering computer tech, who
she perfunctorily shot dead, then traded out clips.
"Who sent you?" a voice cried out, presumably the voice of Mr
Brisco. "Maybe we can make a deal."
Zeroing in the voice, Elisa risked popping up from behind her
cover, a small bookcase full of technical binders, to take a shot at
Brisco. The necessary quickness of the shot only let her hit his
shoulder before a couple bullets from the remaining guard forced her
back down.
"Oh god, that hurts. Don't just hide there, kill the bitch."
Elisa made her way to the end of the small bookcase and peered
out at ground level. She noted three pairs of crouching feet. She
shot two of the feet and was rewarded with cries of pain, followed by
two heads crashing to ground level grimacing in pain. The third pair
disappeared before she could target them. She put the two who fell to
the ground out of their misery, but neither of them were Mr Brisco or
the other guard.
"Jesus, she's killing everyone. Where the hell is the rest of
security? Johnnie, get em in here!"
"The only lines that have power are up there on the south
console, Mr Brisco. I'd be dead before I got within a foot. You saw
how she..."
Johnnie died at that point, his voice providing a target for
Elisa to crawl to. She found a second tech, a young woman, also within
view from her new position and killed her just as quickly.
About this time, Beta entered the room and the field of fire.
She quickly zeroed in on the remaining guard and sent a couple bullets
his way. However the guard was hyper-aware of the threats in the area
and was moving away from her as soon as she entered the door. He
returned fire wildly as he moved to new cover.
Then he made his fatal mistake. He had only 2 rounds left in his
gun, so he ejected the clip and inserted a new one. Changing out a
clip can take as little as a second, but that is under ideal
circumstances. Realistically, ejecting a clip, getting a new one from
your belt or pocket, inserting the new one and chambering a round takes
at least 4-5 seconds. The sound of the clip ejection was heard by
Elisa and Beta, who both immediately converged on him with speed that
would put snakes to shame. After reloading his piece, he looked up
just in time to see Beta's gun as the bullet left the barrel and buried
itself in his forehead.
Elisa immediately turned from the guard to Terry Brisco, who
continued to try to bargain his way out. She put two shots into his
head, one through the right eye, one through the forehead. She and
Beta then proceeded to kill the remaining five witnesses in the room.
Before leaving Beta and Elisa paused in the commander center,
silently listening for any breathing or movement. They discovered one
tech was still slightly alive, despite having been shot in the head,
and finished him off. They then quickly reloaded their clips with all
their remaining ammunition and left, taking the most direct route which
avoided all likely major congregations of civilians.
The guard's gunshots had drawn attention and a lot of security
officers were heading upstairs with guns drawn. But even if a couple
dozen were heading to the command and control area, they would likely
be spread out, approaching from many different directions at once so
that only one or two would be likely to encounter any fleeing suspects.
Under normal circumstances, that would probably work, as everyone would
converge on any suspects in time to trap them.
They encountered guards only once during their exit. Moving down
an empty hallway, they heard someone around the corner tell someone
else to stay in their rooms. Beta and Elisa paused long enough to
listen for doors to close, then rounded the corner. Two security
officers, one male, one female, were moving quietly down the hallway,
guns drawn but pointed down.
Here's a dirty little secret about my cyborgs. Human reflexes
are faster. The problem is that a cyborg's reaction time -- the time to
intake a new set of data, process it, send out a response and convert
that response from electronic to nerve impulses -- is slower than a
human when that human is primed, ready and waiting. My cyborgs still
usually win out because of three other factors: They are physically
superior when it comes to speed, strength, agility and accuracy. Their
senses are enhanced for better eyesight, hearing and smell. And though
often overlooked, their computer brains mean that they can always
function at the peak of their abilities.
In a situation like this, where both sides had ready firearms and
the pure humans were primed with adrenaline, the humans shot first.
But not accurately enough. The female security officer died
instantly from a perfect shot to the forehead after loosing only a
single shot herself. The male officer had the reflexes to jerk himself
to the side as Beta shot him. The bullet creased his skull, and he
continued to fire wildly as he fell, getting off three shots before
Beta was able to put him down permanently. One of his shots struck
Elisa's left leg, penetrating an inch into the muscle before stopping.
Elisa quickly tore off a strip of cloth, wrapped it over the
bleeding wound and tied her belt around the makeshift bandage. Beta
pulled out a pack of matches and a small can of flammable hairspray
from her fanny pack and set about burning the blood and DNA evidence
which had been spilled by her fellow cyborg. Alpha remotely worked
furiously to disable the fire alarm. The smoke and heat sensors came
under her control. True, once the flames and heat actually reached the
sprinkler heads that dotted the ceiling, the water would flow and
alarms sound, regardless of what Alpha might do, but by that time the
fire should have destroyed and consumed all blood evidence.
The shots had drawn the attention of other guards, but
fortunately none were close enough to cut them off, given the speed and
sureness of Elisa and Beta's actions. They arrived only in time to see
two fleeing black-clad figures far down the hallway, and the sight was
brief, cut off when they had to duck back for cover against the
surprisingly accurate pistol shots sent back their way. They couldn't
even call in the description (such as it was) because their
communications were out. Plus, they suddenly had a small fire to deal
with.
For a human to run all out with a bullet in her leg would cause
excruciating and debilitating pain. As a cyborg, Elisa noted the pain
response and how her running was likely causing additional damage to
the punctured muscles, but it was only a minor consideration. She
compensated for the decrease in efficiency in her left leg and ran on.
She and Elisa ran down the stairs with a dancer's grace. When
they exited the casino by the side of the building, they noted that two
police cars, lights flashing, had parked in front of the main casino
entrance and heard sirens of additional cars closing in on the
location.
Vegas is known for its bright lights, keeping the main strip lit
up like daytime at all hours of the night. But the lights weren't
everywhere, and they ran quickly from one shadow to the next, hiding
when it seemed appropriate, moving with superhuman speed when
unobserved. Alpha noted most security cameras and guided them around
the recorded views. To simply disable the cameras would later provide
a path for the investigators to follow. Far better to duck, weave and
jump fences to avoid the electronic eyes.
Eventually they circled around far enough to reach their SUV.
Removing their ski masks and wigs, they calmly drove out of town.
About 9am, they stopped at a small town drugstore, where Beta used a
little of Scarlotti's cash to purchase a few bandages and cleaning
products, which she and Elisa applied to Elisa's leg wound, after Elisa
had dug out the bullet.
The laptop, which had been plugged into a "borrowed" power outlet
next to a coffee shop with free wi-fi access, started running a
shredder delete program. Once that was completed, it loaded a small
program into RAM and spun the hard drive in ways that would have
surprised the manufacturers. The disk and everything it had contained
melted into virtual slag. We almost needn't have bothered. The laptop
was found by a vagrant, sold, found to have a dead hard drive and
resold for refurbishment... all well before the police tracked it down.
Again they took turns driving back to Texas, stopping only for
gas, food and one other time. They specifically detoured to a little
used desert highway, stripped off their clothes, took off their gloves
for the first time in over a day and burned it all. Elisa even
disassembled their guns and tossed them on the fire, leaving out only
the bullets, bomb (both for safety reasons) and the silencers (which
were too useful and difficult to obtain to discard).
They redressed in cheap, generic outfits (with new gloves to keep
their fingerprints off the SUV) and drove home, continuing to alternate
the driving duties so their bodies could rest.
Jasmine drove a car out to meet them 120 miles outside the DFW
metroplex. They doused the SUV in gasoline, especially the interior,
and set it ablaze, destroying all final vestiges of evidence which
could tie them to the killings.
The casino bodycount had been 21, all just to get one man. The
total for one nights work? Forty-seven human beings killed. Forty-
nine if you include the two hitmen in Texas.
Back at home, I had been slowly going nuts.
During the day leading up to the Vegas assaults, I got a little
rest while Alpha and Jasmine were creating some alibis for Beta and
Elisa, just in case. A completely accurate simulation of Beta
videoconferenced with people in her office more than once. With
Alphadroid Dorothy standing watch over me, Jasmine, dressed as Elisa
and speaking with her voice, spent a couple hours at work. Then she
redressed as herself, returned to her normal speaking voice and spent
another couple hours at work.
That night, due to the narrow laptop-funneled bandwidth, the only
relevant updates I could receive were occasional notes from Alpha about
how this target was dead or how 4 people were killed at this location.
When Alpha reported that Beta had lost the use of one of her arms,
Alpha had to talk me out of aborting the rest of the project.
I like to think of myself as cool and in control, but I cared
deeply for my women, cyborgs or not. I didn't want them damaged or
hurt, especially not so far from home and myself where they couldn't be
easily cared for and fixed. Or maybe that's possessiveness? Or a
caring possessiveness? Possessive caring?
Eventually Alpha picked up a news report feed from Vegas about a
possible mob war, and I sat glued to the screen while reporters fumbled
with rumors and scraps of information. The news was slowly picked up
by other syndicates and eventually reached the hit national networks --
CNN, FoxNews, ABC, NBC and CBS.
By sunrise, it was the top national news story. They were
calling it Mob War in Vegas and the Vegas Slaughter and the Night of
Blood and half a dozen other names. Estimates of the number of dead
ranged from 30 to over a hundred.
Organized crime experts filled the morning news shows, declaring
that it was either virtually impossible for the Scarlotti family to
recover from this or warning that mob families had a way of pulling
through and we had not heard the last of the Scarlottis.
By 8am I was breathing a sigh of relief that Beta and Elisa had
escaped the city, injured but functional. I let Jasmine herd me
upstairs, where we met up with Kara, who was dressed for work.
"He stayed up all night working on his new project," Jasmine
complained. "He needs to rest."
"I got him," replied Kara, picking me up bodily. "Thank you.
Sounds like you can use some rest too."
"Yes, but one of us needs to sleep in the basement so we can make
hourly checks on the kidney tests, so I'll be downstairs."
After I used the 'replacement kidney' excuse earlier, Alpha
kicked the project up to full development and testing, even while the
mess in Vegas was going on. It may take two or three months until it
was ready for the level of testing we were describing, but it was well
underway.
"Sometimes you work too hard," Kara said as she carried me up to
my bedroom.
At least I had enough presence of mind not to complain about what
was really bothering me. "It's just... I think we may have finally
solved the waste filter problem for the kidney."
"Well, you've been holed up in that basement lab for over a day
now. You need to rest but first," she sniffed me, "you need a bath."
We reached the top of the stairs and Kara called out, "Hey, Anna!
You got a few minutes?"
I turned to look, seeing Anna Marie, aka Rogue, coming down from
the third floor, fully dressed for work.
"Sure, what's wrong?"
"Frank here has finally left the basement. He needs a bath and
to be put to bed. Wanna help?"
"Sure, let me call the office and tell them we'll be a couple
hours late this morning."
She pulled out her phone and followed Kara to my bedroom. While
she talked on the phone, Kara filled the bath. After she got off the
phone, she joined Kara in stripping me naked, then they each followed
suit themselves, being careful not to wrinkle their clothes, until none
of us were wearing a stitch of clothing. She even remembered to pull
out my earbud and put it in the charger.
Then a very naked Anna carried me into the bathroom, where a very
naked Kara ran a warm shower. Apparently I was too smelly to stick
directly in the bath. They showered me off with minimal sexual
stimulation.
Anna lay down in the bathtub, which you may recall is the size of
a small jacuzzi. Kara laid me down on top of her, my head resting
between Anna's bare breasts. Kara slipped into the tub next to us. I
lay back and relaxed, just soaking in the sensations as the two ladies
ran soapy washcloths over my body with a tension melting massage.
Well, not tension in every part of my body. Despite my tired state,
tension in my groin increased with their attentions.
But they completely ignored my rising erection, as if by mutual
silent agreement. When my limbs and the front of my torso were clean,
Anna leaned me forward into Kara's arms. While Anna washed my back,
Kara grabbed some shampoo and started massaging it into my scalp.
While this felt very relaxing and intimate and wonderful, my poor cock
was poking down between my legs, feeling very lonely and ignored.
After a couple minutes of this, Kara told me to "Close your
eyes." I did so and felt them scoop water onto my head, washing the
shampoo out. Their fingers scratched my scalp lightly, making sure my
hair was rinsed all the way down to the scalp. While I didn't ask for
conditioner, I'm not opposed to it either and the entire procedure was
repeated with conditioner, this time with two sets of fingers giving me
the hair treatment.
When I was finally rinsed off, I was leaned back onto Anna's
ample chest and they finally addressed my now rigid cock. Anna reached
around and started gently stroking me while Kara caressed my balls.
This lasted less than a minute before Kara bent over and started
licking mini-Frank. To begin with, they worked together, with Kara
sucking and licking the head and Anna stroking the shaft. At some
point they decided to move forward and Kara started swallowing my penis
to the root, varying between pumping her face up and down on my shaft
and holding me in her throat, massaging it with a swallowing action.
While she did this, Anna bent her head down to kiss me deeply while her
fingers played with my nipples. I don't really think of my nipples as
a major erogenous zone, but apparently they were today.
I only lasted a few minutes under their concerted efforts before
I erupted directly into Kara's throat. She swallowed it all, probably
without actually tasting a drop.
And sad to say, that one orgasm was my off switch that morning.
Even with Alpha's nano-youth treatments, I couldn't pull all nighters
any more... or at least not ones as stressful as last night.
I didn't actually go to sleep right away, but I sagged close to
unconsciousness (with a smile on my face, according to the ladies).
They pulled me up, dried me and themselves off and put me to bed. I
didn't wake up until almost dinnertime.
When I finally got up and dressed, I made a mental note to myself
to thank Kara and Anna with some special attention sometime soon.
Before dinner, I spent an hour in the basement going over the
details of Beta and Elisa's bloody romp through the Vegas underworld.
I was very unhappy with how many civilians were killed and made it very
clear to Alpha that if anything like this was ever authorized again,
she was going to have to plan much better and keep the death count
under control. From Beta and Elisa's own observations and news
reports, 13 people died who shouldn't have -- that's assuming I agreed
that killing spouses was allowable, which was an iffy point for me; I
had only minor objections to the deaths of the casino techs and
security, since they were knowingly working for the mob.
From the news reports, a few eyewitnesses had gotten fleeting
glimpses of "ninja-like women with blonde hair and guns" and that was
it. No fingerprints or blood evidence had been recovered yet according
to an anonymous source in the police department, though they publicly
stated that they believed at least 2 of the attackers had been injured.
Estimates for the number of attackers ranged from 2 to 20, though none
of the very few living eyewitness had reported seeing more than 1 or 2
at a time.
The police refused to confirm that the attacks had been supported
by computer hackers, but the media had numerous sources claiming that
this was so.
Although it seemed outlandish, the combination of all-black
outfits, descriptions of the speed and agility of the attackers and the
computer-savvy attack support had led some people to believe that the
Yakuza or some oriental outfit had declared war on the Las Vegas mafia.
That part actually made me laugh out loud.
I was mildly disappointed that Alpha's plan hadn't been completed
as initially laid out. Three of the initial targets had been abandoned
after Beta's injury -- one low-level lieutenant, one old-school but
well respected thug and one accountant. Rumor was that all three were
in hiding, along with most of the rest of the Scarlotti gang. Although
that was mildly disappointing (mostly because Alpha had failed to
complete the entire plan), I was much more pleased that Beta and Elisa
would soon be home so they could be repaired and safe.
I joined most of the household for dinner and received much
teasing for my late night and day-long nap.
Not long after dinner, Jasmine disappeared quietly from the
basement, driving out to meet the incoming deadly duo. The plan was
for me to spend some time with the other women this evening, then when
they were all ready for bed, turn them off and bring in Beta and Elisa
for nano-healing and possible surgery (depending on how much repair
Beta's arm needed).
While we were cleaning up after dinner, Jane asked me, "So Frank,
given that you slept all day, what are your plans for tonight?"
"I don't plan to stay up all night again, if that's what you
mean. Specifically, I don't have be downstairs for the next..." I
looked at my watch for effect. "Four hours and twenty minutes. Why?
Do we have an activity planned for tonight?"
Rei was the one who answered. "Frank, since tonight is my
evening with you on the schedule, I asked Jane if she would sketch a
portrait of the two of us. We can take a picture, but I have found
that Jane's drawings can be more emotionally evocative."
And yes, Rei said that in an almost emotionless, inflectionless
voice. I always got the feeling that while Rei enjoyed, appreciated
and sometimes even treasured emotions, she rarely indulged in them
herself.
"Uh, sure. Can Jane finish a portrait in one sitting?"
"Sure," Jane responded. "I mean, not if I'm doing a painting...
well, not a professional-style portrait painting. Regardless Rei just
asked for a sketch."
"Okay. Just give me a couple minutes to go change," I said,
finishing my share of the dishes. "What do you want me to wear?"
"Nothing," Rei said.
"Huh," I said intelligently.
Jane explained, "She wants a nude portrait of the two of you
holding each other."
"You're kidding."
"Why would I dissemble about that?" Rei asked.
"It's... it's not really a... uhhh... a socially acceptable..."
"Nude drawings and paintings are often considered high art," Rei
countered as my objections sputtered out bit by bit.
"Come on," urged Jane. "I'll make it tasteful. It'll be fun!"
I sighed. "No nude photos, please."
"So that's a yes?" Jane asked eagerly.
I could feel myself flushing, but I said, "Yes."
"Good, we're all set up in the living room."
"The living room? I thought maybe in the bedroom or somewhere
more private."
"Why?" Rei asked, speaking as if she was saying something very
reasonable.
"Yeah, it's not like everyone here hasn't already seen you naked
a hundred times over."
I sighed and gave in to the inevitable. I let them lead me to
the living room, where an easel had been set up in front of one of our
nice loveseats. Someone, probably Kasumi, had set small handtowels on
the cushions. The curtains were drawn but we had plenty of artificial
light.
When I turned around, Rei was already topless and in the process
of taking off her pants. Jane stepped towards me and started
unbuttoning my shirt.
"I can do it myself," I complained.
"But you're not actually doing it yet."
"I'm just... I'm still getting used to the idea of posing nude.
It's not something I've done before."
"Ahh, you'll be fine. You exercise, you have a good body. Rei
is beautiful. I promise not to go Picasso on your facial features."
My shirt was off by this point, and Rei was pulling off her
socks, watching the two of us interestedly.
I was out of things to say for the moment and just stripped down
(or let myself be stripped, as the case may be). I tried to stop when
we got to my underwear, but Jane stripped me bare. I retrieved my comb
from my pants and combed my hair quickly before sitting down with Rei.
She positioned Rei and myself on the loveseat. My right arm was
around Rei's shoulders and her left arm was around my back. Her head
rested on my shoulder. Jane took out a hair brush and gave Rei and my
hair a going-over and shifted a few of our bodily position points,
minutely re-angling our heads, pushing back a bit of hair there, having
us hold hands in our laps with our free hands, even pumping my cock a
little and laying it across my leg so it touched Rei's thigh.
Finally, Jane stood back, telling us to hold our positions, and
moved to her easel.
We were allowed to talk quietly, but not move. Pretty much
everyone in the household stopped by to watch at one point or another,
but Jane would growl at them a bit and chase them off if they got too
close to her as she worked.
For me, I was desperately trying not think about Las Vegas and
Beta and Elisa. I fought off the urge to ask someone to bring in a
radio or TV and put the news on. I tried to focus on Rei or on Jane or
on her artistic techniques as seen from the front. I watched shadows
from the filtered summer evening move across the floor.
After about an hour or so -- its difficult to gauge the passage
of time when you're sitting still, doing nothing, with no clock in view
-- my cock had shriveled down, grown again, and re-shriveled. When
Jane was finally ready to sketch it, she quickly moved up and pumped me
to a three-quarter erection again and re-laid it across my leg,
touching Rei's thigh... then went back to work.
She ended up taking about 2.5 or 3 hours to finish the portrait,
and did quite a nice job. She refrained from any modern art variants
and just did a nice classically realistic portrait of the two of us.
Looking at the picture though, I came across as very... masculine and
even protective. Rei appeared very... well, if I didn't know any
better, I'd say wistful and in love. We looked like a very beautiful
couple if I do say so myself.
I effusively complimented her work and skill. Rei obviously
loved it too, but you have to know Rei to be able to pick up on it,
given her extremely reserved personality.
I agreed to see about arranging a professional photographic
portrait session sometime soon, and Rei and I gathered up our clothes.
"Jane, would you like to join us tonight?" Rei offered.
While Jane was no longer the nymphomaniac she was before we
turned down the settings on some of her implants (see Chapter 6), the
odds of her refusing an offer of sex in this house were about the same
as me leaving the house without a smartphone. Maybe I'm overstating a
bit; after all, Jane doesn't go out hunting for sex when the rest of us
are busy or anything. As far as Alpha and I knew, she never slept with
anyone outside our little family, but with people she knew and loved,
she was fairly sexually insatiable, as well as the most sexually
adventurous person in the household.
She carefully rolled up the portrait and handed it to Rei, then
snatched our clothes out of our hands and raced upstairs with them.
"I think that was a 'Yes'," I said to Rei as we stood there stark
naked, watching our clothes vanish upstairs. "Let's chase her!"
Not eager to run while naked, I took off for the stairs at a fast
walk, hoping the audience would be minimal. Rei followed right behind
me, perhaps not understanding the game.
By the time I was halfway up the stairs, I heard a door closing
above me. It was off to the left on the second floor, but I couldn't
pin it down any further. Since my bedroom is to the right, she probably
went to her own room.
We made it up to the empty hallway and paused for a moment,
listening. Hearing nothing in particular, we turned left. The first
door in either direction both led to libraries, expanded from one room
originally. At the end of the hallway in this direction was the
exercise room. In-between we had the library, Daria and Jane's shared
bedroom, Diana and Zatanna's shared bedroom and an empty room with two
beds. My bedroom, Kara's room and Kasumi's room were in the other
direction on this floor. (Rei and the others bunked on the 3rd floor.)
I started off by checking out Jane and Daria's room, the most
obvious choice in my opinion. Daria was reading in bed when I opened
her door. She blinked at my naked form, probably also noticing a naked
Rei behind me.
"Do I want to know what's going on?" she asked.
"For a quick summation, we're hunting for a clothes thief. She
wouldn't happen to be hiding in here, would she?"
"Not that I noticed, but I'll be sure to keep an eye out."
"Thanks," I said, not entirely trusting her answer. I closed the
door and listened intently for half a minute. Once you learn to separate
out her flippancy, Daria is a very truthful person, but Jane was
obviously having fun and Daria would be likely to help her friend and
lover out in this situation.
When I was about to move on to another room, I heard a door open
from inside and a voice whisper, "Are they gone?"
"Be quiet, strange voice. I refuse to go kill the neighbor's dog
unless you can pay upfront," Daria responded.
I silently motioned for Rei to go next door to the library. That
library was originally an empty bedroom and still had a connecting
bathroom between it and Jane's room. Rei picked up on what I wanted
her to do, and she loudly opened the library door and stomped inside.
A couple seconds later, the door in front of me opened quietly to
reveal Jane, a messy bundle of clothes in her hands, peering up at me
in surprise. Before she could retreat, I grabbed her and picked her up
in my arms. She squealed and clothes started falling to the floor.
"Rei!" I called out. "Rei, I got her. Come pick up our clothes
and follow me to my bedroom."
A couple minutes later, the three of us were in my room, a rolled
up portrait stored safely on my desk, a pile of clothes in the middle
of the floor. Except this time there were two sets of female clothes,
and a naked Jane was mock-cowering from us on the bed.
"Tch, tch, tch," I clucked my tongue at her. "Rei was kind
enough to offer to let you join us tonight and what do you do? You
steal our clothes, run away and implicate Daria in your theft. What
should we do to her, Rei?"
"Punish her?" Rei asked more than answered.
"Agreed. Any suggestions as to how you want to do it?"
"We could tie her up and make her watch us have sex while she has
none," she suggested.
As Jane got a horrified look on her face, I said, "No, that's a
little too harsh. We could use her as our sex toy or make her eat you
out or we could spank her or keep her tied to the bed all night."
"Yes, that sounds acceptable."
"Which part?"
She blinked at me. "All of it."
I grinned down at Rei. "You heard her. Hmmm... I think the
spanking needs to come first, since it'll be better for the rest of it
if she's tied face up."
I knew that Jane had a couple of actual paddles and a riding
crop, but I wanted to keep this low-key, so I wanted to do it
barehanded. I arranged Jane across Rei's lap, stopping to dip my
fingers in Jane's cunt, scooping out some of her juices. I licked one
finger myself, then wiped the rest across Jane's lips. She sucked my
fingers into her mouth, licking and cleaning them.
With my encouragement, Rei also played with Jane's vagina some
and, after tasting it herself, rubbed the rest of the juices right
under Jane's nose. Then she reached down and grabbed one of Jane's
nipples with her left hand and with her right, gave Jane's bottom an
experimental slap.
"Maybe a little bit harder. Remember we don't want to actually
hurt her, but I won't be upset if she has a red bottom when tonight is
over."
Rei tried again, this time giving a solid smack. When her hand
pulled back, there was a hand-size outline in white which slowly turned
to a reddish-pink.
"Good. Now vary the spanks between cheeks, and change the
strength randomly. No harder than that last hit and no softer than your
first one."
I watched as she continued, experimenting with different strength
hits and moving around her bottom, even venturing down to her thighs.
"Be careful you don't hit her cunny. That might hurt too much."
In response, Rei reached down and pumped two fingers into Jane's
vagina, making her jump.
"Excellent. Have fun with her. I'm going to go do some browsing
in Jane's drawers of toys. Back in a couple."
While I have a few toys in my room, I don't have anywhere near as
many sex toys and restraints as Jane has collected over the past few
years.
I put on a robe and left the room, enjoying the sounds of flesh
slapping on flesh, and Jane's grunts. Rei was normally very quiet, but
Jane's silence was surprising. I had at least expected her to complain
here or there.
I said Hi to Daria upon entering her room, which got me a grunt
in response. "Just need a few odds and ends from Jane's Drawers of
Mystery."
Daria laughed. "The only mystery is why she ever thought I'd let
her use some of those things on me."
"Now that's a good idea. Could you show me what she hasn't
gotten any use out of yet? As far as you know, that is."
"Sure, as long as you let me know what she says about it."
Which sounded a little odd. "What she says?"
"About how they feel."
Together we took a quick tour of Jane's drawers. I set aside a
set of leather restraints with bungie ties and sorted through Daria's
selections. I left the crop, an extra-large double dildo and some kind
of bit-and-bridle set behind, limiting myself to a strap-on covered
with bumps and ridges, nipple clamps and a feather tickler.
Upon returning to my room, I dumped my finds out on the bed and
enjoyed seeing a bit of surprise in Jane's eyes at some of it.
"All right, Rei. Now it's my turn to spank her, but I think we
can make it a little more interesting."
I arranged Rei on the bed, her legs spread wide, with Jane's head
just above Rei's sex and Jane's bottom hanging off the edge of the bed.
"Jane, you know what to do. I'm going to spank you until Rei has
come twice, so how long this lasts is up to her. And you."
I knelt down next to Jane, and spent a moment examining her ass.
It was nicely tight and toned, with enough flesh that there was some
quivering with each strike. The skin was a bright pink, but not yet
actually red. I wanted Jane to be mildly uncomfortable tomorrow when
she was sitting down. Enough to make tonight memorable. At the same
time, I'm a lot stronger than Rei and I didn't want to cause any real
pain, so I went slowly.
I gave her a mild slap, played with her pussy and ass for a
minute, then gave another smack. In the meantime, Jane was digging
into Rei's pussy with enthusiasm and skill. Rei came fairly quickly
the first time, about 2 minutes into Jane's oral attack, which is
pretty much what I expected which is why I said I'd spank Jane through
two of Rei's orgasms.
About five minutes after Rei's first come, Jane's bottom and
thighs were starting to turn nicely red. I glanced up at Rei, then did
a double-take and looked again. Rei had grabbed Jane's borrowed nipple
clamps and had attached one to her own breast and was carefully
positioning the other one on her other nipple. These clamps were
plastic and didn't have strong springs, but I was sure those little
jagged grips couldn't be comfortable.
Rei came again after just another five minutes of licking and
nipple torture. I gave Jane one final slap on her ass and told her to
keep giving long slow licks to bring Rei down from her high. I darted
off to the bathroom and was back in a few seconds with lotion. Jane
jumped when the cool liquid touched her overheated bottom, but started
purring with pleasure as I rubbed it in.
Rei pulled away from Jane's tongue and joined me in applying the
soothing balm to her ass.
"Next, I think you should put on that rather large and textured
strap-on so we can give Jane some DP."
"DP?" Rei asked.
"Double penetration," moaned Jane. "Yes, please..."
I finished applying the lotion and, with Jane's ass still hanging
conveniently over the edge of the bed, I dipped my cock into her pussy
a few times. She ground back against me, and I slapped her hip.
"Stop that! We're going to be in charge of this fuck. And I'm
just getting my cock wet and lubed up so it can fit into your ass more
easily."
Saying that, I started dipping my fingers into her copious
vaginal fluids and transferring them to her asshole. After a minute of
this, I got onto the bed and pulled Jane after me. I worked my cock
into her ass, slowly at first. I didn't want to tear anything, but
Jane's ass has seen more action than anyone else's in the household, so
it didn't take too long.
Once I was fully seated in her dark hole, I held her to me and
laid back on the bed. As Rei moved into position, we spread our legs
to give her access. The dildo/strap-on she was sporting looked even
more intimidating when approaching actual use. It was covered in
ridges and blunted rubber spikes and bumps, in addition to being 10
inches long and 2 and a half inches wide.
"Go slowly so she can adjust to it," I warned.
I could feel the strap-on as it slowly worked it way inside Jane,
who gave off little moans and squeaks. For me, it felt like there was
only a thin membrane of flesh between my cock and the rubber invader,
which massaged my cock as it worked deeper into Jane's depths.
Rei took about 2 minutes to work it all the way inside before we
started the actual fuck. I hadn't come at all so far, meaning I knew I
wouldn't last long under this level of stimulation... so I let Rei and
Jane handle most of the actual movement.
The sensations were exquisite. Jane's ass was still plenty
tight, squeezing the base of my cock with her sphincter and working me
in and out a few inches with each of Rei's strokes. I had a constant
internal massage from the textured strap-on, rubbing my shaft with
bumps and ridges felt through a warm sheathe of flesh. My hands roamed
freely over Jane and Rei's bodies, tweaking nipples, rubbing smooth if
sweaty stomachs, dipping my fingers into mouths. And on top of it all,
I was on the bottom of a small pile of women.
I only lasted about 5 minutes under this assault, though
fortunately Jane had come twice in that time once Rei started pounding
forcefully, and I think Rei came once too.
Instead of rolling over and going to sleep, I urged everyone to
get up and head into the bathroom to clean up. All three of us stepped
into the shower together and I made Jane clean us all up. It was sexy
fun, but we didn't fuck in the shower this time.
When we had rinsed and dried ourselves, we headed back to the
bedroom. I attached the leather cuffs to Jane's wrists and ankles and
strapped her down to the bed, with her feet facing the headboard. I
put a pillow under Jane's head to prop it up and positioned Rei on top
of Jane, face up, with her pussy just above Jane's mouth.
"Now Rei and I are going to make love and your tongue is going to
help, understand?"
She wagged her tongue in response. I would have to find out
later why she was so quiet.
We settled on top of Jane, eliciting a slight 'omph' from her. I
tried to keep most of my weight off of them, but she would undoubtedly
get a pounding to some degree during the fuck.
As I slid my cock into Rei's pussy, I had the wonderful sensation
of a tongue dragging along my shaft as it passed by. Jane couldn't
reach Rei's clit, but her tongue worked hard on her lower pussy and my
cock and balls as we went at it. With my hands supporting most of my
body weight, I used my lips and tongue for extra stimulation this time,
licking and sucking her nipples, neck, ears and lips. The first time
Rei came this round, I was almost afraid she was going to break Jane's
neck, but Jane's tongue only barely wavered in its duty.
Rei seemed to orgasm about every five minutes this time, and each
time was very energetic. Her third come grabbed my cock so tightly
that it sucked out my own orgasm, and I dumped a surprisingly large
load into her pussy.
Looking at the clock, it was about time for me to head
downstairs. Or at least, it was the time I said I needed to be down
there. I had no idea if Jasmine would be back soon or hours from now.
"Thank you, Rei. And thank you too, Jane. That was a very
exciting romp." I gave them each a kiss. "Now I need to head down to
my lab again. Rei, after Jane has cleaned your pussy to your
satisfaction, unlatch her from the bed and latch her wrists together.
Since I won't be here with you tonight, Jane is going to be your
cuddle-bear while you sleep."
I noticed the feather tickler I had taken from Jane's drawer,
lying unused on the bed. "Here," I said handing it to Rei. "Use this
to encourage Jane if she slacks off at all."
Rei looked at me, said, "Good night, Frank" and then settled her
pussy fully onto Jane's mouth.
I sponged off in the bathroom sink, then called out a reminder to
Rei to let Jane breathe. I threw on some jeans and a T-shirt and left,
hearing squishy licking sounds as I left.
Alphadroid Dorothy was waiting for me by the staircase,
apparently having followed me discreetly as my bodyguard. Alpha was
serious about my safety at the moment, and I didn't foresee that
diminishing until the Scarlotti mob was history. I got an update from
Alpha on the way downstairs. Jasmine, Beta and Elisa were about half
an hour out.
Once we reached the basement, Dorothy and I got the nano-pods
prepped and ready.
The cyborgs arrived home about midnight. I kissed them both in
welcome, which let me notice that Elisa was a bit warm.
"Do you have a fever? Is your wound infected?"
"Yes, I believe so, but it is not badly infected. The fever you
noticed is probably because the body was not allowed to react normally
to the injury."
We spoke as we moved towards the basement. "What do you mean?"
"There are a variety of chemicals which would have normally been
released upon receiving such an injury, such as endorphins and
adrenaline. These were not needed and so were not used. Internal
resources such as redirected blood flow and white blood cell production
were not triggered correctly. Thus the body is not reacting normally
post-injury. I believe an update to injury response procedures is
needed for our cyborg bodies."
"Well, let's get you bathed in healing nanites and worry about
cyborg injury responses later. Beta, is your body having any
unexpected reactions to your injury?"
"If you are referring to my arm, then no. As far as my organic
systems are concerned, the arm is uninjured. There is a worse reaction
to the bruises created by the bullet impacts than to the arm."
"Good. Here we go," I said as we entered the basement.
Beta and Elisa stripped down, with Jasmine helping Beta while I
stood by in case Elisa needed a hand. Beta had a couple nasty bruises
showing on her belly and tit. Jasmine's leg wound was crusty, goopy
and inflamed.
Half an hour later, we had completed both injury analyses. Elisa
needed to stay in the nanite pod overnight to complete repairs on her
leg and eliminate her fever, but should be fine.
Beta needed minor surgery. The dislodged connection was
significant enough that nanites working alone would take forever moving
it back into place. Jasmine washed up and, while Beta was in the
nanite pod, carefully made a small incision behind her shoulder blades,
inserted a small pair of tweezers, slowly snapped the connection back
in place, then held the incision closed while nanites healed the cut.
I could see Beta moving her fingers and wrist, testing the repaired
connection, but she could not move her arm until the incision was
repaired and the internal connection resealed and reinforced by the
nanites. (As a side note, they simultaneously reinforced other similar
connections throughout her body.)
While Elisa had to remain overnight, Beta was ready to go a
couple hours later. Although I knew it was somewhat pointless, I
embraced her and told her she did an excellent job. Then I sent her
off to bed while I settled down on the cot. Later I would worry about
how efficient Alpha was when it came to killing; for now, I was just
glad everyone made it home safely.
I didn't get a full night's sleep that night, but then again, I
didn't entirely need one either. When I woke up, Elisa and Jasmine
were both up in their room and Beta was working in the lab near me.
Beta stayed nearby for a good part of the day.
I cornered Jane after breakfast and, after again complimenting
her on her portrait and thanking her for the fun last night, I asked
her why she was so quiet through everything the previous night?
"No reason."
"But all the same, how much did she talk last night?" asked
Daria, who had apparently overheard my question from the next room.
"Not very much. I don't think she spoke five words last night."
"Which means that she did speak, right?" Daria persisted.
"Nope, not a single word," Jane insisted.
"No," I said thinking back. "You told Rei what DP meant,
remember?"
"Dammit!"
"Aha, Miss Jane Lane. You lose! Pay up," Daria crowed
triumphantly.
"Can't I just give you 50 bucks for a new clock?" Jane whined.
"What's all this about?" I asked. "You had a bet that Jane
wouldn't talk?"
"A week ago I commented that she constantly tells people what to
do or complains or just keeps repeating 'oh yeah, baby, right there'
whenever she has sex. I tried to bet her that she couldn't be quiet
for one night's worth of sex, but she wouldn't go for it."
Jane continued. "So last night when I was trying to hide from
you guys, Daria only agreed to help me if I agreed to the bet. And a
fat lot of good your help was at that. The bet should be negated due
to the suckiness of your help."
"The quality of my help was irrelevant. Besides, I thought I did
pretty good, not being a natural liar like yourself. Frank here just
figured it out on his own."
I concurred. "I figured Jane was someone on whose behalf you'd
be willing to lie and listened at the door for a minute after we left.
What was the bet? I mean, what's the payoff?"
"There, you see? Not my fault," said Daria with a touch of
smugness. "The bet was that her tongue on my pussy has to be my alarm
clock for a week."
Daria suddenly realized how freely she had admitted this outside
the bedroom where other people might be able to hear her and blushed.
Daria is nowhere near as much of a prude as Kasumi, but she doesn't
like flaunting her sexuality at all outside the bedroom. Heck, she
barely likes to admit she's sexually active at all.
"And knowing Jane as we do, why did she object to the bet in the
first place?"
"Because now she has to wake up a few minutes early for the next
week."
"Ah, gotcha."
I know how much they both hate waking up early, so I could
understand Jane's reluctance to agree to the bet and pay up now that it
was lost.
Ah well, a minor mystery solved, and I could look forward to a
much better day today than the past couple days had been.
By the end of April, most of the interest in the Vegas Mafia
Massacre had ended. The police still had no suspects to name, at least
not publicly. There had been a small string of murders and
disappearances blamed on retributions, both by and against the
Scarlottis, but nothing like the initial bloodbath.
Alpha discovered that the police had recovered two surveillance
videos of Gamma and Delta, but they were poor quality, outdoors, at
night, and really didn't show much. From watching them, you could tell
that at least one of them was a woman, both were injured and both
appeared to have blonde hair. Despite what TV detective shows may say,
there weren't really any enhancements that could clarify or zoom in with
those recordings.
Almost a month after that night, I was working in my lab at the
office when the receptionist called me to let me know a couple of Las
Vegas detectives were there to see me. This wasn't a surprise, since
Alpha now kept a close watch on all passenger lists of planes arriving
in DFW, but I acted surprised.
"Thanks, Heather. I'll be right down. What are their names?"
"Detectives Charles and Silva."
"Oh sure, I've met them. You can send them to my office. I'll
head down there right away." Which I did.
They were waiting for me in my office, standing around trying to
surreptitiously look over my rather messy desk.
"Hello, detectives," I greeted them, shaking their hands.
"Welcome to the Lone Star State. Have a seat," I gestured as I took my
own chair.
My office was nice but not designed to be intimidating or
impressive. I had one table littered with computer parts and another
with reference manuals and CDs stacked in what would probably seem like
random order to anyone else, but I could find whatever I needed
quickly, so it worked for me.
"I'm guessing you must have a serious reason for being here, or
Las Vegas wouldn't have flown you all the way out here. So how can I
help you?"
"Mr _____, did you hear about the mob killings in Las Vegas on
the 4th of last month?" asked Detective Ronald Charles, who did most of
the talking for the two.
"The Mafia Massacre? The Night of Blood? Sure, it was all over
the news. I actually checked the name list for Charlie Summers or...
ummm... Kneecap or Hairy..."
"Billy Johnson and Frankie Tilson."
"Right, them. I had Beta write their names down for me. Can
never remember anything but 'Hairy Kneecap' myself. But they weren't
on any of the lists I saw."
"That's correct. None of those three individuals were targeted,"
agreed Detective Charles. "One of our concerns about those attacks is
that the killers may have displayed agility and strength
disproportionate to their size. You are the only person we know who
creates... ummm..."
"Bionic people?" I suggested with a grin.
"Sure, bionic people. And robots. So we were wondering if we
could get a list of everyone who has any of your enhancements."
"I'll have to check with my lawyers first, but I have no
objection in theory. But I'm wondering if we can't just eliminate my
people from your list, especially if you're here looking for super-
strong people. You see, the whole bionic arms and legs thing doesn't
work like what you see on TV or in the movies. Let's walk up to the
lab while we talk."
I got up and started leading them upstairs from my ground floor
office. It kind of threw people off that the labs were on floors 2 and
3 while the offices were on the ground floor (with the computer labs in
the basement).
"First of all, if you give someone superstrong arms and legs, you
also have to give them a superstrong skeleton or they'd either crush
their own bodies or rip themselves apart the first time they exerted
any strength beyond the human norms. And we may be advanced, but we
can't replace someone's entire skeleton yet.
"The other problem is... hey, that's something," I said stopped
momentarily. "What was the timeline for the attacks? How long did they
last start-to-finish?"
"We can't discuss details of an ongoing case with you."
"Well, it's just that, when we had to increase the strength for
Alphadroid, who has a steel and titanium structure to support it, the
power requirements went up significantly. Any of our prostheses that
use that much power only have about a 4 hour charge at best. So if the
attacks lasted longer than 4 hours, it eliminates any of our tech right
off the bat."
"They lasted less than 4 hours."
"Too bad. Plus I suppose there could have been more than one or
two superstrong people. Though that's another point. We only have six
people testing our replacement limbs so far, and only two of them
have more than one limb replacement. How many people were involved in
the attacks?"
"We know there were at least two, but it is possible there were
as many as six or eight," said Detective Silva.
"Well that doesn't help either. Are you sure the attackers had
superhuman strength?"
"We said disproportionate to their size, not superhuman."
"Eh, I'm a comic book and movie geek. Disproportionate to their
size means superhuman to me."
"However you want to describe it. The answer is no, we aren't
certain, but if the attackers were all women, then some of the evidence
only makes sense if they were much stronger than normal, stronger than
should be humanly possible."
"Could be bodybuilders or men disguised as women."
"We're aware of the possibilities."
"I understand. My tech is on your list and I had a run-in with
mob goons once, so you have to check me out. I take no offense at your
questions. As long as it's legal and doesn't give away trade secrets
to the public, I'll be happy to help you out however I can."
"Thank you. We appreciate your cooperation."
"Okay, here's the prostheses lab," I said as I put my thumb on
the door scanner.
"Are all of your labs under heavy security?" asked Detective
Silva, looking at the security door, then down the hallway.
"Yes, they are. We have all of the labs and offices on an
authorized-only basis. The only reason you could get into my office by
yourselves was because the receptionist buzzed you in. For the labs,
only Kara, Daria and myself have universal access. Kara's the company
manager, runs day-to-day operations. Daria... I'm pretty sure you
haven't met her. She's a college student who is our project manager.
She's not an engineer or designer or programmer, but she's a great
organizer. And very hard to bullshit, which is important when a
researcher is arguing about why he should get resources instead of
someone else.
"Anyway, yes, we have very good security. Security guards on-
site twenty-four hours a day and, for the size of our company, we have
the best electronic and computer security in the world."
"Don't the guards have access to all rooms?"
"They have immediate response access to either Kara, Daria or
myself at all times, and we can remotely authorize access for them in
seconds."
"Who has access to this particular lab?"
"Well, me, Kara and Daria, of course. Beta... ummm... that is,
Elizabeth Franks, and a couple of our interns. We tend to shuffle most
of our testing gruntwork off on them."
"And they are?"
"Sisters. Jaz and Lisa Marza. They're going to TCU right now,
working here in their spare time. Is this relevant? Do you think
someone stole our tech?"
"Probably not. I was mainly just curious."
"Well anyway, here's the lab. Do you want to see something
specific or do you want demonstrations or should I just keep rambling?"
"I get the impression we may not have time for you to ramble
indefinitely," Detective Charles said with a friendly smile. "Could we
see a demonstration of a superhuman strength limb?"
"Well, like I was saying earlier, the only extra-strength ones we
made were... actually, hold on just a second."
I went over to the phone and hit the intercom button.
"Alphadroid to Lab 3. Alphadroid to Lab 3," I said over the building
speakers, being careful to enunciate clearly.
"He'll be up here in a minute or two. Here, let me show you a
couple limbs we have that aren't quite ready for use."
I reminded them that a lot of this was confidential, then spent a
couple minutes showing them the inside of different limbs at various
degrees of construction.
"See here? This is the only part that actually requires surgery.
We have to install a nerve interface for control purposes and then
anchor it to bone of some kind. The arm itself can be disconnected for
charging and..."
A heavy knocking sounded at the door, interrupting my mini-
lecture. I opened it to let in Alphadroid 1, who walked inside a
couple feet and stopped.
"Gentlemen, may I introduce you to Alphadroid, possessor of
superhuman strength."
"How strong is he?" asked Detective Silva. "I heard stories at
the station that he lifted a table with four guys on it."
"Yes, he did. He is strong enough to literally tear us limb from
limb. But don't worry; he's programmed not to."
They circled the droid for a moment.
"Want to see him juggle?" I asked, trying to fill the silence.
"Yes," said Detective Silva.
"But that's not why we're here," countered Detective Charles,
completing his partner's statement and giving him a mildly exasperated
glare.
"Is there something you want him to do to test against your...
umm... crime data?"
"Not sure what, unless he can break someone's neck."
"I"M not going to volunteer... though actually, hold on a
minute," I said, digging out my phone.
I speed-dialed Kara, not knowing if she was at the office or not.
"Kara, didn't we get a test dummy to use in some of the early
Alphadroid testing?"
"Yes, I think it's in one of the equipment storage lockers.
Maybe on the third floor?" she said.
"Is that Karen Starr?" asked Detective Charles.
"Just a sec," I said into the phone. "Yes, it is. Do you need
to talk to her too?" I offered him the phone.
"Would you ask her to come here?" he replied
"Kara, are you at the office? Good. Could you come to Lab 3?
Detectives Charles and Silva are visiting from Las Vegas." I hung up.
"She'll be right up."
Kara arrived in record time. I left her and Alphadroid with the
detectives and went to track down the test dummy. I also called my
lawyers -- the real ones for AARD, since I didn't want the detectives
wondering about my reclusive law whiz -- and asked about sharing info
on test subjects.
We were still talking via my earbud when I made it back to Lab 3
carrying the test dummy. Kara had her jacket off and sleeve rolled up
and was flexing for the detectives. Kara has noticeable muscles, a bit
like a female bodybuilder, though she is still soft and feminine.
"All human," she was saying.
I broke off from the discussion with my lawyers long enough to
suggest, "Take her pulse. It doesn't matter how realistic the skin is;
artificial limbs don't have any blood flow."
I finished with the lawyers a minute later. The upshot was that
confidentiality wasn't a huge deal for testing artificial limbs. We
could waive privacy on our side, but to avoid all problems, we'd need
the testers to do the same before revealing their identities. The
lawyers also wanted me to stop talking to the police until they, or
preferably someone specialized in criminal law, could join us. I
explained that I and/or my tech were only suspects because the
detectives didn't understand my tech well enough to eliminate us from
their suspicions. I promised to "lawyer up" if it went past that
point.
I was turned away from the detectives during this last part, but
I'm sure they overheard enough to get the gist of the conversation.
I explained to the detectives about needing permission from the
test subjects and pointed out that we'd probably need to explain why
they wanted to question them and that word would undoubtedly leak out
about the Vegas attackers having superhuman strength. We settled on
their interviewing our two test subjects with two limb replacements --
one was a farmer who lost both arms in a thresher accident, one was a
young lady who lost both legs in a traffic accident. If they needed a
complete list, we'd deal with that later.
Both dual-replacement testers agreed to be interviewed, but the
detectives had more questions for us, specifically wanting alibis for
Kara, Diana and Beta (the three employees of mine they knew were strong
and had some kind of training or experience).
Kara and Diana were fairly simple. I called up the security
camera recordings for the afternoon before and the morning after the
Night o' Blood and gave them copies.
I explained that Beta and I had been holed up in my basement
working on a new project which needed to stay secret for a few more
months. (I said I'd give them a description of the work if they signed
a 12 month NDA, but that it really wasn't relevant to anything to do
with the case right now.)
For Beta I gave them contact info for people with whom she might
have video conferenced those days and said that Jasmine and Elisa, my
intern assistants, could confirm her whereabouts.
I also offered to have them all come in so the detectives could
feel their pulses to make sure they had human arms and legs.
While I was doing all of this, I was also doing some basic
programming for a new "trick" for Alphadroid (or so I told them).
After about half an hour, I set up the test dummy and had Alphadroid
twist its head as if it were breaking someone's neck. The test dummy
head twisted off entirely. I'm not sure how accurate a human analog
the dummy was, but the neck was made of metal, so it was impressive.
"Ouch. That's about the best I can do on such short notice," I
apologized. "I suppose if someone actually had Alphadroid-level super-
strong arms, they could learn to regulate the strength so they wouldn't
just rip someone's head off like that. But again it would require them
to have a metal or reinforced skeleton to avoid tearing their own arms
off. Now if you'll give me a minute, I need to erase that new program.
Alphadroid shouldn't be able to do that to a human being even with the
program, but all the same I really don't want to leave that particular
trick loaded into its memory."
"Can it run?"
"Not at human athlete levels, but yes."
"How fast?"
"It maxes out at about 9 mph."
"That's... not very fast."
"For a bipedal robot, it's very fast, thank you very much. If
you're wanting to implicate one of our Alphadroids..."
"There's more than one?"
"I have one at home. It's easier to test and develop its
programming when you live with it. Although if you have any witnesses
who heard your suspects moving quickly, I can help you eliminate
Alphadroid right now. Alphadroid, recognize User Frank Zero. Begin
leg test 4."
Alphadroid began running in place, which is what I hoped Alpha
would pick up on. I also would have accepted running in a circle. The
noise associated with this was significant and definitely not human.
"Good enough?" I asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the
whirring of Alphadroid's legs.
"Yes, you can have it stop now." I did.
"We didn't consider your robot here a suspect. We're just
interested in his limbs. How about jumping?" asked Detective Silva.
"Jumping? How?"
"How high could he jump?"
"Hmmm... Not really sure offhand. I suppose I could do the math
pretty easily. We know how strong the legs are and how fast they can
move and how much he weighs..."
"Can you have him just go ahead and do a test jump for us to
see?"
I stopped working for a moment to consider. "No, actually I
won't. It's too risky."
"Risky?"
"It's not designed to jump and keep its balance. It's much too
heavy for me not to worry about serious damage if it doesn't land
correctly. You might as well shoot your guns at it to see if the
damage incapacitates it. The risk might be just as bad."
I finished up the jumping estimate. "Here we go, detectives.
With just a straight vertical jump, it could theoretically get up to
2.1 meters high. No guarantees, but that should be fairly accurate."
"Could it jump or climb up to a second story window and hold on
to a window frame?"
"You're joking right?"
"No, not really."
"Someone actually did that during the attacks?"
"Right now we're just asking if your enhanced limbs could allow
it."
"The climbing might be possible, depending on what the wall
looked like. Our normal arms and legs don't really give you any
advantages when it comes to something like that. Unless you're really
experienced with them, I doubt you could do it at all. Alphadroid
could probably climb a wall if you had reinforced handholds for him.
"As for the jumping, absolutely not. With its heavy weight,
Alphadroid can't jump that high and neither will our normal legs.
Alphadroid's legs on a normal human body might be able to jump that
high, but again, you'd have to have someone with a superhumanly strong
skeletal structure to support it."
"What about a... whaddacallit... it's like a robot you wear?...
Like at the end of Aliens, but a lot smaller?"
"An exoskeleton?"
"Yeah, what about one of those? Could something like that give
someone superstrength like that?"
"Sure, I suppose so. I don't know if practical powered
exoskeletons like that even exist yet, but if they do, then yes, they
could."
"Could your company make something like that?"
"I have faith in my people and our tech, so sure. It might take
us a few years... probably cost at least as much as developing our
prostheses... but yeah, I think we could."
"But you don't have anything like that available today?"
"No, unfortunately not. Like I said, I don't think anyone else
does either. Oh sure, there are probably companies working on models,
for the military I'd guess, but I'm not aware of anything that's
available yet."
After a little bit of small talk, Detective Charles was
apparently tired of my refusal to volunteer my opinions on the mafia
slaughter during their visit and decided to feel me out.
"Y'know," he said casually, "there are a lot of people, cops
included, who aren't too unhappy at how things played out. A lot of
very bad people aren't around anymore."
"I suppose so. A lot of innocent bystanders aren't around
anymore either. Plus, accusations and rumors aside, I don't like
condemning people without proof."
"Trust me, there's a big difference between what we know and what
we can legally prove. If we had a lack of witnesses against those
guys, it was because those witnesses disappeared under mysterious
circumstances."
"Well, I'll certainly defer to your knowledge in the matter.
Personally? Well, okay, it's no secret that I'm a geek-slash-nerd.
Among other things, I like comic books, which are of course full of
vigilantes. But one comic book I never 'got', never enjoyed is the
Punisher, if you understand what I'm saying."
Detective Charles obviously didn't, but Detective Silva whispered
to his partner that he'd explain it later.
While everything I'd told them was true, I left out the part
where I can be very pragmatic and occasionally even ends-justify-the-
means when I have to be.
Detective Silva picked up the conversation. "So you're not in
favor of vigilantes?"
"I think there's a big difference between self-defense or being
helpful and vigilantism. Besides from the news reports, I got the
impression the attackers were from a rival... gang... syndicate...
whatever."
"That is a popular theory, but we can't discuss the details of an
ongoing investigation."
There wasn't much more we had to discuss. They went ahead and
checked the pulses on and the warmth of people's arms and legs.
There was a point when they got a bit aggressive in questioning
Kara. She had given a bit of a flippant answer at one point, and I had
to intercede and suggest we bring in a lawyer to mediate. They weren't
accusatory toward her, but I think maybe she insulted their manhood
when she offered to arm wrestle them both at the same time. (At least
she had a solid alibi, with both videos and witnesses, and had much
shorter hair than the dark figures in the videos.)
I personally called the two test subjects, explaining that the
detectives needed to understand a bit more how the artificial limbs
worked and their limitations. They were more than willing to help.
Actually all of our test subjects were ecstatically happy with our
limbs and eager to help us out however they could, especially the two
dual-replacement recipients to whom we had essentially restored their
active lives. (True, getting used to the limbs took time and we still
had a few minor bugs here and there. Oh, and no swimming with them.)
The main thing that surprised me about their visit was that they
didn't ask me about living with so many women. I know the police have
a file on me (see events following the car crash in Chapter 10) and
that the detectives must have seen it. In talking with Alpha after
they left, she speculated that we probably weren't serious suspects, or
they would have used questions about my home life to prod me for
emotional reactions. (Then again, Alpha sometimes has problems
separating TV detectives from real life detectives.)
I offered to treat the detectives to local Texas BBQ, but they
thanked me and said their goodbyes. I know they visited the two test
subjects and talked to at least a couple of the people Beta had spoken
with via video conference on the days in question. They even asked a
few people if it was normal for me work day and night in my basement on
a secret project. (The answer to that is that I do it a few times a
year.) Aside from that, it was the last I heard from the Las Vegas PD
for months.
In June the lawsuit by the mugger was dropped. We applied for
prejudice to recover payment of our legal fees since the suit was so
utterly without merit, but didn't win that argument. We registered a
complaint against Charles Summers, the lawyer, with the state bar, but
unless the police can actually tie him to the intimidation attempt
against me (or anyone else), it is not likely to go anywhere.
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