The next three days were very hard on both of us. Joey was back to his "normal" self, and that ended up meaning he was almost as depressed as I was.

For him it was the concept of how completely futile our rescuing his sister appeared. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't see a way to convince the Eta's to let him join. We both believed that our age was the reason for the hormone levels not being within their acceptable range, and that was one thing we couldn't alter about ourselves. Even though Joey had just turned seventeen exactly one week before the party, we suspected that he wouldn't be accepted next spring either.

My biggest problem was my stupid empathic senses wouldn't stop feeling that damn dark spot I had inflicted on Joey's... soul? Whatever. He didn't understand why I felt so guilty whenever I looked at him, and I guess that also added to his depressed mood.

To top it all off, Greg and Nick both had ear rings on Monday, and simply accepted the fact we weren't going to make it in. They weren't unfriendly towards us, or anyone else for that matter, but they didn't even try to include us in their activities, even the ones we had been doing together for the past four weeks.

Joey and I both had stopped going to the workouts, and were skipping classes right and left. On Wednesday, Joey suddenly started throwing things around the room, not really trying to break anything, just needing to work off some of his powerful body's energy since he hadn't been working it off in a weight room.

It was purely by accident that Joey knocked the cabinet under the refrigerator open. I was laying in my bunk ignoring his cusses and activity, my eyes not looking at anything in particular, and just happened to lock on one of the contents which had been behind the door.

I don't know how long I stared at the bottle before it registered, and even then in my half drunken state it took a minute for my brain to make some connections and trigger an important conclusion.

"SHIT!" I said sitting up and nearly braining myself on the bunk above me.

"What!" Joey snapped, throwing the handcuffs at the radiator that would have drove me crazy if he had done it three hours earlier while I had been hung over.

"Joey.. Think about it. Other than our age, what else could make our hormone levels be so different from everyone else's?"

"I don't... Oh shit. You mean.."

"The STERIODS" we both said.

We had stopped taking them three week before the party because we felt we had added enough muscle tone to get us by without them. But we had started taking them before we had left home, so they had been in our systems at the time our blood samples had been taken.

"Oh man.. That HAS to be it!" Joey said, grabbing the practically empty bottle out of the cabinet.

"But.. How does that help us now?" I said, feeling my head pound from the quick movements I had been making.

"What do you mean? All we do is ask Mike.. to.. Oh."

Joey frowned, then grabbed one of the notebooks he had been pitching around earlier. He started writing things down silently while I corked my bottle and put it away out of sight.

I laid back down in my bunk while the familiar static electric sensation filled the room from Joey's mind switching into hyperdrive.

I guess I fell asleep, for the next thing I knew Joey was handing me the notebook.

Mission objectives: 1. Construct a believable reason to have our blood taken again for testing. 2. There are twenty open beds, and nearly forty guys to fill them. Determine a way to get in ahead of at least twenty of the others.

"Is that it? All that thinking for two objectives?" I said.

"Fuck you. I was trying to find the solutions, you dork."

"Oh," I said, finding the room trying to spin. "Look, I'm feeling a little woozy. Can we talk about this tomorrow? Say around noon?"

"Shit. You need to lay off the booze. I'm going to go find Greg or Nick and scan them for anything I can get."

"Bye," I said after the door shut.

That night, I had a very strange dream. I was sitting alone on my bunk when Greg walked in. We started talking, but every once in a while I would get a glimpse of what I thought was a rat sticking its nose out Greg's ear or mouth or something. It was kind of gross.

Anyway, I started to catch on that every time the rat showed up, Greg was more... well, perverted. As Greg started to talk about how he likes getting carrots stuck up his ass, I prepared to grab the rat by its whiskers the next time it poked its head out.

When I grabbed it, I suddenly had control over the rat. I told the rat to undo what he had done to Greg, and that's when I woke up.

It wasn't until the next morning when Joey's alarm woke both us up at six before I figured out what my dream meant.

"Joey. I got it!"

"What? A hang over?"

"No.. Well, that too. But.. shit.. What was I going to.. Oh yeah. You and I are going to go rat hunting."

"Are you sure about this?" Joey said as we stood outside Greg and Austin's door that evening.

"Positive. I've tried it out on three different people. It will.. Hi, Greg. Mind if we come in?" I said, not waiting for an answer when Greg opened the door.

"Uhm, actually.." Greg said.

"Close the door, Greg," I said as I closed the curtains while Joey used his version of a Vulcan neck pinch on Austin who was sitting at the table doing homework.

Joey gently let Austin sag forward, resting his pudgy nose on the book he had been working out of as Greg said, "What did you do to him?"

"Oh, just a little thing I picked up," Joey said, blowing across the tip of his index finger and putting it back in his imaginary holster.

"What do you want," Greg asked as he examined his cousin, then wondering why he felt so calm.

"Mike sent us," I said after sitting down on Greg's bunk.

"He did?"

"Yeah. We're supposed to give you a test," Joey said.

"What kind of test?" Greg asked suspiciously.

"Sit down next to me, and I'll show you," I said softly.

"How do I know Mike really sent you?" Greg responded just as softly as he sat down.

"Because of this," I said, raising my shirt up to show him my right nipple.

Greg gasped, seeing the illusion of a nipple ring on my right nipple with the Roman letters Gamma Alpha Eta inscribed on it. He looked up to Joey, and watched him with a look of respect as Joey flashed his own right nipple at us.

"What do I have to do?" Greg said, suddenly very willing to proceed.

"Simple. Take off your ear ring and never put it back on," I said.

"But.." he said, hesitating.

"We're waiting, Greg," Joey said before turning around and closing his eyes. "Don't fail this test, or you'll never get in.

"I don't understand.." Greg said, reaching up to his ear ring, then looked over at me.

I looked in his eyes and formed an empathic connection, and immediately began pushing against the confusion. I pushed hard. Very hard, actually, and once I was passing through his emotional tide, I set out feeling my way through his emotions searching for their sources. I waded through the streams of emotions, seeking out the ones that felt they didn't belong. There were hundreds of forks in the stream, and at each fork I had to determine which way the out of place emotions were coming from in order to follow them to their source.

Suddenly there it was. A foreign energy or pattern sticking out of the riverbed, sending all sorts of pollutants downstream. With a surge of anger and fear, I lashed out at its base, and found it retaliating by surging and spewing even more waste down the stream of emotions.

After I slammed it with my emotional sledge hammer twice more, I felt it suddenly expand, exploding outwards and flinging me back down the stream.

As my senses returned to the real world around me, I heard Joey announce, "GOT IT!" and knew it had worked so far.

"Hurry up, Tim.. It's slipperier than KY!" Joey sputtered.

I focused my telepathic senses to follow the hold Joey had on what we were calling Greg's mental rat, and as soon as I got a hold of its tail, I quickly went after its neck.

He was right about it being slippery. Three times I had just about got it pinned down that it suddenly rewrote itself into another section of the subconscious. But on the fourth attempt I got my mental grasp around its scrawny neck, and immediately tore out its puny mind and began replacing it with a far more complex one of my creation.

"Okay, Joey. Let it go," I said finally while keeping my mind focused on it just in case I missed something.

"What happened?" Greg said a moment later. "Did I pass the test?"

Seeing that everything was in order, I let the new improved rat go and opened my eyes to find Greg waiting for our answer.

"Take off your ear ring and we'll find out," I said, trying not to grin.

"Uhm.. Okay," he said reaching up and pulling its clasp off.

The moment the pin came out of his earlobe, Greg's own face broke out into a broad grin before he said, "I guess you might say I'm all yours."

"How do you feel?" I asked, letting myself mirror his grin.

"Like an undercover cop or something. What do you want me to do?"

"Well for starters, tell us everything they said or did while you.. er.."

"While I was a zombie?" Greg said humorously. "Okay. Mike and Alex, asked me and Kyle if we wanted to see were we would sleep if we got in. As soon as we were alone in the sleeping area, I just didn't want to do anything but stand there. I guess Kyle was done first since nothing happened to me for a while.

"When they did get to me, I felt everything for me change. I saw how important it was to become a Gamma Alpha Eta brother. I wanted to do whatever Mike or any of the other Etas asked me to do. I knew how to make myself forget things, and then remember them when I needed to. And what's really cool is I can even make up something and believe it when I need to.

"Oh.. I guess you know all that already. Uhm, lets see.. They really didn't say much of anything. Oh. Mike asked if some guy.. Richardson I think, was going to try any of us out before we were officially in. Alex said something like, 'You know Wally. He's already asking me about the new recruits'

"Richardson again," Joey said. "Huh.. Sounds like he's above Mike."

"You might want to get Nick in on this. I think he's going to meet this guy this weekend."

"Nick was next on our list anyway," I said while probing Greg real quick to make sure the rat was still working right. "Did they say anything else?"

"Just instructions on what to do. Sorry about giving you guys the cold shoulder. They told us to get our ears pierced and to start spending all our time with the other initiates or full brothers. We're not to have any sex, drink, smoke, stuff like that until told otherwise, and to keep our grades up because they were important for our cover. Then they told us to make ourselves forget everything except looking around and then go back to the party."

"Has any of the other brothers told you anything that you had to forget later?"

"Oh yeah.. Just today too. Blake told Nick and I we were for sure getting in, and told us about what they did after seven o'clock. Get this! The Etas all workout in the nude!"

"Really?" I said, truly surprised.

"I wonder why Fred never remembered that," Joey said.

I shrugged at him, then said to Greg, "What do they do afterwards? Suck each other off?"

"No! Or at least we didn't. You would have really like it. Blake told us to get the maximum performance out of our bodies, we had to concentrate on keeping ourselves hard while we worked out. He kept talking about how hard it made him to work out in the nude, and man.. You should have seen his. I swore it looked like it would explode sometimes."

"That does explain the way Fred kept wanting to mention getting undressed," I muttered to Joey.

"Anything else?" Joey asked.

"Nothing except that we were all supposed to start eating a special diet. I got the list of what we could eat somewhere. Do you want to see it?"

"Show me tomorrow. I think we better go do Nick before it gets any later," I said.

"Okay.. What do you want me to do until then?" Greg asked anxiously.

"You know you have to hide everything about our visit from yourself and the Eta's right?"

"Yeah. And you're the only two who can tell me to take my ear ring off and bring all my memories back."

"Right. What we need is any information about what goes on behind the scenes, who's in control of who, and things like that. Maybe try pumping Blake and others for information. Don't take any risks, though. Try and make it look like your natural curiosity, not something more. The most important thing you can do is not to get caught, okay?"

"Yes sir!" he said, making a mock a salute. "I'll crack my cyanide filled filling open and swallow it before they can even ask me my name."

"Suicide is not an option," I said seriously.

"Okay. Understood," Greg said, just as serious.

"Shit, Tim. Maybe you shouldn't make Nick as eager to die for our cause," Joey said after we left Greg to wake his cousin up.

"I didn't make him like that. It's part of the original rat's programming. If I change it, there's another chance they will find it and trace it back to us," I said before knocking on Nick's door.

"FUCK!" we heard Nick's voice say inside. "WHOEVER IT IS, GO AWAY!"

"What ya doing, Nick?" I said through the door. "Jerkin' off to one of my pornos again?"

"And what if I am?!" he replied as we heard the TV shut off.

"Shit, Tim. He was." Joey said, peeking out through Nick's eyes.

"Come on, Nick. Put your little buddy away and let us in. Or do you want Lenny to find out you like watching 'After School Watersports'."

"Shit," Nick said, opening the door.

After we walked in and Nick closed the door, Joey and I both couldn't help but glance down at the raging hard on which was struggling to get back out of his boxer shorts.

"Well? What do you want? I'm trying to get some sleep."

"We're here to test you," Joey said, then giving me a shrug when I looked at him in surprise.

"Test me?" Nick said doubtfully. "Never mind what Joe said, Nick. I forgot to tell him that the rat comes when its called," I said for Joey's benefit.

"Oh yeah? Mind telling me what its name is?" Joey said amused.

"It doesn't have a name. Does it Nick. It just knows when it is supposed to come out."

"What are talking about? Come on, guys. I really have to get some sleep. It's not my fault you two quit."

"You still don't get it, do you Nick," I said, walking around him, inspecting him like a piece of meat. "Perhaps Mike was wrong about you."

"Mike? Wrong about what?"

"Oh, just that he thought Richardson wanted someone like you. Aren't you supposed to meet him this weekend or something?"

"Richardson? How do you know him?" Nick said, finding the name vaguely familiar.

"Let's just say we were present in a very important discussion about whether Richardson would get to try any of the new initiates before the initiation."

"Yeah," Joey said, seeing what I was trying to do. "Was that before or after Janice gave you that blow job?"

"I don't remember. I think it was before. Maybe Mike remembers. Oh yeah. Mike said that you can work out in the nude if you want, but you still can't have any sex until we say. Got that?"

"Yes sir," Nick said immediately. "Does that mean I'm not going to have to watch that video any more?"

"Which video?" I said confused.

"The one that teaches you how to give blow jobs. I'm supposed to study it every night before I go to bed so I know what I'm doing when I give Master Richardson a blow job."

"Oh that tape. I thought you were talking about the pornos that I gave you. Who's in it? Anybody you know?"

"I don't know what you mean.." he said, suddenly frightened he had given himself away.

"We made a new one last month, and I was wondering if they're using it yet," I said, realizing he was starting to disbelieve me again.

"A new one? I don't think so. Alex said his trainer gave it to him for his first time with Richardson, and wanted to give it to me because I was cute. Was I supposed to get a different tape?"

"Got it Tim," Joey announced.

"Got what?" Nick said before he felt his mind's very center get torn out and replaced.

"Got what?" Nick repeated ten minutes later, not recalling he had said it before.

"The answer to all your problems," Joey mysteriously said.

"What does that mean?" Nick replied irritated.

"Nothing. Just take off your ear ring."

Nick gave a frustrated sigh as he slipped the clasp off and started pulling the pin out of his ear.

Just as with Greg, Nick grinned when it was out of his ear and said, "Now I understand."

"Told you it was the answer to all your problems," Joey said, trying not to give in to the contagious grinning.

"Okay, Nick," I said, wiping off my own grin, "Tell us everything they didn't want you to remember."

Nick's story was pretty much the same as Greg's except he had gone alone with Mike and Alex to see the sleeping area, and after Nick's rat program was done, Alex asked Mike if he could talk to Nick alone for a few minutes, which Mike agreed to.

Alex told Nick that he would meet one of his masters next weekend, and that Master Richardson was going to like Nick a lot. He offered Nick to help him please his Master Richardson, and that's when he gave Nick the tape. After Nick called Alex master while thanking him, Alex quickly corrected him.

"I'm not anyone's master, Nick. Master Richardson is my master just as much if not more as he is yours. And if Mike wasn't a Eta, we'd be calling him Master also. You should call any of the leading council 'Sir', and that includes me and Mike. But you don't have to call me that when you and I are alone, okay? I'm Wally's favorite, and because you remind me of me as a freshman, I want to help you become Wally's new favorite before I graduate this Christmas. Just like someone did for me."

Nick had agreed enthusiastically, his programming making any suggestion made by a council member a top priority in his life. After Alex gave him instructions concerning the tape and forgetting what had happened, they left to back to the party.

That night as I cuddled up with my bottle of Jack Daniel's, I started thinking about how we could use Greg, Nick, and other initiates to gather information and maybe even help us get Sarah away from them if we could ever find her. I had some fairly good ideas, but after a while, my brain sank into a drunken state of depression. I laid there for some time remembering all the gross and perverted things Joey and I had done together, and ended up imagining Nick doing those things to some overweight out of shape middle aged man which is what I though Richardson would be. I fell asleep very disturbed, seeing myself no better than Steven for what I thought would happen to Nick.

Joey and I decided the next morning we had to keep our appearances up just in case we found a way to get in the fraternity. So even though I had a hangover, I went to classes that morning in order to hopefully get my grades back up.

Having lost the fear of our telepathic activity being detected while in the dorms, Joey and I took as many shortcuts as we could in catching up our course work. We even went as far as having a few people copy other peoples homework for us, and had two guys down the hall that were in our English Comp class write our already late three page papers for us.

We had a good reason for all of this dishonesty. Joey and I were very busy Thursday and Friday flushing out more mental rats to convert, and simply couldn't do that, go to class, and catch up on our school work at the same time.

Joey and I got pretty good at catching those slippery rodents, but we almost screwed up really bad with the first guy Greg and Nick brought with them to our room.

The first screw up was the fact that even though Nick and Greg had complied with our orders while under the Eta's rat had control, they and Olsen all left saying they had to go right after they got there. We saw the problem immediately. The only way for them to help us would be to ask them to remove their ear rings.

But instead of doing that in front of Olsen (which would have made him very suspicious), we "arranged" to have Austin stay away from his and Greg's room, and simply programmed Nick and Greg to get Olsen's rat to surface by talking about secret Eta stuff, while Joey and I sat in our room next door grabbing and replacing the rat with our own.

The second thing we screwed up with Olsen was after we finished, we knocked on their door and asked them to take off their ear rings. While all three of them did so, Olsen's face showed shock instead of a grin.

Apparently, Olsen had gotten his ear pierced when he was still in high school, but had gone and had another hole made so he could wear both his expensive stud and the one that the Etas supplied. So when we had asked them to remove their ear rings, Olsen complied, but removed the wrong one first and noticed the other two had removed their Eta pins which he thought was impossible. Luckily Joey responded immediately by asking him again, then we were relieved to see his grin while holding out the Eta earring in his hand.

By Friday night, Joey and I were exhausted from all the use of our telepathy. I realized that telepathy was just like a muscle. For nearly two months, I had refrained from using my telepathic abilities as much as possible. While it hadn't lost any of its strength per say, I just couldn't use it as much without feeling tired or strained.

That Saturday and Sunday seemed to last forever. Nick and another guy named Conner spent the whole weekend with their "Master Richardson," and we both were worried about what Nick was being put through. It wasn't just our concern for our friend, mind you. There was a possibility that Richardson might discover my small alteration of their rat's program that allowed my own rat to interrupt and control theirs. If he did find it and then caught our rat, we could find ourselves in deep shit.

That was the first weekend the twins came to visit us. Believe it or not, it was actually pretty difficult to keep the twin's presence a secret with all the Eta initiates around. We simply didn't want any of them to see the twins, even if they had our rat in their head. The twins were our backup in case we were discovered and attacked, and the element of surprise was their best defense and would aid their offense significantly.

One of us spent a day back at the dorms bored out of their mind, trying not to feel like rat bait. The other was with the twins at an apartment we were renting just for their weekend visits. That lucky cat had a wonderful time in between the half hourly checks through the share link, making sure the cheese for the big rat was still uneaten. I elected myself to be the cheese on Saturday, and Joey stupidly agreed.

You see, Joey slept with the twins Friday night, so that meant I got to sleep with them Saturday night. What's the difference? Easy. Who can sleep when at any moment your mind may come under attack? Nick didn't leave until early Saturday morning, so I didn't have any major problems going to sleep Friday night, but I think Joey only got about three hours Saturday night.

When Nick finally got back Sunday night around midnight, Joey gave him the trick question, and to our relief he took his ear ring off. Because we wanted to have a night together with the twins, Joey only checked our rat for tampering, then left for the apartment when he found none.

Joey looked so tired when he came into the bedroom that I couldn't help myself in expressing my affection for him, only to be shocked by his reaction.

"Come off it Tim. I want to do this with the twins, not you," he said, avoiding my mouth in our embrace and struggling to get away.

I let him go and didn't move, disbelieving what had just happened. I suddenly could sense the rat in Joey's own mind, a rat that I had created and had given control over my Joey. I just stood there, feeling that black glob sticking to Joey's soul like black super glue grow more undeniably present, more obvious to my senses and mind, more evident of my betrayal and the evil thing I had done to my best friend.

Honey put herself between us, blocking my sight of Joey hurriedly undressing to get in bed with Joy. When I looked in her eyes, it was clear that they knew. Just as I started to shake from realizing someone else knew my horrible secret, Honey stopped it with a clear empathic message, "Its okay. We don't blame you."

There were no actual words to her message, for emotions don't use them. But never had either of the twins ever transmitted a message of such clarity, or so unquestionable as to its meaning. I nearly jumped from surprise when for a moment I thought she had said it out loud.

I couldn't help but feel better knowing that at least they thought I had done the right thing, even if I didn't in my heart. So when Honey teasingly attempted to use her enslaving call on me, I grinned and said, "Yes, mistress. I'm coming to fuck you now, mistress."

Something told me that the twins were going to try something that night, and I was right. After Joey and I had both finished having our fun, they suddenly released an incredibly powerful call for submission on the two of us.

Joey immediately fell under their control, and even though I also obeyed their command to mount, I was struggling against their grasp on my being. I never knew when Honey and I had switched positions, for it wasn't until I finally reversed the direction of the empathic control that I found my arms leaving her breasts above me that I realized I was now on bottom.

I was just barely holding Honey's empathic attack off when suddenly she cut all resistance and submitted herself to my own control. And take control I did. She was back on bottom the next moment, and as my lust for controlling her every thought filled my already hard dick, my slow humps became faster and deeper.

When her hands rose up to my breasts, I began laying on the powerful surges of lust, directing her to embrace the feel of my body pounding into her helpless one, concentrating on her submission to me, having her lust for my control, desire my command, to surrender to me, never question me, always love me, submit to me, submit everything to me, SUBMIT!

My concentration was broken by Joey climbing on top of me, attaching his lips to the side of my mouth as he attempted to push me on top of Honey. My confusion was overcome by the feel of his cock against my back door, and while Joy frantically tried frenching my mouth, everything was clear to me.

The twins never intended to reassert their controls into me. They wanted to regain the trust they had lost by submitting themselves to my own empathic controls. Honey's submission hadn't been just her own. The two girls were so closely linked emphatically that everything I had done to Honey had also affected Joy in the say way. Joy had already set Joey up to give me what she thought I had wanted earlier, but for once the girls had misread me. I had never truly wanted the physical sex with him. There had always been an honest love within the sex that simply could not be forced by the twins or anyone. I thought I had lost that love from Joey forever, and while Joey began making untrue love to me, I believed that through and through.

I felt the grief within me build like an A-bomb explosion, but before I let it overtake me, I shunted part of its blast through the empathic link with the girls, knowing that its power would undo my empathic controls I had place within them.

Leaving the comfort and safety of the apartment was a very stupid thing to do in my state. But I left anyway to wander aimlessly around the sleeping campus, then finally returned to the dorm sometime after three, and was promptly piss ass drunk and unconscious by four.

"Tim.. Wake up! You stupid drunk," I heard Joey's voice say from somewhere over the horizon.

"Shit.. Tim! I can't do this without you, damn it!" Joey's frustrated voice said.

No wake up. Nice and cozy in Dreamsville.

"Tim? Hey, buddy," Lenny's voice said from over the dark horizon. "Wakey Wakey. Rise and Shine. Time to go to school."

Go away. Busy sleeping.

"Shit, Joe. He's really out cold. I don't like the looks of him either. Any idea how much he drank?"

"No. Come on, Tim. Just wiggle something or something so I know you're still in there."

No wiggles. No-no-no-no-no-no.

"Joe, I have to get ready for class if I'm going," Lenny's voice said softly. "I'll skip if you want, but I only helped people who passed out in the aisle to get back to their spot. They were only out for like a minute."

"You said you knew how to wake them up."

"Yeah, but they weren't out cold like Tim is. They usually stir when I slap them. Tim didn't."

"He could have passed out laying there without knowing it, and just kept drinking when he came out," a unfamiliar female voice said.

" Go ahead and go to class then. But thanks, Lenny. I guess I'll just have to call him mom. It will break her heart to find out he got..."

"nnnnn" I said, struggling to get across the horizon to stop him.

"I knew you were in there somewhere. Come on, Tim. It's after noon time."

I didn't even try to respond then. I wasn't awake, yet I wasn't sleeping either. Once Lenny said bye, I tried to ignore what was going on around me and waited to go back to sleep the rest of the way.

I did, but not for long.

"...you heAR ME! GOD DAMNIT TIM! I'LL TIRED OF THIS DRINKING SHIT! IF YOU DON'T WAKE UP RIGHT NOW, I'M REALLY GOING TO CALL YOUR FUCKING MOTHER!"

"ssssshhhhhh"

"DON'T SHUSH ME! I'M.."

"hhhiiiiittttt" I finished, throwing what I thought was a knockout punch at Joey's loud mouth, but ended up just limply fanning the air in front of his face.

"That's better. Come on," Joey said, trying to get me to sit up.

I was determined not to wake up, though. After Joey had me in a sitting position and carefully let go to see if I was going to stay like that, I waited just long enough for him to put his arms down before I laid right back onto my...

"Excuse you.." the unknown female voice said when I found a body sitting down in the way of my decent. "Are you sure this is the same Tim Brandton who single handedly withstood the attack of eighteen fully capable Cabal members..."

"nawntin.." I managed to mumble out.

"What?" they both said.

"NAWNTEEN!" I said, then feeling my hangover make its presence known to my groggy mind.

"What? And don't say it so loud this time."

"hrrrgh" I huffed in irritation. "nawnteen 'abel memers.. nah ayetheen"

"Are you sure?.. The report said eighteen."

"awh was there.... repor' waa-nt'," I said, struggling to get my eyes open so I could see who the hell I was arguing with.

"I stand corrected, then. Nineteen Cabal members. I'll have to have Stanley write Charles a memo to correct it."

My eyes finally snapped open at the mention of the Inquisitor's first name, but I couldn't make any sense at what I was seeing until the Asian cocked her head, making her face more upright to my view.

"You.." I simply said, recognizing the face of the girl from my first class in chemistry.

"Sorry for not introducing myself last time, but I didn't know you were a Cabal member until this morning. My name is Young Lee."

I frowned at sensing she had just spoken a mistruth, then closed my eyes again.

"Not Cabal," I said.

"I assure you I am a member," she said with a sense of confusion.

"You, yes. Me, no," I said.

"As you wish," she said patiently.

"Tim, she's gonna help us find Sarah," Joey said urgently.

"Price?" I said, knowing she would understand the question.

"We help her find out what they are up to," Joey responded first. "I trust her."

"I don't," I said with a laugh, finding it amusing I could read someone so easily without intending to.

"Huh? Why?" Joey said nervously.

"Yes Tim Brandton. Do you mistrust all strangers so easily?"

"Only if they lie to me when introducing themselves," I managed to say coherently.

"My apologies. I forgot what happened in our first meeting. My birth name is only known to me to protect my family who do not remember me. I trust you understand."

She was telling the truth, yet I sensed she was still holding something back. But since I wasn't in any mood to mess with it right then, I let it slide for the time being.

"Okay. Better," I said, more for Joey's sake than hers.

"You want me to take some of the hangover for ya?" Joey asked, sitting down next to me.

"No. My grave. I'll lay in it," I said before I struggled to sit up.

I held my head in my hands to keep my head from splitting in half like it was trying to do, then when I realized Joey was speaking to me, I said, "What?"

"I said, are you sure. Young Lee and I both have a lot to tell you, and I'm willing to take some of it on myself so you can think straight."

"No. I'll be okay, see?" I said, stupidly attempting to stand up.

They both grabbed my arms in time to prevent me from tasting the floor, then while my senses were trying to remember which way was up, I suddenly felt the hangover loosen its grip.

I opened my eyes, then looked over at Joey and said, "What did you do that for?"

"Fuck.. I make myself feel like shit for you, and you can't even say thanks," Joey moaned before getting up to grab the aspirin.

"Thanks!" I said angrily a few moments later when my mind finally kicked in.

"You're fucking Welcome!" Joey snarled back, before tossing the bottle to me.

"May I ask what you did?" Young Lee asked Joey.

"Long story. Tim, I swear, if I see you drinking another bottle of that shit, I'll.."

"You'll what? Don't tell me what I can or can't do. You're not my fucken master."

"Excuse me. I see I have come at a bad time. I will return tomorrow when you two are more..." she said, then froze.

"What?" Joey and I both said.

"Someone is probing your friend next door. Prepare yourself. I believe they are searching for you two."

Joey and I instantly raised our cloak personalities, and we quickly scrambled to update their memories, starting with struggling for an explanation of Young Lee's presence.

Young Lee was faster to react than we were, however. By the time we felt the probe, we were all working on studying for the chemistry exam Joey and I both had that Wednesday. The probe was directed at Joey, but then I was probed by a second telepath the next moment.

Joey and I both carefully watched for any signs of tampering of our cover-selves while they accessed memories of our cover-selves sexual history. Just before the probes ended, we were commanded to go with Nick at seven tomorrow morning to be picked up by a red minivan at the edge of campus.

"Okay, they're gone," Young Lee suddenly said.

"Who's gone?" Joey's cover-self said.

"Hey, I can never remember..." my own cover-self said. "Is SO3 sulfide or sulfate"

"Duh. Sulfide" Joey's cover said.

"Sulfite," Young Lee corrected as she gently probed our cover-personalities.

"Duh.." My cover personality said as Joey started to turn red all over.

"Sulfite wasn't one of the choice..." Joey's cover-self said before Joey took control back.

"Very ingenious," Young Lee said, continuing her gentle probes into our minds. "I was completely fooled by your... cloak?"

I cleared my throat to remind her she was being rude with her unauthorized scans, and then shelved the uneasy feeling I had about her intentions when she stopped.

"How did you know they were going to scan us?" Joey asked.

"You have your gifts, I have mine," she said with the first smile I had seen her give.

An idea struck me at that moment, so I said, "Young Lee, beyond the three of us, can you sense anyone or anything else in the room?"

"Do you suspect there may be mice conspiring with your enemy?" she asked.

While I felt she meant it as a joke, I realized that actually was possible and said so. I watched her eyes get a distant look for a moment, and could feel she was concentrating on another sense through my empathic ability, but I couldn't determine anything beyond that.

"There are no mice, or anything else which are prone to telepathic manipulation in this room," she declared.

"So, what about... now?" I said, throwing up a shield which I thought would prevent her senses from detecting me.

"I see what you are trying to do. I'm sorry, but I can still sense your mind. You can not hide what you can not see."

"What does that supposed to mean?" I said.

"It means we can't shield ourselves from her detecting us if we don't know what she uses to detect us with," Joey analyzed.

"Oh.. duh," I said, grinning at him.

"Heh. Yeah, duh.."

I wasn't grinning just because of my little joke. While the shield perhaps didn't hide us from Young Lee's scans, the exact same kind of shield was hiding the two coins hidden inside a small drawer built into the head post of the bunk bed's frame. I felt confident that if she couldn't detect them, and I couldn't detect them, nobody could. Boy, was I wrong.

We got down to business after that, with Young Lee explaining what she could do to help us and what she would like in return. Basically, she was there on Cabal business, but was only interested in finding out what these telepaths were doing and what their intentions were for doing it. So far she had only found traces of tampering in many of the faculty and staff, plus followed up on cases of students missing a week or more of class and returning with a less than feasible explanation. What was so suspicious was how the staff accepted their explanations without question. Unfortunately, every one of those students had simply lied about taking an unauthorized vacation, and after she was confirmed that they really had, she concluded the staff just didn't really care.

While Young Lee admitted she did not have any information to supply us immediately, she argued she was more experienced at handling investigations like this and could advise us on critical decisions and the like. When that didn't go down well at all with us, she pointed out she had the resources of the Cabal to call upon if we needed information on a specific person.

So we told her what we knew so far, and after she left promising to get us detailed information about Richardson, Mike, Janice, and try to find references to Harrison, Joey and I both admitted we had gotten the raw end of the deal.

The information Joey had gotten from Nick was far more useful, and he waited until Young Lee left to reveal any of it.

Richardson was not the middle aged man I had imagined to be. In fact, he was only in his early twenties, and looked almost as young as Joey and I did. He was extremely out of shape, the only exercise he appeared to get was the sex he had. He looked more like a boy than any of his playthings.

Richardson was an oddity in that he was a romantic homosexual pervert. Romantic in the sense that he enjoyed the sensual aspects of falling in love, working up from little kisses and fondling to fucking like rabbits at the natural pace of each individual. But because he didn't care whether the individual was originally hetero or homosexual, and the fact he fancied young looking men and quite frequently young teenage boys, he was a pervert.

When Nick awoke in his master's chamber just like Tammy, Ron, and Fred had, he was completely dedicated in pleasing his master. But so were the other seven guys there, including Alex and Conner.

Nick reported that Alex didn't act any differently than he usually did, and that was important because Joey, Greg, Nick and I actually knew Alex pretty well. In the month and a half of the four of us working out with Blake, Alex had probably spent the most time getting to know us of any of the Etas besides Blake. Now we understood why.

Connor, Nick, and a third guy name Toby actually didn't partake in the sexual activities that weekend. They were told by Alex to watch and learn, and not to masturbate unless told to.

What was interesting to find was Alex gave all the orders, and Alex was the only one to have any kind of sexual contact with Robertson. Nick made the comment that they acted like lovers, and that Alex was the dominant lover, not Robertson.

After watching Alex and Robertson exchange loving kiss, the other four guys broke up into two pairs and took turns kissing while the others watched. Nick was happy to have lunch served next since he had woken up hungry, and Joey pointed out that Robertson's location was most likely at one of the other campuses since Nick had eaten breakfast before leaving.

Over the weekend, Nick had watched the three couples take turns progressing through what Alex called the steps of intimacy. I was surprised to hear that a good portion of the time was spent talking and watching television, but the couples were never apart more than fifteen minutes if that.

Before they all climbed into the same big bed for the night, the couples had progressed to giving each other blowjobs, but the three watchers did nothing more than watch, having to go to sleep with blue balls and dreams filled with somewhat disturbing images of gay love.

Alex awoke Nick in the middle of the night, and told him to quietly get off the bed and go with him. After seeing his master was no longer in the bed with them, Nick obediently obeyed, hoping Alex was taking him to give his master the blowjob he had been studying.

Nick was pleased to find that his master was in the room which Alex had led him to across the hall, but he appeared to be asleep on the king size bed. He was surprised when Alex walked up to their master and gently shook his shoulder while softly saying, "Lover, I'm back with Nick."

Joey explained that at that point, Nick started to get doe eyed on him.

"I can't figure out what the queer did to him. Nick acted like he was love sick or something, telling me how soft and.. and beautiful Richardson's voice was. Even when he's his regular self, he's happier than usual. He was talking to Lenny about how pretty the clouds were when I got there."

After Nick had described Richardson's voice and "delicate" body to Joey, Joey had to prompt him for what Richardson actually said.

Richardson opened his eyes, rolled onto his side and rested his head on his arm and gave Nick a somewhat timid but sincere smile, then said, "Hello, Nick," in a soft unthreatening voice. Actually, Nick described it as a soft, warm, heart melting voice, but he was perceiving things different than they actually were.

Nick's hesitant response of, "Hello, Master Richardson," made Richardson's smile vanish.

"Alex.." he whined. "Don't you remember the first time we met?"

"I'm sorry, baby.." Alex said with emotion. "I gave him the standard speech the other day, and forgot to tell him. I've been so worried about finding someone to replace me that's just right for you, I haven't been thinking about the little sweet things we did in the beginning."

"I know.. Its always hard when my lover leaves me for his own life," Richardson said, looking at the sheets in front of him.

"Then why do I have to leave you?" Alex said almost shedding tears. "I'll love you forever if you just let me."

"Because I love you and want you to have your own life," he said looking up and into his eyes. "Could you give me and Nick a few minutes alone? I promise I won't touch him."

"Yes, master," Alex said with a hardness to his voice.

After Alex walked out and closed the door behind him, Richardson sighed, then looked over at Nick.

"Nick, come closer, please?"

"Yes, ma-ma-master?"

"It's okay. I am you master, and you may call me that at any time. But I prefer something more... personal. Pet names and such. Since Alex chose you to replace him, I grant you permission to call me what ever you wish, and ask me any question you have. I want you to be comfortable around me because we are going to become very close, you and I. Does that make you happy?"

"Oh, yes, master. I'm so happy, I could die."

"That's what you say while you're a happy servant boy, but what do you really feel, I wonder."

Nick said he left after that, which doesn't make much sense, but Joey couldn't find any tampering of his memory. Alex was right outside the door waiting, and after checking on his love, he took Nick in another room and tenderly gave Nick a blow job before sending him back into the bedroom with the others to sleep.

He awoke the next morning to discover his master and Alex were back in the bed with them 69ing. The entire morning was spent with each pair taking turns trying different ways of sucking each other off. They took a good two hour break after lunch before starting the first anal penetration, and that's when Nick stopped enjoying the show. Because Nick had been ordered to watch the blow job video and study it, his mind had accepted he would be doing that. But no one had told him to enjoy anal sex, therefore he didn't have any problems with his hardon after that.

After dinner was served, the Alex joined the other two pairs in a group fuck which he naturally led. Richardson had Nick and the other two come over to him to watch the action together, but Nick seemed unable to concentrate on anything but feeling his master's eyes on him the whole time.

I phoned home before we went to get dinner, but only used that to form a telepathic connection so I could explain what was going on with greater accuracy. My dad immediately had the twins pack for a two week stay out there, and promised to have the girls there before dawn.

Joey and I spent the rest of the evening trying to fill in as many holes in our cloak personalities' memories as possible. And then for the first night since before the party, Joey and I slept together in the same bunk, both of us needing the security that the others body provided to finally go to sleep.