The Unrelenting Tide

Maybe it was drugs, a rational part of his mind argued. Perhaps there was some kind of hallucinogen in the liquor and food.

Jake banished such thoughts, seeing the lobby in the distance. I'm home free! he thought triumphantly, breaking into a run, going as fast as his legs could carry him.

"Huh? Well, that's strange," he suddenly said. "The doors ... they're not that far away ... but I'm not getting any closer to them! What the hell?!" He shook his head, confused. "It's like I'm running in place, but I'm not. I know I'm not! This is ... impossible ... it must be the drugs ... must be -"

"Let me help you."

Jake jerked his head toward the voice, seeing one of the unusually beautiful maids. She was short and voluptuous, with dark hair and a red streak near her forehead. His eyes widened. The maid had a posse with her - six other women, who were her equals in beauty. Their emerald-green eyes glittered with something ... unsettling.

The maid took his arm into hers. "We're through with this place and its inane rules," the gorgeous housekeeper said. "We've brought in more sisters into the fold in a week's time than the hotel did in a month's time! And all they can say is that we're too brazen ... too disruptive ... too bold!"

"I ... ah, I ..." Jake's protests died away as he felt compelled to walk with the woman and her posse. The exit! He saw that they were really getting closer to it this time, that it no longer was seemingly always in the distance! Jake sighed contentedly. All seemed right with the world again.

"Athena says she's going to find a way to moderate our sexual urges," the maid continued, oblivious to Jake's relief. "Well, we don't WANT to be moderated! We refuse to lead boring, empty lives! We just want to love our sisters and feel men's cocks exploding inside us!"

The maid glanced over at Jake, something more than lust now shining in her eyes. "We won't - we can't live the ordered life that management wants!"

Now she grinned, seeing that Jake was fixated on the lobby's revolving doors, now tantalizingly close. "Don't worry, lover. The dimensional countermeasures aren't intended to work against those who already belong to the Sisterhood." The grin widened. "Stick with us and you'll be home free."

And so Leeta, leading with a man who would himself soon be a lust-crazed woman, fled the lobby of the Night Skies Hotel with her posse in tow. Looking back, she snarled in triumph at the distant blaze of neon light, full parking lots and rolling, forested, park-like terrain that was the hotel's campus.

She and her sisters would roam TL-169, and every night there would be a new penis to fulfill their volcanic mating drive, and every morning there would be a new sister for hours of bonding through steamy lesbian sex.

"And to hell with anyone that doesn't like it!" Leeta yelled.

***

"Tell us, Science Guild candidate Athena, why did you permit the disruption to continue as long as it did?" the chorus of voices inquired, speaking through the floating blue crystal.

"To gather data, of course," Athena explained confidently. "And I believe something of value has been gleamed from TL-169."

"Your preliminary reports suggest otherwise. They document the rise of aberrant sisters, culminating in a chaotic orgy that required forceful measures to maintain containment," the voices noted. "An effort, by the way, that wasn't 100 percent effective."

Athena knew she was being baited, the Sisterhood's leaders gauging her responses, body language and more. It's now or never, she thought. Either I pass this final test, or I end up stuck with provisional status and hoping for a second chance to prove myself worthy of full membership in the guild.

"But why a mass orgy?" she asked rhetorically. "That's just a symptom. What I'm interested in, and have been studying, is the underlying cause," Athena explained excitedly.

She drew a breath, steadying herself, her naked body standing straighter in the cool, sterile chamber. "Ages ago on Gaia, some of our ancestors survived a horrifying plague that ravaged our world, killing tens of millions of women, because it's believed their immune systems co-opted and altered the pathogen. The new strain became dominant, and we ended up with a different kind of pathogen, one that, instead of killing women, instead enabled its carriers - the seeds of the primeval Sisterhood - to transform men into women.

"Nature works like that sometimes; the deadliest diseases are rarely stable for long," Athena continued. "But now, on TL-169, the pathogen has once again changed - and while this change isn't as dramatic as the first one, it still gives us some interesting and useful possibilities."

"In what way?" the blue crystal voices demanded.

"For the past century, the Patriarchy has labored extensively to devise a treatment to defeat the virus that gives us the power to transform males into females. While success continues to elude them, they are making some progress."

Nonetheless, something odd is going on, she thought to herself. Patriarchal scientists aren't stupid, but judging from Intelligence Guild reports, their abilities are being stunted. But by what? The very nature of their society?

"Athena?"

Hearing her name snapped her out of her reverie. "My deepest apologies. I was thinking about issues beyond the scope of my final exam."

"It happens. Now, you were saying?"

Athena collected herself. "We must realistically expect that, in the future, with the resources of multiple timelines at the Patriarchy's disposal, there will come a day when they'll be able to prevent infection or, worse, reverse the transformation entirely. Even the ability to sever an individual's mental link to the Sisterhood could prove of great strategic value to them." She stabbed a finger at the crystal. "We must prepare ourselves to face this eventuality."

Athena steepled her fingers. "That's where this new strain of the pathogen comes into play ..."

"In TL-169 and many other timelines, there are individuals who suffer from autoimmune diseases, such as the one that the former Lee Tallman had. It was a disease that this timeline calls Sjogren's syndrome, but what matters is that the defensive cells of his body where attacking his own tissues.

"Why? Why are such diseases tolerated by living things as much as they are? Because, in a world replete with dread diseases, lethal viruses and adaptable bacteria, the body sometimes needs aggressive defenders, ones that break all the rules."

Athena brought up a hologram showing a DNA matrix. "For example, the virus that most timelines refer to as rabies can, in fact, resemble the human insulin receptor. This fools the body into allowing a deadly invader to gain a foothold. But sometimes an immune system breaks its own rules, and will attack such invaders anyway; this is the only hope one may have for survival in some cases.

"It comes down to this: If the choice is between a case of arthritis, or an agonizing death from rabies, well, it's really no choice at all."

A single voice emerged from the crystal. "Our time is valuable, candidate. Make your point, and do so with haste, for we have many other guild hopefuls to grade besides yourself."

Athena nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I have performed extensive tests on Leeta's altered strain of the pathogen - the result of interaction between the original pathogen and Lee Tallman's immune system - and compared it with what we know of Patriarchal medicine."

"And?"

She took another deep breath. This is it, she thought, it's time to drop the bomb. "I can conclude with confidence that this strain is thoroughly immune to all countermeasures currently employed or imagined by our enemy. The techniques they're laboring to perfect might someday be able to resist the classic pathogen, but Leeta's strain will run rings around anything in their arsenal."

There was a pregnant pause. Athena's heart rate climbed. Finally: "Your findings are ... most interesting, and similar to our own conclusions," the voices chorused. "But the disruptive behavior and brazenness that comes with the mutation gives us pause."

"Yes, there is a price to be paid: The virus itself and those infected by it are more aggressive. Leeta and her sisters tend to be more rebellious, have higher sex drives, and display intense hostility toward any suggestion that they curb their erotic impulses."

Athena paused. The blue crystal floated silently. Finally, she stated the obvious: "Keeping the secret of our true nature from others will be very difficult with such sisters around."

"Correct. However, Leeta and her sisters helped us immensely by escaping into TL-169, thereby isolating themselves from the rest of the Sisterhood." There was a hint of admiration in the voices. "You're a clever one, Athena. You knew they wouldn't brook any attempt to control them, so you let them 'escape,' but not before claiming specimens for further study."

The blue crystal flashed brightly, breaking into ten smaller orbs no larger than a golf ball. Athena's eyes widened as necklaces formed around the crystals, necklaces that were worn around the necks of ten women who hadn't been there an instant earlier. Nine of the women wore distinctive, aquamarine Science Guild uniforms emblazoned with the guild's symbols - a star, scroll and mathematical equation in a triangular emblem above the heart - but it was the tenth one who really stood out, and not because of her clothing.

"Queen Dominus Artemis!" Athena cried out, falling to her knees, bowing her head.

"Rise, guild candidate Athena," Artemis commanded. The young woman did so, her knees shaking, something not lost on the Queen Dominus, whose all-business countenance gave way to a small smile. "Although it would be accurate to say: Rise, Athena, member of the Science Guild."

Athena's response was formal, but she knew the others sensed her joy. "How may I be of service to the Sisterhood -" she paused, savoring the next words "- and my sisters in the Science Guild?"

"Tegan," Artemis gestured to a dark-maned woman, "requests that your expertise be added to the team she leads, a wish I have granted."

"And our objective?"

"A topic you're intimately familiar with: The further study of not only the hope, but the threat, that Leeta and her kind represent to the Sisterhood's future."

Golden light bathed Athena's body, leaving in its wake a uniform of the Science Guild, but one that did nothing to hide her physical assets. "Good, because much study remains to be done," she said, admiring her uniform. "Even as we speak, our bodies are home to some overly reactive immune cells, a potential danger to us - yet they may be the last, best hope in case of a pernicious infection that our bodies are otherwise unable to defeat."

Athena joined her team. Nodding at Tegan and Artemis, she added, "Our immune systems hold such cells in tight control most of the time, but in an emergency, they might save us."

"Yes, your meaning is clear," Artemis said somberly. "Should the Patriarchy increase in power beyond our worst fears, should they devise a means to thwart our primary avenues of offense and defense, we'll have a nasty surprise waiting for them in the form of the Leeta Strain.

"We'll have a weapon of last resort that might turn the tide in an otherwise untenable situation."