Big Johnson Trucking Ch. 06

"Normally, yeah," Toby replied, chuckling. "But this is the government we're talking about. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes us the original timeframe even with the shorter schedule you've got us on. Not that I'm complaining."

"Okay, then," Jasmine replied. "Anything you think we might need to know?"

"Come to think of it, yes," Toby said. "We're gonna lay out the plot today for both the side and back and may end up starting to dig. So, if you hear heavy equipment behind the house, that's what's going on. Is that gonna be a problem?"

"Not sure," Jasmine thought about it.

"Felicity should be fine," Shannon said. "If need be, we can just leave her in Master's room."

"No, that shouldn't be a problem," Jasmine said to Toby. "You mind giving us a heads up, first, though?"

"Not at all," Toby replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta get to work organizing all these yahoos and see where we can put them."

"There's a huge concrete pad out back about a hundred yards behind the house you can use for whatever you need," Jasmine offered. "Just be careful of that truck back there and try not to block it in. R...M...Mister Johnson will kill you if you so much as scratch it."

Toby chuckled. "Won't be a problem. We'll rope it off and make sure the guys know it's off limits."

"Okay then," Jasmine said. "Get to work, Toby, and don't hesitate to holler if you need anything."

"Yes, ma'am!" he said and took off down the porch.

"Shit!" Shannon exclaimed. "I forgot to make sure somebody went with Felicity."

"No biggie," Jasmine said. "We'll get them the next time. Tab, where are we with blood samples? Did you find anything in the bloodwork you looked at with Kayla?"

Tabitha sighed. "Honestly, I can't make heads or tails of what I'm looking at when I look at the samples we took. This is all new territory and I am only a biologist."

"You need to have a geneticist look at them to collaborate with, don't you?" Jasmine asked, stone-faced.

Tabitha nodded. "Si, mi amor," she said dejectedly.

Jasmine sighed uncomfortably. "How can we be sure she won't betray us by not giving us the correct information from her findings?" she asked.

"We can't," Kayla said, coming into the room, tail swishing lazily behind her with Brittany trailing behind. "There's no telling what she'll do with them."

Jasmine rushed towards the cat girl and hugged her tight. "How are you, sweetie?"

"Peaches and cream," Kayla grinned. "Although I'd kill for a can of tuna right now." The other girls laughed. "Just kidding. I hate tuna." She winked.

"I agree with Kayla," Rose said. "I'm sorry, love," she looked at Tabitha. "I love you, but I don't trust your mom."

"I know, cariña," Tabitha said. "Unfortunately, with this, I know we can't trust her. But she's the only geneticist we know."

"Shannon?" Brittany said. "You're being awfully quiet. What's up?"

Shannon chewed her bottom lip in thought. "Unfortunately I think we have to. Tab's right. She is the only geneticist we know and I'm sure if we tried to send the data off to someone else, they'd intercept them anyway."

"Fucking fuck!" Jasmine cursed.

"Not only that," Tabitha said. "I got a text from her late last night. She wants to know why we're taking Master's blood and if there's something wrong with him. I guess she thinks I will talk to her if all of you are asleep. I haven't answered her yet."

"Girlie, I love you, but I'm going to kill your mother," Jasmine seethed.

Tabitha sighed. "I am also angry with her. That's why I haven't replied back yet."

"We could threaten her again," Brittany offered.

"No, that won't work," Kayla said. "She's not afraid of you anymore."

"Oh, I didn't mean me," Brittany said. "We could threaten to unleash The Reaper on her." She laughed.

"As much as I would love to see that happen," Jasmine said. "Ultimately that would cause Tabitha grief and I'm not willing to go that route for the sake of getting answers, no matter how important they might be."

"She pretty much has us by the balls right now," Rose said and the other women chuckled slightly at the expression. "And she knows it, too."

"Rose is right," Shannon said. "Once she gets wind of this, she'll use any means necessary to get her hands on that data and any samples we have."

"At this point, I don't care if she gets her hands on the samples," Jasmine said, angrily. "I just want to be sure she's going to share her findings with us."

"Tab, can you talk to her?" Kayla asked. The other women looked at Kayla with raised eyebrows. "What?" she asked. "We need that information and the bitch is the only way we're going to get it."

"It's not that, Kitty Kat," Shannon said, smiling. "We're all just surprised you're giving in so easily."

Kayla gave them a toothy grin. "Somebody's got to get the ball rolling."

"I'm going to check on Felicity," Jasmine said. "Maybe I'll rage-fuck Master if he's up for it to relieve some tension."

"I'll come with," Brittany said.

"Tab, talk to your mom," Jasmine ordered. "Shannon, you're in on the convo."

"You got it, boss," Shannon said, giggling.

"What about me?" Kayla asked, looking a bit put out. "What do I do?"

"Get some breakfast in you, sexy kitty," Jasmine grinned. "Because if Master's not up for it, I'm gonna need to release some kind of tension and now you're the only one it's safe enough to do it with."

"What do you mean by that?" Kayla asked.

Jasmine answered by punching her right in the jaw. Kayla's head snapped back and she fell on her ass. She looked up at Jasmine in shock at first. Then shock turned to betrayal, and finally anger. Her pupils narrowed to thin, vertical slits. The other women around her gaped at what Jasmine just did. Jasmine just grinned. Kayla popped back up on her feet, fingers extended into claws. Jasmine's grin turned feral. "Did that hurt, Kitty Kat?" Jasmine taunted.

"What the fuck!?" Shannon exclaimed. "What are you doing, Jasmine!?"

"No," Kayla answered, ignoring the shocked expressions on the other women. "But it pissed me off!" She took a swing at Jasmine, who ducked under the swing and pivoted to her left. She came around the side and landed a blow to Kayla's kidney before sweeping her off her feet. Instead of landing on her back, however, Kayla had the dexterity enough to go with the sweep and do a complete three-hundred and sixty degree back flip, landing on her feet. Her eyes went wide.

Jasmine relaxed her stance. "See?" she said, grinning.

Kayla sucker-punched her right in the gut. Jasmine bent over and coughed for a couple of seconds before coming back upright. "You deserved that," Kayla said, grinning. "and this is fucking amazing!"

"I know!" Jasmine exclaimed.

"So, if Master's not up for it, are we gonna fight or fuck?" Kayla asked.

"Why not both?" Jasmine answered grinning mischievously.

Kayla matched her grin. "I'm game," she said.

"What the fuck just happened?" Rose shrieked, freaking out.

"Why are you two fighting?" Tabitha yelled.

Jasmine and Kayla looked over at the other women. Jasmine's eyes went wide. "OH! I'm so sorry, loves!" she apologized, taking a step towards them. They all took a collective step back, fearful. "I'm sorry," she apologized again. "We," she motioned to Kayla. "now have, I guess you could call it enhanced abilities?"

"And by that you mean," Shannon said, looking for clarification.

"Look," she said, motioning to Kayla. "Kayla, cut my arm."

Kayla blinked. "What? Why?" she asked, astonished.

"Just do it, love," she said. "Extend a claw and place a small cut on my arm. You'll see."

Kayla hesitantly reached out and scratched Jasmine's arm. Nothing happened. She looked confused "It's not-"

"You have to do it harder, as if you wanted to take a chunk of my skin off," Jasmine instructed, cutting her off.

Kayla backed off, shaking her head. "No," she said. "I don't want to hurt you."

"You're not going to hurt me, Kitty Kat," Jasmine assured her. "You just punched the fuck out of me and I shook it off."

"Are you sure about this?" Kayla asked, uncomfortable to the extreme.

"If I wasn't," Jasmine stated. "I wouldn't tell you to do it. Now quit being a pussy take a chunk out of my arm!"

"What the fuck did you just call me?" Kayla suddenly fumed.

Jasmine grinned maliciously. "Pussy." She said it slowly, with an evil smile on her face.

Kayla suddenly lashed out at Jasmine so fast the others barely saw what happened. "I'm not a pussy!" Kayla yelled.

Jasmine held up her forearm, showing the red line from the crook of her elbow to her wrist that started oozing blood to the other women. They all gasped and Shannon started forward, reaching out to Jasmine to try and stop the bleeding. Jasmine stopped her with an upraised palm. "Just wait," she said, cryptically. They all crowded around her arm to look.

Shannon, being a doctor, was the first to realize what was happening. "Are you fucking kidding me?" she looked at Jasmine in shocked astonishment.

"Nope," Jasmine said triumphantly. "Accelerated healing."

"Bu-but, that's impossible!" Tabitha cried.

Jasmine used her other hand to wipe the blood off of her arm. The others saw a thin, pink line where she had been scratched. A few minutes later, it was as if the wound had never been there.

"Do me," Kayla said, sticking her arm out to Jasmine.

Jasmine extended one claw and punctured Kayla's forearm about half way up. She nicked a vein and blood started pouring from the wound. Kayla immediately covered it with her hand as she cried out in pain. She had a pained look on her face that almost immediately turned to confusion. She tentatively took her hand away and noticed the hole wasn't bleeding anymore. In fact, it was slowly getting smaller. "See?" Jasmine grinned in triumph.

"This...answers...so many questions," Tabitha whispered in awe. The others looked at her. "Your bloodwork," she said, looking at Jasmine and Kayla. "At first, with Jasmine's, I noticed something was off about the samples, but I didn't have a pre-transformation sample to look at so I wasn't able to figure out what was going on. However, with Kayla's, I noticed the cells were getting more compact, seeming to look more solid than her normal DNA structure and it just kept getting more solid and, and-"

"Slow down, doc," Shannon said taking hold of her shoulders as the biologist was speaking so fast she barely took a breath. "Take a deep breath and give us the layman's version."

Tabitha turned around and walked away. The others followed as she went into the kitchen. They heard Felicity cry out in pleasure from Rig's room then go silent, but they were more interested in what Tabitha was doing. She started rifling through the drawers until she found what she was looking for. She pulled out a wooden meat tenderizer then promptly turned and, with all her strength, hit Jasmine in the jaw with it.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing!?" Rose cried, but Tabitha was grinning. So was Jasmine and Kayla.

Tabitha held up the broken handle and looked at the other women with a wide, excited smile. "That should have broken her jaw!" she yelled in excitement.

"But what does it mean?" Shannon asked her again. She sounded like she was getting angry, which was rare for the doctor.

"It means," Tabitha said with a grin. "They're superhuman, now."

Shannon growled in frustration. "But that still doesn't answer the question," she said through gritted teeth.

Tabitha grabbed a knife and plunged it into Kayla's stomach. The cat girl cried out in fear and went to grab for her guts that she was sure were about to be spilling out all over the kitchen floor. The other women, Jasmine excepting, cried out in fear and shock also. Rose looked like she was about to pass out. Jasmine held her up. Kayla looked down in astonishment. The knife hadn't even punctured her skin! "What the fuck!?" she exclaimed.

"They can't be harmed by a normal human," Tabitha explained. "It seems that we don't have the strength to cause them major damage."

"Yeah, but, that knife is really fucking sharp!" Brittany exclaimed. "I know because I just carved up a whole chicken with that thing. Bones, ligaments and all."

"You would think it would at least do some kind of damage," Shannon said.

Jasmine took the knife out of Tabitha's hand and looked at Kayla, motioning towards her arm. "May I?" she asked.

Kayla looked a little green after having thought she was about to die. She shook her head and held out her hand for the knife. "I thought I was dead. Let me sort through that first. I'll do you."

"Please do," Jasmine said in a sultry tone.

Kayla just rolled her eyes. "Later, pornstar," she said as she took the knife. She put the tip against Jasmine's palm on the countertop and applied slow pressure.

"I can't watch," Rose said. "I'm going to check on Felicity."

"I'll help," Brittany said, following behind the blue-haired cop girl. "This is all getting a little too sadistic for me."

Kayla started grunting with the effort of trying to push the knife point into the fox girl's hand until, finally, the tip punctured the skin just barely. Jasmine winced in pain but didn't cry out. "It feels kind of like a paper cut," she told them, then held up her palm for them to see. It was already closing up.

"This is...this is..." Shannon stammered. "I don't..."

"Then how were you able to take my blood?" Kayla asked.

"That's one of the questions I don't have an answer for," Tabitha said.

"Maybe because she was asleep when you took it?" Jasmine pondered.

"Or maybe we have to be willing to be harmed for us to actually be harmed by normal means?" Kayla offered.

"You mean like mind over matter?" Tabitha asked.

Kayla shrugged. "I'm just theorizing here," she said.

The three women turned when they heard a sniffle behind them. Shannon's face was whiter than normal and tears were trailing down her cheeks. Jasmine rushed to wrap her in a hug. "Hey, it's okay," she soothed. "We're fine. Nothing is going to happen to us."

Shannon started sobbing softly as she clutched onto the fox girl like she was drowning. "I'm scared, Jaz," she said through her tears. "I know I'm supposed to be the strong one, but I'm scared."

"Of what?" Kayla asked softly as she stroked the doctor's back.

"Why is this happening?" Shannon sobbed into Jasmine's neck. "Why are we being transformed like this? Are we going to be attacked by some kind of monsters that normal humans aren't going to be able to stop? Or aliens? I'm just so scared."

They had no answer for that. "I don't know, sweetheart," Jasmine soothed. "But I do know that I'll never let anything happen to you."

"I'm not scared for me, Jaz," she countered as she took a sobbing breath. "I know I'm going to be transformed soon and will be as tough as you are. I'm scared for my family. For the human race. I'm scared we're about to be wiped off the face of the earth and there's nothing anybody can do about it."

Kayla pondered, "Maybe thats why the virus is changing us like it is. Or maybe it's just a fortunate coincidence." She shrugged. "Either way, I'll protect those that I love until my dying breath."

Shannon straightened a bit as she pulled away from the fox girl. "You're right, Kayla," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. "Whatever comes, we'll protect humanity no matter what."

"You know that's going to be near impossible, right?" Tabitha said. The other three women looked at her in confusion. "With just the seven of us? Eight, if Master has some type of superhuman ability. The eight of us protecting the world?"

"Why not?" Kayla said, grinning. "The Avengers do it all the time."

The women chuckled at the joke. "I guess," Shannon pondered, then looked at each of the women in turn. "I guess Master is going to have to transform more people."

Jasmine winced. "He's not going to like that idea," she said. "Even if he agrees to it, it would have to be only women. I'm pretty sure he's not into men."

"Why don't we wait to cross that bridge if and when we come to it?" Brittany said, coming back into the kitchen. "No use worrying about things that are beyond our control."

"A menos que pueda cambiarlo, no se preocupe," Tabitha said, nodding. "My abuelo used to say that all the time. Unless you can change it, don't worry about it."

"Easier said than done," Jasmine added. "But you're right. We need to take it a day at a time. Do any of you have any hand to hand combat training?" She looked around for Rose.

"She's tucking Felicity in," Brittany explained as she came back into the room. "Girlfriend might have overdid it a bit." She chuckled.

Shannon looked at Jasmine. "Jaz, how did you know about your abilities?"

Jasmine blushed slightly. "Well," she looked embarrassed and chewed on her bottom lip. "I kinda...cut myself...while..." She trailed off and motioned to her crotch. She was blushing profusely now. "Wiping...myself. Still trying to get used to these damn things." She held up her claws.

"Okay, I think Felicity is turning into some sort of fish woman," Rose said, entering the room.

Five pairs of eyes rotated to the cop woman's. "Huh?" Tabitha asked.

Rose just gestured for them to follow along. "I'm not well-versed in the aquatic monster girls," she explained as she walked. "but she appears to be growing gills along her neck."

"That's..." Shannon started to say but trailed off as she looked at Jasmine.

"Don't look at me, girlfriend," Jasmine said, holding up her hands in defense and shaking her head. "I got no idea."

They all walked into Felicity's room and crowded around her bed. Rose gently took hold of her head and moved it back and forth so they could all see. Felicity had what appeared to be three diagonal parallel lines on each side of her neck. They were about two inches long, half an inch apart, and almost the consistency of scars.

Kayla looked closer and noticed something different in her hair. "Her hair is changing color," she informed them. "Look at her roots. Is that blue?"

Shannon pulled the covers back slightly and looked at Felicity's shoulder. There was a similar scar-like line starting at the outside of her shoulder and traveling down to just above her elbow. Another line was on the outside of her forearm the went to her wrist. "Look at her shoulders and arms," she said, unbelieving what she was seeing.

"Her legs, too," Tabitha explained, seeing the lines traveling from the outside of Felicity's upper thigh to her knee, then another on the outside of her calf to just above her ankle.

Jasmine looked at Felicity's hands and then her feet. "There are lines on the insides of her fingers and toes," she announced. She looked up into Rose's dark blue eyes. "Do you think she's going to grow webbing?"

Rose shrugged uncomfortably. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "If I had my MGE's I could look it up."

"MGE's?" Brittany questioned.

"Monster Girl Encyclopedias," Rose answered the ebony beauty.

Tabitha fished out her phone and dialed. "Mamá. ¿Dónde estamos con el acceso a internet?" She went silent as she listened. Then she said, "Bueno," and hung up. "Mama says we'll be able to access the internet in a couple of hours. She'll call me when it's ready to go."

Shannon climbed on the bed and gently took hold of Felicity's face and eased open an eyelid. Not seeing anything she said, "Kayla, will you look into her eyes and see if there's anything different about them?"

Kayla leaned over the unconscious nurse, then shook her head. "I don't see anything different but Jaz has better eyesight than I do. Jaz?" She looked at the fox girl who approached.

Jasmine looked into Felicity's eyes and scrunched up her nose. "Maybe?" she asked by way of answer. "I can't really tell as I haven't looked into her eyes that deeply before the start of her transformation. They appear to be her normal shade of brown but at the deepest pigment level there are what appear to be flecks of blue. Tab, let me see your eyes."