Chronicle - Mel and Chris Ch. 05

"Old woman? Old?" Upshaw's amused voice had a touch of steel in it, "You keep talking shit, little girl, I will take you up on your offer. You won't be so happy after your boy gets a taste of a real woman."

Mel snorted and grinned. Her tail did another swing.

"But," added Upshaw, "Kelly?"

"Just an ex, Agent, no one to be concerned about," Chris said quickly. Mel laughed.

"Kelly was old. Couldn't handle him. He also turns his exes into lesbians," Mel said.

Before Upshaw could reply Reilly dismissed his team and they responded with desultory grumbles and moved quickly to pile into the two Lincolns at the curb. He spun on his heel and stopped next to his fellow agent.

"So, Agent Reilly," Mel purred, "are we being taken to be tortured now?"

"Will this involve hours of sexual abuse," Chris added, "but, like, it's only you two? Got ropes? Battery cables, maybe?"

"Should've kept at least a few of those others with you," Mel's voice was slow and husky, "and Upshaw's definitely going to need some help to break him."

Mel pointed to the other side of the Lincoln where Chris stood at the far side, his grin clearly visible over the roof of the car.

"I think you'd do well in some knee-high spike-heel boots, Agent Upshaw," Chris said, "and not quite sure with that blazer you won't take off but I think you'd fit in one of Mel's bustiers."

"An open cup one, like Asha wears," Mel added quickly.

"Torture involves what the victims DON'T want," Upshaw said as her partner smiled and shook his head, "I think we'll just tie you two up and let everyone else have sex."

"Not touching them would be the torture," Mel pouted to Reilly's statement, "now, get in. We have a meeting."

"Can we say goodbye to the house?" Chris asked.

"Uh," Reilly slowed as he walked past the front of the car, "the house? Why?"

"After you disappear us," Mel said, "we'll never see it again. But at least it'd be nice if you could tell us the charges before we're executed."

"You'll only pray for execution," Upshaw said with a laugh, "now, get in. We're late."

Interlude

[Spring Break week, March, 1986]

Veronica

Veronica froze as she stepped around one of the brick and concrete walls that divided part of Dër Ratskeller's large basement pizza restaurant into a warren of smaller rooms. She'd been a bit freaked out even before Chris's cryptic phone message left on her machine told her to meet for dinner here instead of the Pie. This popular downtown fixture was much larger and was a common enough destination but his tone had been odd. Then again, in addition to the large common dining space unlike the Pie it also offered these rooms, which were popular and hard to get although the light Tuesday night crowd made it easier. And her various worries were immediately driven from her mind.

Each little room had a square table surrounded by a wooden bench in a 'U' shape that could easily seat two people on each leg. But Veronica had been here when they'd squeezed ten or a dozen people in, doable but you'd better really like your neighbors.

Chris and Mel were along the back wall, drinks and a couple of baskets of garlic bread on the table. Chris was hidden by the table from mid-abdomen down but Mel was at the corner nearest to the new arrival. His hair seemed a bit... oh, yeah, he'd had soccer training earlier. Veronica had seen them a couple of times on the campus field and had been exhausted just watching. Like the demon and her volleyball, no wonder these two were such hard bodies.

Mel sat against the back wall but her left leg was bent at the knee and her left foot with its black high-top Converse was flat on the wooden bench.

Veronica wasn't sure if the damned girl wore really long socks or some sort of grey tights. Whatever they were, they stopped about two-thirds up those shapely thighs. Best guess her little grey skirt at most would reach the tops of those tights. But maybe not. Veronica stared at that closely-trimmed black bush which had to be intentionally displayed for her. And for anyone who happened by this room. This was the third time she'd met up with them and she'd yet to see Mel wear any sort of underwear and it was obvious she had no bra under her thin plaid flannel shirt that was almost completely unbuttoned and was entirely too tight anyway.

"Uh," the standing brunette stammered, "hi guys."

"Hi Veronica," Chris said and Mel smiled and nodded her horned head, as with underwear Veronica was certain that although the girl kept her hair squeaky clean she didn't use combs or brushes either, "guess my message wasn't overly cryptic?"

"Um, well, it was kind of..."

"Take your jacket off," Mel said as she bent her knee more acutely to free up space next, "get comfy. We haven't ordered pizza yet."

Dër Ratskeller didn't have servers. You ordered at the counter and received a number and a PA would make an announcement once the order was ready. To buttress the thought "number thirty-two" echoed around the space.

Veronica stood at the edge of the bench and noticed a couple of jackets on the far bench. The days had been absurdly warm for March but once the sun disappeared it cooled, but nothing like winter although a blizzard was forecast for the end of the week to last through the weekend and welcome everyone back from spring break. She hesitated with her hand at her jacket's zipper, which was pulled almost to her throat. Then she glanced again and Mel grinned when she caught Veronica looking hungrily at the crotch she'd made sure stayed exposed.

"Bitch," Veronica mouthed, her companions laughed, then she hurriedly unzipped the jacket and pulled it off and tossed it across the table onto the others. She sat her denim covered ass quickly on the bench and slid sideways until she met Mel's foot.

"That's a nice blouse, Veronica," Chris said in an admiring tone, "haven't seen you wear it to school."

Veronica snorted. She'd dug through her drawers and closets and her temporary roommate had cajoled her into choosing an open cup bra she'd only ever worn once as part of a misbegotten Halloween costume and a transparent pale white blouse she liked but had never worn without a camisole or tee under it. But that roommate had been insistent. And the illicit thrill, the cool air and the blouse's cloth had her nipples nicely erect. Then Mel leaned and quickly undid a third button on that blouse.

"Hey," she said, but without real objection, "oh, whatever. Thanks for the coke!"

She took a long sip on the straw and the other two duplicated the act. She released her straw first.

"Ok, why'd you tell me to not bring—-," she stopped when Chris put his finger to his lips. Her brow furrowed slightly and he spoke.

"If it's ok, can you babysit a bit longer?"

"Uh, sure," she said and paused, "but tomorrow I'm going south to Red Rock country for a few days, meeting up with some friends and hiking. Well, if the blizzard hits there too we'll just stay in and drink."

"And fuck, I trust?" Mel's question.

"Well, maaayyy be," Veronica drawled and all three laughed, "but if we're hiking we'll just, ya know, do what you two do everywhere!"

"That's a good trip. Take it, if you can keep it out of sight. It should... go away for a while."

"Sure, but my bitch roommate Donna comes home Sunday, it'd probably be best I don't have it while she's around. Hey," she paused, "would it pay half the rent? I'd turf her out! Anyway... driving my car down so easy enough. But. There's maybe a... problem."

"What's that?"

"The damned thing... um, you didn't tell me it talks! And it's a pervert. I mean, you two are about as bad as I've ever seen, but Fred! Oh my god!"

"Fred?" Chris had a smile with his question.

"Well, yeah, he, it... ah, he seems to like that. But dammit, you," she pointed at Mel's tiny skirt and exposed crotch, "he's convinced all of us are supposed to dress like you! It kept wanting me to walk naked around the apartment. It can SEE?"

"How else would it be able to record videos?" Veronica snorted at Mel's innocent tone.

"Yeah, about that," the brunette said and paused and semi-glared at Mel and then at Chris but her rigid expression broke into a half smile, "that first night, with the three of us..."

"That was a fun night, yessss," Mel's voice a heavy North Dakota drawl.

"Yeah, it was... hey! Fred, I mean, that THING, showed me the video! I was, uh," she went silent and suddenly looked out in response to a loud laugh from out of sight, "I was going to masturbate and it was in the bedroom... and it suddenly started talking and said 'let me watch' and when I woke up from fainting it said 'watch this!' It was the three of us."

"Did it help?" Mel's tone was all little girl innocence.

Veronica snorted again.

"Uh, yeah, how the hell did it do that?"

"It was on my dresser," Chris said, "and well, it has a mind of its own."

"Okay. I'll take it with me, but, if I tell it to stay silent will it? Or will it keep blabbing?"

"Tell it that Anna's spies and guards are around when it needs to be quiet. But, set it up so it can be hidden but, you know, watch. The little holes in the top?"

"I figured that out, lenses. And shit. I don't even graduate for another quarter," Veronica said as she held her hands horizontally in front of her chin then popped them quickly upwards, "and already everything I've learned for doing computer graphics is poof! Obsolete!"

"You've looked at what I've posted on the internet?" Chris asked, Veronica nodded.

"Don't worry," he continued, "this is opening up a whole new age."

"I asked it about graphics programs, didn't seem to get the term, but after a bit of discussion figured it out, showed me what it calls 'virtual reality,' which I think will make for video games from hell. And those two... those two aliens it drew the pictures of! With the strange gold eyes. They're funky. Are they part of a game?"

"Sort of, working title is 'The Golden Criminals,'" Chris said slowly, "and I haven't posted the virtual reality code yet, hopefully next week when things calm down."

Veronica considered asking about that but Chris had pointed out Anna, the student he claimed was the Alien Spy, in the Engineering Building one day. Veronica had engineered an 'encounter' in the little coffee nook in the building and the girl's eyes were... weird. So damned green. But amazing tits! And cute really! And tall! Shit. If they all looked like that Earth was fucked. But she'd decided the less she actually knew the better, Chris had assured her no one was going to be blasting people with death rays but he'd also described Anna's 'Guards.' To her mind they sounded like the FBI or CIA or whatever agents she'd always seen in movies and TV.

Besides. Once the shock had worn off, Fred was fun. He'd suggested ways to... touch herself. Apparently it wasn't just Mel. There was a 'Janet' who'd apparently been... creative.

"Ok, but I'm going to study that code, once I figure it out...," Veronica's gaze went unfocused for a moment, "I've got a job offer here from Heaven's & Northerland, planned to take some grad courses too. Maybe I'll work out a thesis subject, or at the least, get rich giving them 'virtual reality.'"

"I'll get you more details after break, can't yet," Chris nodded and said, "but Dr. Carlstrom might be putting some work groups together, industry-academia cooperation."

Veronica beamed at that and was surprised when Mel leaned over and undid a fourth button on the busty brunette's blouse. She looked down and her face gained a shocked look seeing that her chest wasn't really covered anymore. Then she looked at the amused face surrounded by wild black hair with those two weird horns she always wore and her tits also all but exposed below that and, yes, the devil's tail on the bench along that bent leg. Mel nudged her shoulder.

"C'mon, let's go order pizza," she said with a husky rasp, "we'll leave Chris here. Maybe we'll find us some HOT boys to leave with."

She winked one of those black eyes.

"But if not," a languorous weird tone that Veronica thought of as a 'smooth rasp,' how the hell could she do that and she tilted her head at Chris, "think he'll do for later? We've got the house to ourselves, we'll pull out the king size sofa bed."

Veronica looked at Mel, then at Chris, who offered a 'I promise to try my best' smile. Shit, she thought, she'd be happy with his worst. More of his best? She'd brought her own supplies this time and she had no plans to hold back. From anything. There'd been one thing, one place, that beautiful cock hadn't gone. And this demonic beast nudging her, and copping a feel while doing it, wouldn't mind, in fact, wanted it. And she wanted that demonic mouth too. And pussy. And while her upcoming trip offered time with true friends and sometimes lovers, none of them had that specific bit of anatomy Chris had. She didn't expect she'd get much sleep, in fact, hoped not. It was only a four hour drive tomorrow. A gallon of coffee would get her there. Besides, she'd have someone to talk to! She slid off the bench and Mel followed.

A Meeting at Herriman

[Early April, 1986]

Joyce

"It's always so clear a few days after a storm blows the smog out," Detective Joyce Shaw said, "and the Valley is turning green with the weekend's blizzard gone. I've heard the County guys mention Herriman a couple of times, a body dump and a few drug caches. Pretty empty this quarter of the Valley. This is a great overlook, how do you guys know about this spot?"

She looked around and stood with the dark-haired horned presence just in front of Chris's car and in the distance on the diagonally opposite corner the early afternoon sun glinted off the few skyscrapers in the City's skyline with the Capitol building overlooking it all perched on one of the mountain benches. Dense swaths of houses and roads extended across that Valley floor from that core but the last third of the Valley to the foot of the mountain on which they were perched was fields with only widely spaced houses and the odd industrial complex.

"Chris brings his girlfriends up here where he tells them 'cock or walk,'" Shaw snorted at the chirpy little innocent girl tone that Mel could twist her usually raspy contralto into, "did the same to me."

"And which option did you choose?"

"Cock, of course," raspy, innocence abandoned, "but speaking of body dumps..."

Chris pushed the trunk closed with a thud.

"Hey..., I don't think—-"

"He won't tell me where, but Kelly is buried up here somewhere. I have a gravestone for her, just need him to point out the spot."

"Kelly? Would that be 'Chaos Kelly?' Terry's mentioned her," Shaw's voice was measured, both as a way to draw out more information but also to not reveal that she'd 'worked' her 'boyfriend' for information. She'd learned his view of the history of this odd pair that skated happily and left behind wakes of destruction.

"Yeah, she was his girlfriend before me. She was old, not as tough as me. He fucked her to death. Buried her up here."

"I... did... not do that," Chris walked up and goosed Mel hard with his right hand, her tail swung as she pushed her ass back into him.

"Which part, Chris? The fuck her to death part," Shaw used her best Authority voice, "or the bury her part?"

She enjoyed the handsome young man's pained expression. 'Don't be so cruel, Joyce,' ran through her mind, but she dismissed the pang of conscience.

"Both. I worked hard at the first part, but well, she was alive last I saw her. She just up and left town. She's a flake. You can ask her cousin, he's on my soccer team."

"Hmmf," Mel said, "he's just covering for you... but it's a good thing I showed up. The girlfriend before Kelly he turned into a lesbian."

Shaw laughed at that. She'd also learned the history of Chris and Sam and Teresa and wondered if she'd have been able to stay so close if she'd been in the middle of that kind of triangle. She also didn't really think Chris had been involved in a death. Terry's stories about 'Chaos' Kelly Zabriskie and the wedges she'd shoved between these friends had shocked the detective. But Chris had stuck with her, for a while at least, although plentiful sex with a hot woman could do that to a young man. Hell. To an old man. Or a middle-aged man. She'd seen it. And Kelly reminded her of another wild daughter of rich parents. Presumably Cherry Powell was still somewhere in Europe, there'd been no mention of her having returned to her hometown.

As to this Kelly, Terry's comments on her disappearance had tweaked Shaw's interest. Unlike Cherry, she didn't have a record, per se, but she'd come to the attention of the police on a few occasions mainly around public scuffles and arguments that hadn't quite risen to the level of arrests. That hadn't meant the police hadn't been called. But not even eighteen months ago she'd fallen off the radar. Her cousin Ben hadn't been at the birthday party a few weeks back but Terry had said the soccer teammate had no better idea what had happened to his cousin as anyone else. But no one had filed a missing persons report.

That had triggered an instinct she recognized from when Peter had disappeared. A loose end. Lots of dots. She didn't like the former and connecting the latter bordered on obsession. She didn't have the personal connection in this case but the fact no one seemed to really miss Chaos Kelly roused her curiosity.

Shaw knew her intuition was usually reliable and in this case it said Chris wasn't capable of such a crime. Not even as an accident. Not even Mel truly believed it. But the demon was nineteen going on infinity and her mind worked in strange ways. In the middle of molesting and being molested in an empty hillside city park she'd worked out a flaming meteor wasn't just a big rock. It was a secret satellite. Then a hop, skip and jump to it being aliens who'd kidnapped Shaw's former student and one night stand.

And this couple. Chris was the one who put structure around Mel's wild ideas, it was somehow worse. He'd run her calculations on his computers and took the photos to find invisible satellites and figured out how to work with that 'padlet' and the other tricks that proved ideas that had no right being true really were. Like that kidnapping.

Shaw had wandered a few steps and looked at them as they played with that weird, flat alien computer that shouldn't exist. The one the FBI hadn't found. Somehow. Those two lunatics hadn't told her how and she'd left it at that. Plausible deniability. She had FBI contacts from the still-active investigation into the cocaine trafficking side of the Broiler restaurant investigation. Agents Upshaw and Reilly weren't part of that and circumspect queries indicated they weren't locals. In fact, they were as mysterious to her Bureau contacts as that weird computer was to her. The agents they'd taken for the searches had been the only ones given info and as Chris and Mel had gleaned from their presence, they'd been given only a scant description of their target.

But after the unsuccessful searches of Mel's dorm room and the house those two agents had taken this pair to the Uni's Engineering building for the mysterious 'meeting' they'd promised. That'd been the first actual surprise for Mel and Chris. The second had been finding the meeting led by Chris's professor Dr. Calstrom and the astrophysics professor, Dr. Gainsborough, who'd taken Mel under his wing.

Chris had already been accepted as a grad student assuming he graduated in a couple of months, essentially a formality. Even though still a freshman, Mel was already tutoring students a year ahead of her. So everyone was familiar with each other. But the announcement by Agent Reilly that the two professors would lead one of a number of task forces into the 'advanced' technology and that Mel and Chris would be part of it had been a surprise. Chris's friend and TA Dave Simpson, who'd slipped out of the Broiler Restaurant to alert the police and had connected Shaw to them, and this entire set of interlocking conspiracies of secret satellites and unacknowledged aliens and super technology, would be given a post-doc position and leadership under Carlstrom of the AI research. Gainsborough and the team at Mallomar Observatory would investigate the 'anomalies' in orbit and related technologies. Mel seemed unusually pleased at the opportunity to work with someone named Sandy at the Observatory although Shaw's intuition at Mel's mood said this Sandy might not share that enthusiasm.