Double Helix Ch. 09

His gaze flicked between Norm and Stansy like a caged animal. He shook his head. "No, I can't risk that. I could get charged with treason just for knowing about you guys."

"We have nowhere to go," Stansy protested. "You have to let us stay, please."

Daniel had finally gotten a grasp on the car handle and yanked it open.

"Hold it," Norm said. His voice held a deadly edge.

Daniel looked over into the barrel of Norm's pistol and froze. His jaw clenched as a flash of anger lit up his features. That drained away instantly, giving way to fear. "Don't kill me," he pleaded. "Don't—don't kill me. Please, just let me go."

"Shit!" Stansy cursed, stamping her foot.

"We better go help," Nock said resignedly.

I was the closest, so I opened the door and emerged into the afternoon sun. Daniel had closed the car door at Norm's instruction and stepped away from the car. "How many of you are there?" he asked.

I could hear the others breathing and moving about, and didn't need to turn to look. "This is all but one of us," I said.

"That's enough," Norm cautioned me. "Don't give him your name, any of you."

"I'm sorry, Dan," Stansy said. "I thought maybe we could talk this out."

"Looks like the guy with the gun is doing all the talking now," Dan said, nodding at Norm.

I stopped a few feet in front of Daniel. "We might as well go inside," I suggested. "Come on."

Daniel timidly stepped forward, and I moved to let him past. Norm holstered his weapon as we all clustered around Daniel, cutting off his escape. We moved together into the house and into the living room.

"Have a seat," Norm said, gesturing.

Wendy's cat, which was curled up on the recliner, raised her head to cast a wide-eyed look at the newcomer before darting away out of sight. Daniel took a seat in the vacated chair and sighed. He studied each of us in turn, probably trying to figure out what kind of genemods we were.

"So, what do we do with him?" Nissi asked. "We can't let him go, and if he stays here, someone is sure to come looking for him in a day or two at the most. He said he had a family."

"We'll have him call them," Stan suggested. "Tell them he decided to stay and work on the house."

"That buys us, what?" Nock said. "A few days? Better than nothing, I guess."

"Guys," Wendy said, "stop talking like he isn't right here. He didn't ask for this."

"You got a phone on you, Danno?" Nock asked, ignoring her.

"Yeah, it's in my car." There was no deception when he spoke. He was still agitated and deathly afraid of us, but he must have hoped that cooperation would be his best chance for survival.

"Be right back," Nock said.

"We're not going to hurt you," Nissi assured him. "You have to understand we're desperate. We have no choice."

Daniel smirked. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't feel comforted by that fact."

"Couldn't you just claim you don't know about us?" Stansy asked. "Assuming someone actually found us?"

Daniel shook his head. "You haven't practiced law in a while, cousin. Ever since the president's order a few months back, there's a whole new secret court system set up just for prosecuting genemod crimes, which are considered crimes against the state. Habeas corpus doesn't exist there." His fear rose as he spoke, somehow even keener than his fear of us.

Nock rejoined us. "Got his phone," he said. He placed it on the ottoman. "Would anyone be at home?"

Daniel nodded. "Yeah, probably."

"Norm, you should get your gun out."

"Sure," Norm said. He pulled his gun, but held it out, grip first, towards Nock. "But if you want someone to hold a gun on him, you do it yourself."

He started to reach for it, but Wendy spoke up. "Nock." He looked at her, and she shook her head slightly.

"Okay, fine," Nock said. "No guns." He looked at Daniel. "Unlock it, but don't do anything else. You're going to tell your wife that there was some damage and you're staying overnight to make sure it's fixed. You got that?"

"It's not my wife," Daniel said. "We need to call my parents."

Nock nodded and handed him the phone. He unlocked it and waited while Nock perused his contacts. "Which contact is it?"

"Choose 'Dad'."

Nock selected it and dialed. He put it on speaker phone and set it back on the ottoman. After three rings, it picked up. "Hello?" It was a kid's voice.

Daniel looked at Nock and he nodded. "Hi, Zach. Can you put your grandma or grandpa on?"

"Okay, daddy."

A few seconds later, a woman's voice came on. "Hello, Danny."

"Hi, mom. Listen, I'm at grandpa's old place right now and there's some damage."

"Oh my, nothing too bad I hope?"

"No, no," he said. "Nothing I can't handle. I'm going to need to stay the night here to get it fixed. Can you take Zach to preschool tomorrow?"

"Oh, sure. That's no problem, but you've got work tomorrow. I'm sure it can wait, whatever it is."

Daniel looked at us. Stansy pointed at the front door, where the window had been patched with some tape and cardboard.

"Uh, no, no it can't. A window got broken, probably storm damage or just some jerk throwing rocks. If I don't fix it, the carpet will mold next time it rains and we'll have a much bigger problem to deal with. I'll call in sick, but I have to get this done. I'll let you know when I'm on my way."

"Well, okay," she said uncertainly. "You know I can come down and help. I'll leave Zach with his grandpa."

Daniel rubbed at his forehead. "No, you don't need to do that. I'm just going to get some window panes and glazing from the hardware store and get it done, but I need to stay over and make sure everything sets up okay."

She sighed. "Alright, just let me know if anything changes."

"I will."

"Okay. I love you, Danny. Talk to you later."

"Love you, too."

Nock clicked off the phone and pocketed it. "Okay, good job," he said. "She seemed convinced. That's a Portland area code, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Dan said, gritting his teeth after he said it. "You wouldn't go after them, would you?"

"Of course not," Wendy said. "We're not bad people, Dan."

"So what do we do with him?" Stan asked.

Stansy grimaced. "Put him in the cellar, I guess. Only one door and we can lock it from the outside."

"Is that really necessary?" Wendy protested.

"Yeah," Norm said, "Yes, it is. We need to plan our next move. Better for everyone if he doesn't overhear."

"Come on, Dan," Stansy said. Norm and Nock followed behind, but Daniel didn't try to resist.

"We have to do something," Wendy whispered once they were gone. "I don't like what's going on here."

"Me neither," Nissi agreed. "This guy's innocent and we're holding him captive. I'm afraid someone's going to suggest we kill him."

"Hey, calm down," Stan said. "No one's going to do that. Besides, all that would do is make things worse. We're just going to talk things out."

"He's right," I said. "We're all anxious, but no one is coming unhinged." I made a cutting-off motion and pointed, indicating to them that the others were about to return. A few moments later, Norm, Nock and Stansy walked through the door.

"He's locked up tight," Stansy said, and dangled a set of key from her fingers. "That's a solid oak door and I have his house and car keys."

"So we've bought twenty-four hours," Nissi said. "Now what?"

"I would say we have to move," Norm said, crossing his arms. "Any idea where we might go?"

"There's national forest all around us," Stansy said. "Plenty of places to hide if you don't mind camping. Not much to eat but pine nuts and maybe the occasional squirrel. No deer anymore. Even the bears are pretty much all gone now."

"Doesn't sound very appetizing," Norm said. "Anything else?"

Silence greeted him as he paced the room. "Okay, the forest it is," he said. "Can someone do some research and find out where we can go that's remote where we still might have some fresh water?"

"Jesus," Nissi said. "Are you serious? Is that really what we're going to do?"

"We don't have much choice," Nock said. "We're on our own. Maybe we'll find another house out there like this one. Or a cabin."

I noticed that Stan was staring down at his hands, rubbing them slowly together. I knew what was on his mind. "So do we turn the network over to the genemods in Santiago?" I asked.

Norm paused in his pacing. "Yeah, and we'd better destroy the MC."

"Whoa," Stan said, looking up in alarm. "If we do that, Sasha's fraud scheme will unravel within a few weeks. Without that money, we're stuck here."

"Well, what choice do we have?" Stansy said. "We can't leave it behind, and we have little hope of finding a convenient outlet sticking out of a tree somewhere."

"He's right," Wendy said. "If we trash that computer, that's it. We're done."

Each person began to chime in with their own opinion, and the discussion began to devolve into a shouting match. "Hey! Hey!" Norm shouted to be heard over the others. "Let's all calm down."

"Quiet!" Wendy screamed in her little-girl voice, shocking everyone to silence.

"One at a time, people," Norm said. "Stan, what were you saying?"

"I just said we should talk to Catalina. Maybe she can get through to the agency for us tonight, or pull the money so we can get it later."

"Okay," Norm said. "Might be a long shot, but worth a try. Let's see if each of you can give me an option. Wendy?"

"What about that Mike guy up in Seattle? Could he help us somehow?"

"I still have his number," Norm said. "And we have Daniel's phone. I can give it a try. Nock?"

"I say we get as far away from here as we can, ASAP. Drug Daniel with anesthetic from the med supplies and leave him in the cellar. His mom will be down to check on him in a day or two, but we'll be long gone."

"What?" Nissi said. "That's terrible. What if he starves to death down there? What if he has a bad reaction to the drug?"

"What if he trips and breaks his neck?" Nock shot back. "That's not really our concern."

"Hey!" Norm interrupted, before they could get going. "Nothing is decided, and you're both talking out of turn. We're exploring options right now. Now what did you have to say, Nissi?"

"Well," she said, giving Nock a sidelong glare. "I think Nock's plan is shit--"

"Hey, I just want to keep us safe, Little Miss--"

"Shut up! Damn it, both of you!" Wendy said, swatting Nock on the ass and making him yelp. It had the effect of throwing both him and Nissi off balance enough for Norm to get control again.

"Nissi," Norm tried again. I could sense his struggle to control his anger, but he held it in check. "Without provoking Nock, can you please give your opinion of what we should do?"

Nissi sighed and spread her hands. She looked at each of us in turn and then down at the floor. "I don't know. Maybe we should just turn ourselves in."

The room was deathly silent. Nissi had just said the unthinkable, but we all knew suddenly that it was the option that made the most sense. Genemods still had amnesty. If we went into the wilderness, we would probably starve and die. Even if we did survive, we had no prospects, no hope for anything like a normal life, and if and when we did get caught, we would probably all be executed.

There was just one problem. "Norm has a murder charge," I pointed out.

"Oh, God," Nissi said, her voice almost a whisper. She sat down hard on the couch and put her head in her hands.

"I'll run," Norm said. "The rest of you turn yourselves over to the authorities. At least we'll all have a chance to live."

"What about Nonna?" Wendy asked.

Norm thought for a moment. "She'll go with all of you. That cop probably lived, and Nonna has Alzheimer's, so it would be plausible to say that she was simply confused. They'll probably put her under house arrest or something." He turned to Stansy.

"I've got nothing," she said, shaking her head. "I'm going to go work on dinner and try not to think about this for a while."

"How about you, Tilly?"

I shook my head slowly. "I don't see any way out of this. But if I have a choice, I'll go with you, Norm."

"Me too," Nissi said quickly. "I'll take my chances with Norm."

Norm exchanged a long look with Nissi, and sent a critical glance my way. "I want you to think hard about that before committing to it," he said. "I can't make that choice for you."

We went our separate ways then, Stan to try to contact Catalina with an email, Wendy and Norm staying in the living room to call Mike. I went to help Stansy. It wasn't that I wanted to avoid the problem, as she did, but that I had a nagging feeling that I was missing something crucial. Brains, once you get past the reptilian part, are just big collections of pattern-recognition algorithms, and mine was no different in that respect. It was just that my pattern recognizer networks had additional layers to support higher levels of abstract thought. Usually when I got this feeling, one of those algorithms was hung up at one of the higher levels, close to a revelation, but missing some key piece of information that would allow me to infer the rest of the pattern.

The curry rice turned out quite pretty good, considering how bland or outright odd some of our meals had been of late, as our store of food shrank. At the start of the meal, Norm announced the outcome of their contacts with Catalina and Mike. The former had promised to make some inquiries, but then told them that it would be a few days before she might hear back. I had overheard the conversation with Mike from the living room, so I already knew that it was a bust, but Norm provided the details I had missed. Mike had already talked to the agency in anticipation of us needing help, and had been told that they had no resources available to aid us at this time.

A pall hung over the meal from that point on. Everyone was scared, myself included, and the psychological experience of fear was something that had not been altered in any gene model since the very first in the 60's. Even my own response was remarkably similar to Norm's, an aching, paralyzing clench of the gut. I found myself unconsciously tuning most of the others out to keep myself from sinking even further under the weight of it.

The evening was only made worse by Nonna, though it wasn't her fault. Wendy had tried to explain to her what we planned, but she was having one of her bad days, constantly asking after Sasha and Nikolai, who we assumed had been her husband. She grew more agitated with our explanations and began speaking only in Russian. Wendy finally took her into the other room and set her in front of the television to distract her.

After the meal, Stan and I went to work on packaging the network source code and all of the documentation for our new friends in Chile. It was getting late, so Stan suggested that we finish in the morning. I think that he was reluctant to let it go until absolutely necessary. We still needed to upload the code and encryption key collection to a secure file store, and then it would be out of our hands, completely unreachable by us.

Everyone had already gone to bed when I made my way upstairs. I could hear Norm and Nissi whispering to themselves, and Nonna's snoring almost drowning out Wendy's light breath. I stopped at the hallway bathroom for a shower. The warm water on my skin was divine. I leaned back and let the water cascade down my face and swirl over my breasts.

I hung my towel and slipped under the covers, making happy noises as the smooth sheets touched my skin. Good, high thread count sheets are even better than a thick carpet. I sighed with contentment, moving around a bit just to feel the smooth softness gliding across my skin again. It provided a welcome, if temporary, distraction from the problems facing all of us.

Norm and Nissi's room was across the hall from me, and I could generally hear their conversations clearly unless they decided to speak in very low whispers. I could also hear when they had sex, as I could tell that they were just starting now. Nissi's moans and exclamations, muffled as they were, were echoed by my mind as warm waves of pleasure coursing through my body. In my mind, I could picture them together, entwined, pleasuring each other with their bodies.

My own body responded to the sounds, imagery and sympathetic echo. My skin flushed, my nipples contracted and hardened, and my sex grew warm and heavy. I ran my hands across my body, touching my lips with the tips of my fingers, brushing my cheek, caressing the smooth skin of my neck. Lower, my hands went, a fingertip lightly brushing one nipple and sending a jolt of pleasure right down to the wet heat between my thighs. I touched each one in turn, varying the type and intensity of the touch for different effect. I had found that I could bring myself to orgasm just from touching my breasts, but I wanted more.

I kept one hand at my breast, flicking, caressing, and squeezing, while my other hand slipped lower, sliding over my soft, flat stomach and lower still. I pushed off the blankets and opened my legs. The cooler air hit my damp pussy and I breathed out a moan. I had thought to approach it coyly, teasingly, but my need was too strong. I pressed my fingers into the folds of my sex, gasping and arching my back at the sudden intensity of the pleasurable invasion. I pushed two fingers easily into my warm, slick center and held them there, panting as a cascade of pleasure washed through me, like a chain reaction exploding and rebounding. I could feel the moan building inside me, forcing me to turn and press my face into my pillow to muffle the sound that forced its way out of my mouth.

The pleasure receded and I gasped for air. I slowly pulled my fingers out and back inside, shuddering and moaning at the overwhelming sensation. In the other room, Nissi's cries took on a staccato rhythm as Norm made love to her. I closed my eyes and easily imagined her wiry body posed on all fours, her sex being taken and filled. I let her joy and exultation mingle with my own, and in my mind, we were merged, sharing the same body, and in turn, merging and sharing our body intimately with Norm. I added a third finger and again had to stop and bite my pillow as the pleasure swelled and coursed through me.

I waited for the cascade to settle before once more slowly penetrating myself, letting my actions match the fantasy in my mind. Nissi's cries rose in pitch and intensity, and my mind simulated her rise towards orgasm. If I were close enough to see and hear her clearly, and focused closely on the sensation, I could have experienced her orgasm as my own. I had discovered that with Norm, the night we had left Seattle, and his climax had triggered one in my own body. Now, I just synchronized my own rise with hers, letting myself build in perfect step with what I felt from her.

My hand flew from my breast to grip my pillow as the sensations again overwhelmed me, this time building higher and higher. Nissi cried out from the other room and the wave of pleasure rose in me, seeming too huge for my body to contain. My body shivered and convulsed in anticipation, and I buried my fingers deep inside my body and pulled the pillow over my face.

It started deep within me, coursing outward in all directions across my skin. My nipples hummed as the wave washed over them. My legs kicked and lifted my body as it spread downwards, ending in electric tingles at the tip of each of my toes. The warm bliss spread up my neck, washed over my face, tickled across my scalp. It spread down my arms, flowed across my palms and pulsed at the tip of each finger. I arched upward as the wave crested and dropped to the bed with a muffled scream.

The next wave came slower, but just as powerfully, and flowing deeper than the last. The pleasure seeped into my bones, tingling and buzzing, and adding to the pleasure that still played over my skin. A third wave started before the second had even finished, seeming to shoot up my spine and explode across my back. On and on it went, completely beyond my control, every nerve ending singing, my mind a haze of bliss. Carefully, so as not to trigger another climax, I pulled my fingers free and lay basking in the afterglow, punctuated by an occasional resurgence of pleasure, like little aftershocks.