Intersexed

"That's enough," Tenerife barked from the cafeteria door. "Colonel, lieutenants, stand down."

Tank released Tangran and stepped back. He turned his eyes to glare at Margraine, who had her gun drawn. "You'd better hit something that kills me," he snarled. "You won't get a second chance."

"This is a forty-five," Margraine shrugged. "Right eye will do it."

"Lieutenant Margraine, you will stand down and holster your gun," Tenerife commanded as he quickly crossed to the officers. "Tank, stop provoking them. You know we still need more from you, and they won't kill you until we get it. Ms Angelina, on the other hand, has given us pretty much everything we want, and we can easily dispose of her. However, your cooperation and help ensure her continued life."

Ignoring Major Tenerife, Genet said, "Colonel?"

"Out ranks me everywhere except the research labs and divisions," Tenerife said authoritatively. "Here, I rule. Colonel, you will stand down and return to your duties elsewhere on this ship."

"As you command, Sir," Colonel Tangran saluted, turned on his heel and left.

"Lieutenants Genet and Margraine, you will march to my office and wait for me there." The pair hesitated until Tenerife barked, "Move!"

Straightening to attention, Margraine and Genet saluted, turned and marched out.

Muttering about subordinates trying to go above his head, Tenerife turned to Tank, "Why do you insist on antagonising Lieutenants Genet and Margraine?"

Tank shrugged, "I'm bored." Then a wolfish grin crossed his face, "Besides, pissing them off is so easy."

"You promised me cooperation," Tenerife said exasperatedly.

Tank repeated his shrug, "And you promised me answers."

"Let this be your answer for tonight," Tenerife matter-of-factly said. "My superiors are split on your usefulness. Some, such as those who have seen recordings of your fight with Genet and your block-destroying effort, believe you can be the first of the super soldiers we need to guarantee our survival against the Aridian slavers. The others, who like Genet, don't think you're anything special, want to kill you, harvest your DNA from your dead body and use it to make clones we can control." He continued, "I'm in the former group for now. But, continue to defy me and my staff, and I will wash my hands of you and give you to the latter group."

Tank sifted that carefully, looking for the underlying meaning. "You're saying there is now a chance I can survive these experiments?"

"Too fucking smart," the major muttered. "Yes. I have the generals almost convinced we should use your DNA and physiology as a blueprint to search Earth for others like you. If we can recruit an army of at least one hundred thousand like you, we can fight the slavers successfully instead of having to flee every time. Three hundred thousand, and we might be able to take the fight to them."

"A lofty goal," Tank acknowledged. "I need to understand why this is so important to you, but for now, you have my cooperation."

"You will return to your room and allow the tent to be put in place and the regeneration and genetic improvement chemicals to be used on you?" Tank nodded, and Tenerife sympathetically said, "It's going to hurt like a bitch. Especially if you continue fighting it as you do."

They walked towards Tank's room. Around halfway there, Tank stopped and said, "Not Margraine. I don't trust that bitch."

"Genet?"

"Is a good soldier serving her people to the best of her ability. I'm guessing she's won every fight she's been in, so she thinks she's better than everyone?" Tenerife agreed. Tank continued, "So, smug, arrogant, smarter than most..."

Tenerife clarified, "Top of every class in every discipline in her cadet year. Set many records for fighting, strength and endurance."

"I'll smack her around for a while," Tank offered. "Turn her into a decent human... ahh... Providian being."

"You're not frightened of her shooting you?"

"With a tranq, yes. With a bullet? No. Not unless you or someone who outranks you tells her to. Margraine, however, I do not trust to tell me a damned thing truthfully. If this were an Earth Army in a John Woo action movie, I'd suspect she was working for the enemy."

Tenerife didn't understand the reference but caught the inference, so he nodded before stopping and allowing Tank into his hospital room first. Tenerife was right on at least a few things--the tent was ready, Margraine and Genet were absent, with Anan filling in, and the gas hurt like a bitch.

The night passed uneventfully. Tank woke after the chemical gas had been extracted and the tent removed and then managed to fall back asleep and sleep soundly. When he awoke, he found the black Gi hung on a hook beside the door. He put it on and walked to the cafeteria, where he found Julie waiting. Ordering coffee and a plate of bacon and eggs, Tank sat opposite the beautiful actress. His beverage and food arrived quickly. Julie sipped coffee and watched Tank interestedly as he ate.

"I had yoghurt and fruit," she stated, seemingly randomly. Tank met her gaze and raised an eyebrow to indicate he wanted to know why she said that. Angela pointed at his food. "We're on an alien ship orbiting Earth, right?" Tank nodded his agreement. "We'd need to be orbiting beyond Earth's ring of satellites designed to look for incoming missiles or approaching meteors, right?"

"Either that or this ship needs some kind of cloaking device that renders it invisible to Earth's technology," Tank offered.

"So, Mister PhD, where did the bacon and eggs come from for your breakfast? Where did the yoghurt and fruit come from for mine? Why can I read the menu even though I know it's not written in English? How is it that these 'Providians' speak perfect English? Or are they? Are they speaking Providian, and we're somehow understanding them?"

Chagrined, Tank slapped his forehead. "Not only do I not know the answer to those questions, I didn't even think to ask them!" He said.

Tenerife, Margraine and Genet entered the cafeteria before Tank could consider Julie's well-thought-out questions.

"Are you going to argue and fight when I say it's time for your morning exercise routine?" Tenerife asked, expecting Tank to resist, even if it was just to wind up his two lieutenants again.

"I thought I might surprise you and just go along," Tank grinned. "However, can we get a thirty-minute raincheck? I've just finished eating."

"No!" Genet and Margraine snarled as Tenerife said, "Of course. Because you don't have timepieces, we will return in thirty minutes."

Baiting Genet, Tank said, "Don't be so eager to get your ass kicked again."

"You never hit me even once!" Genet screeched as Tenerife rolled his eyes. "I split your lip. You lost!"

"A rematch, then?" Tank offered. "Weapons this time? I saw staffs in the weapons cradle."

"To the death!" Genet almost howled.

Mocking her, Tank unconcernedly said, "I never thought you were suicidal."

"Enough!" Tenerife barked. "Lieutenant Genet, you will control yourself. Tank, you agreed to cooperate!"

Tank defended himself, "I am."

Looking like he had a headache developing, Tenerife rubbed his forehead and said, "Wooden staffs. First to hit something other than hands wins. Full protection will be worn."

"No!" Tank and Genet emphasised. Tank continued, "Pain tolerance has as much to do with winning fights as skill does."

Shaking his head frustratedly, Tenerife escorted the two lieutenants from the cafeteria.

"Why do you bait those two so much?" Julie asked.

Tank shrugged. "To keep them off balance and fixated on me, which keeps their attention away from you."

Julie bluntly asked, "Why do you care?"

"We have a movie to make," Tank grinned.

Julie blushed beautifully red, "You just want to do the love scene," she teased.

"Who wouldn't?" Tank responded.

"Tom Cruise," Julie joked.

"You don't put any credence in the jealous ramblings of those who say he's gay, do you?" Tank asked.

"I have no idea," Julie shrugged. "Who cares, anyway? He's still one of the best actors of our generation."

"Yeah, The Academy seems to have it in for him, given he's never received an Oscar."

They chatted amiably until Tenerife returned to take them to the dojo. Julie detoured to change into her white Gi. Tank followed Tenerife and stepped inside when he opened the door. To Tank's surprise, Margraine and Genet were dressed in multi-coloured Gis, waiting for him. He covertly admired their large, firm breasts and surreptitiously examined their bulging cocks. 'Margraine's is slightly longer than Genet's,' Tank thought, which made him realise that Julie's 'acquired penis' hadn't shown yesterday. She entered the dojo, and Tank saw that it didn't show today, either.

Tank ignored the two Providian women and addressed Julie. After ensuring she was ready, Tank slowly moved through the Tai Chi Katas to warm up. After two slow cycles, he began increasing the speed of the stance shifts until they drew close to fighting speed. To his surprise, Julie had improved markedly since their last session. That Genet could also follow effortlessly wasn't a surprise. That Margraine was equally as adept was. Tank believed that Margraine preferred weapons to hand-to-hand combat, but he recognised that she was no slouch in the Martial Arts.

Tank let Julie briefly relax and recover before asking for some practice pads. He politely requested that Margraine and Genet hold a pad each as he demonstrated the first Shotokan Karate Kata to Julie. Traditionally, this first Kata would be learned without hitting anything, but Tank believed Julie had shown sufficient skill to allow her to learn to strike immediately.

To be fair, Tank allowed Genet and Margraine to demonstrate their skill, too. He held Genet's pad, allowing Ms Angelina to hold for Margraine. As Tank expected, Genet tried to punch through the bag and hurt him. He admitted to himself that the woman hit as hard as any opponent, including Jet Li, he'd faced. His smashed lips from yesterday attested to that.

Tank called the session to a halt when it became apparent that Julie struggled to maintain the correct stance, let alone execute her Kata properly. He congratulated her warmly, saying he couldn't believe how much she'd improved in just one day. Then, sighing, he turned to Genet, "Your Majesty," he teased. "Your loyal, if somewhat reluctant, servant awaits your desire."

"I'm so going to split your head open and feast on your brains," Genet snarled before stalking over to the weapons rack.

"Providians practice ritualistic cannibalism, then?" Tank innocently asked, although his twinkling eyes gave away his amusement.

"You're not Providian," Genet snarled as she picked up a stave and tested its balance and fit. Rejecting it, she tried two others before finding one she was happy with.

"Yet, here you are, trying to recover what your ancestors seeded this planet with. Or, Lieutenant Genet, are you admitting that this is all a sham and that we're not an earlier Providian seed mission?" Tank negligently pulled out the closest stave, one that Genet had rejected as 'unbalanced', and tucked it under his armpit and over his forearm. He looked casual and somewhat bored, but a knowledgeable observer would see the staff was perfectly balanced and ready to attack or defend. That observer would also note that Genet's stave wasn't balanced, and she had too much length above her hand for quick transitions from attack to defence.

They moved to the starting positions indicated on the mat. Tank bowed politely as Genet ignored him and stared intently at Tenerife instead, waiting for his permission to attack.

"Combatants ready?" Tenerife asked. At their twin nods, he shouted, "Fight!"

Tank held still with the stave resting quietly on his forearm as Genet moved back and forth in a tight arc before him. Twirling her stave in a furious circle, Genet watched her unmoving opponent. She feared once again that Tank's quiescent stance was a ruse. Doubt crept into Genet's mind as Tank waited, seemingly disinterested in her showy display. Tank didn't move and only watched Genet's eyes. Finally, Genet decided that Tank was frozen in fear of her skill and twirled the staff faster, swapping it from hand to hand. She impressed the heck out of Julie but left Tank unmoved. To him, Genet's movements were similar to a peacock ducking its head and spreading its tail feathers--it was nothing but show.

Genet stepped in, meaning to change the stave's circular motion into a crushing blow aimed at Tank's head, but before she could level her blow, Tank negligently moved forward and poked the end of his staff into Genet's stave's spinning circle. Genet's stave crashed to an immediate stop, jarring her hands to numbness. Then, moving his staff almost imperceptibly, Tank rapped Genet's numb wrists, causing her to drop her stave. He finished his move by poking Genet in her solar plexus with his staff's tip, and when she retched and folded over from the pain, he rapped Genet on the back of her head, dropping her to the floor like a poleaxed steer.

Placing his stave back in the rack, Tank nonchalantly looked at Tenerife and shrugged, "No need for me to use the regeneration chamber today." He glanced at Genet's supine body. "She might need it, though. Anyway, what's next?"

Tenerife tapped his jaw and sub-vocalised something. Two white-coated Providians rushed into the dojo carrying a stretcher. They loaded Genet onto it and quickly disappeared.

Margraine stalked over to Tank, "You think you're something," she snarled. "But once I've finished dissecting you while you're still alive, you'll be nothing but specimen pieces in my jars."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Tank unconcernedly replied. "Such jealousy is unbecoming of an officer, Lieutenant Margraine. Don't worry, though. I won't take Genet from you." Then, at Margraine's unintelligible, hissed reply, he added, "I won't need to because she'll come to me willingly and beg me to fuck her."

Enraged, Margraine reached for her shoulder holster before remembering she'd left it with her uniform in her locker when she'd changed into her Gi.

Tank stared at her with those dead fish eyes again, sending a rare frisson of fear worming through her body. "Be grateful you weren't wearing your firearm," he coldly stated. "Because if you were and had reached for it, I'd have snapped your scrawny neck."

Tank left Margraine sputtering threats as he strolled casually from the dojo. He wondered how long it would be until Major Tenerife chased after him to berate him again. Julie caught up with him before he got far from the dojo. She walked silently beside him until he passed the changeroom entrance.

Glancing at Tank and then the door, she asked, "You're not going to change?"

"I'm not sick," Tank replied. "Nor am I a patient. The Gi is much more comfortable than those ass-showing hospital gowns, so unless they physically force me to change, I'm not putting one back on."

"You're continually defying them, Tank. Why?"

Tank stopped and turned to the gorgeous actress. "I'm sick of not knowing what the fuck is going on, Julie. I'm baiting them, trying to force their hands. Either they'll tell me what's going on, or they'll kill me. Either way, this bullshit ends."

"What about me?" Julie asked in a quiet, fearful voice.

"If I can force them into working cooperatively with me instead of compelling my complaisance with chemicals and force, I will insist they give you the same opportunity."

"If they kill you, then I'm dead, too."

"Unless we can demonstrate they're better off working with us, we're dead anyway," Tank explained. "We have to prove our living bodies and active minds are worth more to them than the DNA harvested from our dead carcasses and used to create clones they can mind-control."

He sighed, wondering if what he'd surmised would help or scare her to death. 'Fuck it!' Tank thought. 'She deserves to know!' He put his hands gently on Julie's shoulders. "I believe you're safe until they impregnate you and see if your embryo is mutant or whether it accepts the changes they've made to your DNA. They're trying to create super Providian's, Julie. Super soldiers they can unleash on their enemy, the Aridians."

"And you want to help them?"

Tank closed his eyes in frustration. He wasn't frustrated at Ms Angelina. Instead, he was angry that he didn't have enough information even to draw a hypothesis. "How do we even know these Providians are the good guys?" He asked. "They're arrogant beyond belief and think we're nothing more than animals they can conduct their experiments on without guilt or care for what we want. Maybe they're the bad guys, conducting experiments on species throughout the galaxies, and the Aridians are the good guys trying to stop them."

"Jaysus, Tank!" Julie exclaimed as she turned and began walking again. "Talk about asking questions I don't know the answers to and haven't even thought to ask!" She walked silently for a while, waiting for Tank to catch up. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Continue baiting Tenerife, Genet, and Margraine and try to force them to reveal more information or act to shut me up. Hopefully, either Tenerife will give me more information, or Genet and Margraine will go above Tenerife's head again, and I'll get to talk to someone with the authority to answer my questions."

"They will kill you," Julie flatly stated.

Tank shrugged, "Probably. However, being placed in that gas chamber every night is not a better alternative! Doesn't it scorch you like it does me?"

They entered the cafeteria and ordered drinks. Julie asked for an electrolyte drink. Tank, a bottle of carbonated mineral water.

"No," Julie said after they'd sat. "It doesn't scorch me. Margraine says it's because I don't resist and accept the changes. You, however, fight against the effects of the gas as if you're going to war."

"I think we are," Tank pointed out. "Well, me, at least."

"You don't think they want me as a soldier?"

"No," Tank replied, looking concernedly into Julie's eyes. "If your body produces a perfect embryo that grows as it should and becomes a 'Super-Providian', I think they'll force you into continuous pregnancies, probably with up to four foetuses at a time, and then they'll clone your offspring to fill their army's ranks up."

"Shit!" Julie exclaimed. "I'd rather be a soldier!" She thought and then asked, "Why would they need more than one child? If the first one is a 'Super-Providian', won't they clone from that one and then clone from the clone?"

"Photocopy," Tank cryptically replied.

"Huh?"

"Why does the studio keep the original copy of the screenplay in a safe at the studio?"

"For security reasons," Julie answered.

"So they've always got the original to make copies from if needed," Tank refuted.

Understanding, Julie whispered, "Because every time you make a copy of a copy, it loses some of its clarity until it's eventually a pale facsimile of itself." She thought furiously. "So, if the first embryo is viable, they'll force me to give birth to as many children as I can before I die. All of which they will keep in suspended animation to make their clones from." She sighed, "No wonder you wonder if they're the good guys."

"However," Tank countered, "If they're telling the truth, and our planet was in equal peril, can you honestly say we'd do anything differently?"

"We would!" Julie stated emphatically.

"Horishma was perhaps permissible to end the war. Nagasaki was just because we could. What about Dresden? Do you still think we wouldn't do something similar to what it seems The Providians are doing?"

"Yes," Julie asserted, but she sounded a lot less sure this time.

Tank spotted Anan entering the room. "Ahh," he said. "My torturer has arrived to inflict further pain and agony on me. Ms Anan, I wish I could say it's a pleasure to see you, but I have no desire to lie to you."