It's My Party

Mark lifted a hand and lazily caressed Jada's cheek. "Oh, how I love sleeping in late," he said with a smile.

Jada nodded. "Yes, I know. I feel decadent too. I just want to curl up and play with you and never leave this bed." She leaned over for a simple kiss, and then their eyes locks as she gazed at him.

"This is so amazing," she thought. "A part of me is remembering our wedding as happening last night, but the Paris part of me is insisting our wedding happened more than a week ago."

Mark thought back, "I know. It does get a little difficult at times, trying to align the two perspectives. In a sense, they're both real."

Jada mentally nodded. "Yes, because the thoughts are real, they really occurred. Hah! Your calendar helps. It's so easy to follow, exactly two weeks every month. Have you noticed? The weeks now, they seem to start on a Friday and end on a Thursday. It didn't seem that way in January. But now the months have fourteen days, and it just seems so natural to jump to the new system. And thinking of new things, we probably should find Toshi and Frida, at least have breakfast with them."

Mark smiled in love. "Feeling guilty?"

"Just a bit. Last night was their wedding night too. I know tomorrow I'll be gone and they'll still be around, but still…"

"Jada, it really is okay with them."

"Oh, I know. Wow Mark! I have two sister wives! I have so much work to do."

"Work?"

Jada nodded. "I'm a little envious of Frida and Toshi. They seemed to have their relationship all worked out."

Mark gave her a shy smile, nodding his understanding, and then he broke the link as his eyes drifted to the sight of an aroused nipple. "Hmm, you look so delightfully sexy…"

Jada shivered in delight as Mark latched onto her breast and began to suckle her. She caught one last emotional construct in his mind before the link broke. It was primal, pure male sexual desire. Jada began to feel her own arousal, and the moment evolved into an hour of sexual frolic.

For their final position, Jada climbed on top and rode Mark, vigorously bouncing up and down and staring at the pleasure she was giving her husband. Mark started to give short, shallow pants, and Jada realized he was about to cum again, less than three hours after his previous orgasm. She groaned at the end of the coitus but had the discipline to uncouple and grab a tiny soft cup from the night table and fit it over Mark's penis head. Then she grabbed the shaft of his erection and jerked hard. She was rewarded with two small splashes of semen inside the cup.

"Mark, you sexual tiger!" she hissed. "I didn't know males could do this."

Mark just gave her a brainless grin in response.

Jada jumped out of bed and threw on her bathrobe. "Back in a few minutes."

"Oh, I'll be here," he replied, still with his sleepy after-sex grin.

Jada dashed down the length of the Red Mall home complex with her prize. She entered the lounge elevator and typed in the access code for the Red Mall sky-bridge. After the door closed, she got a warning beep that her destination sky-bridge elevator was currently open. She would have to wait. About ten seconds later both short sides of the elevator started to open. Jada took one step and realized she was headed into the Wing Yip Superstore. She gave a fleeting grin and turned around.

It was at a meeting on Tom's and Charles' second day with the group that Brandi had suggested the creation of a sperm bank. The two men had laughed with approval and then insisted that one location in particular would be the perfect site. "Oh, men!" Jada thought now with a grin. "They can be so juvenile sometimes!" She turned and headed for the reserved aisle in the Wild Oats Health Foods Store.

And there very unexpectedly was Holly, loading a sperm cup into Charles' bank. Holly turned to Jada and blinked. "Oh, hi Jada."

Jada gave a quick nod back and then got right to business. First things first. Jada quickly placed Mark's second deposit next to the first one created just a few hours ago, and then she heard the door snap and hiss as she closed it. She shivered at the fearsome physics that must be taking place before her.

On the day of the winter solstice, two days after Mark's and Toshi's unplanned trip to Black Mall, the women had started a long-term experiment that Mark had designed but never have time to do. There was a store called Agilent Technologies near the home complex of Green Mall that Aggie had discovered held a set of genuine atomic clocks, the finest 2018 Earth technology could make, not simply radio-signal receivers but the real thing.

A pair of microphones recording the opening and closing times of the cabinets showed that the snap / hiss lasted three hundred milliseconds. The women then started series of experiments, using pairs of synchronized atomic clocks, one inside the cabinet and out outside.

Their first experiment had taken ten hours, and resulted in no measurable elapsed time within the closed cabinet to at least five orders of magnitude. Indeed, within their error range, their first experiment seemed to suggest a negative time duration, something the women found unbelievable. But then Aggie suggested their one data point would fit the model of time stopping at the very beginning of the initial closing hiss and at the very end of the opening hiss at the end of the experiment.

Yesterday a similar experiment had been completed, but this one on a twenty-day scale. The results were the same as the first, and within their millisecond accuracy for measuring the beginning and ending of the hisses, they had now determined that time within the closed cabinets was slowed down by at least nine orders of magnitude, a billion to one. An elapsed second within the cabinet would be at least thirty-years on the outside, and perhaps much longer. Their sperm bank might last for many thousands of years.

The storage of the sperm complete, Jada turned to Holly and tried to give her a proper hello. She offered eye contact, and then gasped at the intensity of Holly's unease and emotional turbulence. Holly hiccupped and broke the connection before Jada could probe further.

Jada came over and gave Holly a hug. "Hey kiddo, you okay?"

"Oh Jada, I… Hey, this is your day with Mark. I caught a glimpse of your husband in your mind. I saw him lying in bed and waiting for you to return."

"You saw all that?"

"Yep. He's waiting for you right now. Jada, this is your honeymoon. Go back to him."

"Holly, Mark will understand. What's wrong?"

"Oh… Oh hell, I don't know."

Jada sighed. "I saw you making a deposit in Charles' sperm bank. I must say, I was a bit surprised. Holly…"

"Huh? Oh no Jada! What a thought! I'm not having sex with Chico, uh, Charles. I was sitting in on a late-night discussion Aggie was having with her team over in Green Mall. Toshi was there too. Amber and Toshi and I stayed up after the others went to bed. I guess I fell asleep in the lounge."

Jada nodded and then motioned Holly to follow her back to the sky-bridge. "Do you still think of Charles as Chico?"

Holly sighed back. "A little I guess. I try to be careful and not call him that. He really has changed. I think he deserves his forgiveness. But I have so many memories, not of being raped by Chico directly, but I held Allison the night she took Mandy's turn. Chico raped Allison with his fingers, and she was crying afterwards. It's so hard to forgive sometime Jada!"

Jada nodded and punched in the keyboard code for White Mall's home complex, the new home for Holly and Team-0. Jada also used the elevator to call Mark's Leophone and tell him she wanted to be with Holly for a while. A moment later the four-meter door silently opened onto the deserted White Mall library. The two women sat down on a couple of nearby chairs.

Holly was extremely tense, and she started to talk almost immediately, at first picking something innocuous as an escape. "This morning I woke up in Green Mall. I got up and went into the kitchen for something to drink..." She sighed. "I was just typing my command into the lounge elevator to return home to White Mall when Brandi showed up behind me. She was wearing almost nothing, just some see-through lingerie. She had been with Charles…"

Jada held Holly's hand. "And you volunteered to deposit Charles' semen in the bank?"

"Sure, why not? Brandi was still obviously aroused. She looked like a woman who had stopped right on the verge of orgasm. So I volunteered and she gave me a really kind smile and then ran back to Charles' bedroom I guess… I guess…" Holly started to cry. "Oh Jada, this is so difficult. Late last night, Toshi and I got into a very heated discussion. It was almost an argument."

Jada held the weeping Holly in her arms and stroked her hair. She could see Holly's distress but felt clueless as to the reason. "An argument about Charles?" she guessed.

"No," wailed Holly softly, "not directly. It was an argument about rapes and pregnancies and… Oh Jada, I don't know if I want the child I'm carrying. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't!"

Jada felt stunned, but she knew instinctively it was too soon to reply in words. She pulled Holly to her chest and held and petted her as she cried. They stayed that way for several minutes, Holly's crying evolving from wails to gasps and then to small shudders and finally to lots of deep breathing and sighs. "It's so difficult," she whispered at last.

Jada nodded and kissed the back of her head. "Perhaps it's the most difficult issue our society ever had to face, here and now or even before. Holly? May I ask? What did Toshi say?"

A very deep sigh and then a wail and the floodgates opened for an explanation. "Toshi was very upset with me! I've already discussed doing an abortion with Aggie, and Emily too. They think they know how to instruct the autodoc to end my pregnancy. Toshi pleaded with me not to abort the embryo. She even offered to become the mother instead."

"What?!"

"Oh, she knows she would have to have a long discussion with Mark about this, and you and Frida too of course. But she was horrified about my decision. She tried very hard to talk me out of it."

"So you've already decided?"

"Yes. Well, almost. Aggie and Emily are discussing among themselves where their morals are on this. They both think I should have the right to abort, but they're a little uneasy of acting on their own, without the matter discussed at our group meeting. If it weren't for that, I would have aborted yesterday."

"Oh boy…" whispered Jada with a deep sigh.

"You think there needs to be a group meeting too?"

"Actually, I was thinking I agree with Toshi. Holly, if you can hang onto the child until it's born, I'd be thrilled to be its mother with Toshi. I think Frida would feel the same way. I'm certain Mark would."

"Oh shit Jada! You don't know how difficult this is! You don't know what it's like to be raped by three men in one evening, over and over again! It went on for weeks!"

Despite the harsh words, Holly did not leave the comfort of Jada's breasts, and Jada continued to hold and pet her. "Holly, is there some way we can help you? Help you separate the essence of the child from how it was created? Please understand me. It's not the preservation of a fifth genome. I'd rather we all became extinct rather than force someone to go through a pregnancy against her will. But I think Toshi is correct. Her child-to-be is innocent, and your child-to-be is innocent."

Jada kissed Holly again and continued. "I'm thinking of all the deaths we've witnessed. It taught me how precious life is. Have you ever tried thinking of your fetus as a child?"

"Uh… No. And furthermore, it's not a fetus yet! I've done some reading. It's just an embryo."

Jada shuddered. "You're right, I misspoke. I'm sorry." Jada continued to pet Holly's head. "I was only trying to share something, something Mark and Toshi shared with me two days ago."

"Ah… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snip at you."

"It's okay. Anyway, Mark and Toshi were having a linked dream, and the dream took a leap neither was expecting. Their child was a boy! After all the subjective months of thinking about Toshi's womb holding a girl, suddenly they had a dream about Toshi giving birth, and the child was a boy. Both of them swore to each other afterwards that they hadn't planned the dream. But there in their hopes was Toshi giving birth to a boy." Jada took a few deep breaths. "Have you ever done that Holly, think of your womb holding a boy or a girl?"

Holly was silent for a long moment and then whispered. "No, not really. I just see the endless hours of being held down and violated. The men used to howl when they would orgasm, and I would feel like vomiting when I felt them release. I knew I was fertile and I was helpless and there was nothing I could do about it. They used to hold my legs high in the air. The man who had just orgasmed would be lying on top of me, pinning my arms and my body with his hands and weight, and the other two men holding my legs would be howling like buffoons, restraining me with my ankles held way up in a mock version of a missionary position. I couldn't even let the semen drain out."

"Oh shit," whispered Jada.

Holly continued. "It was almost a joke to them, a contest of who could bang me the hardest. My vagina would be so sore afterwards, even with all the lube they were using."

Jada felt like crying. After a long moment of silently petting Holly, she whispered, "I believe it should be your decision."

Another long pause. "Thank you."

Jada struggled for a long moment before she could talk again. "Holly, everybody is still thinking of Mark and me as absolute rulers. I'm sure I can get Mark to see your side of this. We could authorize Emily to perform an abortion without a group meeting. Is that what you want?"

A faint but immediate answer. "Yes. And the sooner the better. Today?"

Jada nodded slowly. "Yes. Let me go back and talk to Mark now." The two women stood up, and Jada saw Holly was almost in tears again. They cried for a moment together, and then Jada wiped her eyes and left the library for Red Mall.

Chapter 47.

Time: Saturday, February 9, 2019 10:35 AM

Ricardo came silently into Black Mall library to check up on Diego's progress. As ordered, the man was busy working at one of the two interface consoles at the room's two beveled corners. Today Diego had chosen the side facing the sand park with the windows facing southeast, and a great deal of orange sunlight was flooding his work area now. Not that Diego seemed to mind. Instead he called out a simple greeting, "Hello boss."

Ricardo grinned and walked over. "You remind me of Toro with Chico." Ricardo studied the complex monitor screen for a moment. "You know Diego, you're the only one I allow to be informal with me, and the reason is you're the only one who notices when I walk into a room." Ricardo looked around Diego's work area and saw the small mirrored sphere the compadre had suspended nearby. "Very good Diego, simple and effective." Ricardo pulled up a chair. "So tell me, what did you learn today?"

Diego sighed and stretched. "To be honest, not a heck of a lot. We might be at the end of the line with milking information out of this console."

Ricardo gave a deep frown of disapproval and took a moment to crack his knuckles. "I'd be very sorry to hear that."

"I'm doing my best boss." Diego said defensively, and then he waved his hand over the keyboard. "But I think I've explored every folder available. My only option left is to go over territory I've already covered and see if I've missed anything. That's what I plan to do now."

Diego typed a few strokes. "Here's what we know about Section Five. Jessica, Alfonso, Jenaro, Hernando, you and I are known by this system as Citizen ID Tags 24, 26, 27, 49, 50, and 53."

Ricardo waved his hand dismissively. They had discovered this days ago by having their members sit and type a "Who am I?" question to the console. "Any ideas on how we might learn the IDs of the others?"

Diego shrugged. "Nothing comes to mind. I think Alfonso's guess though is a good one. Our numbers are consistent with the order in which we entered the elevator at the start of the parties. I've got approximate ranges right here," he said, popping up a simple spreadsheet, "in case we ever need to guess. ID Tags 1 through 18 belong to It's My Party, assuming our guess of lining up the Parties with the Sections is correct. And then we came over. We just don't know which groups went next to which Parties."

Diego added as an afterthought, "I don't know how knowing the other ID Tags would help anyway." He typed for another second. "And here's the employment section. As you can see, there are only six jobs that are active now, and three of the six slots are filled, the janitors for Sections One, Four, and Five, by Citizen ID Tags 148, 117, and 142."

Ricardo sighed. "And it's impossible to get their names?"

Diego sighed back. "I've tried everything. I keep being told I'm not authorized to get that information."

"And how would you get such authorization?"

Diego gave a humorous laugh. "I'm not authorized to know that either. I've even tried it one more level. I'm not authorized to know why I'm not authorized to know why I'm not authorized to know. You get the idea? It's a dead end."

Ricardo sighed. "All right. What else have you found?"

"Almost nothing. There does seem to be six equal Sections and a Section-Zero that's above everything. But since I'm not a potential candidate for any available job, the system is telling me zilch."

"So somehow it knows it's you who's typing and not someone else."

"Yeah, evidently. Interesting how the three filled janitor positions have such high Citizen ID Tags."

"Those four women who came late to our party..."

"Yes, Toshi, Ann, Kiyoko, and… uh, what was the last name?"

"Akiko."

"Right, Akiko. And Kiyoko was with Brandi when they attacked us. A coincidence boss?"

Ricardo just flashed Diego a quick grin as a reply, and then turned thoughtful. "What do you think Diego, seventy kilometers of mall?" In the past week, their away teams had traveled as far as thirty kilometers into the spiral, and had made estimates based on the changing curvature as to its ultimate length.

"Yeah, at least, somewhere between seventy to eighty I think."

"So with six parties, six Sections, we each own about seventy kilometers of mall?"

Diego shrugged. "I guess. And it seems one or more parties has found a source of locks make of other-stuff and buttoned things up tight. They've even locked almost all the mall that belongs to us."

Diego gestured to the census counter at the nearby elevator. "At least one man from Chico's expedition is still alive, more if other males have died. I bet Brandi knows who." He sighed and added, "I bet she knows who killed Alfredo too, a hell of a marksman."

Ricardo frowned as he remembered his surprise when he examined Alfredo's body. It was the evening after Uno's death. Accepting Hernando's and Jenaro's story at face value, and the blood stains in the walkway backed them up, the precision of the shooting was phenomenal.

There were three quick shots within a two centimeter radius directly on target with Alfredo's heart. And this from a distance of fifty meters with a Bersa pistol? One shot sure, two maybe with the wildest of luck, but three pushed the issue to a conclusion Ricardo hated. They were up against a world-class sharpshooter. And that implied it wasn't Brandi or Kiyoko who had done the firing.

And that implied all sorts of things, and none of them pleasant. Did Brandi's and Kiyoko's arrival in the lounge have anything to do with the earlier disappearance of Frida? Were Brandi and Kiyoko a rescue mission? Ricardo saw it as a very dark possibility. It implied that the different groups might have long-distance communications with each other in order to synchronize such a rescue attempt, and that was just one more huge disadvantage they were up against.