Sky High After Dark: Siren's song

"D-d-dad?!" Jill's voice stammered as the voice of the past, the voice that would always be in her memories, as his holographic image looked right at her through Vera and Noah.

"Hiya, sweet'ms." How Jill's face burned bright red at that moment as her pet name left her father's lips. "I knew, given how you are, and I hoped my future self had the means to bring you out; that you would find your way here. Always sneaking about the base." Now her whole body heated as that warm smile she's known all her life shined down on her. "Those crisscrossing rooftops and creeping through shadowy alleyways must have had something to do with it. "

"Dad?!" Jill groaned in embarrassment.

"Never thought I'd ever hear my son say the word sweet'ms," Noah muttered, getting a chuckle out of Vera.

"Since you're here, and I know you, honey. I know my child just as much as I know how your brother is going to react. I know how you must be doing right at this moment. It's one of the reasons I sealed this uniform away. So that you two might be standing here together, given the sensors have detected your two biosignatures. It was my hope, honey, that devious little brain of yours would see the signs, and like you've always done since you were little, you followed that curiosity." Jill's heart swelled as she saw his love for her in his eyes as his recording continued. "Since you're here, and let's face it, sweetheart, I'm not the best empathic person to help you right now. So I hoped the two of you would be standing here; I know the only one that could possibly help you to deal with this struggle. Someone that's a better teacher than I ever was, my mother, the hero." Vera's eyes watered at the words and praise her son had given her. "Jillian," Her body tensed up, and her focus was squarely on him at the sound of her given name. "I know you're morning for us. I know that, but know not a day that we were alive were you ever alone. I hope in this new age, this new life, you can find a way to fit in. Since your mother and I can't be here with you, I hope you seek support from my own. They can guide you in my stead. Goodbye, sweetheart, and do try to take it easy on the future me. We will always love you." As her father's words faded from the air, her wail replaced it as she fell to her knees, her face in her hands as she wept loudly as the tears of her loss hit hard all over again.

******

Hours later...

Neil was hovering out the doorway of what served as the kid's playroom after going over the files Aron had given him to browse. Stopping the hoverchair when he caught sight of his sister's backside. It wasn't the first time he had caught glimpses of her coming and going. He's just never wondered why she continuously came down and went from that one section of the base. That was until now, the hum of the drive massaged his butt as weird as that was as the chair glided forward. Neil looked around yet saw nothing. He was sure he had seen Aminah walking down that hall just a minute ago.

"Sorry, Neil, I can't have you interfering just yet," Aminah whispered as she rested against the closed lab door, hearing her brother moving off. Her blue eyes fell on the lab table she had been working over for the past few weeks. It had taken a week to make the queen 'bug' and another week and a half to create all the nanites she needed for every single cell in her body. "Veil, once the implantation is finished, begin the program," she ordered as she walked up to the assembly unit, reaching out and twisting the canister loose from its housing. "If something should happen, please inform Neil; hopefully, he isn't too far away," Aminah said, carefully placing the canister into the holder for the delivery module.

"Of course, Aminah, alarms set to stand by." Veil's camera zoomed in as Aminah inserted her right forearm into the delivery device. Noting the pain on Aminah's face as the four needles pierced her skin. Aminah's fingers moved quickly over the control panel for the device. Veil's camera moved left and right as the hiss of the plunger played on the air as it began the third and final stage of the implantation. Seeing Aminah biting her lip as she raised the top portion of the rig, noting how she held something against her arm. "You sure you wish to continue with this?" Veil asked one last time.

"Yes, no sense in coming this far only to stop now," Aminah stated as she attached the pieces that would wirelessly upload the program she and Veil worked on.

"Very well, starting upload... now."

Neil was backtracking, trying to find out where his sister went, when he heard something crashing. Yet where that was, he hadn't a clue since he saw no doors... tilting his head when a wall just slid to the side and the hiss of the door it was hiding rolled open. Nearly leaping out of the hover chair at the sight of only a hand peeking out from behind the large island. Hurrying as fast as his one crutch would allow him to stop in his tracks as he watched something very odd happening to his sister's skin as Aminah lay unmoving on the floor.

"Please, do not touch her." Neil's head snapped towards Veil's voice.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Neil demanded.

"When Aminah fainted, I thought it was wise to have someone with hands be on hand should the need arise, and you were the closest one."

"Okay, but explain what is happening to Aminah?!" Neil stated in that same demanding tone.

"Hush, brother," Aminah said softly as she came to; reaching up, her fingers took hold of the lip of the counter and pulled herself up. Her reddish-brown hair dangled before her face, shielding all from seeing the results of her experiment. "Veil, how are my vitals?"

"No change. All within normal parameters."

"Answer me, goddamn it?!" Neil growled in anger and worry as he took hold of his sister's forearm.

"You really should be sitting down, Neil," Aminah said from behind that curtain of hair as her hand overlayed his. "You shouldn't be overstressing your bone," she said with a flick of two fingers, telekinetically lifting her brother off his feet and gently setting him back into the chair. "I'm fine, Neil," Aminah said, mentally taking stock of her own self.

"The hell you are?!" Neil roared as he zoomed into the room. "What the hell have you done to yourself?" Annoyance flooded his mind when the hoverchair couldn't go further into the lab. Glaring at his sister as she reached across the lab table for something. Something felt off when he watched that one act. Not in how his sister moved, no, how her skin looked. Youthful.

"It worked?!" Aminah muttered, her fingers traced along her face from fifteen years ago. Her jealousy led her to add another five years to the reaging process. All so she could have more time with Aron and their children. "Veil, keep a close eye on the nanites," she ordered as she hooked her left arm up to the data transfer port, she had implanted in her left wrist.

"Of course, Aminah. I have established a connection to the Queen 'bug'."

"Good; how does the interlink connection look?" Aminah muttered as she ran her tests on other aspects of the nanite's response.

"Holding at 98%."

Aminah leaned back and pressed her finger to her chin, deep in thought, causing her hair to finally unwrap her new youthful face to her brother. "That's higher than we predicted, wasn't it, Veil?" Neil's gasp almost drowned out Aminah's question.

"You are correct, Aminah. Shall I begin the first tests?"

"Aminah, just what have you done?!" Neil asked; his eyes just couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"It's obvious what I've done, Neil, no sense in wasting words on what your own eyes are telling you," Aminah said in a huff.

"But why?!"

"A present for father," Veil imparted.

"Present... oh, now I get it, you're jealous of our aunt," Neil deduced. Trying to keep himself in his chair when Aminah's face nearly caught on fire of how red it was. "I do hope, dear sister, you were planning on sharing this with your siblings. I would hate for Chery to learn you were holding out on us," he said with an evil grin on his lips. Knowing Chery would hunt Aminah down if she had a way to reverse the aging process.

"That's just mean," Aminah huffed. "I was going to tell them, had to test it out on somebody first to see how the alteration would affect the human body," she said, gesturing to herself.

"Oh, Chery?!" Neil hummed into their communicator.

"What? Did you stumble?"

"No, although I think you'll like the hover chair, it massages your butt, but that's not why I'm calling. I just thought I should let my dear sweet sister in on a little secret." Silently alerting his other sister's into their conversation.

"Oh? Then when you get upstairs, you'll let me try it out, yes?"

"Sure, sure, but I think you'll have more pressing matters," Neil mused.

"I see, and what could be more important than your own... happy-times chair?" Neil wondered if his sisters were off laughing at what they were hearing when Chery was trying not to say masturbation chair over the line.

"Well, if you're more worried about that than looking young again, okay, I'll happily give up the seat for it," Neil mused offhandedly. He could have sworn he heard a thunderous: What! In response to his remark. It didn't take long for the sound of the elevator doors to resound along the sub-level.

"Neil! Where are you?!" Neil's lips just lifted at the sound of his wife's voice.

"If Aminah is in a lab... this way." Jill's voice floated in the air as the sounds of footsteps followed after.

"Now, what's this about looking young again?" Chery asked angrily with an intrigued huff as she marched up to him. Turning her gaze as she followed her husband's wave. It took her mind a minute to catch up to what her eyes were seeing as she gazed into the lab. "Oh, hell no, there is no way in hell you're going to be young alone?!" she exclaimed as she stomped into the lab.

"Aminah?! You sneaky... you did this so you can have more Aron time?! I knew it?!" Tazia stated, her loud voice carried easily across level one.

"Well? Which one is it?" she asked, looking around the table, not knowing what she was looking at.

"What are you talking about?" Aminah asked, taunting her sister with her now more firm breasts. "I wonder, Tazia, how Aron will enjoy this new look of mine."

"Don't get smart with me, Aminah?!" Tazia growled as her hands slammed onto the table.

"I don't need to 'get' smart as you put it; I already am, dearest sister," Aminah gloated, knowing she was testing Tazia's limits.

"You know full well what I was speaking about?!" Tazia hissed, leaning across the table. Her metallic skin raced along her body, knowing it might just come to blows.

"Ah, that, well, you're just going to have to wait on that," Aminah said, knowing this would irk Tazia even more.

"How long, Aminah?"

"Just imagine all the extra years we'll have with Aron?" Aminah mused just to stall to enjoy this for a bit more.

"Aminah, I suggest you stop toying with Tazia and tell us." Vera spoke; she too would like to look that young again; who wouldn't?"

"So I invented a working reaging process, and you just can't let me enjoy it?!"

"Nope, if you get to look like you do, so do we," Chery said, stepping up to Tazia's left side.

"If you think I'm just going to sit back and let you have all these extra years with Aron, you got another thing coming, sis. I'm so going to be the first one to get pregnant again," Tazia taunted, opening the start of the sibling/co-wives battle of Midway.

"Then hell you are!" Aminah roared, surging to her feet. "Trust me, Tazia, once he sees all of this, no way I'm letting him go for a day. So tell me, sis, how are you going to stop me. You can't risk getting pregnant right now and do this. Why Neil will have to wait two weeks after he's healed to undertake it if you want."

"I might not be able to get pregnant right at this moment, but that doesn't mean you're going to get laid either," Tazia said, digging in her fortifications to repeal her sister's amphibious assault. "If he's always in me, however, will you get that baby? Hmm?"

"Before you two go at it, how long will this take?" Chery asked, getting them back to the matter at hand.

"What you're asking for is a single purpose, complicated task down to the very strands of DNA that are programmed to your own genetic code," Aminah uttered, putting on her show. "A week for that to be processed and your DNA to be decoded and imprinted on the Queen 'bug' that controls every single nanite for every single cell in your body," nodding as she tapped her forehead at their looks of disbelief, "another to manufacture the nanites I will need to administer it to you. What you're wanting to be done is done at the scale of the small that quantum physics starts to play a role in how the nanites function. Anyone with a basic working physics theory will understand what that realm operates on."

"Wait, isn't that some math theory?" Jill asked, pondering where she had heard that term before. "Dad said something once.... Would something like spooky theory be a part of it?"

"Why, yes, Jill, that is one theory in it," Aminah nodded with a smile. "Did you're Dad teach it to you?"

"No, he did teach me what math I needed to know. Since I never showed much interest in going beyond that, Dad and I focused on other things. Every night when I went out as his sidekick, he would say: 'one doesn't need to have a huge brain to be a great hero. However, it is wise to recognize your weakness and strengthen it before your enemies learn of it and make use of it.'" Jill said with fond memories.

"Does that even sound like the Aron we know?" Troy chuckled.

"Got something to say, dreamboat?" Jill asked, getting a little defensive.

"Sorry, just never thought I'd hear Aron sounding like Dad, is all; meant nothing by it," Troy spoke, trying to calm her down.

"Yeah, who knew, huh?" Noah whispered, squeezing his wife into him as they shared their own secret.

"You're going to need you're beauty sleep, Tazia; why don't you head upstairs and relax, check on the kids," Aminah uttered, returning to flaunting her youth in her sister's face. Turning their heads when someone cleared their throats.

"I do believe you're forgetting something, Aunt Tazia, Aminah," Lyla said, crossing her arms and slightly lifting them up as she did along with her breasts. "You two seem to forget about us."

"Oh, yeah, if you two think you're getting the first crack at Dad when he gets back, don't even think about it," Jill uttered her declaration as she rested her right arm on Lyla's left shoulder, showing off her alluring figure.

"Not if I beat you all to it." All four turned as Veil's voice spoke overhead.

"Veil, you wouldn't be opposed to an alliance of sorts, would you?" Aminah mused, her finger tapping her lips deep in thought.

"No, I would not, as long as I have equal time with my father."

"What's your plan?" Lyla asked with a seductive smile on her lips.

Chapter eight

Outside of Berlin, Germany...

"Void, may I ask, what are those two?" Sara asked as they stood out on the military tarmac as Aron strapped on his extra gear and to store his extra ammo.

"Augments for the suit. For dealing with places this large on my own," Aron answered, leaving out the fact that they were untested prototypes. "This one is a laser bazooka good for dealing with those sentry towers. This one," lightly patting the high-powered laser rifle, "is my laser rifle." Seeing the look in her eyes that she wanted to try them out the next time they go out on a mission. His eyes ran down the scans once Veil had integrated the weapons into the coat's subprogram. Ensuring that his suit was ready and locked down, they shared a nod with one another, knowing time was eating away at them.

Nodding along when the flight crew who had modified a fuel pod into a mini breakaway glider so Aron didn't have to bust his way out. Running through the controls two more times until he was sure he was familiar with the flight controls before they hoisted the pod onto the wing. Aron made a quick check on the four small oxygen tanks that would give him enough air to breath until he reached below twenty-seven thousand feet. Hearing the releasing bolts locking into place onto the U3's wing. Looking down as the two-inch screen turned on, and Sara's face filled it.

"Void, the pilot will be given the all-clear in a few moments. Remember the survival training you were put through. Be safe. And the most important thing you should remember is to come back in one piece. The world would miss you, as would a great many people who know you."

"Oh, I know someone back home that will need a spanking," Aron said, grinning like mad behind his mask as Sara struggled to keep his words from affecting her.

"Well..." Clearing her throat, "that's something interesting to hear. I just hope it doesn't interfere with our working together."

"It won't. I just have a long time to ponder on this little blue outfit she wore last night. It was... stimulating to say the least," Aron said as the jet's engine began to power on. Seeing how that affected a few of the ladies that were within range and the grins on the men's faces. Also, how Sara was trying not to turn into a bright red beet at the same time, given he was referring to what she had worn to bed last night. "It amazes me how a light, thin piece of fabric could be so damn enticing; you guys know what I mean, right?"

"I do hope this person knows this," Sara said in a monotone voice to avoid giving anything away.

"She knows," Aron mused. "Switching to radio silence," he directed as the plane began accelerating down the runway.

"Roger. Good luck. We'll meet you at the rendezvous at 0900 Zulu. Until then, Void good hunting."

"Father?"

"Yes, Veil," Aron answered, his breath fogging up his oxygen mask.

"Shall we finish the discussion on Dr. Sikke Hahn?"

"Okay, how?" Aron asked, knowing the hard copies weren't on Veil's mainframe.

"I scanned the files and film onto my mainframe .020098 seconds ago."

"Oh? Play the film first since we have time," Aron directed, his eyes moving over his HUD as Veil piped in the footage his past self had taken when the past-Aron raided the man's lab. "Veil?"

"Yes, Void."

"How well is your processor in reading lips?" Aron inquired, wanting to know what that person was saying as she struggled on the table, she was strapped to.

"I can extrapolate and offer you some results that might infer what the subject is speaking. However, I can't say if the answers will be the same as what she is speaking.

"I can live with that."

"One moment..." Aron rewound the tape to the point of his counterpart entering the lab. Noting the collection of organs or what he took as organs floating in jars. His mind began to wonder if the good doctor and the Collector were the same person, or was it just a coincidence that they both appeared to enjoy collecting things. It wasn't until the tenth line of the extrapolation that his hunch paid off as the line read: 'Help me?! The Collector is coming!'

"Did that answer your inquiry, father?"

"Yes, it did, thank you, Veil. Veil, run everything we know on the Collector and this doctor, see if their behavior matches up," Aron ordered, glancing at the altimeter and the GPS coordinates telling him he had another hour until the drop point.

"Of course, father, this will take a while, given the amount of data you collected on the two of them."             

"I understand; run it anyway; gives me something to do when I get home."

"Father, might I speak with you."