Unearthly Secrets Ch. 06

Jack awoke with a splitting headache. He was laying on his back on an uncomfortably firm surface. He grasped around in panic to get a sense of his surroundings. He was on a metallic bed of some sort, like one you might find in a prison cell. The room was small and stuffy. Four blank, white walls closed in around him. There was the seam of a door, also seemingly made of metal, a few feet from where he lay. Was this a jail of some kind? Had he been arrested? What for?

He heard a noise to his left. Looking over he saw his Aunt Kim laying on a similar looking cot. What was she doing here? Why were they together? Where in the world even were they right now?

"Aunt Kim?" he called out, still staggering back to consciousness.

"Jack...?" she groaned, equally confused it seemed.

"What the... where are we? What the hell happened?" she asked him.

Jack didn't have any answers.

"I was visiting Emily, and, er, we went to a concert. And the last thing I remember was getting in my car to go home."

Kim rubbed her forehead and grimaced, as if in pain.

"I was at my mom's house... and then I... I- I don't remember," she said.

No more words out loud, he hummed at her. Somebody could be listening to us.

Kim seemed to understand and replied in kind.

I think I know who might have-

But she wasn't able to finish her thought.

The door clicked and swung open, revealing a short, blonde woman. Jack's first thought was about how wide her hips were, but he forced himself to keep vigilant. They were in danger, and he needed to stay sharp.

She took one look at both of them, then closed the door behind her, letting the deadbolt click again.

"Before we begin," she started to speak, "you should know that any attempt to harm me will trigger those bracelets on your wrists."

Jack looked down at his hand, realizing for the first time that there was indeed a hunk of metal slapped around his wrist.

"That is a micro-concussive device. It'll knock you out cold in less than 15 milliseconds," the stranger continued. "So no funny business, clear?"

She held up a small fob with several buttons on it. Jack assumed this was the 'shock collar' remote.

He turned to his aunt, who met his gaze. She seemed afraid.

I know this woman, Kim hummed. She's dangerous. Do whatever she says.

Jack gulped. It took a lot to frighten his stubborn aunt. Whoever this woman was, she terrified the only person he'd never seen cower before.

He turned back to the stranger and nodded.

"Er, clear," he coughed, still finding his voice.

The woman cleared her throat and clasped her hands behind her back. She had an intense gaze.

"You're probably wondering where you are, why you're here, and who I am. Is that about right?" she asked.

Jack nodded.

The woman began to pace slowly back and forth.

"Very well. You shall have answers in due time. But before I can give them to you, I need some questions of my own addressed. A few weeks ago I became aware of a potential bioagent threat to our national security. Following the thread of the case, I became familiar with your family's... how should I put it... genetic abnormalities. I clandestinely retrieved samples from every member of your family and confirmed the same genetic alterations were present in each of you. Alterations that, my lab tells me, are impossible to have occured naturally."

Jack felt his Aunt's words buzzing in his head.

I knew it, she's been trailing me for a while now. Don't tell her anything. She'll kill us all, Jack. Or worse, ship us to some unnamed lab where they'll dissect us alive.

He could feel the sweat dripping down his face now.

"Is there... is there something wrong with us?" he asked, giving his best impression of a naive simpleton.

The woman just smirked.

"I don't know... you tell me, Jack," she replied. He assumed she must have known his name, but hearing her say it out loud sent chills down his spine nonetheless.

"As I continued my investigation, I discovered something else rather... chilling," she continued. She looked straight into his eyes now.

"How long has your family been practicing incest?" she asked.

The words struck him like a lightning bolt. He was frozen solid, unable to react. Unable to move his lips to form a response.

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Kim spat back at her. Jack looked over to see his aunt red with anger.

"Don't play coy with me, Ms. Banks. I know more than you think. I have video evidence of your nephew and your niece engaging in... several explicit acts together just the other night. And another police report making similar claims about him and your sister, in her car at night in a local park."

Kim looked enraged, but she could only keep this facade going for so long. The mysterious woman kept speaking.

"So, this is what doesn't add up for me," she said. "A family of otherwise boring, mundane individuals who live a quiet life in a small town possess DNA that suggests some kind of advanced bio-hacking that even the federal government isn't capable of. And to top it all off, they're engaged in incestuous relationships with each other. The only conclusions I'm left to draw is that you are deeply embedded agents of another foreign power, or you are something other than human. In either case, you are not who you purport to be, and you are a threat to national security until otherwise proven innocent."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kim hissed. "We're just normal people, and you're an insane psychopath!"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Banks, but I am neither insane nor psychopathic; I have sat through several, extensive mental illness batteries before earning my badge. I know the strength of the evidence I have gathered. You won't distract me from finding the truth," the woman replied calmly.

Jack saw an opportunity to perhaps change the direction of the conversation.

"We don't even know your name, or where we are right now. Does our family know we're safe? Have you taken them, too?" he asked.

"You can call me agent Johnson. You are in a black site facility located downtown. Your families are safe. They will be detained just like you are if you don't cooperate. Now tell me: who are you?"

Not a word, Jack! Kim hummed to him. Give her nothing!

Agent Johnson's piercing eyes stared down at him as if they pinned him to the spot.

He gulped.

"We're just... just normal people-"

"Wrong answer," she interjected harshly. "If you continue to lie to me, this will end poorly. I ask again: who are you!"

Jack didn't know what to do. He couldn't betray his family. But how could he save them either? There was perhaps only one way out of this situation, if at all. It was crazy. He couldn't do it. But maybe he had no other choice.

He stood up suddenly and found he still had some strength left in him. He rushed Johnson and wrapped his arms around her, tackling her to the ground. She was stronger than he expected, and she resisted his hold with equal force. However he was still able to knock the remote loose from her grasp, and it rattled on the floor as it flew.

Wrapped around each other now in a struggle for survival, Jack found her neck in the bend of his arm and he pulled tight, choking the air from her lungs. Her face was growing red, but she wasn't subdued yet. In a flash, she was able to dig an elbow into his ribs, causing him to wheeze. That split second of a distraction was all she needed to slip free of his head lock and roll on top of him.

In this position she was much more at ease in a fight. She twisted her legs underneath and around him, locking him tight to her. Jack watched her pull out a small, black device and stick it to his neck. He felt a tingling sensation like hitting his funny bone, and then his muscles contracted all at once. The world went blank again for a second time that week.

************

Jack heard something before his eyes ever opened. He grasped around reflexively as he came to, his brain still telling his body that he was locked in combat with the short (yet surprisingly strong) blonde haired woman.

Moans. They were moans he was hearing. He managed an eyelid open, then the other. On the floor a few feet away from him, Jack beheld a scene that nearly sent him back into a comatose state.

His Aunt Kim was propped up on her elbow, draped over the agent who was laid flat out on her back. Johnson's chest was heaving up and down and she was filling the room with her soft moans. His aunt's hand was buried between the woman's legs, her pants tugged down just below her knees. Kim's shirt was unbuttoned and a lone breast hung down in the face of their captor, who was now eagerly suckling at it.

Jack groaned, trying to drag himself up and off of the floor.

"Fuck, right there, oh my god!" Johnson whispered frantically.

A gush of water went flying into the air as she spoke, and Jack looked over now to see the agent's bald pussy mound with his aunt's fingers deeply lodged inside her. She was squirting. Her fluids were going everywhere, creating a puddle on the cold, concrete floor.

"That's the second time you've made me... ughhh, aghhh!" she cried out, still working through her orgasm apparently.

What the hell is happening? he hummed to his aunt.

She turned to face him, finally catching a break while the woman below her recovered.

Your pheromones, genius. Didn't your grandmother tell you? she replied.

No?

He could see Kim almost scoff.

You're lucky this woman didn't kill you. It was only a matter of time until our pheromones kicked in, but your little tussle must have expedited the process. It's a defense mechanism. We can disarm a threat by manipulating their perception of us. By making them uncontrollably attracted to us. We can override their prefrontal cortex and make them only think about sex.

What?, he hummed back, perplexed. You mean, I've been able to seduce people this whole time?

No, of course not Jack, and she did scoff this time. It only triggers in moments of danger, like this. Now get over here and help me put her down.

Jack felt a lump in his throat.

We're gonna... kill her? he asked sheepishly.

What?! No! Don't be daft! I need to figure out how to activate this bracelet thingy and knock her out.

Jack crawled over to them, peering down at the incapacitated Johnson. She looked so blissed out that perhaps the bracelet wasn't even necessary.

He swiftly found the remote nearby on the floor and removed both metal bands from their wrists. He handed one to his aunt and helped her affix it to the agent. The remote had a small blue button on it, so Jack figured it was probably the way to activate it. He pressed it, and agent Johnson was lights out.

"Good work," his aunt said, her breast still hanging out of her shirt. Realizing this, she became embarrassed and quickly rebuttoned everything again. But not before Jack noticed how similar it appeared to his own mother's breasts. Perhaps not directly in size - his mother's tits were enormous, after all - but certainly in shape, fullness, and color.

"Sorry," he murmured, remembering her threatening conversation with him only a few nights before.

"It's fine. We're doing what we need to survive," she replied. "And that means we now need to find our way out of here."

They found her key card in her pocket and used it to let themselves out of their prison cell. The black site seemed to be an old warehouse somewhere in the industrial part of town. It wasn't high tech at all. Their prison cell had in fact just been a metal cube located right in the middle of the building. Only a small folding table stood a few feet away, piled with laptops and radio equipment. On the screen there was an image of their room, now empty. It must have been recording the whole time.

Jack picked up a brick from the floor and began smashing the computers.

"What are you- oh, good idea," Kim said, drawn to the noise of brick on plastic. "Help me lift her."

He did as he was told, and the two of them carried the limp woman out of the warehouse and into the bright, sunny morning outside. They were in a dilapidated parking lot with grass and other vegetation growing up and out of the cracks in the pavement. Two cars sat parked there: Jack's, and a black sedan he had never seen before. He figured it belonged to Agent Johnson.

"The keys were in her pocket," Kim said, throwing him his own. "You drive back to Nana's house and you call your mother and tell her to meet us there. I'll be right behind you in this car."

Kim was now shoving the unconscious Johnson into the back seat of the sedan.

"But what if she wakes up?" he asked.

His aunt chuckled.

"I'll just finger her again. Don't worry."

Jack nodded. He ran to his car and unlocked the doors. Adjusting his mirrors and checking the interior for any more strange devices, he turned the ignition and felt the vehicle hum to life under him. Freedom.

He drove by his aunt who simply gave him a nod in return, and he was off. It didn't take long to locate himself in the city and find his way back to the highway. He called his mother and explained what had happened, and within an hour he was pulling into his grandmother's driveway.

As he stepped out of the car, Amy appeared at the front door and came running out to him. She embraced him, squeezing tighter than he had ever known possible.

"Oh my god, my baby!" she cried, digging her fingers into his back.

"Mom, I'm okay. We're okay, you can let go."

Now Cynthia was here, too. Kim was pulling in with the black sedan and parked just behind Jack's car. She helped a stumbling Johnson out of the car who looked dazzled and inebriated.

"Is this the woman? The agent?" His mother asked him.

"Mhm," he nodded. "Aunt Kim said we drugged her, somehow."

Amy took a good look at the woman who was hanging on to her sister's shoulder, barely able to hold herself up.

"That's right, sweetheart. It's a defense mechanism. Our ancestors were more clever than we realize."

"Will she be okay?" he asked.

Amy chewed her lip.

"If you mean will she ever stop acting like a drunken fool, then yes, she will. Those effects should wear off eventually. But I'm sure your grandmother will take her to the ship to have her memory erased."

Erased? They could do that to people? Why had his Nana never mentioned that before?

"Since when could we do that?" he exclaimed.

"We can't," his mother clarified, "But the ship can. And no, it doesn't work on us. Only humans."

She knew exactly what he was about to ask before he asked it. She was his mother after all, and she was literally psychic. The thought made him smirk. Was there a difference between the two?

"So once we wipe her mind, she'll never remember any of this?"

Amy nodded.

"Yep, more or less. This has only happened a few times before. The ship will give us more instructions."

So it was that after a few moments of rest and recuperation, the family guided their newest guest down the secret stairwell into a place no human had stepped foot inside for over a hundred years. Johnson's face lit up like a kid in the movie theater for the first time, amazed by the lights and sounds.

Cynthia called up the holographic interface of the ship's computer and explained the situation.

"Memory extraction and replacement is indeed recommended in this scenario," the robotic voice confirmed.

"Replacement?" Jack whispered to his mom, leaning over. "What will they replace it with?"

"The ship will likely graft something generic over her pre-existing memories. Something boring, something that blends in to the background noise of the world. Some insignificant explanation to whatever goose chase she was on with our family," she answered.

Cynthia was now placing a small visor over Johnson's head. It looked like nothing more than a hair band one might use to keep their hair out of their face.

The ship began to make whirring noises and lights dimmed. Johnson seemed unperturbed throughout the whole experience. When it was over, the ship returned to normal.

"Computer, what is the status of the procedure?" his grandmother asked assertively.

"Successful, ma'am," it replied. Apparently the ship had manners.

"Sarah Johnson, special agent, FISPA, will no longer recall any events or details regarding the Banks and/or Hudson families during the previous 437 hours. Instead, I have inserted a series of memories that provide an innocuous explanation for the past week or so of her life. I have been able to infiltrate the FISPA database with the credentials stored in her memories and have deleted all documents regarding the Banks and Hudson families as well. Is there anything else I can do for you, ma'am?"

"No, that's excellent work. Thank you," Cynthia replied.

"Of course," the ship answered, before turning off. The holographic display sank back into the floor.

"She's out cold for another hour. Let's get her back in her car and dump her somewhere that's not my property!" His Nana exclaimed.

They got to work quickly, Jack and Kim carrying Sarah back up the several flights of stairs and out to her vehicle. They drove together while Amy and her mother followed behind in Amy's SUV. When they had traveled some distance outside of town, they pulled over on the side of a forested, backcountry road. Jack helped his aunt squeeze the woman into the driver's seat as if she had fallen asleep at the wheel. They left the keys in the ignition and shut the door behind them. The agent looked almost dead there, slumped over and mouth hanging ajar.

"Come on, let's go!" his mother shouted from her rolled-down window.

Jack turned back around and climbed into his mom's car. They sped off in the direction they had come from, fleeing the scene before another car could pass by and investigate.

In half an hour, Sarah Johnson would awake in her vehicle believing she had been on a road trip vacation in the mountains for the past week. She'd return to the agency eventually, not remembering anything about a woman named Kimberly Banks, or her nephew Jack Hudson, of course. The genetic anomaly wouldn't ring any bells for her, and any trace of the investigation would have already been wiped from her servers. Life would go on as normal, as if Sarah Johnson had never known any of this to begin with.

*******

Later that night, Jack sat on his Nana's couch with his mother. Aunt Kim and Cynthia were cooking dinner in the kitchen.

"Did Dad know I was missing?" he asked.

"No. I told him you were still down in the city with Emily. Your grandmother called me and told me about what Kim had told her a few days ago, about how this woman was stalking her. I figured there was something going on that your father shouldn't know about, so I lied to him."

"And what about Emily?" he continued.

"She doesn't know either. It's probably best that way. Neither her nor your cousin were told. Katie has been on a camping trip with her girlfriends. That's maybe why this Johnson woman decided to strike. You were both alone and vulnerable," Amy replied.

"Maybe. That makes sense," he said.

"Dinner's ready!" Nana called from the other room.

They ate a solemn meal together, nobody speaking much. They gave thanks to their safety and held hands before digging in. After they finished and cleared the table, Amy approached her son.

"We're gonna stay the night here, sweetheart," she said.

Jack wanted nothing more than to sleep in his own bed after this whole ordeal.

"Why? I just want to go home," he retorted.

"I know," Amy answered, "But it's not totally safe yet. Nana's house has a security system around the perimeter. We'll know after tonight if the procedure was effective. Otherwise, we could theoretically be sitting ducks in our home tonight, Jack. It's for our own safety."