[Tuesday 9 AM – NYC]
Marjorie paid the driver and stepped out of the airport taxi onto the curb. The driver jogged around to the car's trunk to retrieve her bags. She glanced to her left at the mansion that had been her home for over 150 years. Her butler was standing on the transom as always upon her return, waiting for the cab to drive away before approaching.
She never allowed a cab to drop her off at her doorstep; it was part of her procedures to maintain privacy. This time, she had instructed the driver to stop six addresses away from her house. The house she stood in front of had been a particularly popular brothel just after Prohibition, but now served as a multi-family condominium complex.
The cab driver stood holding her luggage. He was openly ogling Marjorie.
“Would you like me to bring these in for you, ma’am?” he asked in an inviting, husky voice. The driver’s eyes were hungry for more.
Always being seen only as the perfect woman can be a real pain in the ass. Sometimes it would be nice to be able to just turn it off, Marjorie thought to herself with a sigh.
“No, thank you,” she said pleasantly. “Just put them on the sidewalk there, I can take it from here,”
He left with a disappointed expression on his face, but to Marjorie's relief, he didn't say anything else. It didn’t always go so smoothly.
It was because women could see her true self, along with the rise of electronic surveillance that necessitated the facade that was Marjorie. When asked about her looks, men who had met her in person would give different descriptions, while women and those who saw her on camera or in recordings would see her as she really appeared. To prevent her true appearance from becoming widely known, Marjorie adopted various looks and personas depending on the situation.
Marjorie could take on different shapes, but each one was just a variation of her true form, for better or for worse.
“From the look of it, you had a pleasant ride?” The tall man, wearing a butler’s uniform, said to her as he picked up the luggage. He was a clean-shaven man of 38 years, but he appeared to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He had thick black hair styled in the latest fashion, a build expected of one who did all of the work for someone else, and an obvious love for the woman he served.
With a little age, Tobias would look the stereotypical part of the rich man’s butler, but without the British accent. Tobias was the result of the cruel streets of New England. He was rescued from homelessness shortly afterward by the woman he now served with all of his soul.
“The flight was pleasant, not the cab ride, Tobias,” she clarified as they walked.
The moment that the door closed behind her, Marjorie released the hold on her shape. She started to shift. She quickly removed her suit jacket and blouse and handed them to Tobias, leaving herself only in her bra and skirt as she walked to her private bathroom.
She stripped off the remainder of her clothes and handed them off as the two of them entered the room. He closed the door behind him. She padded over and bent to turn on the water to fill the ornate bathtub, flaunting herself to him without a care.
When she straightened, the transformation was complete. Before Tobias stood the legendary Manohara instead of Marjorie. She stood about five foot seven inches tall, with the rich mocha skin color of those born on the Indian subcontinent of Asia, bearing a slim, feminine figure.
“How do I look?” she asked Tobias, striking a pose.
“Beautiful as always, Lady Manohara,” he replied.
“Drop the ‘Lady Manohara’, Tobias,” she ordered perfunctorily, “We’ve been together for far too long for that.”
“Is that not what you wanted to hear?” he asked, knowing full well the answer.
“You’re one of the few men on this planet who can see the real me. I’d like to hear the truth.”
“So you want me to say that you look fantastic for a ten-thousand-year-old woman?” he broached with a devious smile.
“I am not ten thousand years old!” She screeched. “I’m only a little over five thousand and you damn well know it,” she finished demurely.
“And you don’t look a day over forty,” he answered truthfully, embracing her and giving her a tender kiss.
“I won’t need your energy tonight,” she said, stepping into the tub and reclining into the bubbles.
“How about my love?” he asked.
“Is it love?” she asked him. “I marked you oh so long ago.”
“I think so. Your illusions don’t work on me, so who’s to say that my feelings over the last twenty-five years aren’t of my own making?” He commented, putting her undergarments into the laundry chute, and arranging the suit and blouse on a hangar on the door.
“You know, in my entire life, there have only been three men that I can say I’ve loved. The first I can’t really remember, although I do remember loving him back in Ancient India. The second was an American trapper I met after the battle of 1812. The third was an Irish gangster boy in the 1930’s. During the flight back, I learned he is still alive, though I doubt I’ll ever see him again. And now, I have you,” she mused.
All but that last fact, Tobias knew well. “And do you love me?” he asked her.
She thought for a moment about the feelings from a few hours before. “Who’s to say?”
“You left Sir Lancelot out of your list,” Tobias said somewhat jokingly.
Manohara opened one eye, looked at Tobias, and then closed it. “That was a very long time ago, in a far different age. It was half a lifetime ago and I was a different person. Love was a different thing back then. Back then, love was more about honor than emotion. People didn’t marry for love; they married for duty, survival, necessity, or the honor of an institution. Lancelot was … an exception in many ways. He spurned the rules when he felt they were wrong. He was very much an enigma. In any case, Lancelot loved Guinevere, his Queen. Everyone knows that.”
Tobias shrugged. “Onto a different issue. What am I to do about Miss Miranda?” He asked changing the subject and retrieving a towel from the stack on the far wall.
“She has no appearances for about two weeks, so I’ll let her be,” she said quietly, lifting her right leg out of the bubbles.
“Very good then. She is a source of chaos when she’s around. I’ll be glad for a break from her,” Tobias said.
“Doesn’t my eighteen-year-old ward brighten your day?” she asked sardonically, letting her leg fall back into the water with a splash.
“Yeah, just like a visit to the dentist for a root canal,” he groaned, wiping the splashed bubbly water from his clothes. “She’s arrogant, selfish, spoiled, and overly convinced of her own attractiveness. And those are her good points!”
“Sounds like almost every eighteen-year-old girl I’ve ever met,” Manohara chuckled. “Think of it this way... You’re the closest thing to a father she’s ever had. Treat her like a daughter.”
“If she were my daughter, I’d put her in a convent!” he exclaimed. “Where they could perform daily exorcisms!”
“Nuns don’t perform exorcisms, silly boy,” Manohara laughed. “I would know. If she becomes too much of a problem, you can always give her the medication.”
“It just doesn’t feel right to give a child drugs if it isn’t completely necessary,” he murmured.
“Then deal with the girl as she is. Show her who’s boss, you have my permission.”
Tobias turned to leave.
“You should know that you’re the only person I’ve ever told all of my secrets. You are the only person that I’ve ever trusted with my very existence. If you so desired, you have the power to erase my very being from this planet.”
“You know what I desire,” he said, opening the door, “I’ll return shortly with your clothing.”
[Wednesday 5:30 AM – Australia]
The cell phone rang, and the woman looked at the notification on screen. Seeing that the call was to the covert line of the phone she flipped it open and left the dining room where she and her husband had been drinking coffee before dressing for work. Gwen Smith was a middle-aged woman dressed in their pajamas.
“This had better be important to be called at this hour,” she said threateningly into the phone.
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” said the voice at the other end. “A female subject has escaped from the facility.”
She quickly walked further away from the dining room and closed the doors behind her along the way. “Define ‘escaped.’”
“She’s not anywhere in the buildings, nor can she be found on the grounds.”
“That’s impossible,” she said. “That site is the best we have on land.”
“The subject seems to have used your office window to exit the building. We’ve tried using hounds to track her, but they’ve not picked up any scent. If she did get out we don’t know which way she went since none of the cameras show movement.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Those cameras are infrared enabled,” she said. “Anything alive would have been picked up.”
“That’s what the security guys said as well. But there’s more, ma’am.”
“What?” she snapped.
“One of the drawers from your file cabinet is empty. We think she may have taken the contents.”
“This makes no sense,” Gwen said. “Are you sure that she’s not still in the facility somewhere? That window is ten plus meters from the ground. In addition to that, you are implying that subject is also trying to carry God knows how many file folders of material. If the hounds and cameras are negative, that means that the subject is somewhere in the facility.”
“As far as we can tell, she’s not here.”
“Search the lower levels, there are lots of places down there someone could hide. Not to mention the incinerators are there. She might be wanting to burn the files.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m on my way. Tell the head of security to be ready to answer some questions.” She snapped the phone shut.
“Anything wrong?” Samuel Smith asked as she re-entered the dining room.
“Just a changed location for an appointment,” she lied. “I’ll be going in separately today, hun.”
“Sure thing,” he grunted as he went back to reading the paper. “Did you know that Queensland is being threatened with a possible typhoon?”
“They need the rain,” she said finishing off her now tepid coffee. “Hopefully, it will cause the weather to break as well. The heat up there has been deadly from what I’ve read.”
---
General Gwen Smith walked down the hallway of the top secret facility. Her ass hurt from the ride on the helicopter’s so-called “seats” and she was hot and sticky from the hours of riding in a military helicopter from Sydney to the secret base located somewhere in the interior of the continent.
The scowl on her face and the harshness of the staccato of her heels on the hard tiled floors warned everyone to steer clear. She made a conscious effort to note the location of all of the cameras and doors along the way.
“Ma’am!” The soldiers in the reception office reported as they snapped to attention.
She silently walked past them and into her office. She ignored the investigators who were standing at attention, focusing on surveying the office herself. Nothing looked out of place except that the file cabinet’s drawer was open and empty. When she saw which drawer it was, the color momentarily left her face, but she recovered before anyone could notice.
“Anything to report?” she asked.
“Nothing more than earlier,” a soldier reported.
“That’ll be all, gentlemen,” Gwen said dismissing them.
She sat in her chair and lifted the single piece of paper that told her which subject had escaped. Unfortunately, that was all she knew. There was a photocopy of a photocopy of the subject from the tiny photograph that was used to make her identification card several years ago, and some basic information collected from the researchers who worked with the subject. She stared at the low quality image, noting that there was absolutely no way it could be used for electronic surveillance tracking. It was too low resolution, grainy to the extreme, and so dark as to be all but useless. At least the gender could be determined if one stared hard enough.
Gwen relaxed a little after reading the written details. There was nothing special notated about the subject. She was not particularly gifted, her only physically visible deviation was a tail, and her intelligence was considered low to average by the researchers. She was scheduled to be given one more chance to produce an offspring of some use, then eliminated.
She negligently tossed the piece of paper onto her desk and stared at the empty cabinet drawer. There was no use in a subject taking the contents of that drawer, they would have no way to use the disc inside. Any paper in the files would be of no use since a computer would be necessary to access them and the subjects had only the most basic of education. This led Gwen to believe that either a mole inside the facility had taken the files, and then set up a subject to take the blame, or that a subject decided to act out to vandalize the operation. In her opinion, the latter was not likely, since the subject would have needed a way to open her cell door, and then manage to somehow get past all of the cameras and guards without setting off the alarm.
None of the subjects ought to have any clue about what the discs in the files were or be able to understand what the files said even if they had managed to learn how to operate a computer enough to open the disks, so why were they taken? If the subject was escaping, why come in this direction, and why take the time to empty a whole file drawer? The extra weight would be a hindrance, not to mention trying to carry over 100 separate folders and their contents. So, how did she carry them? The more she thought about it the more Gwen felt that this had to have been done by someone on the inside.
What concerned her the most about all of this was that the files that had been taken were unique and there were no copies. No one had even considered that a subject could possibly work their way past the security to the offices, or that someone working in the facility would betray them. The vetting of the workers here was beyond reproach – or so she had thought.
She reached over, picked up her phone, and dialed a number. “I want the recordings from every camera reviewed for the last month. Yes, I am aware that there are a large number of cameras on this property. Yes, I am aware that this will be a lot of effort. I suspect that there may be a traitor on staff.” She pressed the release button and then dialed a different number.
“I want a composite photo released to the police agencies in the area and nearby cities. Tell them only that the girl has been abducted and may be in danger. Then monitor all channels for hits – every radio, camera, email, text message, internet chat room, all of it. The girl has a tail for God’s sake, someone is going to notice that if she’s out in public. If she’s seen, I want our people there before the police.”
Gwen then dialed a third number. “Moreau, complete all outstanding experiments that can be finished this week, then eliminate the subjects.”
“Yes, all of them. You can make more after the relocation.”
“It’s not as if waiting another twenty years is going to kill you. You’re not that old.”
“Don’t argue with me. Fine, you can continue until Sunday, but no longer. Then I want them all incinerated by Monday morning.” Gwen hung up the phone and rose to head for the housing area. Along the way she passed a set of cells reserved for inmates – those criminals housed here that were used as a source for genetic material.
A male voice with an Irish brogue called out as she passed. “Got yerself a wee bit of a problem, lass?” He said with a chuckle. “Yer boys hav-a-been-a runnin ‘round like the hounds o’ hell hav-a-been released. Ittis a might entertainin ting ta see after all these years of boredom.”
She stopped and looked at the man. “Ah, Mr. Ryan. It has been a while. A number years as I recall, about the time that your beloved died wasn’t it?”
“Was killed, dontcha mean?” he growled.
“You’re looking quite fit for a man who’s not been out of that cell in years,” Gwen remarked.
“About all I have to do in here, lass, is exercise. Yer men dunna allow me any readin material, and I hear no news ‘cept wut I catch on the wind. All I got udder than me exercise is tis here soducko page an tis teeny excuse fer a pencil. They gimme one a day.” He held up a single printed page of six sudoku puzzles.
“It’s pronounced Soo Dough Koo, you uneducated Irish bastard, and you would get better treatment if you didn’t always attack my men.”
“I gotta stay in practice, lass. The day will come when I get loose, and ya should know, we Irish bastards, we always make good on our debts.”
“Trust me, Mr. Ryan. I am well aware of the propensities of your countrymen. Though your chances of ‘making good’ are slim. It is likely that you’ll expire in that cell, or the next one – we’ll all be moving soon,” she corrected herself. “But you’ll not expire before you provide us with significantly more of your excellent genetic material.”
He chuckled. “Aye. The only pleasure I git from this hellhole is from yer boys givin me ma jollies.”
She shook her head. “Goodbye, Mr. Ryan. It is likely that this may be the last time we see one another.”
“Nay, lass, my face will be the last you see afore you make the journey ta Hell.”
“Brave words from a man behind bars.”
“A promise, lass, a promise. And an Irishman always makes good on his promises.”
“So you’ve said.”
Gwen walked away, wondering why she bothered talking to that man. He had been a problem from the first, but the fact that he had been able to sire a child with a griffin made him valuable. So few humans were genetically compatible. It really was too bad that the interrogators were never able to extract any information from either him or his wife about their progeny or her parents. At least he was useful for Moreau’s work.
At last she stood outside of the escaped subject’s cell. Inside was a table where the investigators had laid out and cataloged the items found in the room. Two items in particular caught Gwen’s attention. A book and a piece of tape.
“Evidently this subject was far more intelligent than she had let on,” reported the investigator.
Gwen lifted the tape to the light and saw the impression of the keycard that had been left in the adhesive. She put it back on the table and picked up the book, flipping through the pages.
She dropped the book onto the table with a loud thud, then slapped the investigator so hard that everyone heard the sound of his jaw and cheekbone shatter. After he stopped bouncing off of walls and furniture, she stood over him.
“You’re going to try to tell me that this subject, who is reported to have low intelligence and no useful abilities, has somehow managed to escape her cell multiple times, entered my office to get her keycard, and learned how to read a book on computers? Not to mention, escape long enough to visit the LIBRARY!?”
When the man blubbered an unintelligible answer, she turned to the other. “Answer me!”
The man was pale from what happened to his peer, but made a conscious effort to stay calm. Obviously, trying to tell the Commandant that the subject was the culprit wasn’t the correct answer. “N-n-n-no, Ma’am. I-i-i-it is c-c-clear that the subject has been framed by someone else.”
Gwen reached out and the investigator cringed, but she only patted his face gently. “Now, find the spy in my facility before I start executing you all one-at-a-time until I find them. You have until Sunday morning, otherwise the incinerators are going to be extra busy. Am I understood?”
The man nodded silently.
“Now, pick him up and take him for treatment.”
She left the cell in disgust. ‘Angry’ didn’t begin to describe her mood at the moment.