The Lost Swords

by Dave Hicks

 

Chapter 9

 

1

 

While Angela and Amanda were clearing up from the evening meal, I sat in the library with a book of studies Ingrid had given me - "The Social Aspects of Group Dynamics".

"Are you busy, sweetheart?" I asked Eleanor.

"Just finished dinner, my love," she replied. "Roast chicken with all the trimmings."

"How’s it going?" I asked.

"We’ve been busy," she smiled. "Ruby’s terrified about going back out into the real world but we’re getting there. How are things with you?"

"No real problems," I smiled in return.

"Do you miss me?" she asked.

"You know I do," I replied. "How’s Loretta?"

"She’s fine. You’ll have two more, slaves in a few days time."

"That’s pretty quick," I commented. "I thought it was supposed to take longer than that."

"Mum’s just getting better at it," Eleanor laughed. "She started using advanced nano techniques. That makes the process a lot faster. She’s started looking for two more suitable candidates to work on already."

"What am I supposed to do with them all?" I asked.

"I’m sure we’ll think of something," she smiled. "I expect we’ll need them all sometime. Are they looking after your needs?"

"Yes," I replied hesitantly.

"Are you still worried about them feeding you, instead of me?" she asked.

"I guess I’m not too bad with the feeding part of it," I replied.

"There’s nothing to worry about, honey," she assured me. "Really there’s not. You do what ever you want with them. They’re just slaves, remember. It’s not as though they were real people or anything. How could I ever be jealous or upset about anything you do with them?"

"I suppose so," I said.

"That’s much better," she smiled.

"You have a good night, sweetheart," I said.

"You too, honey," she replied. "I’ll talk to you soon."

Paul entered the library, looking for me.

"Weapons," he stated, as he sat in an armchair opposite me.

"What do you need?" I asked him.

"What can you get me?" I said. "I like something with a bit of horse power."

"I’ve got it" I laughed.

"Where?" he said, looking puzzled.

I rose from my chair and motioned him to follow me. We went to the barn and I showed him the entrance to the tunnel. Once we were in the tunnel, I gave him time to inspect the rows of weapons I had stored there.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed. "You could equip an army with what you’ve got here. Or start a war."

"Take what you need," I told him, with a smile. "If we haven’t got it, we’ll order it in for you. Santa’s come early this year."

By the time Paul had finished selecting what he wanted, it took both of us to carry it all back to the security room at the lodge.

He placed his load on his desk. I dumped mine on the floor.

"Have you got enough to go on with?" I asked him.

"It’ll have to do, I suppose," he joked. "Where did you get all this stuff? I wouldn’t be surprised if you had nukes down there."

"You’d rather not know," I replied. "Don’t worry. None of it can be traced."

"That’s good," he stated. "Most of this stuff is state of the art."

"That’s what you get when you shop at David’s Weapons Store," I laughed. "Only the best of everything."

I decided to sleep at the slave house that night. I wasn’t sure how the others would react to Angela or Amanda sleeping at the lodge and I wasn’t prepared to walk over to the servant’s house in the middle of the night, every time I got hungry. My ladies had decorated my room in a style they thought was appropriately masculine. I don’t know about my room being all that masculine - but at least there weren’t any pink, fluffy, stuffed toys, with big wet eyes, sitting on the bed staring at me - with stupid grins on their faces. I guess I would have to live with the lacy curtains however.

 

2

 

Angela and Amanda were sitting in the lounge. Both wore full length dresses with long loose sleeves. They looked very attractive.

"Busy day?" I asked them, as I sat down.

"Busy but nice," replied Angela, with a smile.

Amanda got us drinks.

"Why am I more comfortable with you ladies than I am with so called normal people?" I asked them.

"I think I know the reason," said Amanda, raising her hand with a smile.

"Yes?" I asked.

"You’re a freak," she stated. "We don’t mean that in any nasty way. But you aren’t normal, are you?"

"I’m definitely not normal," I conceded, with a smile of irony.

"You’re telepathic." added Angela. "And so are we. Eleanor’s got her group and now you’ve got yours. You like being with your group the same way she likes being with hers. It gives you sense of belonging perhaps?"

"There might be some truth in that," I conceded.

"And you were the one who made us telepathic," Angela stated.

"You mentioned that before," I said. "Tell me - what makes you think it was me who started the whole thing?"

"We feel telepathy, for people like we slaves, is infectious," replied Amanda. "Put the right sort of person in a group of telepaths and they become a telepath themselves. We became telepaths because we’re your slaves. Parts of our minds were wiped clean and that made us more open to your influence."

"How is it you know so much about things like this?" I asked.

"We can sometimes pick up bits and pieces of your thoughts," Angela said. "Mostly things you’re thinking about at the time. Maybe you’d like a cup of coffee or to be fed. We can’t access to you memories easily at all."

"And the things Loretta used to say to herself," Amanda added, "when she was working on us. She talks a lot when she’s working."

"She’s a strange woman," I said.

"But isn’t it wonderful the way things have turned out?" smiled Angela.

I picked up my drink and thought about for a while.

Amanda posed a question.

"How do you think Eleanor and her women would react," Amanda asked, "if they were to discover - they may not be the next stage in the evolution of the human species?"

"How do you figure that?" I asked.

"Loretta modified us genetically, to make us who we are," replied Angela. "That’s why we’ll start looking our true, younger age in the future. And why we’ll maintain our body shape and looks. We’re sure she’s completely unaware of the real effects of what she’s doing. Allowing us to become telepathic - for a start. We’re almost certain the talent we have will be passed on to our daughters. With Eleanor’s group, the whole thing’s much more random and unpredictable. They have no guarantees their children will be telepathic - we do."

"We have a group mind," added Amanda. "They don’t have that. They can share their thoughts but they don’t have the collective consciousness we do."

"We can turn our fertility and lactation on or off whenever you order us to," said Angela. "We can change other physical characteristics. They can’t do that either. Also, we may be a lot slower aging than normal. In some ways, we’re more like you than normal women."

"You didn’t need Eleanor to make you lactate, did you?" I asked.

"No," smiled Angela, shaking her head. "We could’ve easily have done it ourselves - but only when you told us to."

"But we can only give birth to females," Amanda continued. "We know that’s true. And we can’t breed with ordinary human beings. But we can with you. In same way that humans can’t breed with apes anymore. That sounds a little superior, doesn’t it? Loretta thought the changes would prevent us reproducing. It didn’t quite work out that way for her. It simply meant - we can’t reproduce with normal me. But you’re not normal."

"Do I still need her to get me more slaves?" I asked.

"No, not really," explained Angela. "With the necessary equipment, we have all the skills and knowledge to reproduce anything Loretta can do - and a whole lot more. We can make anyone your slave - if you wanted us to. We don’t need her at all - for anything."

"And could do a much better job of it, than she does," added Amanda.

"I hope you’re not planning doing anything illegal," I said.

"Not unless you tell us to," Amanda replied, with a smile. "We know you’re responsible for our behavior."

"If you told us to, of course," added Angela, with a smile, "then that would be different - wouldn’t it?"

"Are you sure Loretta doesn’t know about all this?" I asked.

"Very sure," replied Angela. "She’s too focused on making slaves to see the whole picture. She’ll never think of the implications of what’s she’s doing."

"Tell me how do you know I can breed with you?" I asked.

"We bought a small geno-lab and checked it out," smiled Amanda. "Was that okay? We didn’t ask you first."

"I guess so," I replied, with a shrug. "Why not? You ladies seem to have a really good handle on what you’re doing. You buy whatever you think you need."

"We believe you would want the new arrivals to have the same physical and mental characteristics as we have," said Amanda. "Just in case Loretta decided to change something to do with her procedures. It’s like an insurance policy for us."

"We want to be able to correct anything Loretta does, if something goes wrong," explained Angela. "If the new slaves need to be genetically corrected or their programming changed, we can put them back to the way they should be - like us. They way you want us to be."

"Would you change you’re own programming?" I asked.

"Only if you told us to," Angela replied. "We can’t change anything that would prevent us from being your slaves, however. It would fragment our personalities and destroy our group mind. We’ve put in place a mechanism to prevent that happening. Anyone or anything that tries to prevent any of us being your slave, would surely kill us."

"That sounds very final," I commented. "

"Effective though," smiled Angela. "And very necessary. It protects the rest of us and the group mind. It’s better to sacrifice one of us for the good of the rest."

"If you’d like to change anything else regarding the way we think or act," added Amanda, "we’d love to do it for you. Because we have a group mind - if you change one of us, you change us all at the same time."

"I like you just the way you are," I smiled. "For the time being,"

"Thank you," she smiled.

I thought for a moment.

"What about the new methods Loretta is using?" I asked.

"She’s using more advanced nano-technology on the two next ladies. It won’t affect anything important," smiled Amanda. "We know much more about the subject than she does. Before I was a slave, I’d developed techniques far in advance of what she’ll ever know."

It gave me something to think about. I had to believe what they were saying to me. Amanda had been a brilliant - if somewhat misguided - scientist, according to the information Isabel sent me. There was no doubt, my ladies understood what they were doing. Very well indeed.

"It’s getting late," I said to them. "You both should be thinking about bed."

"Who would you like to sleep with you?" asked Amanda, feeling her breasts. "I’m the fullest at the moment."

"Is that okay with you?" I turned to Angela.

"It’s fine," she laughed. "It doesn’t matter who. We’ll both be mentally with you anyway. Unless you’d like both of us physically in bed with you, in the flesh?"

"It might get just a little cramped" I smiled.

 

3

 

Amanda and I undressed. I noticed she wasn’t wearing a girdle. They only seemed to wear them when they were in their work uniforms. It was the first time I’d seen one of them completely naked. Amanda had the body of a very well built, young woman. Although her breasts were very large, they were surprisingly firm and shapely. In contrast to her broad hips, her waist was narrow - her stomach was flat.

She sat on the edge of the bed, I lay in her lap and fed from her.

Later, as we lay beside each other, she gently stroked my head.

"Would you like to unlock me?" she asked softly. "I feel a very strong need to satisfy you and feel you inside me."

"I’m sorry," I replied. "I just wouldn’t be comfortable doing that."

"Do you feel you’d be unfaithful to Eleanor, if you made love to me?" she asked.

"Something like that I imagine," I replied.

I got out of bed, put on a dressing gown and sat in the darkened lounge. I didn’t bother to put on any lights. Shortly afterwards, Amanda joined me wearing a dressing gown and bra. She sat next to me.

"Would I be disturbing you if I join you," she asked softly.

"No," I replied. "But shouldn’t you be sleeping."

"No," she smiled, placing a hand on my knee. "I can do that later. We don’t need a lot of sleep, anyway. We’re like you in that respect."

I smiled.

"Shall I get us some coffee?" she suggested.

I nodded to her. She returned with two cups and set them on the low table before us. She sat next to me again, remaining silent.

I sat for a while, thinking.

"We really don’t need Loretta, do we?" I asked.

It was more of a statement than a question.

"No," she replied.

"But it might be advantageous to continue the way we are, " I added. "For the time being. It’s important no one suspects who you really are."

"Yes," she smiled. "That’s very true."

Later, we went to bed and slept.

 

4

 

Next morning, Paul picked up his army buddy at the airport in the chopper. His name was Roger. He was a large, hard looking, muscular man, who looked like he’d been in a war - or three. After briefly introducing him to me, eh and Paul went straight to business - they spent the rest of the morning at the construction site.

Grace and Susie spent the morning at their studies. Pamela had set them schoolwork before she’d left for the mainland and was always available telepathically, should they need help. I ordered another computer for them, so they would each have one of their own. Michael and John had gone into town and would bring the new computers back with them.

"Good morning, my love," said Eleanor. "Did you sleep well?"

"Fine, honey" I replied. "Did you?"

"Yes," she answered. "We’re spending the day at the hospital again. Pamela been such a help and Ingrid is giving us advice as we go along."

"How’s it going?"

"I’m sure it’s going to work out fine," she replied cheerfully. "We thought Ruby might like to spend a few days at Mum’s place before we brought her back there. Just to get her used to the outside world. If we really have to, we can get John involved with the hospital authorities - should they decide not to let Ruby leave. His opinion is highly respected throughout the medical profession. But I don’t think it’ll ever come to that. With any luck, they’ll release her in a few days. Maybe a little longer."

"Love you," I told her. "I miss you."

"Love you too," she replied.

 

5

 

After lunch, I drove to the village. I hadn’t seen much of the place, except to drive past it on my way to town. I easily found the only hotel and propped myself up on a bar stool - to get a feel of the place. It was early afternoon and there weren’t many customers. I drank slowly, not attempting to engage anyone in conversation.

The owner was an overweight, middle aged woman who also served behind the bar. She seemed a cheerful, outgoing sort of person. There were a few guests and locals at the bar and few more sitting at tables.

"Not too busy?" I asked her.

"About normal," she replied. "We’ll get a couple of workers from the construction site, just out of town, later. And a few regular locals. That’s about all. Nothing much exciting ever happens around here."

Two large, muscular oriental men entered the bar and sat at a table, in a corner of the room.

"I can’t stand them," she whispered to me, as she left to serve them. "Foreigners. They give me a creepy feeling."

After she served their drinks, she rejoined me.

"They’re from the company that’s looking for a place to build a factory," she confided to me. "I don’t trust oriental people - I never have. Everyone thinks their going to give us jobs and make us all wealthy. But I know that’ll never happen. They’ll just bring in a whole lot of their own little people and we’ll get nothing. It’s a sting - as usual. People have short memories and they’ve forgotten what they did to our people, in the war. I lost my husband because of them and I’ll never forget. Or forgive them."

"So they’re the ones planning on building an electronics factory here," I remarked. "I read something about that in the newspaper."

"Yeah," she replied. "That’s them. But this pair look more like thugs than surveyors - to my way of thinking. I don’t them."

"But they’re guests here?" I said.

"Sure," she replied, with a quick smile. "Their money is the same as everyone else’s. I don’t mind taking it off them - not one little bit. I treat them like any other wallet that comes into the place."

I took a newspaper lying on the bar and pretended to read it. After a while, a small, athletic woman joined the two oriental men. I boosted my hearing so I could listen to what they were saying. They were speaking in particular Chinese dialect used by only by ninja and some types of syndicate criminals.

"We are ordered to continue searching this area," the woman stated. "The car they stole was heading from the main town in this direction."

It looked as though my suspicions were correct. My good old survival radar hadn’t let me down.

"Is it worthwhile examining the residence to the west of here?" one man asked. "There is also a large construction project going on close by it."

"It supposed to be a school for artists," the other man stated.

"Yes," replied the woman. "I think we should look at it. We must be thorough and vigilant. Although I suspect it will be a complete waste of our time."

 

6

 

When I arrived back at the lodge in the afternoon, I told Paul and Roger what I had overheard at the bar in the village.

"Would it be difficult to put them out of action?" asked Paul.

"That’s not the problem," I answered. "The problem as I see it is - if we do anything to them, it will arouse the suspicions of their masters."

Roger looked at me carefully.

"I can only assume," said Roger, with a smile, "by that statement, you have something to hide and you don’t want them to discover it."

"We have two escaped Chinese nationals living here," I explained. "Our three friends from the village are agents for the Chinese government. They’re working under the cover of surveyors for an electronics front company. The company run by a large, criminal syndicate organization."

"Then maybe just let them come," suggested Roger. "They find nothing and leave."

"I don’t want do that either," I replied. "What I’d rather do - is capture them and see who comes looking for them. Also, I’d like to have a little chat with them. They might have something worth knowing. But it needs to be done very carefully. These people are professional. Very."

I looked at Roger.

"What I want to know is," I asked him, "how much of what I propose, do you want to be part of?"

"I don’t have a problem with any of it," Roger laughed. "You’re hiring me. Just how dangerous are they?"

"I repeat - very," I replied. "No - make that absolutely. I’m sorry if I upset you but you’d be outclassed by them. They’re totally ruthless and trained almost from birth. That’s why I want it to be me who captures them - not you or Paul. I don’t want to screw this up. We don’t get a second chance at it."

"Okay," Roger nodded.

"I work better on my own," I told him. "I don’t want to run the risk of one of them escaping and giving the game away."

Roger looked at me strangely.

"You said; just on your own?" he asked. "Three of them against one of you?"

"Yes," I replied. "That part shouldn’t be a problem."

"Right," Roger said, nodding his head doubtfully.

He turned to Paul.

"He is serious?" he asked Paul.

"Oh yes," Paul laughed. "We’re much better off keeping out of his way. He’ll only end up tripping over us."

Roger nodded his head again.

"Okay," he said, with a shrug. "You’re the boss. What do you need us for?"

"Where will you put them?" Paul asked.

"In one of the old missile silos," I said.

"Missile silos," Roger repeated, not know if he should believe me.

"They’re large, deep, circular rooms," I told him. "All over the place. Part of an old missile base that was during the European War. They’re over thirty meters deep, made out of very solid, bare concrete. Normally, their covered with a few meters of soil. I've exposed a couple of them - for various reasons. Apart from a heavy, sliding metal roof, the one I have in mind, has only one door at floor level - and that’s made out of solid, two inch steel. There’s plenty of anchor points around the wall, for the chains I’ll be using."

 

7

 

Just after mid-night, the sensors picked up the three intruders. On the security displays - using a night camera - Paul, Roger and I watched as they parked their car a short distance from the bridge and walk carefully along the road, towards the lodge.

I went to meet them. I waited until they were close to the lodge and shot the three of them rapidly, with the dart gun I was carrying. I radioed Paul and Roger to join me. I put each of them in a canvas bag and securely tied the top of each bag, while I waited for them to join me.

We carried them to the silo I’d selected. I partially opened the heavy lid with a crank handle. Once I’d dropped a rope ladder into the opening. We lowered the unconscious bodies down to the bare concrete floor below. We followed them down.

Roger held a strong light. I spread three large sheets of tough plastic on the concrete floor and put one unconscious body on each sheet. Paul held a large, sturdy plastic bag, while I stripped them of their more obvious weapons, shoes, clothing and ornaments. I put everything they were wearing into the bag.

From a briefcase I’d brought with me, I took a razor and shaved the hair from their heads and pubic areas. The hair went into a separate bag. I removed any teeth that looked in anyway suspicious and looked carefully in their ears and nostrils. With a pair of cutters, I trimmed their finger and toe nails, making sure not to misplace any clippings. I washed their hands with solvent to ensure no traces of poison remained. I removed the contents of their bowels and the woman’s vagina and that ended up in yet another bag.

I used a scanner and scalpel to locate anything implanted under their skins and removed it. I made a slit under each of the shapely woman’s breasts and removed the plastic prosthesis implanted inside. Her breasts didn’t look quite as attractive after that. I didn’t take too much trouble stitching the wounds up neatly. However, I did apply something to stop the cuts bleeding and prevent infection. I rolled their bodies over onto their faces and removed, from between the shoulder blades of one male, a layer of false plastic skin. Underneath were a few slim sharp objects. One male had a false finger and eye. I removed those too. By the time I was finished, I’d amassed quite a collection of equipment from them.

When I was satisfied I’d hopefully found all they were carrying, I pushed them onto the bare concrete floor and put the plastic sheets they had been lying on, into another bag. I took two lengths of chain and cold welded one end of each chain around the neck of each man. The other end of the chains I secured to anchor points in the wall at opposite sides of the silo, some distance from the door. The men were now separated from each other, with only a limited area to move in.

I welded a chain around the woman’s neck, then a short length to each of her ankles. It would make it impossible for her to fully straighten her body. However, she would be able to move around the entire floor area.

Roger and Paul climbed the ladder, taking the plastic bags with them. Roger cranked the lid of the silo shut, leaving me in total darkness. Using a light from my briefcase, I left the silo, by the heavy steel door. I padlocked it, so no one else could enter. My captives were in a totally dark room, with nothing but bare concrete walls and floors.

I trotted back to the main road and inspected their car. I didn’t detect any transmitters or tracers attached to it. I deactivated an explosive device and drove it to where I’d hidden the one Susie had stolen.

Paul and Roger had put the plastic bags on a bare patch of earth, a distance from the lodge. I removed the woman’s false breasts, any explosives and detonators. I put an incendiary device on top of the heap, stood well back and triggered it. It didn’t take long before the intense heat had reduced everything to fine ash and molten metal.

We returned the lounge. Angela made coffee for us. The monitoring devices I’d placed in the silo would let us know when my captives regained consciousness. At the moment, all I could hear was my prisoners shallow breathing.

"What’ll you do with them now?" asked Roger.

"The men will die," I replied. "The woman might be of some use to me. Although I doubt it."

"How are you going to interrogate them?" Paul asked. "Or have I asked another stupid question?"

"No, it’s not a stupid question," I smiled. "It’s no good trying to force any information out of them. Pain doesn’t work on them and drugs are hardly effective enough to be useful. They’re true ninja - or something similar - maybe better. They don’t give a second thought to dying. They’re fanatics. My best hope is to keep them die slowly and see if they mention something we can use. They may become careless with time and hunger. I don’t expect anything but it’s worth a try. I want to see who comes looking for them."

"You were pretty thorough with them," commented Roger. "I would’ve missed many of things you found. I’m ashamed to have to admit that."

"With these people, you have to be meticulous," I replied, with a smile. "They’ve got more tricks than you’d imagine. The woman is the most dangerous of the three. Isn’t that always the way?"

The nodded in agreement.

"Luckily," I continued,. "I’ve dealt with their kind before. Even now, I can’t be completely sure I’ve found everything. Hopefully, what they’ve got left, won’t be of any use to them."

"So what happens next?" Paul asked.

"For the time being," I said, "I want their physical and mental health to deteriorate through starvation. I’ve placed a few poisonous gas traps outside the silo door. That should kill them off - if they get outside the silo. Or anyone tries to get in. Failing that, one of the explosive charges in the tunnels and around the silo lid will take them out of the picture."

"I’m not sure you two really need me here," said Roger, with a hint of admiration. "You seem to do okay on your own."

"Hang around anyway," I laughed.

"I’ve got have a look at this missile base you have, sometime," said Roger. "How big is it?"

"Twelve silos and a control center," I replied. "Arranged roughly in a square."

"That sounds like a Paladin complex," he said thoughtfully. "They housed twelve Requital ICBS."

"You know your history," I smiled.

"I was part of a team that decommissioned one of them," he laughed. "That was too many years ago. There was never any record of one being built in this area."

I didn’t want to tell him or Paul; three of the missiles were still here. All in perfect condition, fully armed, ready for launching. That would’ve given them both a heart attack.

 

8

 

Later, I walked to the servant’s house with Angela.

"You captured a woman tonight," she said.

"That’s right," I replied.

"Amanda and I would like to have her" she said. "There’s a few things we’d like to do to her."

I nodded.

"When I've finished with her," I replied, "she’s all yours. But she might be a little worse for wear however."

"That’s okay," she smiled. "She’ll look very different by the time we’re finished with her anyway. We’ll make her look really nice to you."

"What are you going to do to her?" I asked.

"Could you wait and see?" she smiled. "Please? We’d like it to be a nice surprise."

"Okay," I smiled.

"Thank you," she smiled in return.

 

9

 

After breakfast, I went to the security room to check up on my captives. They’d regained consciousness a few hours before. I played the recording of them up to the present moment. There wasn’t much to hear. There was the occasional clink of chain as they tried to explore the confines of the silo. They’d only find a curved concrete wall and a heavy steel door.

The woman announced to the others that she couldn’t move easily. I translated for Roger and Paul.

"That’s not normal Chinese they’re speaking, is it?" said Roger. "I don’t understand any of it."

"A variant of gutter talk," I informed him. "Mostly used by criminals and assassins. A lot of these people are recruited from those sorts of areas, when they’re quite young. Although the tattoo on the woman’s shoulder shows she comes from a better sort of background. That’s probably why she’s the boss. The males are just muscle under her control."

"Why have you kept them together?" asked Paul. "Wouldn’t they break down easier, if they were isolated?"

"I doubt it," I replied. "I don’t want to break them. And it would take to long anyway. The men are chained to the wall, well apart, with a limited distance they can move. This gives the woman the ability to find a place where neither of them can reach her."

"Why would you want that?" Roger asked.

"In time, they may turn on her," I explained, "or on each other. It also means I can enter the silo without having to worry too much about the men attacking me, since neither of them can reach the door. Also, the woman’s greater degree of mobility gives her a psychological advantage over the other two. She’s able to reach the water I leave them. They need her."

The woman started say something. Paul and Roger looked at me for an explanation. I listened for a while.

"She’s instructed them to inspect themselves, to discover what we’ve done to them," I said. "She angry about having her tits mutilated. Neither of the men have anything cheerful to report."

"Why did you cut her tits open?" Roger inquired. "That seemed a little extreme."

I handed them one each of the plastic bags she’d had in her breasts for inspection.

"What’s in these things?" asked Paul, rolling the bag over in his hand. "I thought they’d be a synthetic gel of some kind."

"The color seems wrong somehow," Roger remarked. "It feels more like a thick oil of some kind."

"Very observant, my dear Watson," I smiled. "Any ideas?"

Amanda entered the room with a tray. She set the tray on a vacant spot on Paul’s desk.

"Is this what boys do on their own together?" she smiled at me. "Play with false boobies?"

"All the time," I replied, as she left the room.

"The real things are a lot nicer," she laughed.

"Don’t tell me it’s what I think it is?" Roger inquired.

"Probably," I replied. "DS8 - or a variant."

"What’s that?" asked Paul.

"A powerful, rather expensive, explosive, Paul," said Roger, shaking his head, in disbelief. "Very effective and hard to detect. Well I’ll be. These people are fanatics. They really don’t play around, do they?"

"Not these people," I agreed. "I had an idea, when I found detonators in her hair but nothing to go with them."

"Are you saying she had explosive tits?" asked Paul. "I don’t believe it."

"You have to admit, it’s clever," remarked Roger. "I wouldn’t have suspected it."

I laughed.

"She’s quite capable of cutting open her own breasts," I told them, "should the need arise. As I said, pain doesn’t mean much to them. I told you they were tough people. And smart too."

 

 

 

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