At that moment, when all three of them were locked in an orgasm so fierce Sadie almost forgot to breathe, she had a strange sensation in the back of her mind, even stronger than the ones her body was currently experiencing. It was a feeling of almost connection—that was the best way she could put it. As though she had come within a micron of the most intense union possible in this or any other universe and had fallen short. Oh, please …Please, just a little bit more, Sadie found herself thinking. She felt the bond between her and Blakely and Holt grow and stretch, reaching for that moment of ultimate connection but falling inevitably, unspeakably short. Is this how they feel every time they share a woman they can't bond with? she wondered hazily. Goddess, how do they stand it?
Then the sensation ebbed away, along with the current of golden heat that had blanketed all three bodies as they coupled. Sadie felt first Holt and then Blakely withdraw from her body and she felt empty in a way she couldn't describe. She hurt. She let herself collapse into a softly panting ball on the bear skin rug, still tasting the strong, musky flavor of Blakely's cum on her tongue and feeling the warm trickle of Holt's running down the inside of one thigh.
Inside her mind the newly strengthened bond twisted like a thick rope, so tangible she could almost touch it. Goddess, what had she done?
Chapter 17
“Well, that was quite a performance, I must say.”
Sadie blinked wearily as the unfamiliar voice intruded into her consciousness. Who? she thought, her brain feeling muddled and unclear. Her body felt heavy, almost drugged with lethargy after the intense orgasm. Then she remembered—not only had she just performed an act that would make a whore blush—she had done it for an audience. She bit back a groan. I had to—had to keep Van Heusen from suspecting the truth. Besides, he has a needler pointed at us, she reminded herself. But it didn't help much. The disapproving little voice in her head that she had managed to shut off during their 'demonstration' was back full force, making her cringe with shame.
“Satisfied?” Holt was staring at Van Heusen and his voice had a low, grating quality that spoke of intense rage.
“Not as much as you, I imagine.” Van Heusen's voice was light and amused. “I must apologize for ever doubting your product, gentlemen. Clearly it is able to withstand rough treatment from time to time.” Sadie saw Holt wince out of the corner of her eye at this but Blakely's face remained stony.
“We did what you wanted now show us the tanks,” Blakely growled, zipping his pants with a quick, jerky motion.
“In good time, gentlemen. All in good time.” Van Heusen eased out of the chair, unfolding his lanky form in stages carefully. “I'm not as young as I once was.” He gestured to himself. “I have often thought of trading in this aging shell for a tank grown body but until I saw your lovely little prototype, I was reluctant. Now I am eager to be certain your conditioning formulas will work. Come.” He gestured and then, appearing to notice he was still pointing the snub-nosed needler at them he shrugged apologetically and tucked it back into the satin smoking jacket he wore. “I'm sure there's no need for this now.” He patted his pocket. The huge diamond he wore on his thumb flashed and glittered in the firelight. “No hard feelings, eh? I just had to be certain a prostie made with your processes could take a certain amount of abuse—if I use your techniques to grow myself a new body I have to be certain it's perfect in every respect, you see?”
He looked appealingly at both Blakely and Holt and Sadie saw the men exchange a glance. There it was again, that non-verbal communication that spoke volumes. Only this time, she found she understood it, could sense it vaguely in the back of her mind like a murmur of half-heard voices. There were no words that she could understand, only vague glimpses of thoughts and emotions. Both men were angry and upset at Van Heusen but they were obviously trying to control themselves and finish the job. Under the anger there was a current of regret at the broken promise, and sorrow that Sadie was so unhappy with what they had just done…
Wait a minute, if she could hear Holt and Blakely through the bond, could they hear her too? Sadie sat up on the rug and wrapped her arms around her legs, squeezing her eyes tightly closed. This must be what it was like for Blakely and Holt all the time. Always being inside each other's heads and thoughts and emotions. Goddess, how did they manage?
Van Heusen was heading for the door, clearing expecting them to follow him. Sadie stood carefully, on shaky legs, still emotionally and physically drained. Without discussion, Holt and Blakely each took one of her arms, supporting her. Sadie felt a ghostly whisper of the warm current brush against her skin at the double contact and she pulled away, stumbled and nearly fell in the process. No more, she thought. Can't take anymore of this.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Holt called, giving her a concerned glance. Van Heusen turned around, his hand still near the pocket that held the needler.
“Yes?” he said politely.
“Do you have a fresher cubicle anywhere around here?” Holt asked. “Our prototype needs to be cleaned up before we tour your tank-room.”
“Oh, certainly. Third door on your left as we exit the lounge.” He hit the main switch that caused the massive wooden door to slide aside for them. Lounge, Sadie thought. If that's the lounge I'd hate to see the main living room. They walked outside and back into the long, marble hall.
It was Blakely that took charge of her this time, taking her into the fresher and cleaning her gently with a damp cloth.
“You okay, kid?” he asked anxiously, gazing into her eyes as he spoke. Sadie felt his concern for her like a warm thermal blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She shrugged it off.
“Fine, I'm fine,” she muttered, turning her face away from him.
“I can't tell you how sorry Holt and I are about what happened,” Blakely said softly. “After what we promised you, well … It's just…” He seemed unable to find the words he was looking for.
“It's all right,” Sadie said wearily. “You and Holt were just doing what you had to do. I was too, I guess.” Not that it makes me feel any better about it, she thought numbly. “We'd better get back to Holt and Van Heusen. After everything we've put into it, I'd hate to miss the bust.”
“Okay, if you're sure.” Blakely looked at her doubtfully.
“Sure I'm sure.” Sadie attempted to brighten up some, knowing he could feel the guilt and despair in her mind. “Let's go.”
Chapter 18
The tank room was everything Holt had hoped for and more. Van Heusen had taken them down a long passage, secreted in the side of a wall behind a huge, antique Drusinian clock. A number of codes and passwords and a retinal scan were necessary to get in and Holt had reflected that they never would have found the place or gotten into it without Van Heusen's cooperation. Holt had mixed feelings about that.
It made him glad, in a way. Glad to know that cooperating with Van Heusen had been a necessity. Even if the old man hadn't had a needler pointed at their heads or they'd somehow been able to call in their back-up without risking all their lives, the bust would have been a no-go without him. Without visual proof of the illegal flesh tanks they had nothing on Van Heusen and he would have gotten off scot-free. Probably he would have moved his base of operations to a more distant moon and continued buying black market brains, keeping the mind rapers in business and the colonists in danger forever. Why should he ever stop? With access to the flesh tanks he could keep growing himself new bodies forever. So in the long run, it was a good thing he and Blakely had gone along with Van Heusen's commands in order to win his trust and ultimately, to nail his wrinkled hide to the wall.
That was part of what he was feeling. The other part, Holt admitted to himself as he surveyed the huge, subterranean room where they now stood, was guilt, pure and simple. Guilt that he and Blakely had not only broken their promise to Sadie, but had enjoyed doing it. Even now he could feel her sorrow and self-loathing through their newly strengthened bond. The feelings were still vague, not nearly as clear as they would h
ave been if she had been interested enough to forge a Life-bond with them but they were clear enough for Holt to read. Sadie was ashamed of what they had done together and scared of the bond, scared of sensing Holt's and his partner's emotions in her head. Holt knew how she felt. Hell, it had taken him and Blakely a good six months to get used to the strange sensation when the T-link had first been established after their Tandem chips were implanted.
Sadie had only known them a couple of weeks and she had come along on this mission for a story, not a relationship with two guys she'd never met the month before. Holt knew they couldn't expect her to be overjoyed to find herself physically and emotionally committed to them via a semi-permanent bond. She was frightened and repulsed by her own newly awakened desires and responses to their link. Holt wished with all his heart he could change her mind but he didn't think that was likely to happen. At any rate, what he needed to be thinking about now was how this bust was going to go down. Sighing, he tried to tune out the distracting new emotions coming from their unhappy 'prototype prostie' and concentrate on the business at hand.
“Gentlemen, I think you'll find that I have an operation here to rival anything you'll find on Mars.” Van Heusen's voice was proud and he made a sweeping motion with his stick-like arm to indicate the vast room. It was, Holt thought, bigger than any Zero-G stadium he'd ever been in and it was stacked to the dimly-lit ceiling with multiple rows of flesh ta nks filled with murky liquids. He knew about how a body was grown, having studied the subject in preparation for this case but it was still interesting to watch the process in action.
Each tank in a single vertical stack represented a different stage in the tissue growth process. The top tank in a stack would be filled with protein-rich emollients, high in iron and amino acids to nourish the scrap of DNA that would be placed in it, the blue-print of a new-born prostie made exactly to order. At a certain sta ge in the tank-gestation, an automatic sensor would inform the top tank that it was time to dump the lump of rapidly growing flesh into the cloudy green depths of the tank below it that contained calcium and other bone-strengthening agents. When the skeleton was strong enough to support weight, the second tank opened into a third where the now adult-sized frame was encouraged to grow muscles, organs and connective tissue in response to electrical stimulation constantly running through the reddish murk of stem-cell rich emollients it contained. The bottom or 'finishing' tank was filled with a thick, clear gel that was the keratin-impregnated nutrient bath which encouraged the tank-grown body to form hair and an epidermis. It was this last stage that had never truly been perfected which was why prosties had the brittle, latex-like tone to their skin.
The whole process from DNA to fully formed adult prostie took a little more than a week which explained why the federal government of the Solar System regulated the ownership of flesh tanks so strenuously. If just anyone was allowed to own tanks, the known Universe might soon be over-run with an army of perfectly formed, empty headed prosties.
“You must have enough tanks here to process a thousand prosties at a time .” Blakely's voice interrupted Holt's train of thought.
“Two thousand, actually,” Van Heusen said proudly, surveying the tank-filled room. “We aren't working at peak capacity just now because my, ah, suppliers—brain suppliers, that is—had a falling out. But I expect to be running at full capacity again within the solar month. Maybe just in time to implement your processes, eh, gentlemen?”
“Maybe,” Holt muttered, noncommittally. “First I'd like to examine your tanks.”
“Please.” Van Heusen made an expansive gesture indicating that they should feel free to wander around the room. Actually, Holt was looking for a back entrance to the enormous room to bring the back-up squad through. He and Blakely made their way around the perimeter, being sure to keep Sadie safely in between them as they walked.
Workers in sterile white suits wandered around the vast space, seemingly at random, checking the ph balance of various tanks but none of them appeared to be armed. A low beeping sound began emanating from a tank to Holt's right and a worker hurried over and pressed a series of buttons, causing the bottom tank to roll neatly out of position so that the worker could reach hands gloved in white up to the shoulder into the clear slime of the nutrient bath. A perfectly formed female body, its long blond hair and golden tan skin completely coated in clear, viscous slime rose to the top of the tank. Holt saw that its chest was rising and falling with shallow respiration but there was no sign of any cognitive function whatsoever; the body just lay there, an inert lump. The worker rolled the corpse-like thing onto a near-by hover stretcher and trundled it off down the long row of tanks.
“Gotta 'nother Elise 2 ready for brain fitting,” Holt heard the man say into the visitalk clipped to his collar as he went. He watched as the tank slid itself silently back into place. On its side was a bronze plaque he hadn't noticed before that said, “Elise Series 2”.
There was a muted 'plopping' sound as the tank above the now empty bottom one released a mass of glistening, naked muscle tissue with a vaguely female form into the clear slime of the nutrient bath.
Circle of Life, Holt thought grimly. He felt Sadie shiver beside him and her revulsion was clear through the bond. Van Heusen had the place so automated that a hundred workers could easily turn out the two thousand prosties a week the tank room was capable of producing, providing they had brains to power them, of course. He doubted if even the Synthenex flesh tanks on Mars had the operation down to such a science.
“Hey, Holt.” Blakely's voice drew his attention to a large white recessed panel at the far end of the room. Looking carefully, Holt could just make out the sign over the panel which said, 'Delivery'. Bingo! Just what they had been looking for. Of course it made sense that Van Heusen would have to have a large entrance to ship his product out of. Bringing the prosties through the main house would be much too obvious, even on the dark side of Iapetus.
Holt nodded at Blakely, signaling his partner to call in the back-up while he kept Van Heusen busy. If everything was done correctly, the old pimp would be safely in restraints before he knew anything was wrong but Holt wanted to be near-by when it happened. Van Heusen had been prosecuted many times before but never convicted, mostly because the witnesses had a convenient way of dying and the evidence always somehow melted away. Holt didn't intend for that to happen this time. They had Van Heusen dead to rights with the largest collection of illegal tanks he or anyone else had ever seen and he didn't want to give the old man a chance to start a countdown and blow the evidence and all the workers that knew about it sky-high while Van Heusen himself slipped out some secret entrance.
“Keep close and stay behind me,” he murmured to Sadie, thinking of the deadly snub-nosed needler hidden in Van Heusen's smoking jacket. “Things are gonna go down fast and I don't want you hurt. Understand?”
“Got it,” she replied, her lips barely moving. Holt could feel some of the emotional turmoil inside her mind turn to excitement as they walked back towards where Van Heusen was sitting easily in a floating air-cushion and smoking his pipe again while he waited for them to tour the room. Holt felt it pumping in his own veins as well—the thrill of a bust about to go down; it never failed to fill him with adrenaline.
“Well, well.” Van Heusen got to his feet carefully and smiled. “And how do you find my equipment, Mr. Day? It's top of the line, you know.”
“It's fine equipment all right,” Holt agreed. Through the adrenaline-heightened T-link he heard Blakely directing the back-up squad through the back door and knew federal agents would be swarming down the long, tank-filled isles at any moment. He could feel his own version of Van Heusen's cold, shark-like grin spreading over his own face at the thought.
“I'm afraid I have some bad news, Mr. Van Heusen,” he said to the anxiously waiting man.
“Your processes won't work with my equipment?” Van Heusen looked so upset it was almost comical.
“It's worse than that, I'm afraid.” H
olt moved in closer so that he could keep an eye on the old man's hands. “Not only is there no 'conditioning process' but you're also under arrest for the possession of illegal flesh tanks and the use of black-market brains.”
Van Heusen made a move towards his jacket's inside pocket but this time Holt was too quick for him. He slapped a set of restraints he'd had hidden in his own inner pocket on the skinny, withered wrists and removed Van Heusen's needler in one motion.
Van Heusen looked at him angrily. “I suppose the girl isn't really a prostie at all,” he said in disgust. “I should have known better than to think such marked improvements were possible.”
“Got it in one,” Holt said, grinning. “Although you have to admit if you really could make a prostie as attractive as my colleague here,” he nodded at Sadie who stared back impassively. “You'd make a mint overnight.”
“Agreed,” Van Heusen said sourly. “Unfortunately I was more interested in growing a new body for myself that was perfect in every respect than 'making a mint' as you put it. Money I have in abundance but my youth is long behind me. You have greatly disappointed me, Mr. Day.”
“It's Detective Holtstein, Old Earth Vice,” Holt said. “Pleased to meet you, Van Heusen. My partner and I will be seeing you in court. Now, you have the right to remain silent,” he began and then there was a sudden commotion behind him and all hell broke loose.
Chapter 19
Later Sadie couldn't remember anything but a melee of yelling voices and colored uniforms. The workers, dressed all in white, were being herded into a loose group by the federal agents in orange and blue but they weren't going quietly. She was trying to stay close to Holt but somehow she got swept into the crowd, just another body in the rising tide of disorder.
Suddenly Van Heusen's voice, surprisingly loud and clear, cut through the racket of babbling voices. “The girl—get the girl!” he shouted and after one horrified moment, Sadie realized he was talking about her. Why me? she had time to think and then a thick arm was locked around her neck, choking her, cutting off her air. She fought instinctively, kicking backwards with the high-heeled shoes she had on, trying to connect with something solid. But all she felt was the soft give of the protective suit of the worker that held her, kicking and squirming, against his body.