Chapter 16

Amy found me in what was becoming her regular ‘around the house’ style, panties only. “Happy Birthday, Sir. I checked out the food supply. A trip to the market is in our immediate future. Google and I located a very good grocer in a strip mall two miles beyond the guards’ HQ. They take orders online.”

“Have Ellie and Caralyn take a poll to get everyone’s favorite snacks. You and the Tanakas figure out what cuisine is easiest to prep in the kitchen. Order what you need. Plan to take the day off tomorrow, so make sure the girls can fix your choices, too.”

“Thanks sir. Things have been hectic, but it isn’t difficult.”

“But it has been constant. Put a few in charge of laundry, a few more assigned to housecleaning and get Jenny and Leah thinking about sleeping and closet arrangements for this mobile riot.” I looked her over. “You need a little jet-setter time around the pool. What’s the use of being rich and famous if you can’t work on your tan?”

I began the search of Seiko’s office. The security tapes were the very definition of boring. The interior cams, recording 5 seconds every ten minutes, showed mostly empty space with an occasional sister passing through. The exterior cams, motion activated, exposed a few rabbits and squirrels. Even the rodents were boring. The memory, erased every second week, was nearly empty. For that I was thankful.

Ignoring the standard drawer full of assorted junk, I had a good start on winnowing the files to the ones not obviously house, tax or restaurant related when Amy called me to the table. I took the two most interesting to the dining room and continued to read the contents over a cup of excellent coffee.

One, in handwriting identified as Sumi’s, was a running inventory of the armory. Even in Japanese, weapon designations and ammo specifications were clear. The latest deductions were last weekend, just in time for the unpleasantness on the West Side. The super-controllers and very big toys were obtained as part of a bulk purchase after an unsolved convoy highjacking in Kentucky. She had no idea what she had.

The second was a diary/confessional of sorts hidden in a batch of recipes. Seiko had written a tragedy the Ancient Greeks would be proud to claim, potential true love gone horribly bad.

Cutting to the chase, Seiko claimed he and Sumi were in an arranged marriage intended to unite two great houses of the Yakuza. The couple, after coming to America, failed to produce an heir. Sumi, bitter at being barren and failing her uncle, arranged for Seiko to impregnate his cousin who, with her disabled husband, lived an undocumented life in Missouri. Sumi would present their offspring to her uncle as her own. The uncle was never to know that his bloodline had disappeared from the Organization’s history. Sumi was never to know that she was the end result of an incestuous relationship between the uncle and his sister, her mother.

How Seiko came across this last bit of information would forever be a mystery.

Cousin Mioshi, having no chance to conceive with her broken husband, was delighted to have a guilt-free tumble with her handsome cousin and get some children in the bargain. Yoshi, the husband, from an ‘unimportant’ family, was browbeaten into accepting the deception. Seiko’s promises of financial help were less effective than Sumi’s threats of great pain. Worse, Sumi forced him to watch his shameless wife enthusiastically enjoy the talents of another man.

At this point, I couldn’t decide if this was revisionist history or Seiko padding his resumé. It was probably true-ish, but Seiko clearly enjoyed fucking his cousin, too. Conception did not occur quickly, as the multiple attempts were described in near poetic fashion.

In a home birth attended by a midwife, Seiko and Mioshi’s first pregnancy produced twin girls. Sumi found this unacceptable, and, unknown to the attending midwife, failed to file the birth records. She insisted the cousins try again as soon as physically possible.

Ten months later, Mika came into the world, born to cousins who had fallen into forbidden love. Sumi, after arranging and basically forcing the physical relationship, was furious at the emotional betrayal. According to Seiko, who might have been shading his own perfidy, she went quietly insane and murdered Yoshi and Mioshi as soon as Mika was weaned, male heir be damned. Uncle would just have to trade the girls upwards in the next generation.

This time, the midwife refused to let Sumi file the records and did all three at the same time, lucky to get a clerk who was also a friend. She disappeared soon thereafter.

The murdered pair was never missed. Seiko had the Yakuza riot act explained in detail and fell in line. Using her uncle’s money without his knowledge, they founded the restaurant, obtained the Staten Island property and began the trail of dead ends and red herrings that lead to me and the sisters being safe today.

Sumi’s madness inspired greed and towering ambition precipitated the great rift in the powerful Yakuza factions, hoping to play one against the other until all were too weak to resist her East Coast takeover. It didn’t work out that way. Sophocles would have given the saga great reviews.

I had things to discuss in private with my girls. “Amy, is the grocery order done?”

“Done and paid, Sir. It should be ready for pick-up now.”

“Excellent, as usual. I want the Tanakas, Irina and Karen to go with me when I do the run, dressed in school uniforms, the business clothes or something similar. The bus leaves the station in ten minutes.”

I drove away in eight minutes with the online receipt, order number and the five very prim and proper girls. The sisters, with the diary, were sent to the back of the bus. They would come to their conclusions with no prompting from me.

Karen and Irina were seated where I could see them in the mirror. “Ladies, we need to talk. You have been in a monogamous relationship for a couple of years. I’ll be blunt. Unless it’s for cramps or regulation, birth control would not be in the cards, and certainly not a reproduction issue. Is it an issue now?”

“As much as I would like to have a little Allyn deNapoli Romero under foot, Papa will have to wait a little longer.” Karen assured him. “I was tempted but the trench coat pockets were not empty. We came prepared. Babies were not on the list of birthday presents we planned.”

“Sorry, but I had to ask. Last night was rather spontaneous and surprises happen. Irina was caught in the storm, too. And if the truth be told, you did want to get naked and fucked, didn’t you? I was crazy hot and you both were going to give it up, protected or not.” I laughed, “At the time, I needed you to be sensible. I wasn’t.”

“At the time, you, sir, were positively predatory.” Irina giggled, admitting, “This prey was quite willing to be eaten at any cost. Little Alanas would not be the end of the world.”

We talked about nothing and everything until I parked at the grocer’s loading dock. Yes, Amy had ordered that much. Twenty-one people times three days is a lot of food, toiletries and girly-type accessories. I don’t ask. I’m a better guy for it.

I sent Karen and Irina in to get help loading the bus and stayed to talk to my little Tanakas. “So, what do you think of the diary Seiko left behind?”

“Seiko spun quite a story, Master. No doubt it is factually true, but I think he soft-peddled his role. Words between the lines and what we saw at home, suggest he was more than an unwilling puppet.” Yumi said immediately. “He and his ‘cousin’ perhaps saw a way to remove the Sakura clan from the upper tier of the Organization by exposing Sumi’s origins later.”

“The disabled husband is the only person deserving of sympathy. Mioshi’s whorish behavior, Sumi’s cruelty and Seiko’s horrid complicity made his life even more miserable. But something unmentioned was going on. Murder is commonly ‘business as usual’ in that world, not a sure sign of insanity.” Suki spit out, “Except for us, there are no true innocents in this soap opera.”

Mika decided, “75% Tanaka, 25% mystery and 0% Sakura. Your DNA tests are not necessary. The police will soon know who was related to whom and how closely. We know where we come from but it changes nothing. We are happy with who and where we are, intelligent and fully aware girls who have chosen the traditional ways over the new.”

“Will you be sharing this outrageous narrative with your sister-wives?” I asked, “It is your history and not mine to tell, so whatever you decide is not my concern.”

“This happened before we were born. Children are not responsible for their parents’ actions.” Yumi answered, “Consider that Patty was in more immediate danger, so was Eve. Caralyn was seconds away from a fate similar to and worse than ours. Max and Sam were orphans struggling to survive and the Baxter twins were living in a convent. Leah and Jenny’s folks were secretly brainwashed, while Diane’s parents ignored her. Amy and Ellie were cast aside and abandoned. That did not make them bad people and actually made them more sensitive to their sisters.”

“Our story isn’t that much different, maybe a bit less scary than some.” Suki said. “Even if we are our own cousins, it won’t be a secret.”

“Master, may we Anglicize our name and become Tanners instead of Tanakas? Can your attorney make it official and permanent?” Mika suggested. “We are native born Americans and ‘Tanaka’ no longer represents a Japanese heritage of which we can be proud.”

“We have no problem with being Japanese Americans. We have a problem with what ‘Tanaka’ brings to the mix.” Suki added. “That history is not our future.”

The conversation ended when the supply train began to load the rear of the bus. That is the only way to describe the scene. Amy, with an eye to the future, stocked up on non-perishables, canned goods and frozen foods. I saw enough to get two dozen people through a minor famine.

Added to that were sufficient quantities of fresh produce and meats to last until Tuesday. I’m glad we had the bus. That girl could shop.

I tipped the loaders ten each and pointed the bus homeward, eager to relax and enjoy the rest of my birthday by the pool.

Amy rallied the troops, bucket brigade mode, and had the bus fully unloaded in ten minutes. Loading the pantry was a different story. She wouldn’t let us stack anything against the rear wall of the storeroom. “Dear, is there something wrong here?”

“Sir, I’m not sure. There is some sort of computer connection on this wall near the corner. It could be nothing or everything. What it will do is keep your birthday busier than any of us hoped. Remember what kind of big bother the little hidden room was?”

The connection was a standard parallel port connection. Was I looking for a detachable door opener? In the junk drawer in Seiko’s desk? A quick trip upstairs answered that question. About the size of three CDs stacked, one device had the matching connection on a two-foot cable. The six buttons, labeled in Japanese, were stupid simple. ‘Unlock’, ‘Open’, ‘Lock Open’, ‘Unlock#2’, ‘Close’, and ‘Lock Closed’.

There were other devices, labeled similarly, with SCSI and serial type jacks. The hill could be a honeycomb of secrets. What ever happened to simple? Last year at this time I was trying to see the fireworks. This year I was trying not to be the fireworks.

I took them all down to the pantry and plugged the appropriate one into the mystery port. ‘Unlock’, Click. ‘Open’. The center ¾ of the wall, hinged at the top, swung in and up with a thunk. ‘Lock Open’ seemed prudent. I heard a welcome click. The lights inside came on, activated by the opening door, illuminating a room larger than the armory above. This was the pantry from hell.

One wall and the rear were lined with stainless steel commercial grade shelving, with a two-sided row of the same down the center. If it could be canned, bottled, dried, packaged or stored without refrigeration in bulk, it was on these shelves. Amy bought for a small famine. These guys planned to survive the Apocalypse, zombie, alien or biblical.

“I found room for your overflow, Amy.” I tried to deadpan it but burst out in laughter. “Suki, Yumi, Mika, did you girls know about this room?”

“We had no idea, you have to believe us.” Yumi wailed. Her sisters echoed the sentiment. They were staring at the last wall to the left of the door. So was I.

“I believe you. There is enough here to feed the army meant to wield the weaponry upstairs. With luck, that army is being catalogued in the City Morgue.” But our luck lately had been limited to discovering additional conspiracies.

I was bowled over by another sixteen partially clothed little bodies rushing into the room. “Holy Moly! Look at these ‘best by’ dates.” Karen exclaimed. “We don’t have to grocery shop until 2021!”

“Mika, start translating the checklists on each shelf. We need to know how much of what is here. Jenny, Leah, as she finishes each list, confirm or correct the totals.”

The last wall held the biggest mystery of the day. “Suki, you and Beth make a quick list of the cases on that wall. I see acetone, charcoal, silica powder, methyl methacrylate, polyurethane, copper nitrate, rapid fixer, silver nitrate, aspirin and sulphuric acid. There is probably more. Bring the list to me with one of your laptop computers. I’ll be wherever the elevator goes.” I pointed to the wall. “Irina, Yumi, Karen, Amy and the Baxter twins will go with me into the most recent unknown.”

I pressed the single button beside the standard, everyday brass doors. It dinged normally and opened. Inside; there was a handrail and control panel with four buttons, ‘B’, ‘G’, ‘Lock’ and ‘Unlock’, in English this time.

“Ladies.” I smiled. “Care to go down the rabbit hole?” They entered cheerfully. Five more would fit with no crowding. “Ms McGee, will you do the honors?”

She curtseyed sweetly. “Thank you kind sir.” My number one pressed ‘Unlock’, then ‘B’. The doors closed and we went down, traveling farther than a mere twelve-foot ceiling would require.

We stopped and the doors opened, revealing what I semi-expected: a synthetic textile production line. From a huge breaker box on the wall, I powered up the machines. “Irina, analyze your crop top in that mass spectrometer and tell me what it’s made of. Wait for the results, and then do your shorts. We need to see the difference in composition.” I left her beside the device to get naked for science and addressed the Baxter girls.

“That looks just like a kitchen waste composter with a water inlet and a methane concentrator. Follow the pipes and take a guess at its purpose. Include but think beyond agriculture.”

I sent Yumi and Karen walking down the length of the production/fabrication line. “Examine each component and its control interface. Meet Amy and I at the end of the line.”

We strolled together to the output end and examined the slabs of extruded synthetic materials and spooled film. “Sir, we found the source of the Airwear fabric, didn’t we?” She had a follow up. “How did you guess?’

“It was the raw materials. Remember, I got my engineering degree from a university with well-respected textile science and sustainable technology departments. I took courses in both as electives and out of curiosity. Some understanding of the basics comes as a result of study group osmosis; some comes because it just makes sense when extrapolated. The fabric just rang a bell in my memory.”

“You didn’t see raw materials. You saw what they were made of and what they become after they do what they do.” Amy noted, “That Sumi person had no idea what was under her feet or she would have reacted when she saw our outfits that night she came to give away the sisters.”

“I think I know who discovered and designed all this, but the fabric is an incidental by-product. See those slabs. I’ll bet the ‘whoever’ was looking for light, flexible armor plating and failed.”

“So, these big chunks are thicker versions of the fabric? Jean said it was nearly indestructible.” She picked up a two by three foot piece, maybe one inch thick. “It’s feather light. Wonder what went wrong.”

“We will have to find out later. Here come the others. Karen and Yumi are ready to explode. The twins are smirking like they know something. Let’s see what they have discovered.” I turned to face the excited faces. “Jane and Jean, go first.’

Talking at the same time, one or the other of them answered, “That is one hella smart composter, kitchen waste and gray water only. It extracts artificial chemicals and preservatives from the high-grade fertilizer. The methane fires the big heaters in that component hot enough to melt anything short of iron-based metals. The artificials are ported to the next stage, which looks like a coloring process, if the control panel is true. The next device appears to be an infinitely adjustable extruder, angstroms to inches.”

“Karen, talk to me.” I smiled, “Tell me what Irina already knows.”

“Every part does something exotic and different. Fractionators, separators, blenders, smelters, catalyzers, remixers and precipitators. Every control tells you what is needed to complete each process. Every section has input hoppers with clear instructions. ‘Airwear For Dummies’.”

I was busy inspecting the fine controls on the extruder. This was one well-designed device. It could layer colors and create individual shapes if you knew the math or could input CAD drawings. I could see ultra-light buckles, cross-top bikini clips, pendants and more. It could make buttons, even.

“Irina, when Suki and Beth come down, compare your mass spec results with their list of materials. Think component elements and chemical properties.” I looked her over. “I appreciate your naked sacrifice for science.”

The elevator closed for a minute and disgorged a carload of girls when it reopened. Beth and Suki had the list and the rest of the nearly naked girls had insatiable curiosity. All twenty of them were here now.

Irina grabbed the list makers and began to get very animated, her tits in a tizzy. “Mark, except for a few traces, everything in my clothes is on or derived from this inventory. The rest, including the colorant in my panties, is in the compost extractions, I’ll bet.”

The ‘Daisy Dukes’ had become the ‘panties’ they resembled more than shorts.

“This is where Airwear comes from?” Patty squealed. “How did it get to Bright Star and who taught them how to handle it?”

Yumi looked at her sisters. “We may have an answer to that. A few years ago, I saw Seiko and Sumi loading five large plastic cylinders and a lot of shorter ones into a truck when we got home from school early.”

“Sumi had them in the entertainment room as sculpture stands for years. I remember wondering why she was getting rid of them and why they were going to an odd-lot jobber.” Mika added. “I didn’t even know what a jobber was, much less one who jobbed odd lots and closeouts, but that’s what the truck said.”

“Mr. Sun must have bought the lot on speculation for his little sweatshop from the jobber.” Suki said, with a shrug. “More proof that Sun, Seiko and Sumi were ignorant fools. Do you suspect the crippled Yoshi was more than Seiko claimed, Master? This all did not come from Sumi’s or his head.”

“Whoever ‘Yoshi’ is or was, this is a money printing machine.” Caralyn said, beginning to giggle. Giggling was very attractive on the yellow-haired girl who had, with Eve, chosen to be completely naked for my birthday. “Three cheers for ignorant fools.”

Three cheers for wiggling teenaged titties. There was hope for the day after all.

“Jean, now is the time to call Rose LaSalle. Find out how they learned to cut and fuse the Airwear film. Tell her we will talk production and cost when we finalize the supply lines next week.”

“I have to get my phone. Be right back.” She asked, “Do I tell her we control the source?”

“Tell her we have located the source and are securing exclusive rights and patent information. Before we go more public, we need to know who else knows outside of our family and associates.” I considered the next few hours. “Better still. We’ll all go up. There is not much more to discover down here anyway. Anything else has to come from the files or my clever searchbots. Amy, take one of the slabs when we go.” Pointing to the elevator, “We are outta here.”

I sent the girls up ten at a time. The Tanaka sisters went in the first car, tasked with looking through the recipes in the office for any reference to Yoshi, armor or machines.

“He is the wild card in this mish-mash, girls. Any small hint may give us the clue we need to find out how ‘unimportant’ he was. ‘Yoshi’ may be a nickname, or short for a longer surname.” I added, “We have no proof he and Mioshi were murdered in Missouri. They could have been killed here after setting up the factory in the basement.”

Yumi laughed rather grimly. “Master, it would be consistent with this sordid tale if Yoshi was a renegade from a legitimate industrial company, who suffered his crippling arthritis from chemical contamination. Perhaps he was hiding his discoveries from his employers who may have treated him poorly and trusted the wrong people to bankroll a breakaway attempt. Corporate espionage gone bad.”

“You have the best guess yet. No paper work, clandestine research, no patents, even Seiko and Sumi abandoning the production, that would explain everything except the machinery. I think Yoshi was trying to create a new form of lightweight armor plating and failed. That and the lack of a male heir cost him and Seiko’s cousin dearly. The events in Missouri remain unchanged, but for the scene of the murders.” I went further. “Try to find any invoices or delivery receipts dated six to twelve years ago. It might be for composting equipment, ovens, and any generic description of the machines downstairs. Even the mass spec could be used to deconstruct secret recipes.”

My birthday wasn’t completely trashed. All the answers were better than I had any right to expect.

The whole deal at Bright Star was serendipity. Sun did upgrade the cutting room equipment to the current high tech level but knew nothing about the fabric. The Airwear fabric came as a freebie, a bonus part in a lot of twill in discontinued colors Linh bought cheap. One of the women realized it could be fused together by experimenting with the spare cutting table parts. If a high-energy beam could slice it, maybe a different intensity could soften it enough to stick together. The woman, Miranda Lopez, discovered that a cooler laser not only let her reassemble the pattern pieces, but also did so seamlessly. At the right temperature, they literally jumped together like they were magnetized.

Yumi’s theory proved to be fact. Formerly employed as a researcher, Yoshimada Nakagawa was looking for revenge against the pharmaceutical conglomerate he thought treated him unfairly after a lab accident left him permanently disabled. Suki found evidence of heavy ‘mass production’ equipment purchases just after the ‘Tanakas’ took possession of the property. Blended with the moving van traffic, the deliveries weren’t unusual.

The origins of the house and honeycombed hill were revealed by my deep-seeking spybots. The previous owner was a thoroughly crazy survivalist convinced he could build a perfect bomb shelter. And that it was necessary. His children had him committed to an ‘institution’ and put the house up for sale, not fully aware of the extra space. The realtor knew, but beyond telling Seiko, kept his mouth shut. This would screw with the comparables in his MLS, seriously. He did not want to be under contract to a lunatic any longer than necessary.

Part of this was supposition, but easy behavior to extrapolate given the history of certain New York realtors. Building permits were loose suggestions.

We solved another mystery in grand style. Suki brought two easels with blank canvasses to poolside. She stretched Max’s only garment, a skirt, and her own logo bikini bottom over one canvas, giving me two more naked teens to appreciate. Amy propped her thick slab on the other easel.

I opened fire with the Desert Eagle, careful to angle any ricochet into the water. The thin fabric prevented penetration, but the impact shattered the stretchers. The slab was another revelation. The bullets hit and fell harmlessly to the floor!

The material had absorbed the kinetic energy completely, converting it to heat. That was the flaw. After two shots, the slab got very hot, too hot to touch, and was reluctant to give up the heat. The armored soldier would not die from a gunshot wound, but would, instead, be roasted in his or her uniform.

Ellie video recorded the experiment for posterity. I think the gunplay made her cunt spritz. She insisted I get naked before shooting, allowing her to squeeze my hard dick in one hand and shoot film with the other.

If we were clever, Irina would have her year round Airwear wardrobe. Kinetic energy becomes a near naked girl’s best friend. A brisk swat or four on a young girl’s frosty ass or a firm tit twist to ward off the chill of December would become a comfort any Good Samaritan could offer. It goes without saying, but I will anyway, exposed nipples would have to be warmed by hand until the crisis passed. No fashionable girl could reasonably refuse such a sweet gesture on a snowy day.

“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” The immortal words of Blanche DuBois as caption material.

The self-conscious girls would be happy excessive public displays of affection were banned; a grateful and sincere assfuck in the bleachers would seem the minimum a modest, outwardly virtuous girl was solidly obligated to allow in reward for such unselfish generosity. Which would be violated first, the constricting PDA policy or the timidly exposed virgin sitting in the family section? Would Mom actually think fucking the random Samaritan an excessive display or would it depend on how good the Samaritan was? Maybe Dad would be a better judge after warming up Mom?

A genuinely good Airwear girl would delay gratitude for a few years.

A frantic, conflicted teenager could take solace in the knowledge that classmates and siblings watching a stranger’s cock drill repeatedly into her butt would also see that her unplumbed maidenhead was intact. Her hard earned top-tier place in the in-crowd pecking order was secured as surely as her chaste innocence was preserved. Good judge of ‘thank you’ methodology or not, Dad would be proud of his little Petunia. A good girl can keep warm all winter long.

An Airwear girl might let her imagination get out of control, but her ass stayed under lock and key.

Troubling social confusion aside, there is no doubt that self-generated heat becomes a self-sustaining bonus. I can see the advertising poster now: “Christmas shopping is a cool snap in my holiday Airwear. My new friend warms the top and I warm our bottoms!”

I must remember to tell Linh Trong the new fantasy scenario. She really appreciated the mental struggles each previous vignette represented. If we grow the brand enough to justify TV advertising, the little Vietnamese girl would want to direct and star in the live-action commercials.

Personally, I doubted any of this would ever happen, thinking instead that our socio-fashion revolution would never gain momentum and die in its infancy. However, on one hand, prostitution is legal in Nevada, cannabis is becoming acceptable and any sexual dysfunction or aberration is fair game for the daytime talk shows. On the other hand, several states permit women to be topless in public, having to enforce equal treatment under the law without respect to gender, and primetime television programming becomes more ‘R’ rated every day.

You can’t predict what the third hand will hold. Surgically applied peer pressure may be the secret weapon, the snowflake that starts the avalanche of change. If my girls are an indicator, the avalanche moves quickly with mere token resistance.

I can hope.

What I hoped for this instant was a full body massage with happy endings from my newly dubbed ‘Tanner’ sisters. Tossing a lounge chair cushion on the pool deck, I ordered Yumi and Mika to shed the logo bikini bottoms as Suki had done earlier and help me work out my kinks.

My slave girls were more than willing to render me kinkless, happily ending when I wet my dick in three more tight virgin pussies. “Master, we have this under control. You just lay back and enjoy our final gift on your birthday.” Yumi said, smiling angelically.

The three girls pounced. Suki successfully took my cock down her throat while Mika tried to suck Yumi’s clit off. Then, with Suki holding my dick upright, her twin slowly and deliberately impaled her cunt, shredding her virginity in one excruciating stroke, stopping only when her clit came in contact with my pubic hair. The angelic smile never left her face, not when she rested long enough for her overstretched pussy to adjust to the fleshy intruder, not when I played roughly with her bursting nipples and not when her hips went crazy on my cock.

Yumi reached her first climax almost immediately and came often until I blew a load against the back wall of her cunt, triggering the end of her conscious thought processes. She was still pulsing erratically around my rigid prick when her sisters lifted her off and Suki took her place on the end of my cock, dripping with the vestiges of Yuki’s virginity.