Chapter 22

Sunday - September 18th, 2005

I awoke early again while my lovelies were all still asleep. Almost as soon as I was fully alert Genie began to talk to me.

"Karl, how are you this morning?"

"I'm fine Genie. How are you?"

"The same my friend.

"I've been keeping a close watch on our two captives. It seems to me that after you fully interrogate them, you might want to erase their memories of their capture and instead turn them loose. I should be able to learn a lot more about their organization and what they fully intend to do if I can watch these two and find out who they are working with."

"What about the fact that they were to have eliminated me and already abducted Martita, Lupie, and Sofia?" I asked.

"Why don't we both go and interrogate them now Karl? Afterwards we can strategize as to how to handle things."

"Sounds good Genie. Why don't you pause things then and send me to the Weapons Store," I suggested.

Immediately I was there in the Weapons Store with my programming device suspended in the air nearby. I dressed completely in black including a dark mask pulled over my face covering everything but my eyes; all for psychological effect of course.

I wrapped my Bo around my waist in case I needed to give my prisoners a little shock treatment as an incentive to cooperate. I snagged the programming device and walked to the holding cells where the two had been confined. Standing inside the cell with the first prisoner, the runner, I asked Genie to start things up again.

I was standing directly in the man's line of vision when things started up again and to him it must have seemed that I appeared out of thin air.

"Enrique Guy Silva, who do you work for?" I asked in Spanish.

He was struggling to keep silent. I knew that with the programming I had given him nearly twenty hours ago that he would eventually lose his struggle to keep quiet; but I really didn't have the patience to wait any longer. I unwrapped the Bo from my waist and switched it to electric whip mode. The two men had been stripped, their wrists shackled and attached to chains embedded into the ceiling, and their ankles shackled and connected to chains bolted to the floor. I flicked the electrically charged whip at his exposed groin and made very brief contact. His scream was very loud.

"I suggest you answer my questions promptly. Who do you work for?"

"I don't know his real name, but he answers to Knife."

"Is he the big boss or does he report to someone higher up?"

"A higher up."

"And the name of this higher up?"

"Senor Piedra."

"Do you know who this Senor Piedra reports to?" I asked flicking my whip so that the tendrils nearly reached his organ before pulling back.

"No! I only know of two contacts, the one we are supposed to report to normally and the one above him incase Knife isn't available. Honest! I know of no others!" he exclaimed eyeing the whip with considerable fear.

"When you and your associate were questioned earlier twenty some women were mentioned. Where were you supposed to take your captives? Was there some central location all twenty were being taken to?"

"Enrique!" the other captive said with a menacing growl.

I had Genie transport me into his cell and I laid into him with the whip allowing the blue fire to dance along his skin until I thought he might have a heart attack if I didn't lay off. Then Genie transported me back to Enrique's cell.

Enrique was so scared of me and the whip that he just started to sing in an attempt to avoid what had happened to his partner. Apparently the twenty women were to be drugged and taken to Cartagena, Columbia to a warehouse where they would be photographed, 'trained', and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

"When are you supposed to contact Knife next?" I asked.

"Tuesday. We are to bring the five women we were assigned to the transit point."

"So neither of you has ever made the trip to the warehouse in Cartagena?"

"I haven't," Enrique answered, "but Carlos has."

Carlos was much more cooperative this time around. I hadn't actually been asking him any questions and I realized that my programming directives made him tell me the truth while I was asking him things, but it also left him open to be angry with Enrique for doing the same thing. I needed to work on this aspect of the program, but for now I wanted to determine just where this warehouse in Cartagena is.

Carlos actually knew the address of the warehouse. It was not to far from a marina and I wondered if most of the captives weren't coming in by boat. Carlos was able to tell me more about how the women were generally abducted and transported, though he couldn't give me much of any idea of who the buyers might be.

When we had gained as much information from the two as possible, Genie paused things and we discussed the situation at length. Eventually we decided to release the two with a firm set of false memories - I left the development of this program to Genie. What we wanted to do was make them believe that Martita, Lupie, and Sofia had checked out of the hotel Cala Luna unexpectedly early and had inadvertently given them the slip. In their new memories they hadn't run into me or my Warriors.

Carlos and Enrique would abduct three other women in place of the ones that got away as well as the two that they had already targeted. Genie would keep track of their every move and continue to gather information about their organization and their buyers. His overall plan was to 'acquire' the financial assets of this organization along with that of its clientele and transfer them to the various personas he was creating for me around the globe.

We decided this would be the model for any future situations where I crossed paths with criminal organizations or corrupt government officials. Acquire their assets thereby stripping them of their wealth and crippling their efforts. In the case of the criminal organizations I may elect to take further action against them. In any case I wasn't getting ready to become someone's idea of a super hero out to stick his nose in every bit of crime around, but I also wasn't prepared to sit idly by on the sidelines all of the time either.

I'm not a saint entirely either I suppose and don't intend to become one. In my own way I am enslaving some and not giving much freedom to others. Still, I didn't like to see people treated as poorly overall as these women would have been - so this was one of those cases where I was ready to get involved.

Genie took care of programming the two, dressed them using transporter technology to place their clothing on them after having cleaned it and restored it to its former state, and deposited them somewhere back in Costa Rica that would fit in with their programmed memories. Once everything was in place, I had him start things up again.

I had Genie transport me to the Temple of the Golden Warrior. It was about three in the afternoon local time when I arrived. I didn't announce my presence and was just sitting against the wall at the highest level of the large amphitheatre that composed the main public area of the temple. On the arena floor below me I watched as the temple priests and priestesses instructed their would be warriors in the martial arts. It was all very impressive and regardless of what my enhanced capabilities may have given me in terms of an edge in combat, my respect for the dedication of these people was incredibly high.

I observed the training for about an hour before having Genie transport me back to my palace. I dressed in more normal clothing and then transported up to the house to see the progress Lynn and her crews had made.

As I thought about the amount of work that had been done and the amount of coordination that was required to accomplish it in so short a time and in such an excellent fashion, my respect for Lynn's abilities increased even more. She had done a fine job and I could see that the remodeling was over. Now it was time to furnish the house. I walked to the guesthouse and was pleased to find it at the same point. Well, it was a Sunday and most stores and furniture galleries would be open today - so why not do some shopping for things so we could settle in to the new place.

Lynn, Carly, Crystal, Shelly, and Jill would all need a place to stay that bore some resemblance to normal or the rest of their friends and acquaintances would ask even more questions. I would need the same as well. I expected to entertain many friends as well as my parents and for that matter probably Crystal's parents and Lynn's possibly to - don't know about hers for sure; things have been so busy I never thought to ask if they were still alive and where they might live.

Sooner or later I'd want to do the same at the house in Costa Rica. I imagined that I would be making friends there and inviting them over to the house. That would give me a chance to get to find out more about Martita's parents as well.

I found that I was really quite hungry this morning and I hadn't eaten since the meal at the Olive Garden the evening before. It was just about time for my lovelies to wake up - if they weren't already. I asked Genie if they were up and he told me not yet. We talked for a moment about the portals and he asked where I wanted to put the one in my Paradise Valley home - that way the women would be able to gain entrance to the palace from the house. I reminded him of the spot I'd asked Lynn to leave alone for the time being.

The area was about 10 feet long by eight feet wide. I suggested that he enclose it with a wall with a single door. The little room would hold a couch, a book case, and a telephone. If anyone asked it was just another reading nook or a place for a guest to take a phone call in private. Genie suggested an aquarium wall like the one in Lynn's office and I told him to do whatever seemed best to him. He just transported all of it into place and it was really cool to watch!

After he was done with that he told me that each of the eight women now in my harem had a very small crystal embedded in the bone in their skulls. The crystal could not be detected using any current form of earth technology and would serve a few specific functions. First, it would allow the transport units to query the crystal and would return some pattern based upon the bearers DNA. The transport units would then compare that pattern and the pattern from the portal gate to their list to see if that individual was allowed to transport using that gate and to identify a list of acceptable destinations. As long as the individual was trying to reach an approved destination with a gate they were allowed to use the transport would take place. They could bring any inanimate object they like, but not another life form except for plants. Second, the crystal also could provide some information regarding the health of the bearer so that Genie could easily monitor it. Third, the crystal was somehow involved in the language upload and download capability. Fourth, the crystal would allow me to speak with them mentally as I did with the warriors.

After Genie had told me about the crystals, he let me know that any future member of my harem could easily and painlessly be fitted with one. Genie also told me that each of the warriors had been fitted with one already.

In any case I now had a way for my lovelies to move between the palace and the house. I transported to the palace and woke them up asking them to get ready in short order.

We ate breakfast at "The Original Pancake House" restaurant on Camelback road. I ate more than I would have thought possible, but I was learning that my metabolism able to handle almost anything I ate without it going to fat.

Once breakfast was over I hauled my lovelies back to the house and introduced them to mental conversation. To say they were surprised understates their reactions somewhat. After I had calmed them down and defined what good manners were as far as mental communication goes, I began to fill them in on the portal gate system.