Chapter 42: Welcome To The Family

What saved our plan was Althea flying to New York and Todd, to California, within hours after our grab. That left Darren, Melissa and I to take care of transporting her back to California without getting all of us killed or turned into drooling, mind-fucked zombies.

We were in a comfy rented cabin under my pen name deep in the Alberta trees when we finally allowed Casey to return to consciousness. We rented a town car and put the van at the bottom of a deep, blue lake without its license plate. That wound up in a separate lake hundreds of miles away.

The three of us threw on lab coats to across our little drama. It began with giving Casey a drug that not only knocked her for a loop, but caused her to wake up with nausea. She was in a comfy bed with Melissa standing over her and some bogus monitors (courtesy of Chuck) beside it when she stirred.

Right on cue, her eyes opened.

“There you are!” Melissa said cheerfully. “You’ve been a very sick girl.”

Casey’s reply, was a retching sound and her jumping out of bed and looking around frantically. Melissa pointed at the restroom door and she flew inside and began retching her guts out for an uncomfortable period of time.

“Maybe we should have something to eat waiting for her,” I said, reaching for my wallet. I handed a $20 Canadian bill to Melissa.

“Do we know if she’s a vegan or anything?” she asked.

“Shit, I don’t know,” I shook my head. “Is it important enough to break radio silence over?”

Just then, Casey began another round of retching in the rest room.

“You tell me,” Darren said with an arched eyebrow. I was already speed-dialing Sara.

“Yes! Hello?” she caught herself, knowing we were hardly on a private channel.

“Yes, Ms. Wilson, I doing a survey for the beef industry,” I said smoothly. “Is everyone in your family a meat eater?”

“Mostly,” she said. “But I have a daughter away at college who won’t eat meat, but will eat dairy products. What would you call her?”

“Hungry, in a very few minutes. We thank you for your time and cooperation,” I shut off the phone as quickly as I could. It turned out I probably bought us a few vital minutes.

“Get her some kind of salad. Dressing on the side,” I told Melissa. “I don’t know. Do they do a tofu salad somewhere?”

“Neanderthal,” she said over her shoulder as she stepped out. But she was smiling.

“What happened to me?” Casey appeared in the doorway looking like, sadly, a worked over porn star. Why Audrey’s master ever chose the Cherry Rain body I’ll never know. I instructed Darren to get me a clean washrag while I led the pathetic-looking Casey over to her bed. It was very large and comfortable, so she did not raise much of an objection.

“You’ve been very sick,” I said. “Your fever spiked to nearly 102 degrees. Your father sent us here to take care of you as quietly and quickly as possible.”

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, frowning. “The last thing I remember is ... oh, God!”

She scrambled back out of the bed, hit the floor at a dead run and did not slow down when she hit the bathroom. In her haste, she left the door open, leaving no question that the mickey we slipped her was gradually working its way through her body. Without looking in, I reached around and turned on the bathroom vent fan.

“Sorry,” she said miserably.

“It’ll pass,” I said confidently. “Goes very much with the strain of the flu that knocked you for such a loop.”

“What’s it called?” she asked from around the corner.

“I’m Dr. Brown and this is my brother, uh, Dr. Smith,” I said stupidly, not having thought about that beforehand.

“Nice to meet you, Dr. Brown. But that’s not what I asked you,” Darren actually punched my arm just as she emerged from the bathroom. “I asked, ‘What’s it called?’ Meaning the flu. Which flu is it?”

That I had thought about.

“It’s actually called the Canadian Flu,” I lied oh so smoothly. “Up here, they hate that the rest of the world calls it that, so they just say ‘the common flu.’”

“I think I am feeling better,” she said wanly. “Guess there’s nothing left inside me to make me ill.”

She began to pull the covers back over her when she noticed her hands.

“How weird,” she said, holding her hand up and staring at the back of it. “I’ve never had fingernails that looked that good. Or used that color. Did someone do my nails while I was out?”

“Sure.” Darren leaped in. “They thought that would make you feel a little more like yourself.”

I was pretty sure I shot him a withering glance. But about that time Casey had her hands up inside the baggy gown we’d put her in.

“What happened to my boobs? she shrieked. “They’re ... really small! They’re...”

About that time, she touched a super-sensitive nipple. She immediately began twitching as a self-induced orgasm doubled her up and left her curled up on the bed. This was as good a time as any to test her programming.

“Casey,” I began with what I hoped was a soothing tone of voice. “Anything you hear me say is perfectly reasonable and truthful. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, sitting up even though she was still breathing hard.

“Your mother, who now goes by the name Sara Wilson, asked us to bring you to her and get you away from your father, who you know is evil to the core,” I said, getting a nodded response. “And as you probably know, he has a powerful machine known as Master PC which allows him to know where you are, anywhere in the world.”

“He calls it his Slave-O-Meter,” she said with a straight face. I’ll have to remember that one.

“We needed to make sure we could get away, so we had an ability to make you seem – temporarily – like someone else,” I exhaled. “You need to look in a mirror and brace yourself that Casey Michaux won’t be looking back.”

Climbing out of bed, unsteady but nearly clear of the drug, she walked back into the bathroom and saw Cherry Rain’s reflection looking back at her. But since she did not know her porn stars at a glance, so it was merely some halfway attractive, dark-haired girl who stared back at her.

“Will you look at that,” she said, reaching out to touch the glass. “That’s definitely not me.”

“Just for a little while,” I said.

She turned and looked at me, smiling.

“But what if I like not being the daughter of that monster,” she said. “Please tell me who I am.”

“Well, you’re a dead ringer for a porn star to disappeared without a trace over a decade ago,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

“What’s my name?” she asked. Not “her” name; she was already bonding with her new looking. Never saw that coming.

“Cherry,” I said.

“Porn star, huh?” she said, small smile fixed to her face. “Would it be possible to get me some makeup?”

“Don’t know if it’s your skin tone, but I have some with me,” said Melissa.

“Not sure I could know my ‘skin tone’ since I’ve only had this skin for a couple of hours,” Casey said, accepting the small kit. “But it can look better than ... this.”

“Does it bother you that you’re not red-headed?” I asked carefully.

“Miss my boobs more,” she said. “You’re going to have to get me as good or better, or it’s a deal breaker.”

“How close were you to your degree?” Darren asked. The gleam in his eye told me he did not want to talk education with the young woman.

“Which one?” she laughed. “I wrapped up my Masters in the spring. I was working towards twin doctoral majors when you pounced on me like a piece of fresh meat. Now, I guess I’ll get to find our what the porn life is all about.”

“NO! Of course not,” I blurted out. “This is just a vessel, a template body. This body you are in has never been on a porn set. In fact, physically, you should be a virgin.”

“Well, that won’t do,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Which of you is going to take care of that?”

Talk about an awkward silence. Leave to my little brother, the soldier, to come up with an appropriate strategy.