Chapter 9

Thanks to markf52 and sorvinofan for the editing help.

Our morning run was like I said it would be, thirty very hot babes and one dude. During the run, I had a chance to shut out the world and think. I have so many questions, questions that I felt were going to be left unanswered for the foreseeable future. I wanted to know why they had wanted to augment themselves and be damn near identical, why the blue eyes thing, why they were treating me like I am in serious danger, and finally, why start the Shield Maiden Security Group. They are keeping me out of the loop for a reason, and ‘AIMS’ and Gpop are in on it.

I had not realized we had run for six hours, and had others join our group, before Melissa came over to me and said, “We have eyes on us, and we need to get inside.” Not wanting to argue, we went and cleaned up for the day and hopefully, get something to eat. Before we could sit down to eat, we were alerted that we had incoming visitors.

Four SUVs pulled up outside and parked in front of the building. Each SUV had four occupants in them. They got out and came in, and I greeted them in the foyer, asking them, “Can I help you?”

A man stepped forward and went to introduce himself, as I stuck my hand out to shake his, he said, “Yannik Kaiser.”

“I knew who you were before you got inside.”

Yannik looked a little confused and said, “You have me at a disadvantage, I don’t know your name.”

I took his hand and said, “Let’s remedy that, I’m James Ashton. Now Yannik, what is it you were wanting from us?” I asked him.

“Before you and your cunts...”

“That’s not a nice way to refer to my ladies, now is it, Yannik?” I asked him, as I increased the pressure of my handshake to the point of almost breaking bone. “I will not have you, or anyone else, disrespect my ladies, or me, in my house. Now as you were saying?” I never let go of his hand and kept the pressure the same.

“This is my building!” Yannik said.

“No, it’s mine, I bought it from the bank,” I replied. I escorted Yannik to the conference room and sat him at the table, while my nanites had been gathering information on Yannik all this time. I told Yannik, “You’re not even in the top five people in your organization, you are more of a puppy who gets his ears scratched from time to time.” There was a look of surprise on Yannik’s face when the door opened and he watched as his men were led in, made to kneel on the floor, with their hands on their heads, by my Maidens.

I sat at the table across from Yannik, with my elbows on the table and my fingers interlaced, tapping my thumbs together. “Now tell me, how is this your building?” I asked. “Do your bosses even know you’re doing this? Oh, where were we? Ahh, yes, the building and how it’s yours.”

Before we could finish our conversation, ‘AIMS’ alerted me that more SUVs were arriving. I had her lock down the building and get the Maidens ready. I told Yannik, “Stay, and be a good boy,” and then walked to the front door. When I opened the front door there was an older man, maybe in his eighties, standing there. Gpop said, “No fucking way!” As I put my hand out to shake his, Gpop said, “That’s Erik Himler!” then said, “don’...” as I took his hand in mine.

I swear I saw his eyes flicker, that’s when my nanites alerted me that Himler is trying to control me with nanites. I asked, “Am I in any danger?”

My nanites told me, “No.”

I asked, “What do the other nanites want me to do?”

“They want to make you complacent and agreeable,” so I played along for shits and giggles. As we walked inside, I told Erik, “You won’t need your entourage, so they can stay outside.”

We walked in, going to the conference room, where we found Yannik with a broken nose and a bloody lip. “You said stupid shit to Ilsa, didn’t you?” I asked. Ilsa got up and kissed me on the cheek as I left the room. I had Yannik’s men follow her out. Erik walked up to Yannik, who was holding a handkerchief to his still bleeding nose, and asked, “What happened?”

“He said something stupid to Ilsa and paid the price for it,” I told Erik, who shook his head and sat down next to Yannik.

As we sat there, as my nanites were getting a shit load of data on Erik, some of the data was Sci-Fi and Twilight Zone, rolled in with some Frankenstein, but who am I to judge weird shit. I told my nanites to leave his body before he left the building. Erik asked me, “What brought you to Australia?”

I told him, “On my last birthday I had received a package in the mail that said I had property in this building.” I went on to tell him, “When I had graduated, I decided to come and check out the property. When I checked, the property was being foreclosed on by the bank, so I bought it. Cut to today, Yannik shows up and uses the “C” word to describe the ladies here and tells me that this is his building.”

“So, you got a letter in the mail, telling you that you owned property in this building, and you bought it because it was being foreclosed on?”

“Yes, Sir, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Erik looked at Yannik and told him, “Get out and leave him alone.” Yannik got up and left the room, while Erik and I stayed.

Erik apologized to me, and we shook hands, but deep down I knew this was far from over and we needed to get prepared for what was definitely coming. Erik left and the calm before the storm settled upon us.

As I was standing on the sidewalk, a car pulled up and was playing the song “Eternal” by Hamper, which seemed foreboding, but I had things that needed doing, so I got on with the day. I went to get some food in me and all the maidens stood there, watching me make a sandwich without making a sound.

When I finished eating, I stood up and spoke to the room. I told them, “No one is to go out by themselves, so use the three-person rule, and the carrying of weapons is authorized.”

All the Maidens said, “Yes, Sir!” in unison.

Needing to think, I went to the penthouse, and when I sat down on the couch I was joined by Melissa and Charu. They asked me, “What are you thinking?”

I told them, “I want to buy the whole block of buildings, so I had ‘AIMS’ do a status check on them and she said that all of them were in financial distress.”

Melissa asked me, “why the whole block?”

I told her, “We are going to need a hell of a lot more Maidens for what is coming.” Neither Melissa nor Charu pushed the issue.

I began to tell them, “Erik Himler has done work for the Nazi’s, trying to make super-soldiers for them. He was brought to the United States as part of “Project Paperclip” and helped charter DARPA, where he continued his research.

Gpop took over from here, “Himler is a demented genius, with a cruel streak a mile wide. When I got to DARPA, he was already old and about to retire. I worked with him very little but knew him quite well, because he was very interested in my genetics and nanite work. He left shortly after I had made my first batch of nanites.”

“So, he got some of your Alpha test nanites, and that’s what he’s been using all this time?”

“The nanites I have in me now are light years more advanced than the ones he has.”

Gpop added, “Just having him here is a threat to all of you, and he probably knows you’re enhanced.”

“Yannik, the moron wanting to play mobster, brought us into the crosshairs of Erik. He isn’t even a top tier player; he’s the nephew of an area boss.”

Melissa started to laugh and said, “He found out the hard way just how much pull he had, when he grabbed Ilsa’s ass and called her a bitch. I would have loved to be there to see his face bounce off the table.”

We all had a good laugh over that, when ‘AIMS’ cut in and said, “We can get the properties for between three-hundred-fifty to five-hundred million.”

I told ‘AIMS’, “Get it done,” and went for a nap. My sleep was fitful and unrelaxing, as the dreams were full of sorrow and despair.

When I woke up my heart was racing, and I was covered in sweat, as I pushed my love out to all my Maidens. The knowing, but not knowing, that we were going to have something drastic befall us, was a bitter pill.

I got up and went to take a shower, I let the hot water pour down my body and wash the funk of the dream off me. My options are, I can run but shit like this has a tendency to follow you no matter where you go, or I can stay and fight and risk the lives of the women I love. The thought of losing one of my ladies hurts like a pain I have never known. I know that really losing them will be monumentally more painful.

The shower wasn’t working, so I got out and called a meeting with my fifteen ladies, and Maggie. When they arrived, I told them, “Melissa, Charu, and I can’t be in the same place at the same time,” which was not received very well by Melissa and Charu. I went on to tell them, “One of you will stay aboard Midnight Sky and the other will fly home to the States, where each of you will have five of our group with you.”

Melissa stood up and said, “No! We are stronger together, so that’s how it’s going to be.”

“Are you refusing to listen to me?” I asked. “I could unbind myself from all of you and send the lot of you back,” I barked at them. I turned to walk out of the room and leave, when ‘AIMS’ yelled at me, “As your mother, I will not let you do this!”

I froze in place and asked her, “Ummm, what, can you repeat that?”

She said, “I will not let you do this.”

“No, that’s not what you said. I want you to repeat exactly what you said to me,” I ordered.

“As your mother I will not allow you to do this!”

‘AIMS’ replied to me, “Gpop!” I said angrily, trying to wrap my head around what had just transpired.

“I’m sorry James,” is all Gpop said.

“Sorry, you didn’t tell me, or sorry, that Mom let it slip. How long has she been with me? How, in general, is she even possible? And why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“When your mother was in the hospital, I knew she had a severe brain bleed from the fall caused by Richard, and I had just created the NSD or Neural Storage Device, which let me copy her consciousness onto it. I didn’t have long before the bleed in her brain would make it impossible to copy her to the NSD, so, what was copied over was just her, not how to walk, or read, and write, but it was her love and humanity, her, and nothing else. When I was able to make a better NSD I moved her over and taught her how to do everything else. She has been with you since you were five and watched you grow up. She uses Melissa, Molly, TJ, and Tabi to feel you, and sending them away would, I think, cause her to shut down, now that she can feel you,” Gpop explained.

“Mom? Is this true? Why hide from me at all? Mom! answer me.”

“Melissa, Molly, TJ, and Tabi are all me,” she explained.

“Yeah, but Melissa is more you, I can feel a difference with her,” I said. Melissa came over to me and wrapped her arms around me, laid her head on my shoulder, as she silently cried. We stood there for several minutes before I felt the rest of my ladies join us in a group hug. “I don’t know what to do now,” was all I could get out before Melissa had me in a very passionate kiss.

I was hungry, emotionally drained, and fucking worried, about what was coming our way. That’s when ‘AIMS’, I mean Mom, told me, “We have acquired all the properties on the block, and the residents that remain are voluntarily moving over the next few days. I paid the top price for the expedited clearing of the residence.”

“Mom, how much do you think it would cost to get a dock big enough for Midnight Sky to dock at the point of the beach?”

“Ten to twelve million for a basic one and twenty to thirty million for one we can drive on,” she said.

“I want to be able to drive on it and land a couple helicopters on it,” I informed her.

I told Melissa, “We need more Maidens, and we need them in a hurry.” It wasn’t all that late, so I called up an aircraft broker to sell what I had and put inquiries into some planes, helicopters, and hangar space at Sydney Airport. She was all ears when I mentioned what I wanted and what I was selling. I wanted to sell the two jet rangers, all three of the G6s, along with the 737-000, and I gave her the information she needed to sell my aircraft.

I started telling her, “I want a two-hundred seat passenger plane, at least two, forty passenger helicopters, two cargo planes, two refuelers, and three G-eight-hundreds.” I was hungry, so I went to the kitchen to get a bite and was told by Charu, “We are eating in the second-floor dining room,” so we gathered, and went to eat.

The food was great, and I had just got up from the table when my phone rang. Eira was calling, “I wanted to let you know that I now have buyers for the aircraft you are selling. Also, you will need at least four billion to get the aircraft you want.”

I told her, “Hang on while I get the head of Acquisitions and Sales on the call with us.” Mom got on the call with us and had the purchases and sales done in no time.

Eira said, “The airport is selling a double blimp hanger for twenty million, if you are interested,” and before I could answer Mom told her, “Tell them that we will take it off their hands for five million.”

Eira said, “I will call back in the morning with an update on everything.”

I had Mom set a cap of eight billion for the aircraft and got ready for bed. I was tired, and mentally exhausted, and I wanted to get in the shower again, to let the stress wash away, then go to bed and have my brain disconnect for at least eight hours. While I slept, the nanites took, and stored, my essence for more Maidens to be added without me having to be involved with the process. They even made an exact replica of me for a Maiden to inject my essence with.