Chapter 9 - In which I come to my senses

In which I come to my senses.

So, dear reader. What would you do if you woke up naked in an RV with eight naked girls who are definitely underage and who are alive and breathing but all seem to be comatose? Panic? That’s what I did.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, what have I done? That’s about all I could think for a few minutes that seemed like many hours. I slapped their cheeks and tried to revive them, jolted their brains with surges of NanoRep electricity, saw them twitch and jerk, but not regain consciousness. Fuck. This was bad.

Very soon, someone was going to call the cops, and they would start searching. Someone would remember seeing a large RV parked outside school around the time that the missing girls disappeared. The hunt would begin, and more cops would be brought in from other parts of the country - parts where people were not infected by my NanoReps. This would escalate fast. Fuck.

Drive my RV to the school and park it outside? Leave the doors open so that someone would find the girls? Not good. If they didn’t wake up, someone was going to give them CAT-scans, and their brains would be shredded to bits because the NanoReps were magnetic and would fly all over the place in such a strong magnetic field. That was a complication I had thought about before, but had never worried about because the whole thing seemed so far-fetched. Ok, so I could not let anyone find them like this. Oh fuck, what had I done?

Drive away to some remote location, kill them and dump their bodies where they would never be found? No, damn it, that would simply be wrong. I couldn’t live with myself if I did such a thing.

Ok. No returning them in this state, because that would mean at least one of them would wind up in a CAT-scan and get her brain shredded. No psycho killer stuff. That meant I was going to have to bring them to a hospital and confess to the whole thing, making sure they weren’t subjected to CAT-scans. Would they believe my story? Maybe not, but I could use my NanoRep persuasion on the hospital staff maybe? That would be difficult to improvise, but - possible? Yes. That was my best bet. Fuck.

I put on clothes and made my way to the front compartment. Tried to drive off without raising the support struts that kept the RV stable. They made a terrible noise, and a couple of them broke off before I came partially to my senses and went outside to raise them.

That took me a few minutes, because some of them were bent so badly that I had to hammer on them for a while before they were straight enough to raise without pinching. When I got back inside the RV, I got the best surprise of my life. Marie and Elsa had stirred to life when the cold, fresh air hit them.

-”What What happened?” asked Marie.

-”The others are asleep back there, and we can’t wake them up!” Elsa looked worried, and was clearly trying to cover up, holding one hand in front of her groin and covering her breasts with the other arm.

Nearly fainting with relief, I called up the group avatar and slammed the disinhibition choke in place and cut off their fear responses.

-”Oh, you can’t believe how happy I am that you’re awake!” I said, letting them see my undisguised relief. Then I caught myself and took a couple of deep breaths to regain some of my composure before going on, improvising as I went; “It malfunctioned. The uh Sensory Repeater Device. It overloaded your sensory systems, and you all fainted. Me too.” Close enough to the truth. “Are you ok? How do you feel?” -”I’m ok. My head aches and I feel a bit sick, but I’m ok.” said Marie, looking curiously at me and then at Elsa.

-”Yeah, same. Ok. But what about the others?” -”Let’s check on them, ok?” I said. Elsa turned and walked back toward the bedroom, but Marie stared intently at me for a couple of really long seconds before raising a quizzical eyebrow.

-”What?” I asked, feeling cold shivers go through me and preparing to slam the panic button and send her into zombie mode.

-”Nothing. Let’s try and wake the others.” She turned around and stepped inside the RV. I didn’t know what to make of the look she gave me, but shrugged it off for the moment and joined them in the effort of trying to coax the other girls back to consciousness.

For the next thirty minutes or so, one by one, the other girls started stirring and waking up. I wasn’t able to tell from their avatars exactly what was wrong in their brains, but I could tell that activity was low in many regions of their limbic systems, and that their neocortex had trouble lighting up. I suspected that the prolonged activity in their pleasure centres had somehow depleted one or other neurotransmitter, or maybe released too much of it so that some kind of inhibitory feedback had been activated, but since I had no accurate way of seeing their neurotransmitter levels other than by inference from the levels of electrical signalling in different systems of their brains, I could not be sure. Now that they were waking up, though, they were probably out of the woods and things would settle back to normal on their own.

Despite being very anxious to return the girls to their parents as soon as possible, I focused on taking care of them when they woke up, giving them something to drink and eat out of my wellstocked supplies, asking them to shower and freshen up once they had regained their strength, and then to put on their clothes. I gave them Paracetamol for the headache. The nausea settled on its own once they drank a sugared beverage and got their glucose levels back up. The mood was subdued until they were all back on their feet and starting to feel better. They spoke softly to each other, as if loud speech hurt their ears. Probably, their sensory systems were a bit raw and sensitive, I figured. Gradually, their mood seemed to improve, and I started to see more smiles as they discussed what had happened and explained to each other about the “malfunctioning Sensory Repeater Device” that had overloaded their senses and knocked them unconscious. Apparently, they accepted that story as the truth.

I could tell from their avatars that the block I had re-established to keep them from experiencing fear was a good thing. The experience would have caused them some degree of mental trauma, judging from the way their prefrontal cortex was trying to communicate to their amygdala that it should trigger release of cortisol and other stress hormones. They probably knew on an intellectual level that they ought to be frightened by what had happened, but with the block in place, they simply didn’t feel very concerned. As I scanned them, I felt eyes on me and looked up from my introspective use of the internal interface to see Marie looking at me with a neutral expression. We locked gazes for a long time, and I was starting to feel panic rising before I saw that a smile was creeping up on her face. A strong sense of relief rushed through me, and I could see that she saw it too, and that it made her smile ever more. I wondered what she was thinking, and how much she understood. Did she even believe my story? I’d have to deal with that later, but for now, she apparently didn’t constitute a threat to the stability of the situation.

When the last girl got out of the shower and started to get dressed, I had come to a decision.

-”Ok, girls, if I could have your attention for a minute” Their discussions ceased immediately.

-”What happened to us was really unfortunate. I’m relieved to see that you are doing ok, but I have no excuses for what happened. The SRD malfunctioning like that is inexcusable, because it put you all to risk. All I can do is to sincerely apologise, and hope that you will forgive me for what happened” I trailed off and met their eyes. They were silent for a few seconds, and then Jasmine spoke: -”Hey, Charlie, I think I speak for all of us when I say that it was totally worth it. I wouldn’t want to experience it again right now, but if you’d let us come back for another lesson like this next week, I’d be game for that.” She gave me a beaming smile and looked at the others, who nodded their approval and replied with variations on the same theme. They all thought it was the best experience of their lives, but a bit too intense. They would definitely all do it again, though. Elin, who seemed to have recovered completely by now, even went so far as to ask if I’d be willing to schedule another lesson with them next week. Some of them looked hesitant, but the consensus seemed to be that another lesson would be a great idea, but maybe the next week over, and if I’d try to fix the SRD so that it didn’t overload them The sense of relief was like a cool breeze on a hot and humid day. I breathed a deep sigh and smiled genuinely at the girls.

-”Ok, how about Thursday two weeks from now? I’ll pick you up right by your school in the morning.” -”But what about our ordinary lessons?” asked Bianca.

-”That’s ok. I’ll speak to your teachers and explain that you are attending my class. None of them know exactly what my class is about, but I’m well respected and they generally let students get a day off to attend my lessons.” I lied, but knew that calling the teachers to arrange a day off for these girls would be easy, because I could use their NanoRep systems to put them in the right state of mind, as I had done with my telesales campaign. The girls all seemed to accept what I had said completely, their suspicions allayed by their inability to fully connect with their limbic systems and possibly because their neocortex still wasn’t working very well. The only one showing signs of disbelief was Marie, who smiled and raised that quizzical eyebrow again when I met her gaze. I gave her a wry smile in return.

-”Ok, so we’ve agreed that what happened today will remain our little secret, because while we know there was nothing wrong with what we did, we all know it would be more than a little socially awkward if it got out, and that it’s in everyone’s interest to stay silent. Thursday two weeks from now, I pick you up outside of school, and we’ll have another lesson much like this one. I’ll get your teachers to give you permission, and you don’t need to speak to them about it. In fact, I’d like you to promise not to. I’ll take care of that. Are we agreed?” Nods and mumbled approval, shy smiles shared.

-”Great. Now, if you would like to meet up on your own to conduct further experiments like this, that’s entirely up to you. I would absolutely encourage it, though. It’s good to find out about what your bodies are capable of, and I hope that today has showed you that sexuality can be a lot of fun once you let go of some inhibitions and social norms.” Again, nods of approval and even broader smiles. Glances of shared understanding exchanged. This looked good.